Counting My Pennies

  • About
  • Contact
  • Extra Money
  • Popular Posts
  • Toolkit
  • Privacy Policy

Not a pack rat. Really.

August 15, 2008 By Megan Smith

This week, the Frugal Babe wrote about Moving On and Letting Go. She’s done an impressive job of reducing the chemicals in her home and part of this post was about getting rid of all those leftover cleaning supplies that she was hanging onto just because she had bought them. So what if she wasn’t using them?

Having spent a few hours every week for the past few weeks going through my spare bedroom and my closets, I know where she’s coming from. I am realizing that there are a lot of things that I’m hanging onto just because I bought them. It doesn’t matter that I’m not using them. I don’t have the cleaning supplies that she has, though I definitely have more than I need, as I’m often intrigued by the newest and greatest product. My goal there is to use up what I have before buying anything else.

I’ve been doing a good job of getting rid of the clothing that I don’t wear. I find myself hanging on to some formal dresses that I haven’t worn in a while, but they still fit and a girl can dream of going to a fancy ball, right? But other things are getting a little out of hand. I have two large bowls full of paperclips and binder clips leftover from a job I held almost five years ago. Yes, paperclips and binder clips are useful. Do I need them all at my house? No. I’m considering bringing them to work to help organize my desk.

I have an extensive collection of body products as well. Lotions and soaps and all sorts of things, frequently picked up during sales. I’ve made a point to not buy any more soaps until I get through what I have, and that’s going pretty well. The lotions simply need to be weeded out. Some are probably older than I think.

It is hard to throw away things, knowing that I spent money on them. It feels extremely wasteful. But the waste isn’t tossing the products now. The waste happened back when I bought the products, knowing full well that I did not need them.

Clearing things like this out of my cabinets not only frees up space and simplifies my life a bit, but it is a reminder to only buy what I need. Stocking up makes sense, but not to excess, especially if it is not a product I am absolutely sure I will still want to use six months from now.

I wish I had kept better track of what I have been getting rid of. I know I just recently took 4 bags of clothing to Goodwill. I have no idea how many bags of trash or recycling have exited the apartment.

It’s a continual process, and a learning process, but it feels good to be getting all of that “junk” out of my home, no matter whether it’s getting donated, tossed, recycled, or sold.

Megan Smith
Megan Smith

Megan is a 30-something government employee in the Washington, DC area. She got interested in Personal Finance when she got out of college and realized that her paycheck wasn’t going to go as far as she had hoped. Since starting this blog, she has managed to buy a house and make a solid start on her retirement goals, and hopes to help others do the same. Here is her story:

In 2007, I was a gainfully employed 20-something with no debt but not a lot of knowledge about personal finance.  It was a co-worker’s comment about Roth IRAs that sent me to the internet, searching for information.  It was then that I realized that I really didn’t know a whole lot about personal finance and that my current financial situation was due a lot to inherent frugal tendencies, generous family members, a fear of debt, and good luck.  While that was working for me, clearly I needed a better plan.

While I had no debt, I was also pretty much living paycheck to paycheck and not worrying about going over budget (I say this as if I had a real budget) because I had an emergency fund set aside to cover any overages.

Except that’s not what an emergency fund is for.

So I did a lot of research, read a lot of blogs, and decided that I needed a plan.  I needed to budget.  I needed to know what I was spending my money on.  I needed to prepare for the future.

I decided to create a blog not only to make myself accountable to others but also to share the knowledge that I gained along the way.  I’ve learned so much from my fellow bloggers, and I hope that my readers can find something useful in what I have to share as well.

Filed Under: simplifying

Comments

  1. Justine says

    August 15, 2008 at 7:14 am

    Great Blog! You’ve been nominated for an award here:

    http://juslivinglean.blogspot.com/2008/08/thanks-cherie.html

  2. Luna says

    August 15, 2008 at 3:22 pm

    I just nominated you for a blog award.
    http://lunasloosechange.wordpress.com

  3. Cheryl Maguire says

    August 15, 2008 at 8:35 pm

    I think you have made a lot of good points. I like the statement about “only buying what you need”–I try to do the same thing with food especially when eating–only put a small amount on my plate or my kids and you can always get more instead of wasting the food (although if my kids don’t finish their meal I try to save it if they haven’t made too much of a mess of it)

    Thanks!

  4. jennydecki says

    August 19, 2008 at 11:34 am

    Oh wow! I feel your pain!

    Except my little hoard consists of individual sized travel soaps, shampoos, lotions, etc. that I keep “for the next trip” even though every trip we go on I bring more home and never needed the ones I brought!

    I know I need to clean up, and probably, to help the budget, sell every one of my individual sized soaps, etc. on ebay or craigslist or something. Thanks for the post – it got me thinking about cleaning – I always need help with that LOL

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Our Most Popular Articles

  • What are the advantages and disadvantages of saving money? What are the advantages and disadvantages of saving money? by Megan Smith
  • Another MLM Gone – AdvoCare Changes Business Model by Megan Smith
  • What is the billie razor customer service number What Is The Billie Razor Customer Service Number? by Joe Wallace
  • Billie razor review Billie Razor Review by Megan Smith
  • lularoe dani LuLaRoe Dani – Another Don’t Buy by Megan Smith
  • Can You Earn Money Selling Young Living? by Megan Smith




Great Investing, Simplified: Get Stock Advisor for Just $99/year!

Copyright © 2022 · Runway Pro On Genesis Framework ·