40 Bags in 40 Days

I need to declutter.

I have always been the person that knows exactly where my stuff is. Need something I've had stored away for awhile? I can tell you what box it's in, where the box is, and in exactly what corner the item is sitting. However, this does not mean I haven't forgotten about some of the items inside! Recently I was going through one of these boxes and I realized I didn't even need most of its contents. Clothes I didn't fit in or like enough to wear again, books I never read and am not even interested in, and other knick-knacks that have just been taking up space. I had several boxes that were half-full and the least I could do is consolidate them, but it's time to do more than that. I need to sort through and just get rid of my junk.

We've been seriously thinking about buying a house in the near future and when I think about moving, I know if I never declutter it's going to be way more stressful when I'm packing things up. Often what happens when people move is they don't have time to deal with their stuff, so it goes in a box to be forgotten for another couple years. (That's kind of what I did when I moved out of my parents house when we got married.) So while I'm still settled under this roof, it's my chance to purge.

Recently I heard of a declutter challenge where you take 40 days and get rid of one bag of stuff each day. We have a small house and don't have gobs of stuff as it is, so my bags are going to be grocery sacks. I have enough of those they need cleaned out as it is! I'm not sure that I have near 40 bags worth of stuff to get rid of, but for these next few weeks I've decided to keep my eye out for junk and intentionally work at getting it out of our house. Besides extra work for our trash collector, I plan on a trip or two to Goodwill, and I'll be using eBay and sale sites on the more valuable items. That is, as long as I don't get so sick of stuff that I don't care about a few extra dollars. We'll see. Maybe I'll give myself an allotted time and if it's not sold by then it goes.

The original brain behind #40bagsin40days set it up to coincide with Lent (which starts tomorrow), saying "Why give up chocolate? Give up your stuff!". Well I'm not a Lent observer, and could totally forget that it's even a thing, so I already started. I know where I have clutter, so instead of following her chart or focusing on a room a day, I'm going straight to the areas that need me first. The bag I filled today almost made me laugh, wondering why I saved some of these things in the first place and what on earth I thought I'd do with them! Ripped clothes, gross-smelling-nasty-ingredient lotions... you get the idea.

Here goes nothing the junk!