The house sucks up new things

Ok, so I am still getting rid of stuff. As I unpack boxes, I am putting many things in the Good Will pile, and I have made a few trips to actually get it out of the house. I have also given a lot of hand-me-downs to a friend, so that freed up some space.

What I am struggling with is the decorating. How much stuff is reasonable to buy to decorate my new home? If I am buying stuff that I love, is it a sign of affluenza? How much do I need to have a stylish home? Why am I never free to go garage-saling? Or, rather, I am now, but now it is cold and people are not having so many sales. When they were having sales, I was going to soccer games. Maybe I will try again this weekend. But I need furniture, and I don't have a truck to haul it--buying new with a delivery person is easier.

I love my house so much, I keep wanting to improve it and make it mine. But this feels like a lot of shopping. I am not aiming to completely eliminate shopping, but I am trying to reduce it to what I really need. The problem is defining "need." Making my home feel beautiful, and like it is mine and in my style feels like a need, but I am not sure. I am trying to make some of my own art, which is saving money at least, and making it more personal.

I am thinking I will just slow down on the decorating for now, much as it kills me. At the very least, that will lower my consumption for any given month, and I will be forced to think things through a bit more, and prioritize.

A very big purchase

Here it is, my new house! Obviously, this is a big purchase that has led to many other big purchases (a washer and dryer, a new couch, new curtains, new artwork, a lawnmower, etc.), but it also led to me getting rid of A LOT of stuff.

When I moved into a larger apartment last summer, I got rid of a lot of stuff. It sounds weird to say I got rid of stuff to move someplace bigger, but really, we had so much that I couldn't even go through it while we crammed into the small 2 bedroom place. So, as I packed for the move, I sorted, and brought many, many things to Good Will (about 6 carloads of stuff, according to the posts below). Throughout the year, I continued to purge as I went about my daily life, and I took 2 more carloads of stuff to donate, in addition to throwing away and recycling as much as I could. When my offer on the house was accepted, I got back into purging--I took 5 or 6 loads of things to Good Will, and threw away the equivalent of another 2 or 3 carloads. I even tackled my basement storage unit, getting rid of most of that stuff, since it had been down in my storage unit for over 5 years by that point.

After a while, though, I just had to get everything in boxes and get it moved. So, once again, I am faced with a mountain of boxes. I put them all in my dining room, so that I didn't have boxes everywhere. I needed to have rooms that were fairly calm and peaceful, not all cluttered. And I have an eat in kitchen AND a dining room now, which is a big step up from the tiny breakfast nook that was all my dining space in the apartment. I have been unpacking and continuing to purge, and resisting the urge to toss all the unpacked boxes onto shelves in the basement rather than look at them for one more day. That time is coming, though--the boxes are stressing me out.

In the meantime, I am buying new things for the house and not feeling guilty about it. I am buying things I love, to make my new house a home. I am not shopping as therapy, or spending money just to be doing it, bringing home things I don't even want. I am carefully considering each item, buying things that make us happy and comfortable in our space. I think that affluenza recovery allows for some shopping, it is not all or nothing. It is mindless shopping just for it's own sake that is the problem.

On the plus side, I love being in my home. I have started cooking more, and bringing my lunch to work, rather than eating out all the time. I am proud of my home, and I spend time making it nice, time that I might have spent out shopping before. I have been getting better for a while, but the house seems to be helping me to rise to a whole new level. The was definitely a smart purchase, on all levels.