But why do stores put things on clearance? They’re not going to keep stuff that’s not adding value. We like to think there’s no cost to keeping our stuff. Not only would you not miss them, but you would feel so much better about yourself and your house!

With 300,000 items in your house, you could easily get rid of two thirds of them. You don’t need stuff in your house that’s taunting you. Maybe in this season of your life it’s just not practical. You’ll feel better about yourself if you get rid of it. This could be anything from clothes that are too small, Vitamix, smoothies, treadmill, exercise equipment, craft supplies We’re going to better ourselves or lose weight or learn new skills. These are things we keep hoping we’re going to develop new or different habits. So ask yourself, is this a burden? Is it contributing to my mental clutter and sense of overwhelm? Or do I enjoy having it? 6. On the other hand, if it disappeared and you would be sad, that’s a good indication that you do like having and maintaining it. Life is too short to maintain stuff that has no meaning to us, and instead is keeping us from having a meaningful life. We hang on to a lot of things just because someone gave it to us or we spent money on it.Īsk yourself, if this item spontaneously combusted and disappeared right now, would you feel a sense of relief? If so, it’s a good sign that you should not be keeping it in your house anymore. Over the course of the last seven years, I’ve ONLY regretted getting rid of about $32 worth of stuff! ( Watch that video here!) 5. It might sound extreme, but you’ll find that you rarely, if ever, end up replacing it because you won’t miss it. If you have something that you’re not using that you could replace for under $20 and in less than 20 minutes, you should let it go. These are things we keep just in case or I think I might need it someday. These first three categories are fairly easy! It’s totally okay to keep these things because we’re using them!īut for these last three categories, we need to seriously consider whether these items are adding value to our life and our home. We still want to keep stuff to make our house feel nice and cozy. There are some things that we want to keep just because they’re beautiful to look at, or we enjoy having them, like decor. If we haven’t used something in the past year, chances are we aren’t going to use it in the upcoming year. Essential items are things you use every day, like coffee mugs (but the extra coffee mugs on the top shelf that you never use are NOT essential!).

Every item has to go into one of these categories. I came up with this home inventory checklist with six different categories that we could assign to our stuff to get a better idea of what we actually have.

Think of your home like a store, and it can help you decide if your things are adding value to your life or not. Of course, it’s not actually practical, but it’s an idea to use as a filter when we’re trying to declutter and simplify our home. If the average home has about 300,000 items, how long would it take go through and inventory every single item in our house?! If we took inventory and categorized the stuff in our house, we’d have a much better idea what needs to be put on clearance – what needs to exit our house. They put them on clearance to move them out! When stores are doing their inventory, they want to know what they have but they also pay close attention to the items are people buying and NOT buying.Īnd what do they do with the things that people aren’t buying? It’s common for stores and warehouses to do inventory, but what it look like if we actually took an inventory of everything that’s in our house?Īnd what if we took it a step further and also categorized it? Did you know that the average American has 300,000 items in their house?!?

Printable household inventory list