Forward Looking: Reevaluating the Weight of Things

Welcome to another installment of my “Forward Looking” series of posts, in which I cover things that I’m either looking forward to experiencing, or seeing how they’ll unfold, when I FIRE. 

Minimal effort

Not too long after I discovered FIRE, I encountered a mention of the Minimalists. I was intrigued by what I read, but didn’t then read more about them and their philosophy. Sometime later however, I turned on Netflix and saw that a movie called “The Minimalists: Less Is Now,” was playing. Oooh, I thought! Well, let’s just watch this little film, shall we? And so, The Missus and I did.

The move is quite good and gives a great overview of the benefits of being a minimalist and the minimalist lifestyle. What I found especially interesting was the Minimalists’ reference to an oft-reported statistic that the average American household contains about 300,000 items. Now, we can quibble about the meaning of terms like “average” and “household,” and where the 300,000 figure came from and how reliable it is. And we should. My research leads me to believe that the number is high. Maybe very high. In fact, I have every reason to believe that it’s bunk. 

But whether it is or not, hearing the 300,000 figure did have one very helpful effect. It got me to think about the idea of how many things are in the average American household, and in my household specifically. What I concluded as to the latter was that whatever the actual number, it’s a lot. Surely too many. If I had to guesstimate, I’d say it’s many tens of thousands of things. Everything from a milky marble I picked up on a trip to Utah, to a gallon of milk I picked up at the supermarket. And everything in between: clothes, small appliances, audio and visual items, books, towels, cans of food, bars of soap, and more. So, so, so much more. The thought was off-putting. 

Get aboard the big rid

Sort of simultaneously with discovering the Minimalists, I read blogs about people who sold most or all of their possessions and headed out on the open road or a trip to far-flung countries. Oooh! How sexy is that, I’d think. That’d be sssooo awesome to do.

Then reality would hit. I have school age kids who (in my and The Missus’ opinion) need stability. And as we were not financially independent, we had jobs to attend to. But along with these thoughts would always be these questions: How did they do that?! How did they unload all of their things?! Followed by me sighing and thinking that even if I wanted to get rid of most of my possessions, it’d be an epic undertaking. 

Fast forward to now. The kids are still school age, but Thing One (The Elder) is nearing high school graduation, and Thing Two (The Younger) will be in high school next year and then out of the house four years later. Also, I’m FIREing at the end of the year, and while The Missus will continue to work, she won’t necessarily need to.

So, the number of major impediments to heading out on the open road or to a far-flung country soon will decrease greatly. But one always will remain unless we take action: those many, many . . . many things that we own. 

Now that I’m going to have oodles of free time on my hands, I’m looking into new challenges. I’m also still way enamored by the idea of getting out of Dodge, unencumbered by the weight of paying rent on a place we’re not living in. 

Do you see where I’m going, Dear Reader? Do you? Of course you do. For nothing gets past you, my clever Dear Reader.

Everything 50% of things must go, go, go!

So, I’m making it my mission after the new year to start to get rid of things. Many will be easy to offload: random things like papers we no longer need, little knick-knacks that we somehow came into possession of but have no use for, rubber bands and paper clips, and so on. These items can go into the recycling bin or trash.

Other items, like clothes we no longer wear or need, unused picture frames, and kids’ toys that have been gathering dust for years we can sell on online marketplaces. Hopefully without too much trouble.

Then there’s the rest of our things: a futon in an extra bedroom, various utensils used rarely if ever, an extra one of this or that, etc. Those will require cost-benefit analyses. Do we need the item? Do we reeeaaallly need the item? How much benefit do we get from the item? How long will we need that item or enjoy that benefit? 

These often won’t be easy questions to answer. And The Missus and I will have to be on the same page at all times. Otherwise, it might be me, and not this or that “thing,” that gets thrown out. An easy, one-week project surely this will not be. Nor a one-year project. ETA: Unknown.

I don’t expect we’ll get rid of more than 50% of our things. Heck, 50% may be wildly optimistic. But even if we do hit that 50% mark, that’d be quite an achievement. It’d represent having unloaded many thousands of things weighing us down but providing little or no benefit. It’d also obviate a mad-dash attempt to get rid of the full lot if and when we’re actually ready to leave our rental and take a long, long trip. Maybe so many things that we can put the remainder in a storage unit. That’d be an achievement worth having accomplished.

And in the end . . . 

I actually am curious how many things we have in our house. So, I’ll probably keep a count. I’m sure that whatever the number, I’m going to find that it’s too much stuff.