Freezing in NH

I’ve discovered a quick way to reduce impulse spending and clutter: a website called Catalog Choice.  It’s a free service that claims to let you decline catalogs.  It can take up to 10 weeks, so you won’t see an immediate improvement, but it should cut down on the junk mail you get.  I “declined” a series of catalogs a couple weeks ago, and have only seen one more from one of those companies (which might have already been in the mail before I declined it).

Martha Stewart (not always my favorite person, but she’s got some interesting stuff going on…) has an article called 100 Reasons to Get Rid of It.  As a packrat myself, some of these make a lot of sense:

Or Just Because…
95. It has no value, sentimental or monetary.
96. It hasn’t been used in over a year.
97. There is no logical place to keep it.
98. It doesn’t work.
99. An ex gave it to you.
100. And what’s the worst that can happen if you throw it out?

Keeping clutter can cost you…you need a bigger house or a storage unit to put it all in.  You have to dust it.  Your gas milage in the car goes down when you carry extra weight.  And sometimes you buy another one because you can’t find the first one under all the junk.  So it’s time for spring cleaning!

 I’ve sold household items and such on ebay, books on Amazon and more recently swapped books via various services.  I’m signed up to be part of a multi-family yardsale in May.  So hopefully I can weed out all of the junk before then.