Useless Crap

Not pretty, is it?

I really liked this article on Mintlife Blog. It offers strategic advice on how to divest your life of clutter. In a nutshell, they recommend moving items you don't use to an "outbox". An outbox is some shelf, corner of the garage, or a room where you get things out of site for a bit before finally giving them away. So simple, and yet so profound is this piece of advice: "you don’t have to be responsible for making sure all of your former stuff reaches its proper place in the universe." I have to admit that this is one of my biggest hangups when it comes to getting rid of stuff. Could I get more money for this stuff? Should I donate it? Throw it away? Where? But its worth so much more! Just pick do it and don't get hung up on whether you got top dollar.

For those of you who have never heard of mint.com, it is a website that attempts to make budgeting, money saving, and to a lesser extent, financial planning easier. I've been using it for about 4 months now. Unfortunately, I have saved no money. The good news, if you can call it that, is that I do know very clearly where each paycheck is going. Just configure your mint.com account with your bank and credit card account information and it nearly automatically categorizes your spending and lets you easily set budgets. It will even track your investment goals and offer some money saving ideas after it 'gets to know you'. Yes, its secure. (And even if someone discovers your login and password information all they could do is see your cash flow. No money is ever moved with Mint.) If you are lucky enough to have an iPhone there is a companion app that puts all its information at your fingertips. "Before I buy these shoes, how much have I spent on clothes this month? That much? Really? Well, one more pair can't hurt. They're on sale."

What does this have to do with clutter? Eh. Its a stretch. The Mintlife Blog maintains that if you have too much clutter you could be spending too much on your apartment or house. I don't really buy that as I would bet that we sort of grow our clutter to fit the amount of available space. Perhaps you could get rid of some storage though.

I foresee a more brutal me when it comes to divesting of clutter in 2010. First up, the gadgets bin!