My boyfriend and I decided that he’d move into my place a couple of years ago.  I have a small two bedroom apartment and we both knew that we both had to go over our stuff and see what needed to be thrown out because not everything we owned collectively would fit into the apartment.

My boyfriend is a pack rat by nature.  He hadn’t done any spring cleaning or thrown anything out since the fall of Rome. This is great for me in a way since I know he’ll never get rid of me.  Anyhoo…  Being a musician and martial arts teacher, he had equipment like cables, speakers, amplifiers, sound boards, not to mention his guitars, keyboards, etc.  He had floor mats (tatami mats), several pairs of boxing gloves, samurai swords, kendo armour, punching bags, and other weaponry and martial arts paraphernalia.  He had doubles and extras of everything he owned.  All of these he kept in his living and dining room areas and home office at his old place.

We decided that he’d get rid of all his furniture as mine was in better shape and we negotiated that only the kendo armour and some swords were welcome to be displayed in the living room.  The other stuff we’d have to store in my tiny storage space in the laundry area.  After reorganizing the apartment and getting rid of my useless/unwanted/unneeded stuff, we still didn’t have enough space for his.  I suggested that he might toss or sell off some of the equipment he didn’t use.  No way.  He was unwilling to give up the countless extras he had of everything (especially the speakers).  So we ended up renting an 8 x 11 foot storage unit near his workplace.

After a year, I asked my boyfriend how often he visited the storage area.  He realized that he hadn’t done so in months and he couldn’t even remember what he had in there.  I told him it was time to let it and all the stuff in it go as it was costing us close to $1,000.00 CDN a year to rent the unit for things we didn’t use or need.  He agreed.  The next weekend, we went and cleaned out the unit.  We called The Big Brothers of Greater Vancouver and they took a lot of the stuff away.  Some things we sold on Craigslist, some were in very bad shape so we brought them to the dump.  Still there were a few items my boyfriend could not part with (even after another year of non-use).  We brainstormed and figured he could rent them to the school where he worked and thus store them there as well!  Because we decided to get rid of the unit and equipment, we saved ourselves from paying another $1,000 plus now  make some extra money per month from equipment rental to the school.

Do you have too much stuff?  Sometimes it costs you money to keep it all.  Why not try a little spring cleaning this year?  Toss or sell off items that you don’t need.  Trust me, it will make you feel better to get rid of all that clutter especially if letting go of them saves or makes you some cash.

* It’s spring so I’ll be posting a couple more spring cleaning related articles in the next few weeks.

Do you have a de-cluttering, organizing or spring cleaning story?  Write us, we’d love to hear from you.

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