In a few days, it will be the first of March, and I have decided once again to play the Minimalism Game (MinsGame) for Spring! This means that on the first day of March, I will get rid of 1 item, for the second day, I will get rid of 2 items, for the third day, I will get rid of 3 items, and so on. Since March has a total of 31 days, that means if I make it to the last day of the month, I will have decluttered 496 things. That’s a lot!

This is my maybe fifth time playing the MinsGame, so if you add it up, that’s a crazy amount of items. If I didn’t do this about twice a year, I think my house would be so full, it would be hard to move. But why? Am I going crazy buying stuff every week? I don’t think so. For instance, since I cleaned out my closet the first time I played the MinsGame, I am only able to get rid of one or two items each subsequent MinsGame, because I really don’t have that much. For pants, I have one pair of black work pants, one pair of blue jeans, and one pair of black jeans. That is literally it. I don’t need or want more than that. I doubted myself for a minute, thinking I am buying stuff without realizing it. But this year, I decided to keep track of how much clothing I buy myself to see if that’s the case. Last month, I bought a sweater at Century 21 for $19. I haven’t bought anything else for myself this year, but I’ll continue recording to keep myself honest.

Another category of item I have drastically cut down on previously was books. If there was any book I would absolutely not read again, I got rid of it. And because I now almost always just read books that I borrow from the library, I can’t imagine my bookshelves will get crowded again.

So where will all 496 items come from? A lot of it is because I have kids, and they grow out of clothing. I never get rid of my older son’s out-grown clothing, because eventually my younger son will grow into it, but when my younger son grows out of something, it’s out the door! Also they do not seem to want or need any of their out-grown toys or baby books, so this is much of the minimized items. Let’s see what happens!