Episode four sixty one, How to get to the root of clutter and solve it for good with Katie Wells.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity and life. Here your hosts Jen and Jill.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends Podcast. I'm gonna cut Jill off copyright in friendman. I don't know if that's I don't know if it's legal. Just we can't say.
Uh.
We are so excited, Wait, you have to do the thing.
I'm Jen, I'm Jill, and we are super excited to have another episode about decluttering and specifically the psychology behind what I have just coined an hour ago as a deconsumption. So we talk about consumption, bringing items into your space and how to align that with your values, and Katie talks about how to get to the root of why
it's difficult to purge certain things to deconsume. So it's a very paralleled message and so I hope that you find if you like, you know how we talk about spending, you'll like how she talks about decluttering.
I have a lot of takeaways from this episode, and I would consider myself having already decluttered my life and so so much, so many mindset shifts out of this one. So it was a really good conversation. I'm excited to share it with you all. But first, this episode is brought to you by prizes, these little surprise treats that everyone loves to receive. Many times they're one. Prizes are
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And maybe some other and some swag, some frugal friends swag, and maybe an exclusive Q and A with us. There are treats and it's just for our BFFs, our best frugal friends, so please apply. It is not a requirement that you have pre ordered the book, but based on applicants, people who have pre ordered will take priority. Yes, so we are excited. We love decluttering episodes. We have a ton of them, most recently episode three forty eight Declutter
your Home in thirty Days. We have episode three to how decluttering saves You Money with Ingrid Jansen, and then one of my favorite interviews to date, episode two eighty one, how to Curate a Life with Less stuff and more intention with Christine Platt. She is the Afro Minimalist and I love her. I'm obsessed. So those are really good
ones to check out. But Katie, she's the host of the Maximized Minimalist podcast and she's just a really She's a well known decluttering expert with a very authentic and holistic approach and she is fantastic. She lives in Asheville, North Carolina and was affected by the hurricanes. We were supposed to have this interview so many times, but both Helene and Milton really delayed that. So we were just very excited to finally this sit down with her.
This conversation really did need to happen, and I'm so glad it did, and let's let's share it.
Katie, Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. It's been a long time coming to get you on. So this feels so good. It feels like the closing of a loop, and we're so here for it.
It feels good. You know, we are so aligned on so many levels. So I love being able to come, you know, have these conversations in your community and just I'm thrilled to just yeah, chat with you all today and like to serve you serve your community with some value and just help them simplify their lives.
Next to talking about food, talking about simplifying and decluttering seems to be another top topic for our audience, and probably because it's where we experience the most rub and friction through our lives. We encounter food every day we encounter clutter every day, so we're really excited to hear a fresh perspective from you on this.
Yeah, I was. I was just saying, like, we talk about consumption all the time, and you, Katie talk essentially like deconsumption, So it's a lot of the same principles are just translated into this. So I would love to hear what are some of the root causes of clutter that you have like defined.
So many and again, I think when I got into this, one thing I really struggled with was like I was constantly decluttering to reclutter, and I feel like that's kind of what happens to so many of us who kind of use, like depend on just like simple strategies that can be fruitful in the moment, but they're not giving
you long term, lasting results, which is what we want. Right, And I'm currently writing my first book in a nutshell, I think it's important for all of us to get curious and identify what I call like our stuff story. So all of our stuff story is built differently, and it's really like an amalgam of culture.
Right.
You talked about like the consumption part, Like we are constantly taught like We're taught how to buy, but we're not taught how to live and to declutter. It's just bye bye by consume, consume, consume. Since I was watching Saturday Morning cartoons as kid, it was like buy the cereal, buy this toy, and that sticks with us as we grow up. So there's like the modern culture piece that influences and shapes our reality and perception of stuff and
how it adds to our life. What we buy, what we declutter, what we struggle to declutter, what we cling to we have our You know, one thing I think that is so undervalued and under discussed is also there is a massive trickle down effect from our parents, or our caregivers, or even like our grandparents, because their perception of stuff, Like my grandfather lived to one hundred, he grew up in the Great Depression.
They didn't get rid of anything.
They were frugal because it was like they had to be based on survival. And that trickled into my mother and that trickled into me. Right, So we have these different narratives and beliefs we gain from our caregivers that influence all of the things we're going to be talking about. Right, and then you have these personal experiences. We were just talking before we hit record, like I just lived through a natural disaster that is going to impact my psyche on some level.
From a stuff perspective, I'm not so sure, but I.
Know a heck a lot of people in my community in Nashville, North Carolina. It's gonna you're going to start to see things differently. And some people are going to cling closer to their stuff after this, and some are going to go, man, stuff doesn't even matter. I'm ready to declutter and simplify, you know, if they have that choice. And so again dialing into the roots of that, and I think for some of us, it's identifying these pieces.
It's not about like placing blame, like well, I am stuck in scarcity mode because my mom or dad raised me that way. I think it's again, it's looking at it from the perspective of like this can actually release some of that shame that I think a lot of us experience when it comes to clutter and understand like it's not all our faults, Like it's not our faults, and to look at it from a like this is empowering.
Okay, like this makes.
Sense to why I buy these things or I aspire to be this person, or I struggle to let go or I'm not good with habits or whatever it is we're telling ourselves now, if we dial in a little bit deeper, I mean, like, gosh again, consumption, which I know y'all talk a lot about on your show, and then like this aspirational identity I think is a big piece too. A lot of us buy and accumulate things
to reflect the person that we're aspiring to. So again these different route meanings, the emotional pieces, the psychological pieces, I think are just if we can get curious and just dial back before we buy something later today or the next time we buy something and go like, who am I buying this for?
Am I actually going to use this? And just get curious, it can.
Give us a lot of insight into the personalized reasons why we're ending up with clutter and we're ending up with less money in our bank account.
Right.
I love the crossover that is happening here. I think a lot of our audience will recognize the get curious prompt and encouragement because we talk about that a lot with money as well, and so there's definitely this deep appreciation I think on our part for recognizing that a lot of these things that are on the surface that might be visible and tangible are actually rooted in something not visible or tangible, and to really resolve it, to experience better patterns, we're going to have to look at
those things. It's one of the reasons we say we don't start with a budget, We start with looking at how you're spending your money, where you're spending your time, how you're engaging with your resources. And I think with what you're describing, it's just resonating so much to say, Okay, don't just throw your things out, don't just get rid of them. There's like ten steps before it that needs to happen. So speaking of those steps, I don't know
if it's ten. You're the expert on this, so can you talk a little bit to maybe you've talked a little bit about how the root causes develop, if there's anything more you want to say on that, but then how we can also discover them. What is that process when it comes to clutter of curiosity?
I think for a lot of us honestly really starts in the declutter process or the consumption process. Those can be really either of those two things we experience, you know, can really highlight that for us, and sometimes we don't know in our heads, like until we actually go to declutter the thing right open the drunk drawer. Maybe for
some of us, it's like perfectionism another common root. Perfectionism and procrastination go hand in hand on so many levels because we want to do it for whatever reason, you know again, culture, whatever reason, we have perfectionistic tendencies. I
can speak for myself. I always thought, well, the experts say, if you want to do it right and do it best, then you need to like wipe off your schedule for the day and dedicate six hours to declutter my closet all in one go, and you have to go through this strategic, step by step thing. I could never find an elusive six hour chunk of my day to declutter something. So because I didn't, I couldn't do that. I didn't even want to start. And meanwhile, the clutter builds and
builds and builds. Procrastination, you know, goes up right along with that. So through the process, and if it's something like you struggle to get started, just again, a lot of us tend to meet some of these things narratives like this inner dialogue in our head through the declutter pross us with judgment.
I was that way too.
I'm kind of my own worst like critics sometimes like why is this hard for you? You're smart, like figure this out? Everyone else is a perfect home. Anyone else ever thought these things? Like what's wrong with me? Why am I failing? Like what's like I can do all these other things, but I can't manage a home. So again, when we are stuck in shame toward ourself about where we are with when it comes to our clutter or a mess that disarms hope, that disarms us being able
to take action. And so when those thoughts come up, like I'm afraid to let go of this. What if I need in the future, I want to do this right? Or what's the point whatever it is for you? Say, you know, have your judge, cast your judgment if that's your immediate thing, like we can't really escape that sometimes and then go, you know what, I actually don't feel that way. I can declutter that belief about myself. I can declutter this idea that decluttering has to look a
certain way. I can declutter the idea that my identity is actually not has nothing to do with my stuff, whether it's my clutter, my favorite things, and a lot can just come up in that internal dialogue and it doesn't have to be like you need to take you know, do talk therapy.
For a year.
Sometimes I can be fruitful, but it's not always necessary. And I would say same goes for those consumption patterns. Just practicing the pause and tapping into that internal dialogue. I would say, so much can come up for people, and it's not always comfortable, y'all know this, but it's an opportunity. It's an opportunity to challenge those thoughts and to start making different choices and you know, make choices
that align with your core values. And I feel like so many of us are kind of trained through culture in all these different ways to make choices that don't align with what we actually want life, which is one reason we end up with homes filled with clutter, filled with stuff, filled with twenty four to seven mass. And you know how that impacts us is just beyond and so to be able to read claim some of that power is huge, and it starts between our ears.
Yeah, So the perfectionism thing is something our listeners and we personally, you know, have talked about and struggled through, and we even we did a recent episode about it with Jess Massey, and I was just wondering, did you have like a wake up call like after realizing that or was it sudden? Like how did you identify that that was something holding you back from succeeding with decluttering? And like what did you do to get through it?
I I've always had perfectionistic tendencies my whole life, but it wasn't really through first of all, if you haven't if you haven't been able to tell this about me, much like y'all, I am very much into like self development, like just and part of it was just because I'm curious.
I always want to get better. I always want to improve.
And then I got into you know, entrepreneurial world at a very young age, and there's that certain aspect where that's a big part of that, right starting a business, growing a business, And so it was really through identifying those tendencies and how they're holding me back in other areas in life personally and professionally. But I was like, wait a second, this is actually kind of rearing its ugly heads through the stuff and declutter process too, so
that was interesting to experience that. But I agree anytime I bring up that perfection piece, it really resonates. And even if you identify as someone who's a perfectionist or not, the kind of black and white thinking the all or nothing has to look this way or what's the point all these different thoughts tend to be kind of perfectionist perfectionism at.
The core of it.
Yeah, we are whole people. So it's like you can take if you're if you've identified a struggle in somewhere that has nothing to do with decluttering or personal finance, there is definitely going to be ramification somewhere outside of like wherever you identified it. And it's so crazy to see how these things we try to compartmentalize, but it's just like doesn't work in the long run.
It doesn't.
And the shame I think perfectionism for me tends to come up so I can avoid shame. It's like if I don't try, then I won't fail, right, And so many of us have experienced like the oh IDEA cluttered my toy room and it looks so beautiful now, and then the kids come home and it looks like a tornado went through, and that's when that shame piece comes up. I did all that work. What's the point, Like, I'm
a failure? Again, it's the meaning that we are subconsciously often assigning this experience, which again, there's a just to This was another life changing moment for me when I made the core them. I understood the difference between clutter and mess because we're kind of sold to it, like it's the same thing, Like a messy counter with baby bottles and sippy cups and all these things on it is not clutter. And so so when we see mess or clutter come back, it's a visual signal.
What's the point? You stink at this? I'll speak for myself, right, but a lot of.
Women and families experiences moms who whomever is the stuff manager in your house? Like it's very personal, right, It's like, I'm a failure. I stink at this, Like what's the point? And I think it's worth its weight in gold to be able to And it's not an overnight thing. But these same mindset shifts y'all talk about when it comes to personal finance, and like you know, pulling the weed out by the root is so valuable and sometimes it
is just talking about it with a girlfriend. Hey, I had this like weird thought come up when I was decluttering. Have you ever experienced this? What do you think talking with it about to your partner or whomever. A lot can come up and then you can go, you know what, here's how I'm going to do it differently. I can actually fit decluttering into my life. I don't have to
do these marathon sessions. Isn't the only way to make propit And I don't know about you, but if I ever have a weekend of like free time open up, I'm not spending it decluttering.
I'm going to go do something fun.
So I think it's beautiful when we give give ourselves permission to again declutter the belief declutter these beliefs. And I will tell you what if you struggle decluttering with certain categories of things.
Let's say it's like makeup. For me, that was a big one.
I love makeup. So guess what when we tend to love something, we tend to accumulate.
A lot of it.
I realized I loved makeup and was constantly buying lipstick after lipstick after lipstick because I was seeking perfection through my looks. Right, if culture can teach us to become perfectionists about our looks, they have lifelong customers in their pockets buying anything related to look, skincare, makeup, all the things right, And the second I went you know what, I don't. The lipstick isn't giving me the confidence, right. It gives me confidence for whatever one day, and then
I want the next thing. The goalpost keeps moving. So there again, I just can't stress the value of just getting curious. Like, it's okay if makeups your thing, but if you have eight hundred lipsticks on your vanity and you're constantly reaching for something new, that could be indicative that we have a root issue going on that we can tackle at the heart, versus just trying to declutter it on the back end, which, by the way, for someone like that can feel extremely challenging because it's not
just lipstick. They're trying to declutter its confidence in a bottle. We don't want to let that go when that's the subconscious meaning we've assigned to this stuff.
Again, the roots go deep.
Yeah, you're talking about some pretty identity impacting pieces here to really understand ourselves more and why it is that, especially if the clutter is what we're purchasing. I think, yeah, there's so many things, as you've discs, that we could be finding here that would lead to different roots. Like even the same clutter probably could have different roots depending on who you are. So it really does sound like a very individualized way of approaching this.
So what are some of the ways that we can address these other root causes? How have you done it in your life or seeing other people do it effectively?
I think step one, as we talked about, get curious. Step two, you either typically you can part of the declutter the belief process is rewriting the belief, so you can typically what I tell my students to do is to like, all right, if you're feeling a certain way about something, then you know, create an affirmation or a
positive statement that's going to combat that. So, for example, for my students to really struggle with like scarcity, like what if I need that later, or what if I need it later and I don't have the resources to get it right. That is a very real thing that causes us to cling to our clutter but ultimately doesn't
get us closer to our goals. So even a statement that could help comebat That type of thinking is like, I know I attract abundance, piece calm and joy to my home, And even if we don't believe it in the moment, it can help us step into an identity of someone who does feel that way, and I am a firm believer. Identity drives behavior, how we act, what we buy again, what we keep, what we declutter, all
the things. So stepping into identity of someone who does have an abundance mindset or you know, does help you reach your goal of simplifying can be a really fruitful thing. And again just to reinforce, even if we don't believe it in the moment, it creates this beautiful self improvement feedback loop because identity is driving the behavior. Okay, I'm attracting abundance. This junk drawer is not helping me live abundantly. I can declutter five things today, right, you have to
prove it to yourself with really small wins. So this is where like the mindset piece is important. Affirmations, positive statements, whatever you want to call them, can be really fruitful.
But we have to take action.
So let's set a timer for five minutes today and tackle that junk door. It doesn't have to be perfect to be worthwhile, but it's moving the needle and then guess what that reinforces at identity. So for me, I call I'm like, I'm a simplifier. Me and my community were like, we're simplifiers, Like, this is how we roll. And so every time you declutter one thing or for five minutes, that reinforces at identity and then boom you
have this beautiful cycle going. You build progress, you build momentum, you build true change that lasts.
Yeah, you said something that stood out to me earlier too, that I'm curious to tease apart a little more in this context of the difference between mess and clutter, and I'm wondering how that distinction could help somebody in this
and maybe even throw more context on this. I don't know if this is what you're talking about, but for a lot of my friends who have kids, I think a lot of what they would define as clutter is all of their school paperwork that they get inundated with on a regular basis, and so it just is constantly there, even if you don't even have a ton of stuff in your in your home, And so I don't know how exactly your methodology would work with something like that,
like the root cause and maybe the route. Maybe I'm I've got to think deep around this, Like, to me, the root cause of that would be the kids are bringing home paperwork.
But I'm also curious, like that mess.
And clutter distinction could be helpful here too, Like what are your thoughts on this?
Yeah? I think so it's interesting.
I mean, our brain can't understand the difference between mess and clutter, but I think it can help disarm again that shame piece of it and just like shift our expectation a little bit to reality because we're promised like that after photo that perfect looking like everything looks perfect, everything's in its place, we kind of subconsciously begin to believe,
like this is what I'm going for. And then the second the kids come home and dump all their artwork and like homework and we love them right on the table, We're.
Like what, like what I stuck it? Live like I'm the worst.
And then it's like we tend to spire a little bit, or we get triggered, and so even though our brains might not understand the difference, when we remind ourselves and like just pause, when we see that stuff come in and land on our counters and go, oh, you know what, this is expected mess.
So mess is exactly what it is. It's it's expected.
It is cyclical, just like laundry is never ending. So are some of these messes that happen in life. And when we can remove, like depersonalize that and understand, like the goals to not have a perfectly tidy home twenty four to seven, it is normal for mess to come in cycles. We do the dishes, we make dirty ones, like we clean up the toys and the kids get them out and leave them on the floor.
We clean the counters, the kids come home.
It can be helpful to just psychologically understand, like I'm not a failure, I think for a lot of us now clutter. On the other hand, so the solution for mess, by the way, it's just systems and habits. Typically like maybe we need to organize in your friend's example, or that you know, the artwork and homework example. Maybe we need to organize the entryway so we have a spot, a dedicated spot for our kids to put those things.
Maybe it's solved with what I call a daily reset, which is where you spend a few minutes resetting these common like busy hubs in our homes to its baseline tidiness. A lot of us do this after like cooking a meal, right, we clean up the kitchen, loave, the dishwasher, all those things. And it's really applying that same philosophy and these other areas on our home where mess if we don't keep up with it, builds, builds, builds, gets overwhelming and it
does trigger us just like it does clutter. So that's the solution for an expected mess, right, systems habits sometimes you know our physical setups and organization solutions right, because you can't get rid of it, So you can't you can't really declutter expected mass. It's I mean you can because some of it turns into clutter, but you get the idea and then clutter, right is the excess, the unwanted,
the broken, the unused. In my personal definition, and I would encourage you and all your listeners to do this is to create a working definition of what is clutter to me? Like, I'm just curious, Jen and Joe, like no, like have you ever wondered, like have you ever considered what your definition of clutter is?
Or how do identify when something is clutter?
Yeah, it's like you have to decide when your home is complete when you're decorating it, and like what is enough for cleanliness, like just deciding these there's a perfect baseline and then there's an imperfect baseline, and so many people define perfect, but so few people define imperfect. So I keep paper piles on my counter at least for a week, and then I'll just go through like kind
of weekly and deal with my paper piles. And Guy's artwork is included in those paper piles else, and I very freely throw things away because I view them as At first I felt guilty, but then I started viewing them as practice for his creativity. And now it's like, oh, it's not just like it's not a sentimental piece. Not everything is sentimental. Some things I just love or they are hilarious, and I want to keep them because I want to show him when he thinks he's cool as
a teenager, who he really is. And so I keep those things, and then I just realize everything else is practice for his creativity, and so kind of reshifting my mindset, like you were saying, to just view it in a different way, not a negative way, or even a neutral way, still a positive way, but it's in a way that I feel good letting go of it.
Yeah.
For me, Yeah, it's anything useless or unnecessary or something that collects dust that I don't find beautiful. So I don't have very I don't have very many things. But I did have a box of plugs that don't go to anything that I currently have. But for whatever reason, I couldn't get rid of those things. I recently did, though, I'm like, we're going through the bin today, it's happening.
I need to make sure that these plugs don't belong to anything I own, and they're they're gone, They're out of here.
Well. One of the I love that what something you had said earlier that made me think of this creativity pieces in decluttering. It's it's the what if I need it? A mindset, right, And one of the things that helps me is like, in this what what if I need it? Challenging myself to get creative and if I did need it, what is something else that I have that could make do with the use. It's maybe not perfect, but it'll
do in a pinch. Yeah, And so it challenges me to get creative and then also that allows me to like release the thing that I haven't used, you know, like ever. Uh, And one of those things was, I don't know, somehow we ended up without a pizza cutter.
I don't know.
I don't think we got rid of it.
Where everyone got pizza cutters for each other.
That that's the you were jumping the gun, Jill. So we didn't have one, and I didn't know why. I don't think we decluttered it. But for a while it challenged us to get creative because we didn't want to bring one into the house if we didn't need to. So we were using scissors or a knife or or maybe just ripping it. So we got creative with our pizza cutting. And then at Christmas time we did both get each other pizza cutters and so.
We created a new one.
But yeah, it was a really good time of like creativity.
Yeah.
But ultimately, Katie, I'm really loving how you're defining clutter versus mess. I feel like that reframe really did just unlock something for me and something I've been thinking about too. With cleaning, kind of the regularity that the rhythm that you've kind of described happens, I can bemoan needing to clean things all over again, Like I just did this and now, and then I realized there will never be a moment in my entire life where every single thing
is done. Yes, maybe maybe if it happens, I'll live in that moment for one glorious minute, but immediately it's gonna get messed up again, Like everything is on this rotation of getting dirty getting clean. There's always twenty things that need to be cleaned. And so I'm like, then I need to change myself and how I look at this and figure out a way to embrace the rhythm of it, because that is life. Some nirvana where everything is as I think it should be isn't going to happen.
So I think, specifically in this conversation about decluttering, that's so helpful for me. I would I would assume when the viewing it as messed up.
Yeah, when something isn't perfect, it's automatically quote unquote messed up.
Yeah. Maybe that's part instead of like this is part of my children's learning. All that to say, for the for our listeners who are now taking this to heart, we're able to start helping ourselves understand the distinction between mess and clutter, and we've defined what clutter is for us, and we've kind of come to some version of root of it. We're understanding ourselves better. What do you recommend
for kind of longevity with this? Knowing that we can handle messes regularly, I'm ready for that.
I don't want to be.
Doing decluttering regularly. How do we make sure that our are like clutter kryptonites don't keep creeping in and we're implementing our understanding of self for the long term.
I think when it comes to just practicality, right, you shared everything like, we're kind of we're getting curious, We're noticing like, oh yeah, this is probably you know something I need to address it.
It's rute.
But then like, what do I do on a very practical level to make this sustainable? I think again, if you can just always be curious around your response to mess like Jill used to shared, like, oh well, now it's actually nice, like because we all have a different story, but I will say one different theme that a lot of women I experience that I work with is shame around mess Again. Culture teaches us to be consumers, and
they on the backside equally shame us. For our homes not being perfect, and I think that is such a disservice to us. So practicing that pause when you feel triggered by the mess and going, hey, you know what, this is normal, this is expected. I know what I can do to handle this in the moment. And also I wanted to tease a part really quickly if it's okay, Jill, something you said relating to the mess, and that I want to take this one step further beyond just seeing
it as like expected. And it's just it's not always it's annoying sometimes still right, just like the cleaning we have to do is ongoing. But mess is a side effect of some of the most beautiful experiences that we have as human beings. When I so it really is, and I say it is a massive disservice for these declutter experts and minimalist gurus whoever to say, like, no, we don't want mess.
Mess is bad. It's not bad.
I look at mass again, even though it's annoying sometimes as like this was like a dirty table was an opportunity to intentionally connect with my kids and my husband after a really long day, or my living room turns and upside down turned into a Ford couch cushion. Like everything everywhere where, it's like kind of annoying. I'm like, wait a second, Katie, this like I just saw my
kid's belly laugh. They problem solved, they communicated, and they had the time of their lives, like the art projects that sometimes were like oh another art projects coming in, you know, but joy connection, imagination, play, Oh, play is so important for adults and kids, Like we make messes, right, and so I think taking it that extra step can just make it feel more meaningful, like mess is meaningful.
Okay, So back to the practicality.
Yes, I like that.
So one of my best strategies.
Again, this is about sustainability, and for anyone thinking like I don't have time to declutter, we need to declutter that belief. Like again decluttering, we can fit into the natural rhythms, your normal routine. We're all busy. You're going to be busy until we're not here anymore. That's the reality of it. We don't need to carve out, we don't need to quit our jobs. We don't need to wait for our kids to turn eighteen and move out.
We're going to be busy then too, So clutter audits have been like my life hack for implementing it, and these are essentially micro declutter sessions that you.
Integrate into your routine.
So earlier I talked about resets as a way to handle expected mask keep it to a minimum baseline tidiness right if done consistently in different locations, those can take anywhere from like two to maybe ten minutes. And of course, the less clutter you have, the quicker those resets are, which is beautiful. But integrating clutter audits into either a reset or another household routine you already do is what you're going to do when you have a habit that
already exists. You all know this the easiest way to start a new habit anchor it to one you have. So when you are doing laundry and you pull out a pair of pants that are two inches too short for your kiddo because they're growing like a weed.
Instead of going, oh.
You know, these don't fit, but like, I really don't have time to declutter his wardrobe right now, you can put it into a donation bin. So clutter audits again. You can get rid of one, two, three things a day. As you were cleaning your home putting things away, hanging up coats. You notice clutter, but we don't have to
make it this big, big task. So putting donation bins in accessible, visible spots throughout your home mean less procrastination, right, It means an immediate home for the thing, and it gives you that opportunity to do it in bite sized chunks where it works, and then truly simply that bin fills up over time.
Every week.
I would delegate to my husband, especially when he wasn't super on board with decluttering. I was like, here's how you're playing, here's how we're doing it. I am willing to spearhead the movement, but you need to, you know, take the donation to the donation center or charity once a week.
And we still do this to this day.
I'm not decluttering as much or as often, but the same thing those clutter audits and donation bins, permanent donation bins at least one in your home, I recommend, are the same thing I do in maintenance mode. Right, this is about sustainability, and yes it does take longer. And again for people thinking this sounds really painful to me because it's like two things a day.
How's that going to make a difference.
Right, that's the perfectionistic and procrastination piece wearing its ugly head because we want the results now, because this is what we're promised.
It's not reality.
So you have to overcome that, overcome that mindset shift, and go I need to get comfortable with progress and not perfection. And this is how I'm going to do it.
Yes, I love the donation bin. I got one. I have one that I used to keep it by the door, and now we keep Kay's bike there. So I moved it like to the corner in the dining area and it lives there until it gets filled up and then things go, Actually, we need to make a trip this week, Travis. If we lost three sheds in the hurricane and Travis actually got rid of some things, wow, I know. Wow, we have a full probably a full car now, not just a box.
Yeah.
Super helpful, super actionable stuff. I appreciate it. And you know what else is actionable helpful, the opposite of clutter.
Yeah, it's an audit that we run every week.
The bill of the week.
That's right, it's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name is William.
Maybe you paid off your.
Mortgage, maybe your car died, and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. Duck bills, Buffalo bills, Bill Clinton.
This is the bill of the week, Katie. Every week we yell in the direction of our guests and listeners and we ask them a simple yet powerful question, what is your bill of the week?
I cannot wait. I've been like geeking out over this.
I'm like, I just can they ask me the question first so we can talk about this.
I'm here for it.
So my bill is actually a bill we didn't take on, and so let me tee this up.
So we I am a proud minivan driver. I know.
This is like a hot time minivan millennial right here.
My girlfriends are horrified. Did I drive a minivan?
And I'm like rolling up the car line, like, what's up in my minivan?
Okay?
So now you do press a button and the door opens.
I do that every time.
As I stare them dead in the eye, I'm like, you don't have this right, you don't. You're jealous, you know. So we've had a mini van for ten years. It ain't it ain't pretty. It does a job, but we're also in a new season, like my kids are getting older, they're eight and nine, and it's not as like necessary as a felt when they were itty bitty and like I don't want to break my back getting them in the car and all these things. So we talked about, like, hey,
is now the time to upgrade. So we had a discussion like do we get a new car?
Do we trade in? What's happening?
And here's what we realized, while it was really tempting to upgrade, we got curious.
We talked about it.
Right, it was nice to have a sounding board with each other, and we decided against a new bill being a new car for two reasons. Number one, we realized in the moment it was more like cultural temptation versus true need you know, like our minivan still works, it's great, I still love the automatic doors, all the things. It was just like we're seeing all these cool cars in the world, like, oh, maybe we should upgrade, Like maybe
maybe maybe. So it didn't we realized in that moment it wasn't coming from like it didn't align with our core values.
Like one of our core values is simplicity.
The simple way to handle it is to I'm driving that car to the ground, honey, like I'm doing it okay. And number two again like our minivan is paid off, and so the thought of taking on a car payment, even though it is possible for us to do I
was like, I'm not doing it. It was another financial commitment that didn't align with our current goals and it felt I'm telling you, it felt so empowering to make that decision together and prioritize that financial freedom and ultimately our core value of simplicity over the thrill of a new car.
So that's it, that's my bill.
Yeah, this is exciting.
I feel so strongly with you, Katie about all this, and we say it is more effective for your finances to focus on your biggest expensives, which are housing, transportation of food, than the thousands of other peripheral expenses. You will always save more waiting to get the new car, turning away from that cultural norm of getting a new car every three to five years and just waiting and being content.
I also love how you're excited to share this, that it's coming across not as deprivation. A no to yourselves was not depriving yourselves. It was actually bringing peace and confidence and assuredness that you're now just excited about and living in freely. And I think that's also the sign of values aligned living and spending. Is I feel peace about this decision, not pressure and regret and stress and
sweaty palms. So thank you so much for sharing and helping us find that permission to drive the drive our vehicles into the crowd safely.
Safely of course, especially when they got the button to open the doors and the kids aren't open the doors into other cars, and you're like, oh, hurry, we got to drive away before they notice that scratch.
I don't know that my when we when that happens, when the car has been driven to the ground and we get a car where with doors open, I don't know that they'll know how to do it.
I might have to like train them a little bit, you know. So true what you gotta do.
If you all are listening, have a bill that you want to submit, if it's about a billion you didn't pay. If you two are on this, drive that vehicle into the ground train minivan millennials, Oh, it's because you just bought a used minivan and you love paying that bill, or you know anything else bill related for wellfriendspodcast dot com, slash bill, leave us your bill.
We can't wait for it.
And now it's time for the right round.
We just recorded our audio book and we did. We do have a lightning round question at the end of every chapter, and they did highlight the lightning bolt symbol, and we took that to mean they wanted us to add our own.
We did sound effects.
So we do it on the podcast and we do it in the book. It sounds so good. And if you're wondering, is it them did they really do their own sound effects?
The pew pews, Well, we did.
The pew pews.
So just we're just buy what youlovebook dot com. We're just gonna throw it out there. The pews are are real, all.
Right, Okay, So for this lightning round, Katie and you'll go first because you're our honored guest, but we'll all answer. What's your technique for letting go of items with sentimental value?
One of I think the best techniques of letting go of sentimental things outside of what we already discussed, is to take a photo with or of the item and jot down a note about why it is important to you. There's actually a study that was done in the last five years on people who did this with their sentimental items and people who didn't do this.
And the people who did take the photo.
Had no regret, were able to let the item go and we're at peace with it because they felt like they still had part of that identity of the thing, right in a simple photo. And I know I had heard about this years ago, not the study, but like, take a photo, and I thought this is so silly,
but it's like the psychology piece behind it. So I think that is one very actionable simple thing to do to help really tip you over into feeling empowered to letting something go and just like you said with the Miniban thing like feel at peace with it versus like, oh, like this doesn't feel good right, And I understanding the value is in the memory and not the item itself again can really propel you to gain confidence to tackle even more sentimental items and understand too, like the whole
purpose behind decluttering is to focus on what matters most to you, So it's not all about letting go of the sentimental things. I do think there's value in keeping the most important and special things, but yeah, take a photo.
See how it works.
What about for you, Jen, Well, I don't really have feelings, so I just throw everything away. But I don't throw away my children. And I think when I throw away and I declutter and I get things out of the house, I am creating an environment that is easier to clean, that is more aesthetically pleasing, that my kids will want to bring their friends over to one day. That I'm creating an environment where we can have more meaningful relationships. And that's what I'm truly after. I'm not truly after
sentiment or memory. So I think that's kind of my mindset when I am getting rid of potentially sentimental items, Like I do have a heart. I'm just kidding. I have a box of things in the attic that are, you know, from my wedding, for my kids' births. You know first, you know, stuff like that. But it's got to be a really life changing moment for me to want to save something physically from the moment.
Oh my word, my mom was devastated. She still brings it up that I got rid of all of our wedding cards, just threw them away, Like, well, Mom, I kept the cash, I opened them all, I read them, took the money, threw away the card.
I actually straw.
I'm like, what am I going to do with these?
Yeah, I do not need to see the same message over and Oh it wasn't sentimental to me, it was to hers.
I'm like, do you want them?
I typically as soon as I get a card, it goes in the trash.
Everyone who gives me a card, who knows me well enough and likes me enough to give me a card, knows it's going in the trash.
So you know, that's why I do that.
Your cards.
I want to I want to save someone. I do send Christmas cards that have like pictures of us, but that's it. Like I never buy like a card from a cutesy card.
And even in the trash.
Well it's okay, Like I make sure you know, but I think that once a year that is acceptable to me.
Uh So for me, I love the photo tip, but to give another one that I do. I will collect, like gather sentimental items, and if they are like items, if they're similar, I choose just one, like that's the thing that I'm keeping. So for me, my sentimental stuff has come to me from the people that I care about.
So I'm thinking specifically my grandmother, who I've had a great relationship with throughout my life, and she is getting older and not going to be around for forever, and she has had to downsize within the last couple of years, and so we've been able to acquire a lot of her things, but for the extra pieces, Like she used to collect milk glass, so I associate milk glass with her, and I got like it just a lot was just given to me. And while it's from her, it means
a lot to me. It makes me think of her, and I love her, and I love that and I love these milk glass pieces. I don't need all of them. So I went through this audit where I just looked at what can I actually use, what's useful to me? What is there any one in particular that really stands out as a reminder of her? And like limited myself to how many of these pieces will I keep and get rid of the rest Because I did keep some of it, I don't have to keep all of it
to know that I'm honoring her and her memory. It's I have the one thing that I can look at. So that's helped me too, just to know I don't have to maintain her collection, I can decide what I want to keep and really value that thing that I've kept.
Yeah, I think that's a beautiful thing.
And it goes with the age old saying like if everything's special, then nothing really is amen. And so it's no, it's no coincidence to me that y'all are kind of natural declutters. Y'all are simplifiers, right, because money and stuff go hand in hand, all the parallels we talked about today, and so I personally find that when we can marry like since what you I call it like joy, right, So that milk glass you picked out probably brought you the most joy in some sense, but also you brought
function into it. And when we can marry like joy or beauty or sentimentality with like function, mm hmm, it's a beautiful thing. And I feel like that's when we create homes that really feel so aligned and feel beautiful and personal to us.
And so you hit the nail on the head with that one.
Yeah.
Oh, thanks for that encouragement, And thanks so much, Katie for everything you've shared with us, super super helpful. If people want more from you, where can they find you?
Come?
Hang out on the podcast the maximized minimalist cool.
Thanks Katie, thank you.
My biggest takeaway is that mini vans are a values based purchase for everyone, for you, for everyone. I think this just really does emphasize how important minivans are.
I think it would make little to no sense for me, but I respect I respect you.
Yeah, it's good to have one minivan and one regular car, and you just have one car, so of course it's fine.
So my next purchase will be a mine for sure. Yeah, just on the on the road there on the pathway to many.
Absolutely, everyone is thank you for listening, whether you have a minivan or not. We love you and we love reading your kind. Reviews like this one from Sweet JC, which happens to be five stars, says, such fun. I am so close to retirement, so I thought I would start being frugal. Well, I know a little late to the game, but it can't hurt to start thinking that my money matters. The girls make the show such fun.
I find little tips and trinks, tricks. I appreciate how down to how down your earth, down to earth and fun. The show is five stars. It won't let me tap to rate. Well you did, you did write it five stars. You did it, sweet JC.
Thank you.
I am enthralled by this review. I love it so much. This is very much a person close to retirement letting us know that the technology isn't working.
It's so beautiful and.
We are so glad that you're here. Sweet JC, you are, you are sweet. Thanks for saying such kind things. And yeah for letting us be a small part of your life and journey towards retirement. How exciting for you. I hope it's a beautiful time in life. Yes, and thank you all for listening. If you enjoyed this show, please do take a minute to leave a rating and review. It really does help new listeners find us. It helps us. We love reading them.
And if you own a minivan, please leave a rating and review that says I drive a minivan and I feel seen, so that other millennials who drive minivans know that this is a safe space.
Bye.
Wow, I thank you, Okay bye.
Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni. I feel very cool in my minivan. I put my shades on, I roll up in the car line, I press a button and the doors open the right way, not like suicide doors, but they just back up. They back up like they're shuffling back, like they're hiding.
Yeah, it's just like, what reason do you see for people without kids to have a minivan.
If you like to transport large things. It's like a truck with a topper that you can't take off.
The thing is is that both you and Katie's main selling points within one sentence about the minivan is pulling up in the car line like that is entirely a kid drop off pick up for I don't have.
To rely on the vack crater in the safety patrol to open the door for my kid. I got him. It's just I am a mother.
Is entirely connected to mom life, and I just don't know, I don't have to if you.
Can from my back bending over to get my kid in, like there's so much room for activities.
It's I don't know why other vehicles car doors don't open the way that mini vans do. I don't know why other types of cars cannot get on board because.
It is brilliant.
I know, it's, you know.
So much safer for everybody.
For everyone, and for the cars next door. Yeah sure so.
But also get like just getting your kids in and out. It's just so much safer.
Yeah. Man, you can shut them in there too. You turn off the turn off the button that allows them to open it.
You be like, you're in here now anywhere, huh, this is your own private.
Oasis.
I mean I'm in there too, obviously because I have to press the button. So I mean, it's the buttons for me. So don't you.
Very cool?
Feel free? So feel empowered. You hold the power in your buttons, your your all.
The button I love the button on my mos that closes the trunk.
That's the button I enjoy.
I got that button too. I got the button that turns it on. You press it twice and it starts the car, turns the AC on so you can cool down the car seat before you put the kitten. How yeah, I know.
You want to go sit in your van right now? Well I have to. I have to.
Actually, you gotta go get you have to go pick out, roll up in the line. I gotta roll up in the car line. Yeah you do. Good Bye bye,