Why Hoarding Often Starts (Or Gets Worse) After 60
I was up late reading the other night. One of those long articles I’d been meaning to get to about something else entirely. And somewhere in the middle of it, …
Am I a Resourceful Saver, a Pack Rat, or a Hoarder? A Quiz I Took Myself
I was up late last week watching Hoarders. I’d flipped past it three times before I finally stopped on it. You know the show. A&E. The slow camera pan, the …
Why Most Widows Hoard? The Conversation Nobody Wants to Have
I’ve been thinking a lot about my friend lately. Her husband passed away almost a year ago. We’ve been close since our kids were little, and I drive over to …
Gen Z Calls It “Underconsumption Core.” My Mother Just Called It Keeping Our House From Filling Up.
I was on the couch the other night, scrolling through a TikTok my granddaughter sent me. The video was a young woman, maybe twenty-five, holding up an almost-empty tube of …
The 7 Uncomfortable Reasons You Can’t Let Go of Clutter (And What to Do About Each One)
There’s something in your home right now that you’ve been meaning to deal with for years. You can probably picture it without trying. The thing on a shelf. The box …
If You Do These 10 Things, You’re Already Doing Swedish Death Cleaning
If you’ve ever stood in front of a closet and made a different kind of decision (not “do I love this?” but “is this still part of my life?”), you’ve …
7 Powerful Ways to Start Swedish Death Cleaning When the Whole Idea Feels Too Big
I sat down in front of my hall closet on a Tuesday morning with a cup of coffee and good intentions. I’d read an article about Swedish death cleaning a …
“Just in Case” Clutter: The Painful Cost of Saving Things for Someday
There’s a cabinet under my kitchen counter that’s full of empty glass jars. Mason jars. Pickle jars. Pasta sauce jars with the labels half-peeled off. I have at least thirty …
The Endowment Effect: 8 Eye-Opening Reasons Why You Can’t Throw Anything Away
There’s a yellow KitchenAid mixer in the corner of my counter that I haven’t used in two years. It was a wedding gift. My mother-in-law picked it out from the …
9 Things I No Longer Buy After Decluttering My Home
I have six throw pillows in a bin in my front closet. None of them are on my couch. Most still have tags on them. And last spring, I almost …