The soap was still in its pretty paper when I found it in my mother’s linen closet.
There were six bars, one for each Christmas. I had given them to her so she’d have something nice. (Lavender, because she loved lavender.)
She had saved them for something nicer, and that day never came.
My mother wore her lipstick down to the metal tube. She used up every last thing she bought for herself. But she kept my good soap in the closet, and she washed with a plain white bar from the grocery store.
I stood there holding those six bars, and I cried a little. Then I took them home, and I went to put them under my own bathroom sink.
That’s when I saw the seven half-used bottles of lotion.
I’d like to tell you I learned my lesson that day. It took me a while.
But what I finally learned is the easiest decluttering I’ve ever done. It doesn’t take one box or one trip to the thrift store. You just use it up.
Why This Is the Easiest Kind of Decluttering
Most decluttering asks a lot of you. You have to sort, decide, lift, carry and drive. Then you feel bad about what you gave away.
Using it up asks for none of that. Nothing has to be decided today, and nobody’s feelings get hurt. (My sister-in-law’s candles left my house one evening at a time, and nobody minded.)
You just wash your hands with the good soap, and one day the soap is gone. There’s nothing to haul, and there’s one less thing on the shelf.
Best of all, you get to enjoy it first. No other kind of decluttering gives you that.
This isn’t a new idea. “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without” was on posters during World War II. My mother was a little girl then.
She just never stopped living that way. I wrote about her habits in what my mother called a normal day.
The Only Rule You Need
Here it is, and it fits on a sticky note. Finish one before you open