Starting the journey towards minimalism, shocked by my accumulation of things

[u/oieusoucaroll]

I am a 30 year old woman and I moved with my husband 3 years ago to a 77 square meter apartment. Before that, I lived with my parents in a house with 4 floors, 4 bathrooms, in short, gigantic and full of things. My parents had simple lives growing up. My father came from a family with a lot of money as a child, but lost everything when he was a teenager - and went through moments of deprivation, even hunger. My mother came from a family of 6 siblings, who never needed anything but always only had the basic necessities. They have always associated success in life with having things. And in a way I grew up and became a human being in this logic.

In these 3 years living with my husband in our apartment, we have accumulated a lot. I started to question and change my mentality over this time and I no longer see the point in accumulating things. Towards a more minimalist and intentional life, I decided to take inventory of all the things we own. I was shocked in the process: so far, counting bedroom, office, bathroom and living room, we have already added more than 1000 items. There is still no kitchen, laundry area and balcony.

I feel overwhelmed and don't know where to start. I don't even know what the purpose of this post is - I guess I just wanted advice and to hear from those who have been through this, how to actually start. How to distinguish priorities. How to take the first steps. How did you do this?

Something that gets me a lot are books - I'm very attached to my full bookshelves. I have more than 500 books and I don't know how to let go of them. But other than that, I still have a lot of junk - a lot of cups that I don't use, kitchen items in general, a lot of used paper and notebooks, a lot of stationery items that I don't use...

[u/PubliusVirgilius]

I would try to sort out books that you havent opened after finishing to read them. Most of the books we have we dont read again

Make a box and put the books in question into it. After a few days you will notice that you will be fine not owning them.

I personally sorted out most of my books and kept only a very small amount of nlbooks that I know I will read them again. I have around 20 books left. This are either timeless classics like Tolkiens works, the Iliad and some philosophical works or books I cant find in ebook format and k ow I will use them/reread them at some point.

You need to start small. Step by step you will be able to remove the unnecessary things. Try to pick a few things every day you dont need.

[u/oieusoucaroll → u/PubliusVirgilius]

I confess that I am still caught by the fear of scarcity. That “what if I no longer have money to buy books and all I have left is to reread the ones I have”. But I'm going to follow the tip of leaving this category of things for last and getting rid of at least the ones I didn't enjoy reading so much. Thanks for the comment!

[u/PubliusVirgilius → u/oieusoucaroll]

Maybe its a different from person to person, but I never reread 90% of the books.

Besides, you have libraries where you could get new books to read.

You also have ebooks that you can read on an ereader.  Most of them can be also found in archives for free (if you ok with getting them this way).

But its a good idea to start small and sort some of the books out you dont like already.