So we have been at this for 4 complete months.  So here are the most recent numbers as of May 5, 2015:

House = 3082

Garage = 2267

TOTAL = 5349  with 19 trips to Goodwill

Barbie etc = 2201  (see previous update for explanation)

GRAND TOTAL = 7550  

We removed 1008 items in April.

If we were to count each piece of paper removed from the filing cabinet, it would be much higher.  For the taxes, we counted each year removed as 1.  The TAXES (read that post here) were a time consuming adventure!  It just seems wrong to not keep a record so scanning essential pages added to the time.  We filled our shredder bin 6 times with things from the filing cabinet.  Goal is to eliminate the filing cabinet but we still have plenty to declutter before that can happen.

I (Barb) have been decluttering at work too.  I have been keeping track of the items out of curiosity.  I’ll add those at the next update.

We have been looking into reducing our environmental impact too.  We are in a mandatory 28% water reduction area of California.  Reducing water consumption goes along with our minimalist/simplifying outlook.  We already repurpose or reuse many items, recycle curbside as well as to our local hazardous waste facility, and compost.  We have been working on REFUSING AND REDUCING.  This challenge has shown us how much we were “consuming” and how wasteful some of that was.  Guess these topics fit in with Decluttering the Stuff too!

Thank you again Nourishing Minimalism for the push to Declutter the Stuff!