SIMPLE HEALTHY FRUGAL

Part 2 of our declutter for spring leads us to the dismal bathroom vanity. The steps are much the same as with the wardrobe. Assess the mess Remove absolutely everything from the vanity and wipe clean. Start by throwing everything that is rubbish in the bin. Then decant all the half bottles of things such as shampoo (of which I had four half bottles) into just the one or two bottles needed. Give creams and potions that you know you will never use away to friends and family. Organise the rest so it makes sense to you and your fam. Note: I love scented candles that come in fancy pants jars and I’m always getting them for birthdays and Christmas. But what to do with the fancy pants jars when the candle runs out? Use them as your bathroom storage jars for things such as cotton balls, toothbrushes and bath salts.

It’s that time of the year where it is warm enough to air the house out and the need to declutter overwhelms me. Last night I watched “Minimalism – a film about the important things” and this morning I showed my sons “The Story of Stuff”. If you haven’t watched either of these then I strongly suggest you do. Both films have motivated me to start the yearly spring clean. I declutter a lot during the year but now is the time of year where pretty much everything in the house gets reviewed and decided upon. Oh yeah and another sign for me was the Garage Sale Trail advert on telly this morning. Yep, a garage sale is also a good incentive. Why the wardrobe first? Lately I have found myself thinking that I don’t have enough clothes or that I don’t have matching clothes. This is when it becomes necessary to do a purge as you not only discover clothes and accessories that you no longer wear, but you discover clothes you love and haven’t worn in a while. I also like to do a bit of a s...

Recently I have been involved in helping a friend of mine move house. This particular friend has had to move house for financial reasons and will still be in considerable debt despite the “downsizing”. Something I have noticed in the move is that my friend just simply has too much stuff. Half of the furniture she had was cheap storage furniture to house half of the stuff she no longer used. It took a lot of time to move a lot of things that ended up in the massive rubbish pile in the end. This made me sad because it just seemed like such a massive waste of time and money. But then I thought “He is not alone. He is one of many. This is now considered normal”. Yes it is now normal to just keep buying stuff such as books, dvds, nail polish, shopkins, vases, candles, statues of meerkats and the latest cushions, towels, wall art and hair pins. And then it becomes “essential” to acquire storage for all this stuff. So not only is buying the “stuff” a waste of the earth’s resources an...