2,024+ in 2024 COMPLETE!

 Yesterday, we completed our 2,2024 in 2024 Challenge!

That's right - over 2,024 items have left our home this year! WOW!

Things that helped this processs..

- Having the coloring sheet! The kids and I loved using the Well Planned Paper chart. It was very motivating to get near the end of each row and we would rush to see who could get rid of the items to finish it out.

- Working on the project as a family. Mark and I made a point of showing the kids what we were getting rid of and letting them see us color in our own spaces. We wanted to be intentional about it being a family project.

- Passing items on to family/friends who needed them. Many times over the year, I put free items on Facebook and it was great to see them go to homes that had a use for them. This was especially helpful with one large, sentimental item - the kids' picnic table. It was a gift to them from Mark's parents but we had outgrown it. Knowing it went to some dear friends who can (and do!) use it made all the difference.

- Having a designated place to take items when we were ready to part with them. Obviously, we weren't running to the donation center each day so we needed one space to collect items. I used a box on top of our dryer. Items that would work for the kids's sale were sorted into totes in the garage every few weeks and the rest was dropped off to donate around town. 

What did we learn...

Annabeth: "Once an item is in the giveaway tote. Don't look back at it. If you could put it there in the first place it needs to stay."

Owen: "I realized I didn't need to keep a lot of the junk I thought I did."

Mark: "Should have gone for more items. We still have a lot to get rid of."

Amy: It was so freeing! As I said in my first blog post about this challenge, we've been on this journey since 2020. It's been such a process and this year I let go of more sentimental and emotional items than ever before. I let go of all of my school yearbooks/memory books except for high school. I also let go of many items from family and friends who have left my life. Some I held onto, even if they were never used or broken, just as a way to hold onto the memory of that person. I realized I don't need the item to hold onto - the person is still in heaven. For other relationships that have ended with the people still living, I've found it especially difficult to let go of items but this year they left. Holding the items didn't mean I wasn't still holding the pain or rejection of those people, in fact maybe they made me hold it all more. 

Final thoughts...

I noticed as the year went on, that often I would see quite a few little boxes colored in at random. I wasn't aware of anyone doing a clean-out that day but on their own someone had decided to pass on items that no longer served them. 

I would say about 10% of our items went into the trash/recycling, 80% were donated/passed on, and 10% were sold. We sold some on Facebook and some at the Here We Grow Again sales. In all we made $546. This money went into our travel fund and was used as we went to Tenessee for dance and for some of our Indiana travels. I would MUCH rather have experiences than stuff and seeing that number motivates me to keep going through our items so we can have more experiences.

I hope that we have changed the culture of our home with this challenge. I hope that we've all, organically, become more able to look through our items daily and access what we really want/need. I also hope that by seeing how much we gave away, we've seen how much we don't need to bring into our home. I hope that we've all learned to live with and want less. 

Thank you, dear readers, for joining us on the journey. I've posted our totals at the end of each month and it's been fun to have people in real life share what they are decluttering! Here's to letting go of more...