*Photo of cardboard box and scissors on wood table by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels*

Updated 2024.07.21

Downsizing is defined as reducing your overall operating needs.

You can do this by reducing your space requirements, getting rid of your things or even by firing your suppliers. By downsizing, you reduce your costs, improve the efficiency of what’s left, and make a conscious choice to walk more lightly on the earth.

There are many reasons to downsize:

Maybe you got laid off and are making less money
Maybe you’re moving across the country and can’t take everything
Maybe you’ve realized having a lot of stuff causes you stress - i.e. more stuff/space does not mean more happiness for you
Because the cost of living is more with more

Whatever the reason, downsizing is a process of paring down your existing life via reducing the space you need and the resources you use. Once you’ve paired down, you then maintain your downsized life by limiting your consumption of more for the foreseeable future. In this article we’ll discuss how to downsize and the benefits of it.

Starting with the how to of downsizing, below are 10 tips to downsize your home:

*Photo of cardboard box and scissors on wood table by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels with text overlay How To Downsize Your Home*

1 - Reduce your consumption of new things

Before bringing anything into your life, make sure it has several useful purposes. From now on, don’t bring in things that are used once and never again. No more special occasion stuff.

Consider multiple occasions in which something can be utilized. Visualize using that item many times and in various ways. If you can’t visualize it being used more than once in your life, do not bring it into your life.

2 - Don’t replace things that have run out

When something has come to the end of its useful life, question if it needs to be replaced. Some things do not need to be replaced, as you don’t have a need for them anymore.

3 - Give all new non-essential wants a 30 day waiting period

Treats you deserve. Rewards for good behavior. Desires to support the “new and improved me.”

From now on, put those things in a list and hold it there for 30 days. When you downsize, you may not have space for all these caprices, so during that time, consider ways to make it yourself or reuse something else you already have for the purpose.

Usually, you can figure out a way to not need that thing or fulfill the want for less during the wait period.

4 - Go through your things room by room

Go through everything that you own, room by room, and identify if you want to keep or sell it.

A great way to identify what you want to keep is:

If it’s currently useful to you
You don’t have any duplicates of it
It brings you joy

If you’ve decided you’re keeping something, great - keep it.

If you’ve decided you’re selling it, look up the current market price online and list it. If it doesn’t have much value, donate or trash it.

5 - Review your duplicates

Do you have 4 pairs of winter boots? 2 pairs of sunglasses? 5 bottles of bright pink nail polish? Do you need and love them all equally?

If you don’t need them or love them all equally, sell, donate or otherwise release these duplicates from your collection. In the future, before buying another, review what you have and its condition. If you have one of them in good condition, that’s good enough.

6 - Let the store be a store

Stores hold items that we need in the event that we need them.

When you’re downsizing, you may not be able to afford or house purchases made in advance of their need. The good news is that you do not have to pre-buy and store any purchase if a store has one on the shelf. If local stores carry the goods you need, get those goods exactly when you need them and no sooner.

7 - Don’t stockpile

In many ways, talking about stockpiling goods is just a nice, cordial way to discuss hoarding behavior.

When you don’t hoard *cough* stockpile, you don’t need the space to hold these goods either, allowing you to thrive in a smaller space.

You also don’t need the money in advance to buy it, allowing you to live on less money - helpful if you’re trying to save. Stockpiling fanatics will tell you that stockpiling saves money because you buy in bulk and get a bulk discount.

What they don’t mention is when you need the item, maybe that day:

A store is going out of business and needs to sell it for 95% OFF
You miraculously find said item at a last stop retailer for 50-60% OFF
You can multistack coupons to get that item for pennies or even free

All of these things have happened for us and can happen for you.

8 - Clear out broken things and old craft supplies

Once and for all, make decisions on old junk. Decide if you’re repairing it or not. If you’ve kept broken, holey or items to be repurposed one day, now is the time to be discriminating about these things.

Same with craft supplies. If you haven’t used that old pillow filling for anything in over a year, admit it - you won’t. Toss it. If you haven’t started that jewelry making project in a year, you probably won’t, accept that the creative urge has passed.

9 - Look at spaces around 300 square feet smaller

This is a couple of rooms less than where you are now. Whether or not you’re moving to a smaller home, start visualizing spaces that are a few rooms smaller than where you are now. See if you can imagine your stuff there and picture what you would have to sell, donate or toss to dwindle down to that size.

This can help you prepare for what may need to go to fit into a smaller space and identify must-haves that you will be keeping even if you stay right where you are.

10 - Start over with a second round of cuts

Downsizing can have multiple rounds. Once you have completed all the steps above, move through the list again and do a second round.

Cuts that you were unwilling to make in round one, you may be more comfortable making in round two as you now have learned that letting go of things is freeing and feels good.

When you finish round two, repeat as often as necessary to reach the desired goal. You may need to stop between rounds and live in the space for a day, week, month before picking up again.

Now that you’ve learned how to downsize, below are 10 benefits of doing it.

10 Benefits of Downsizing

1 - Prevent overconsumption and save resources for future generations

Downsizing is a way to do your part in avoiding ecological and economic disasters like the tragedy of the commons, where too many people rely on the same limited resources.

In the tragedy of the commons, eventually, the only way you or any of your heirs can get that resource is at an extreme cost, if at all, as it becomes so rare and limited.

When you consume less, it makes shared resources more available to others, now and in the future.

2 - Learn what you value most

Downsizing is a great way to learn your core values and can be a wonderful self-reflective process. When you downsize, you usually get rid of things you currently have or choose not to buy new things, forgoing future ownership.

This forces you to use an incredible level of discernment in what you want to keep buying and owning. When you have to decide what you want to keep, you always choose what is most important to you.

This process is eye opening. If you didn’t realize what you valued most in the past, the downsizing process teaches you that.

3 - Make money

By selling your excess, you can get money for it.

When you downsize, you can sell your “non-productive” assets. These are goods or items that are not giving you the value that they once were and you can usually make some money passing them along to others.

4 - Clean less and maintain fewer things

Downsizing means you often have fewer objects to care for and this frees up your time to do anything else you want - including not worrying about those objects when you’re away from home.

When you have less, you also worry less about your possessions, opening you up to focus on other things that matter to you.

5 - Stop worrying about what will happen to XYZ when you die

Because you already sold it or passed it on to someone who values it. You can sleep easier knowing that certain valuables have found new homes that you selected, where they will be used and prized.

6 - Save money

Once you’ve downsized, you usually don’t want to “upsize” again.

Part of the reason is you see first hand how much you lose in downsizing. Another part of the reason is you learn what you can do without. Thinking about buying again, only to potentially lose it again one day, is a great motivator to put your wallet back in your pocket.

When you downsize, you get to save what you don’t spend on objects that you used to buy, but now don’t.

7 - Enjoy a more spacious feeling in your home

When you get rid of stuff, it creates a feeling of space in your home. This feeling of space can often be quite palpable and it may even feel like your home is cleaner, even on days you didn’t clean at all.

8 - Reduce your operating costs

When you need less things, and less space to hold those things, your operating costs are usually lower. You aren’t heating as much square footage, you aren’t paying as much in land fees, you aren’t lighting as much space, and you aren’t buying as much landscaping stuff.

9 - Get an opportunity to reprioritize your needs

When life changes, your needs change. When you downsize, it gives you an opportunity to realign yourself with the needs of your current life, which may be vastly different from the needs you had in your past.

10 - Experience the freeing feeling of decluttering

Downsizing is in part a decluttering and streamlining process. De-possessing your home of unnecessary or duplicate resources can be liberating. It can be a way to let go of the past. It can be a way to purge old dreams, making way for you to dream new dreams. There is a freeing feeling to letting go of excess.

*Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels of cardboard boxes by window with text overlay 9 Benefits of Downsizing*

All in all, downsizing your home can be a great way to simplify your life and get back to what matters to you and makes you happy.

It can also be a great way to save time, as there’s less to clean and maintain when you downsize. It can also be a great way to save money, as there is less you need to spend on storage fees, acquiring things and holding on to them.

When you downsize, you may also improve the efficiency of your home administration, too. You may decide to go through your bills and downsize your vendors, meaning fewer accounting entries.

Downsizing your home can be a fun and liberating experience, so make sure to enjoy the process by putting on music while you do it and celebrating everything you cut free.

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