I am in a new city. I have a new job. Lord, it took so much to get here. I am still in Monterey but me moving here wasn’t official in my mind until I had a job. My wonderful sister brought me my stuff from New Mexico and guess what I’m doing next? Decluttering. AGAIN!

Let me tell you about my decluttering journey. I grew up in Stockton, CA and when I left to college at eighteen years old, I got a storage because I couldn’t take everything that I owned to my dorm. I kept telling myself that I needed to go back to Stockton to get rid of my stuff. Can you guess what happened? I had the storage for ten years! What a waste of money!

In the course of those ten years, I moved over fifteen times. I have lost count but everytime I moved, I took things back to storage and I’d browse through the boxes and bags for things I needed.

This picture here is after round three or four of decluttering.

The storage space above looked so much worse. It wasn’t until 2019 that I sat in my new empty apartment and I told myself that it was time to donate everything I didn’t use.

It took a little over a month for me to go through everything! I worked full time from home (this was at the start of the pandemic) and dedicated every weekend and weekday evenings to this. There was not one day I didn’t declutter.

I thought I was going to stay in Stockton long term so I bought a new bed, a TV, a new desk, a new book shelf, bedding, a washing machine, a treadmill, and other household items. I thought this was it.

FYI, making it for me was being able to own a washer and a dryer.

I spent so much money trying to make this apartment a home but God didn’t want me to stay.

A series of unfortunate and intense events had me moving to New Mexico months later.

It was extremely expensive to move all of my stuff, so I decided to reduce once again and I got rid of almost everything! I sold the furniture for cheap and donated the rest. It hurt. I thought I had a home and here I was, relocating again. I cringe at how much money I wasted.

The two pictures above are what I donated. It’s not even half of what I got rid of.

I kept the most important things like memorabilia, my journals, important documents, books, and my travel souvenirs. My sister and I crammed her poor little car with as much as we could. On the day we had to vacate the apartment, a lot still didn’t fit in the car, so I had to grab as much as I could and donate it.

It was a tough but necessary move. It was an emergency.

Now my stuff is back here in Monterey with me and I live in a smaller apartment. I also have a lot of clothes that no longer fit me and i’d like to continue reducing.

So wish me luck as I will try to get through this all this week and next week before I start working.

Thank you for following my blog!

Angelica