Day 3
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[00:00:00] Hello. Hello and welcome back for day three of the new year new space, de cluttering challenge. Today, I want to talk to you about money, mindset and decluttering.
This is a common obstacle that comes up when you're clearing away your clutter. And you're wanting to let go of something that you already spent money on, but you feel like you haven't got your money's worth, quote , unquote.
And since we are decluttering our bathrooms today for day three, I figured that this was a great time to bring this up because we tend to acquire a lot of toiletries, makeup and body products that we don't fully use, which can then leave you feeling as if you need to finish the entire product. So first, keep in mind that the money has already been spent.
You spent the money when you purchase the item and using [00:01:00] every last drop of a product will not get you your money back. So, if you feel like you need to get your money's worth out of something, that is a mindset and a belief that you would have likely developed as a child, based on how your parents raised you.
If you were raised in poverty or even lower middle class, especially with a boomer parent, I can almost guarantee that you were taught to clean your plate, empty the shampoo bottle and get every last drop of toothpaste from the tube before you buy more. And that's because their parents, your parents' parents, your grandparents we're raised shortly after the great depression where things truly were scarce.
They literally did not have access to more. For some people, yes, you you know right after the great depression, for some of our grandparents and great grandparents, it was about the money. But for a [00:02:00] lot of them, it was because they literally did not have access to more toothpaste or more bread for dinner.
So therefore they had to make every last bit of it extend as long as possible. But now in the 21st century, with the internet and two day deliveries and all the luxuries that we have available to us, there is nothing in your life that is scarce. Even if you live paycheck to paycheck and trust me, I have spent my entire adult life barely making ends meet.
So I totally get what this feels like. But even if you're living paycheck to paycheck, even if you're pinching pennies, trying to buy toothpaste one month. That is not a valid reason to hold on to multiple bottles of lotions and shampoos and makeup and toilet ries just because there's still product left in them.
The money was [00:03:00] spent when you purchased the item, when you bought that toiletry.
And even if there's still half the product that is left in the bottle, if you have not used it in the last six months, you can get rid of it. You will be much better off clearing away all of those extra products. And plus your peace of mind is way more valuable than the $10 that you spent on that item anyway.
Now, if there is an item that you spent money on that you never used, like in terms of your bathroom, this can maybe be like a hairstyling tool, for example. I want you to think of that as a tuition purchase, meaning you spent money to learn something. Maybe you learned that you're never going to curl your hair.
Try as you might, as much as you might want to, you're just not that type of person. And therefore buying that curling iron taught you that. [00:04:00] Or maybe you learn that you have a shopping addiction and you need to stop shopping online. The best thing that you can do is chalk up this experience as a learning experience, accept that the item has already been purchased and therefore, the money has already been spent. And accept that saving that item you're never going to use will not get you your money back. So make the choice today to let it go, to donate it to someone who will use it, or even to just throw it away.
Y'all know that I throw a lot of stuff away because I am a big believer in us taking the easiest route to a clutter-free home. Because our homes simply cannot become dumping grounds full of all these extra items that we're never going to use. And one last thing I want to say about this. Again, let's go with the example of a curling iron.
If you bought a curling iron and you have never used it, even trying to [00:05:00] sell that curling iron is not going to get you your money back. It's going to take you so much more time and effort to go sell an unused curling iron for $5 at Goodwill or on Facebook marketplace. And it could take you hours to get a buyer to buy this $5 curling iron off of you.
When more than likely, if it's a curling iron, let's say you got it at Walgreens, that would have cost 20 or $30. So that $5 is not even really going to get you your money back. So instead of trying to sell an item To recoup some of the money that you spent, again, just chalk it up to a learning experience. Consider it a tuition purchase, accept that the money has already been spent, and take the easiest route to getting it out of your house by donating it or even discarding it.
So again, remember that your peace of mind is much more valuable than the money that you spent, even if you spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars on [00:06:00] a bunch of body products, for example, because y'all. Let me just say, and this is so ironic that this happened to me today because it aligns perfectly with our day three bathroom task.
So a few weeks ago, I was targeted an ad for a perfume from molly's cosmetics Malley's I think is how it's pronounced. I've never used their site before and I have not had a new perfume in several, several years. I think it was like around 2017, my husband bought me one for my birthday and mother's day and that's the last one that I've ever had. So I decided to go ahead and try it because they offered a try before you buy option. So I got the perfume in the mail a few days before Christmas, and I really wanted to love it. But I hate it. It is the strangest smell I have ever encountered. It's weird and unique. And the more that I used it, the more I [00:07:00] literally felt kind of sick.
So then I was like, oh, okay. I will give it to my niece for Christmas, but I remembered that she has, very sensitive skin and can break out . So I was like, okay, well, you know, my trial period is almost up and I was going to be charged like $70 for this bottle of something that I hated.
So I reached out to them to ask if I could return it. And first they said that, uh, you know, I could return it and get my money back, but they offered if instead I wanted to have something in exchange. Like if I wanted to find another product on their site that I could get instead in place of this, you know, cause basically they don't want to refund me my money they want me to find a product that I'm happy with and take that product. So I, since I've never used their site before I had to scroll through their website to find something. And here's where I'm going with this. This entire website is devoted to body products. [00:08:00] If you've never used Malley's cosmetics before, go check it out.
I'm serious, it's, that's what their entire website is all about. And I literally spent an hour this morning, scrolling through the reviews of booty firming masks and belly firming creams and an arm cream and all these other products for the different areas of our body. And when I say that they have tens of thousands of reviews, my jaw literally hit the floor.
These people were saying that the booty firming cream worked so well that they were stocking up on every other product. And it had me realizing that people really do this. They spend hundreds and thousands of dollars per month on these products. And then, as a collective, we're left wondering why we have more clutter than any other time in history.
I mean, this is the reason why y'all so. I forgot [00:09:00] where I was going with this. I think I was saying that if you have spent hundreds or thousands of dollars on these random items in your bathroom, none of that matters now. Because the money has already been spent. Now the best thing that you can do is to clear it all away and make the conscious decision today that you are going to bring less stuff into your home going forward.
So if you find yourself falling back into the same old money mindset, thoughts and feelings, while your decluttering your bathroom, remember that peace of mind should be your highest goal.
Your bathroom is one of the first places you see each morning. And if you wake up a lot at night, It may even be a space that you see while you're still in that subconscious dreamy state as you're relieving yourself at 2:00 AM. The subconscious state is prime because that's what's running the show behind the scenes.
It is what's responsible [00:10:00] for every action that you take and don't take. So if you are waking up and walking into a very cluttered bathroom that is full of all kinds of products, your subconscious is going to become accustomed to that chaos and that clutter. Which will then impact your productivity and efficiency throughout the rest of your day. So anyway, that's a topic for another episode.
So again,, What I really want you to take away from this episode is that your peace of mind is much, much more valuable then the money that you spent. Even if it were even on a, on a grander scale here, even if you spent thousands of dollars on something, your peace of mind is way more valuable than that. As a matter of fact, Peace of mind should be your highest goal. At all times. It's something that we really take for granted, especially in this day and age, when, again, with all the luxuries that we have available and the entire world, really in our pocket, we can pick up our phone [00:11:00] and scroll through the internet at all waking hours of the day and in doing so, we've really lost our connection to just peace of mind and mental clarity.
It's something that . When we have a lot of clutter, we really . Disconnect from and forget what that feels like.
So . When it comes to clearing away the clutter, not just from your bathroom today for our day three task, but clearing the clutter from any space in your home, keep the peace of mind as a longterm goal that you want to achieve and remember that it is much more valuable to have peace of mind than to try and hold onto a curling iron that you're never going to use.
And on that note., I better stop now, before I go off on another tangent, because these are meant to be quick and short decluttering motivators to help you throughout this challenge. So thank you for being here, thank you for [00:12:00] tuning in today, and thank you for participating in this new year's decluttering challenge. Remember when you send me your before and after photos each day, you will be entered for a chance to win some prizes, like gift cards, bins, and baskets. You can send me your photos by email, or you could always DM me on Instagram.
So go out there today and spend 30 minutes or less de cluttering your bathroom. And keep these tips top of mind, if you find yourself feeling the urge to hold onto something just because there's product left or because you spent a lot of money on it.
So that's it. Happy decluttering. I'll chat with you soon.
