Upgrade, Replace, Discard

When it comes to buying things, most people (from what I observe) tend to accumulate stuff with no real thought for how it might enhance their lives. China figurines, plant pots, picture frames, books, furniture, clothes, mementos, DVDs, bits of string, tools, gadgets, shoes; look around your house and you’ll probably find you have an awful lot of stuff.

Many of these things are genuinely useful - we wouldn’t want to be without clothes, shoes or bits of string, for example - but many are meaningless rubbish that has little value (either financial or sentimental) and whose only purpose is to clutter our lives and reduce our freedoms. That might sound a bit over-the-top but useless, unused or unwanted items are not the benign entities we often assume; they actively detract from our quality of life.

Let me put it another way. Every single thing you possess must be bought, stored, heated (or cooled, depending on climate), insured, cleaned, maintained, repaired and transported between residences when you move. For things you use every week (or even every month) that might be a price worth paying but for the other stuff, the things you use once a year or less, you should ask yourself if they are really worth the effort. If you’re anything like me you may well decide that many of your possessions don’t actually enhance your quality of life and that owning them does not make you happier.

Once you accept that you don’t need all this stuff, two things happen. First, you stop accumulating new rubbish that fails the “will it improve my life?” test. Non-essential purchases are often motivated by short-term desire rather than a medium-term life improvement strategy. Second, it becomes easier to dispose of the things you no longer need because, suddenly, you find you are happy to let them go.
Buying and keeping only the things essential to your quality of life is fairly easy if you follow these simple rules:

1. Don’t buy something just because it might be useful even (especially!) if it is on special offer. 
2. Only buy things that make a clear improvement to your quality of life. 
3. Upgrade existing, much-used items with replacements of higher quality; never downgrade or take the cheap option. 
4. Discard the items you replace or upgrade; you don’t need to keep backup items because you’ll probably never use them again. 
5. Be ruthless; if you haven’t used something for a year donate it to a charity. 
6. Don’t use public storage just because you’ve run out of space at home; get rid of something. 
7. Reduce physical clutter by using digital services (music, film etc.) wherever possible. 

I still have a lot of stuff that I don’t want to lose but I’m cutting back and I feel better for it. You might disagree, or think me strange for bucking the acquisitive trends of modern life, but my philosophy works for me and it could work for you too; let me know what you think.