I took some of Good Friday to do a “semi” Spring Clean. That means I was too lazy to do a really thorough clean on everything, but did take the time to try and do some extras, such as dusting the baseboards, top of doors, bookshelves, etc. I’ll freely confess that I don’t really like cleaning, but I can’t justify paying someone to do it for me, nor do I have any health issues that prevent me from doing it.
I realized something when I was cleaning. I own a lot of stuff! I always think of myself as not really owning that much stuff – but I think I’ve been in denial. Now, it’s not a ridiculous amount of stuff, but still – Mr. Canuck Buck and I do own a lot of DVDs, books, video games, and so on. And I don’t think I’d truly realized this until I had to clean in and around them!
I’ve written a few other posts on impulse shopping, although my weakness is generally more food than stuff. I must confess though that I also like to buy video games. I own all of the following:
- A Nintendo DS
- A Wii
- A PS2
- A Kinect (including XBox)
I don’t even have the excuse of having kids to blame it on. I do have nieces and nephews that use them when they come over), but really, I bought them for me. And I do like to buy games for these systems.
My goal is to really cut down on the amount of buying. I was interested in the new Star Wars Kinect game, but my brother in law recently picked it up, so I’ll just wait and borrow it from him later on. Also, since I recently discovered the library stocks video games, I’ll try to borrow from there instead of just out and out buying things.
So, the next time you’re having the urge to go out and buy something, don’t just go and take a look at what you already own. Try cleaning it and see if this helps inspire you!
Have you ever found that cleaning helps inspire you not to buy things? What about it has done this (e.g. just realizing you own a lot of stuff, finding things you didn’t know you owned?)
