Author Archives: Claire

About Claire

I’m a writer, declutterer, and lover of fabric, furniture and books (oh, and my laptop!) I especially like to write about decluttering and debt-free living.

Why Japanese-Style Decluttering Isn’t Optimal for Most Americans

By Claire Posted in Clutter, Personal, Simpler Living Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

With her new Netflix series, writer/declutterer Marie Kondo is leading the decluttering boom that continues to grow. There is no doubt that her work is inspiring to many people.

But she lives in Japan, where the average home is 700 square feet in Tokyo, 1023 square feet in Japan as a whole, and 1600 square feet in small cities outside of Tokyo. Compare this to the U.S. where it’s been estimated that homes are twice as large as in Japan, approximately 1800-2000 square feet in the cities and almost 50% larger than that where there is new construction, and it becomes obvious that decluttering American-style requires a completely different dynamic than the way Ms. Kondo declutters.

Yes, her ideas are often clever, but she can’t address the special kind of desperation that results when you’re overwhelmed with clutter in multiple rooms and levels, not to mention offsite in a storage unit (or two). Her techniques are useful, but you need a plan to work through such a lot of stuff, step by step, so that you don’t get discouraged or run out of energy and give up before you’ve gone through everything.

Just the fact that Americans tend to have more children than the Japanese results in larger homes with more kiddie clutter that reproduces faster than one can imagine, thanks to generous doting relatives and friends. Like everything else, when it comes to clutter, we Americans do it up big.

So when you consider the quantity of stuff we’re talking about, it could literally take years to say thank you and goodbye to each item you’re giving up (as Ms. Kondo recommends) in a major decluttering effort. Personally, I’ve learned over the years that sorting everything, keeping only the most useful and beautiful items, and filling the car with the rest of the stuff and dropping it off at the Goodwill without a backwards glance is quicker and less emotional. But that’s just me 😉

Replenishing a Savings Account

By Claire Posted in Debt-Free, Personal, Simpler Living Tagged , ,

As I mentioned last time, we have a savings campaign going on in our household. If we can stick to it, we will hopefully begin to fill the $5,000 hole in our savings account while enjoying the logical byproduct of less clutter in our house.

Next month marks 17 years since we paid off our previous house and became officially debt-free. We have only been able to stay that way by the grace of God and by living simply. A savings account also figures prominently, because when you’ve committed to being debt-free, you must have some cash set aside for emergencies of all kinds, whether it’s a $100 repair to your car or a $3,000 furnace because you like to stay warm in the winter.

We save any windfalls, dividends, tax refunds and other cash infusions that may come our way, and we’ll continue to do that. But in addition, this year we’re trying something else to help rebuild our savings account.

Recently I saw a chart in a newspaper ad for a local credit union. They’re offering an account similar to a Christmas club account; for those who aren’t old enough to know what a Christmas club account is, it’s when you deposit a specific amount in a special bank account every week so that by Christmas, you have a nice chunk of change with which to buy Christmas gifts without using your credit card, therefore not going into debt.

This account is a little different. You pick a day of the week and commit to making a deposit into the account on that day every week for a year. The first week you deposit a dollar. Easy enough, right? The next week you deposit $2, the next week $3, etc. By the end of the year, you’ll be depositing $50 or so a week, but you’ll end up with a balance of $1,378 plus interest.

We’ve decided to follow this plan. We’ll probably feel those $50+ deposits at the end of the year, but that’s my husband’s busy season, and my books usually see a bump in sales in the fall and winter anyways, so those deposits shouldn’t be too painful. Besides, it will feel good to know we’re making headway on rebuilding our savings….hopefully before something else breaks around here!

Update: I Still Love My Small House

By Claire Posted in Debt-Free, downsizing, My Books, Personal, Simpler Living, Small-House Living Tagged , , , ,

So it’s been seven years since we bought our small house after living in two large rental houses (and a five-bedroom two-story for many years before that). You live differently in a small house than in a large one, and it took me a while to figure that out. (I included what I learned in my eBook Secrets of Small-House Living, written a few years after we moved here.)

Now I’m used to living in a small house, but it has not become routine for me. I still love only having two bathroom sinks to clean instead of four. I greatly appreciate being able to plug the vacuum in the middle of the house and do all the vacuuming without once unplugging it, much less lugging it up and down steps as I did for many years.

Perhaps the thing I love best about my small house is that I don’t have to spend too much time or money on it, which frees up both things to be used for other pursuits. Every bit of time I don’t spend caring for a larger house can be spent reading, writing, gardening, or sewing. Every dollar I don’t spend on this house can be saved, or spent on travel. And we’re not talking about just a few bucks. The property taxes on this house are 1/3 of what we once paid on our large house. Now that’s quite a bit of savings!

There are downsides of living in a small house, but they’re quite minor. I’m aware that a couple of relatives are appalled by the fact that we gave up our lovely huge house for something that can best be described as modest. Oh, well, I gave up caring what they thought long ago.

Another negative is that sometimes I feel cooped up, especially now that it’s winter. But I’m solving that in two ways: I’ve turned a spare bedroom into a reading room, so that I have somewhere to sit and read besides the living room, and I’m making more of an effort to go for walks (all bundled up, of course) and meet friends for coffee now and then. These are things that I should have done long ago, because they are both quite enjoyable, and I find that afterwards, I return to my little house with a new sense of appreciation along the lines of “Be It Ever So Humble, There’s No Place Like Home.”