We've been slowly phasing out the items we use in our house for many years and replacing them with either less items or more sustainable items.  We started our more minimal journey in 2018, but it wasn't until 2020, when we moved into our new house that we really started pushing for more sustainability, too.  Not just for the earth, but for our bank accounts, as well.  We are a household of five adults, and we go through everything like, well, like water.  Which is where we'll start.  

Water Bottles

Up until late 2020, we consumed bottled water.  It's crazy how much waste that produces and it's also crazy how much it costs, when most of it tastes like tap water anyways.  So, I bought everyone in the house all Bubba brand insulated water bottles and got a Brita water pitcher.  Eventually, everyone, but me, realized that our well water tastes fine without filtering it, so now they all just drink from the tap.  I still use my Brita, but since I am the only one, I don't have to change the filters as often.  Now, we don't have to save our water bottles from the week before to put out for recycling, as our recycling bin is virtually empty every other week. 

Soda Cans and Bottles

The kids replaced buying diet soda in 12pks or 2 liters with Bubba bottles that they have dedicated for soda only.  Now they drink less soda and it's only $1 every time they get some instead of however much it was costing us before (a lot!). 

Makeup

I recently took the two bags of makeup I've been carrying around with me since before 2018 and chucked them both in the garbage.  How many of us ladies are guilty of keeping makeup too long?  Plus, I stopped wearing foundation years ago, so why I was even holding onto it?  Now I have three items I put on my face: sunscreen/moisturizer combo, bronzer, and dark brown eyeshadow that I use on my brows.  That's it.  I quit using foundation after 30+ years of pretty bad acne, and just like that, my acne went away.  Like magic!  These products I use now do not break me out, so it's great!  And super simple and super easy, and...super cheap!

Towels and Clothes

Does it feel like you have a never-ending love affair with your washing machine?  If so, maybe think about downsizing your clothing and towel collection.  We have one towel per person in this house, plus a floor towel.  That's it.  As for clothing, I only have what I wear, and the rest either gets donated or put in a box in the basement (especially seasonal clothes).  But the trick for clothes storage is only one box for all of us, not one box each.  So, our extra clothes we'll wear later go into the box and if we forget we own those things and don't go looking for them within six months, we donate them.  I like my capsule wardrobe, even though I do not abide by some arbitrary number made up by someone on Instagram or Pinterest.  I keep the amount that works for me and what doesn't goes in the box.  And usually, then out the door.  

Mail

I do not have mail clutter in my house anymore (except for paid bills, sometimes I get crazy and leave the paid ones with the unpaid ones and I get all confused and have to see if I paid them...I have ADHD, so I can't expect my brain to be perfect LOL), because I process my mail immediately.  I get the mail, and if I am recycling, I stand over the recycling bin and immediately throw in all the junk mail or stuff we don't need (or I bring it inside to burn in my burn bag).  The mail I need to keep goes in my room and gets put in the "pay" basket that's by my bed.  I don't have a fancy way to pay bills, as I usually just wing it, but eventually I will have a better system.  Right now, I am just concentrating on keeping our mail clutter to a minimum.  

Household Decor

No longer do I mindlessly shop for knick-knacks or crap to put on my wall.  That was a habit my mother instilled in me, something she'd still be doing if I let her.  Now, we only buy what makes sense for what decor we're using, and that's very seldom.  Right now, our living room is themed with our favorite movies, which includes original movie posters and other things related.  Mindless shopping for decor can be a bad habit and with my mother, verged on addiction.  The trick is to pick something you like, and only buy things related to those items.  Yes. those items may cost more (like our movie posters), but we're saving money because we're not constantly buying little stuff here and there and everywhere.  

Plastic Bags

Now, if only my ADHD would make me remember to bring my bags in with me to the store!  But we've replaced getting plastic bags with a myriad of reusable shopping bags.  Many are Aldi bags, some are Dollar Tree, and I have these great ones called Bag Podz, that are stored in a single zippered bag.  I love them so much!  I usually remember them, but sometimes I don't.  But I will say that we do need some plastic bags in our house, as we have pets and sometimes terrible things happen, and we need those bags for cleanups.  Not a lot of them, just once in a while.  So, my ADHD saves us in that way LOL

My Purse

Oh goodness, are you like me and get a sore shoulder from having such a heavy purse?  When in 2020 the pandemic hit, I got super paranoid and bought myself a purse that is easy to clean and one I could wear cross-body so I never had to put it in a cart.  This led to me getting a purse that is vertical, has three zippers: one for my wallet (and wallet only! for real...nothing else will fit in there!), one for my phone (again, only big enough for my phone), and one for my keys, nail clippers, tweezers, and some chapstick.  There is literally ZERO room for anything else.  This keeps my purse tidy and organized AND keeps my shoulders from hurting, because I can't stuff it full of crap.  I really love it!  

Food Waste

Who knew that having a compost bin was so easy??  I went to the hardware store, got a big garbage bin for like $10.  I got two bungee cords and crossed them on the top (the handles have holes on each side, so they fit easily across the top).  Now, I put in food waste, but first, put a bunch of leaves or shredded newspaper (I shred my weekly circulars--not the plastic-coated ones, though), and then put your food waste on top.  Then top with more paper (or leaves or shredded cardboard, etc.).  In the summer, give it a good roll around the yard every few days, and watch as your food waste turns to almost nothing!  It's sooooo easy!  

Paper Waste

Every single piece of cardboard, or paper from packaging, or paper from the mail or the doctor's office, or school or work or wherever your paper products are coming from, recycle it, which is what I do.  Even tags off of new/used clothing.  If your paper contains food waste with oil or fat, burn it.  If you live in a city and can't burn, then get onto Nextdoor Neighbor or a similar online space and see if someone in your town will pick up your greasy paper waste for a few bucks and burn it for you (like pizza boxes or paper plates, etc.).  It's better than putting it into a landfill where it will never break down.  Now, burning isn't great for the environment, but neither is garbage in a landfill.  Sometimes you gotta just pick your poison.  

Laundry Soap

I used to make my own, then I quit for a few years, and now I am back to making my own again.  What can I do with all those containers???  Nothing.  If I can't reuse something like that, I don't want to buy it because recycling plastic sucks.  But it's better than a landfill.  Like I said, pick your poison.  Or find an alternative.  Which is what I did.  

Cat Litter

Good grief, I am still trying to find a solution to all the damn cat litter containers I have.  The big square ones with handles work well as storage bins, but the pourable ones with handles, what can I do with them?  For real, do you know an answer?  Because I've been searching, and I can't find one that works with my lifestyle (don't worry, I will find the answer to this, someday!).  So, I switched back to the old type of litter that comes in paper bags, which are non-clumping.  Because what else can I do?  We have like 500 cats right now.  It's cheaper and I can recycle the bags or burn them if I can't.

I did stop buying the pourable kind, though, and switched the clumping kind in bags, but they're plastic to keep the moisture out.  Which I can use for growing potatoes (dog food and cat food bags work, too).  But after that, they are still garbage.  So, now I buy the paper ones.  I guess I can go reload up my plastic ones at the pet store with the loose litter.  But I have no idea how much that is, and I assume it's crazy pricing.  But we'll see.  Maybe I can find a better way to sheath my cats in stuff to crap in that's priced well and better for the environment?  AND one that works.  Any suggestions, please let me know, because I am desperate here!

Paper Towels

I replaced our paper towels with these shop rags from the hardware store.  I don't know if they will work okay, but we'll see.  I'll come back here and update it afterwards when I find out.  But we use an INSANE amount of paper towels in our house.  I just can't seem to get my kids to stop using them after they wash their hands. So, they can't use them if I don't buy them!  Ha!  

Toilet Paper

During the pandemic, we never ran out of TP, but we did get a freaking overflow of our septic because it needed to be cleaned out.  So, yeah, it's safe to say, that TP?  Is a freaking disaster.  And the insanity of people hoarding it in 2020 was nuts!  So, now we don't buy TP anymore.  Instead, we bought two bidets for our bathrooms and have nice little cloths to wipe our wet tushies and whatevers with after a nice visit to the toilet.  And we LOVE THEM!  For real, at first, it's a cold shock, but when you wipe and say "Wow, would you look at that, no leftovers...huh.  Who would have thought that was possible?" It makes you feel like some kind of butt wizard!  

And so far, that's it.  Other than my kitchen items, but I've already talked about that in other posts so I didn't want to repeat it.  

How have you downsized or become more sustainable?  Please let me know below!  

These top 10 items I am glad I purchased semi-recently are not just sustainable items, but also items that have made my life better in various ways, which I will explain how below.  Because not only am I a woman who wants to live a simpler life for the world, but I am also a woman living with ADHD and anxiety, so I need items that help me have a simpler life in general.  So, some of the items help combat either of those, as well as some of the others are more eco-minded.

Not only that, this list is not my "all-time favorite items", but rather my most recent favorite items, as I have things from many years ago that I've also loved, but I either no longer use those items, or I don't own them anymore.  And that list would be way more than 10.  

So, without rambling on about nothing, as sometimes I am wont to do, here is the list, along with the items I've bought in relation to these items that just didn't quite work out for me.

1. Industrial Fans from The Hardware Store.  I paid around $50 a piece for these.  They are round, they pivot in place from their perch on the ground.  They are full metal and AMAZING!  We could not have gotten through the past two summers without them.  Yeah, I know they aren't doing me any favors in the energy usage department, but I have POTS and hypothyroidism, and both of those things mess up my ability to heat and cool my body.  So, these fans are spectacular at keeping my body temps just right!  Also, I have pretty bad tinnitus, and I have to have noise on at all times, so I don't hear the static in my ears (I've had this my entire life). 
   
   Counter Purchase: Crappy Plastic Fans from Family Dollar (all plastic and cost around $15 a piece).  These SUCK and not work at all.  But it was all we could afford at the time, and we had to suffer because of it.  One time, our air conditioner broke, and we had to use these horrible fans to try and stay cool all night.  Safe to say, it did not work.  
   
   
2. Ninja Blender.  I got my first Ninja blender from my mother in 2013.  It was after the first time I went no contact with her, but due to our financial circumstances, I had to go crawling back.  And she rewarded me by buying me a Ninja blender.  I didn't want it.  I was so very, very angry she bought it for me, that I didn't use it for an entire year!  But then I looked at the poor thing in the box and decided to try it out.  And I didn't have to replace it until 2020!!!  Who on earth has a blender that lasts over seven years?  Ninja owners, that's who.  
   
   Counter Purchase: Any other cheap blender.  Yes, I paid around $75 on sale for my Ninja.  Before, I'd only buy $20-$30 blenders.  Once, I used one for the first time, and popped in a single ice cube, turned it on, and it immediately broke.  Sigh.  Don't buy cheap blenders, because you end up paying more in the long run having to replace them.  Ninjas are definitely the way to go.  
   
   
3. Canva Membership.  I used to scoff at paying for monthly memberships to anything, mostly because I could not afford it.  But today, I use Canva for everything, and I can afford it, yay!  I even designed a book on it!!  Yes, it has its limitations, but they definitely are able to be worked around and when used in conjunction with a free online editing program like Pixlr or a free downloadable editing program like Krita, then you have a match made in editing heaven!  I pay for my membership because I use it so much that the paid features are soooooo worth it for me.  
   
   Counter Purchase: Gym Membership.  I have paid for a Planet Fitness membership like fifty times, and I've always canceled it because we never use it.  I do get every cent out of the fee I pay for Canva, though.  Even though it doesn't make me at fit as a gym membership would.  Oh, and I also have another counter: Designrr.io.  I paid for that for two years becuase I forgot about it and never got any use out of it.  So annoying (I find the site pretty useless).  
   
   
4. Metal Insulated Water Bottles.  If you're going to replace single use water bottles, go all out and get the insulated kind, because it keeps your liquids cold for like twelve hours or more.  And who doesn't want cold drinks?  I am a water junkie and I drink predominately water, so I love my Bubba water bottles.  Even my kids have their own they use for water, PLUS they replaced their single use plastic soda bottle and can addiction with getting a refillable metal Bubba from Walmart, which only causes $1 to fill up at the soda fountain.  
   
   Counter Purchase: Single Use Plastic Water Bottles.  Good god, we used to fill up our recycling bin with these things to OVERFLOWING.  I am soooooooo glad we gave up that whole thing, because goodness, that was awful (and a mess!).
   
   
5. Colorful Pill Organizer.  Here is the link to one I have.  I have ADHD, so remembering to either take my pills or if I have taken them or not is a daily battle for me.  Until I got this organizer.  There is something about the fact I have to open it up, choose today's color, and click open the day or night pill side that for some reason reminds me to take my pills.  AND, I never get mixed up thinking I already took them.  
   
   Counter Purchase:  Regular Pill Organizers.  They just don't work for me.  I don't know why.  Also, another counter, is not having a system in place for someone like me with ADHD.  You can do good for a long time, then mess up once, and then you'll forget to take your pills for days on end.  So always, always have a system in place if you have ADHD or anxiety.   I just wish I had done this earlier.
   
   
6. Comfortable Clothing.  I used to be cute.  I used to be thin.  I used to be young.  And back then, I loved wearing clothes that reminded myself and other people of those things.  But now I am in my forties, and why the hell do I need to be cute?  Even though I wasn't thin as I gold older, I still thought I had wear things that made me look cute and so I wore cute shirts and always tried to look like I had a hot date somewhere.  But today?  I still look presentable, but now I dress for comfort.  I wear what I feel good in, because you need to feel good in what you wear in order to feel mentally good.  So, I dress in clothes that represent the real me, not the me I want others to think I am (leggings and big pullover hoodies, y'all).  Which makes me feel so much more amazing.  Even if other people might think I look more masculine than I should (I used to dress super girly).  Oh well, right?  I feel great, and that's all that matters.  
   
   Counter Purchase: Cute Girly Clothes.  I used to think that I needed to look cute in order for others to think I am cute.  But why did I want others to think I was cute?  It was almost like I couldn't be invisible or else I'd feel bad.  But I am not like that anymore.  Now, I am perfectly fine with people seeing the real me, rather than hiding under frilly tops and shoes that hurt my feet and pants that hurt my back.  I am too old for clothes that hurt me.  Yuck!
   
   
7. Digital Streaming.  Whoever invented this is my hero.  I mean, I get access to all my favorite shows and new shows that become my favorite shows, anytime I like!  Well, duh, we all know how streaming works.  But like I said before, I have POTS.  And sometimes my POTS keeps me in bed for days at a time.  The last two days I've been in excruciating pain after pushing myself to get things done around the house, and streaming TV is the only thing that helps take my mind off it.  It's an amazing invention and I hope it never goes away.  Also, the price is so very right.  
   
   Counter Purchase: Direct TV/Dish Network and Cable TV.  I have been screwed over by both of these satellite TV networks toooooo many times to count.  And cable just sucks because you are at the whim of their programming, and their prices are INSANE.  And for what??  Streaming is where it's at.  
   
   
8. Cole's Classroom.  Are you a beginning photographer?  If so, get your butt on over to Cole's Classroom and learn what you need to know!  For real guys, I was just another person with a DSLR camera and no idea how to use it until I found his site.  I mean, I am still an amateur, but not on the way I was before.  I finally get how to use my DSLR now.  I understand how it works.  And it's the first place that has ever gotten through my thick skull what all of those settings mean.  And sooooo much more!  I cannot rave about this site enough!  
   
   Counter Purchase: Amy and Jordan.  Now, I loooooooove Amy and Jordan!!  I love their photos, their enthusiasm, and everything else about them.  But sorry to say, anything I've purchased from them, I have not gotten any use out of it.  Which sucks.  But mostly what sucks is that even though I love, love, love their aesthetic, I always end up wasting my money.  But I do love to watch their little intro videos for their courses and see their pics on Instagram, and those are free! 
   
   
9. Pressure Cooker (Instant Pot style).  I use this almost daily.  I have only had two Ambiano brand (Aldi brand) pressure cookers and now I am on my third, which is from Family Dollar, which I got on sale for $30 (and it works great!).  I use it for rice, cooking roasts, chicken, etc.  It's great!  And again, I have POTS, which causes me massive pain if I stand for long periods of  time while cooking.  And if that happens, I can't even eat what I cook, because I get pretty nauseous by the time I am done.  So, the IP just fixes all that and does the work for me.  I am so grateful someone invented this version of a pressure cooker.  It makes life for people like me soooo easy (I used to have the old-fashioned style and never used it because it scared me LOL).
   
   Counter Purchase: Slow Cookers, Rice Cookers, etc.  All single use kitchen items that the pressure cooker replaces.  I do loves me a slow cooker, but rice cookers?  Goodness gracious, those things sure make a terrible mess.  
   
   
10. And last but not least, Paying for Someone Else to Mow Our Lawn (and sometimes shovel).  Listen, I know it's expensive.  And I am frugal gal, so it really, really bugs me to pay someone oodles of money to mow our expansive yard several times a month.  BUT, there is not one person in my house who isn't allergic to mowing, and one has asthma.  If our yard was smaller (and it used to be), we'd mow all the time, and even use our push mower (the kind without gas).  But now we live on a large piece of land and we do not have a ride on mower.  So, I hire a guy who is a professional, and pay the price.  And it's freaking worth it.  There is no reason to make ourselves sick with our piddly little lawnmower and our big 'ol hills and valleys.  Good grief, it sucks. 
    
    Counter Purchase: My Lawnmower.  Enough said.  What a waste of money.  We started paying someone else because our lawnmower stopped working last year.  And I am glad it did.  
    
    

The first step to decluttering is asking getting into the mindset of letting go.  I don't know about you, but I am an emotional hoarder.  Okay, not quite a hoarder like you see on TV, but I do hoard items that I have an emotional attachment to.  It doesn't even have to be for a real reason, other than I am so used to seeing an item that I cannot bear the idea of not seeing it anymore.  Things that are familiar to me make me feel good, which is why I think most people get overly cluttered in the first place.  We have issues "seeing" our clutter, but even when we do, if it contains something familiar, it's that much harder to get rid of.  

So, I have found a trick to get rid of even the most familiar of items.  Well, it's more of a little process than a single trick, and it goes like this: 

1. Make a plan for your year.  Even if it's summertime or later in the year, make a plan for the rest of the year.  Every year I pick words that resonate with me to use as my guides for the entire year.  From those words, I make a plan for what to accomplish during the year.
2. If you don't want to make a plan, then ask yourself these questions: "What am I into right now?  What will I still be doing in six months or the foreseeable future?"  
3. Then, ask yourself of each item if that item either fits into your plan or your immediate future use.  If not, then out it goes.  You can rebuy something later if you need to.  I use the "GLANCE" method for this, which stands for "Good Look Around, aNd Committing Eagerly".  Meaning, I take a look and make a quick decision, and commit to it!  Get excited about your item finding a new home!  
4. If you are really attached to the item, say goodbye to it.  Write a letter to include inside of it when you give it away or sell it.  Tell its story.  Or take a picture to put into an album later (which you probably won't do, but you'll feel better being able to have the choice to do it).  When I had two beautiful baskets from the foreign country my old friend gave to my family (where he was from), I wrote a letter inside and said "Thank you for gifting these to me back when I was a kid, but I no longer need them and thought that maybe you could use them or give them someone else who can.  Thank you so much!!"  After that, I never missed them again.  Saying goodbye is super important if you really love your items.