Deb from Deb’s Daily Thoughts (shared by the awesome mmmeg in my Google Reader Shared Items), wrote a post called Christmas and Shame.

I highly recommend you go read it.

Here’s a choice paragraph from Deb:

So we were poor, and I got one Christmas present from “Santa Claus” every year, while my friends and neighbor children racked up.  I was ashamed…ashamed of the raggy clothes I wore, ashamed of never having anything nice, ashamed of my family, ashamed of my measly Christmas gifts.

I understand where she’s coming from.

I had a similar story that still follows me to this day.

I even have a photo to remember it by.

It’s a sad little 7 year old at a Christmas bash, in neon green, ill-fitting clothing (literally, the “long” pants came up to my knees, I was at least 2 years too big for my first Christmas outfit), sitting and staring glumly at another little girl prancing around with her 50 presents.

We didn’t have money for Christmas that year, my parents said.

So my parents went to the Christmas gathering but didn’t give anything to the kids (theirs or others).

What did I get from that family? A little teddy bear. That’s it. $2, probably on sale at Sears.

I still remember feeling a huge wave of tears being forced down my throat, because I felt like so alone and unloved.

(I was a kid!! What did I know about materialism?)

My parents (well, my mom), looked helplessly on as I sat there, depressed, and my dad didn’t really understand that he couldn’t treat us like mini adults quite yet.

And that presents at that age, mattered.

Especially when you had this small, little teddy bear to compare to the mountain of gifts given to another little girl of your same age.

The thought of even giving me a little teddy bear was a kind gesture on their part.

But I still feel like after seeing what transpired, the family should have been more sensitive to our financial situation, and not had a HUGE bash and big deal out of the other girl opening all of her presents.

They KNEW we didn’t have money.

And they purposely made a big deal out of the gift giving, to brag about what they did have to give their family.

I just kept getting smaller and smaller, watching her open and toss aside each gift.

Deb writes:

So I stopped celebrating Christmas when the kids were gone.  I haven’t celebrated it in years, haven’t put up a tree, haven’t bought gifts, nothing. 

This year, my sons are hopefully coming from their far away homes to have Christmas with me.  I’m trying to get excited, but all I do is cry, because this year will be like all the rest.  I can’t afford to even give them gifts. 

All I can do is decorate and bake.  I know that because they love me so much (more than I deserve) it will be enough for them, but it will never be enough for me.

And my heart goes out to her because I know how it feels.

But I feel incredibly different from what she is describing.

I don’t feel guilty, undeserving, unhappy or low on the holidays at all.

(Yes we have different circumstances, but I also never got a gift for any special occasion after I turned 10).

So I thought I’d share a couple of conclusions that I’ve realized about myself.

Maybe it’ll help others who are feeling the same sort of shame.

1. I STILL l-o-v-e that teddy bear.

He’s still with me, his mouth worn out from kisses, and his fur all matted down from playing games with me and my siblings to keep us occupied.

I’m pretty sure that other little girl in the photos had so much to play with, that she never really loved anything she got that year, for the same 20+ years I have loved that lone, single Christmas teddy bear.

And in hindsight, it was a good thing for me to NOT expect so much at Christmas.

It may have turned me into an incurably materialistic little FB.

I also ended up loving everything I owned or received unexpectedly, which made it better than wishing you had a pony for Christmas.

 

2. Now, I don’t put much stock into gifts at holiday time

Don’t get me wrong.

I still LOVE the holidays, with people rushing around, excitement in the air, everyone chatting about how Aunt Lucy is going to LOVE her gift..

I love the atmosphere, and I revel greedily in the feeling of happiness.

But I don’t give gifts at holiday time, I rarely send holiday cards, and I don’t receive holiday gifts.

I’d rather call, go out to eat or have a coffee with the people I love.

It sounds sad to some people when I say it, but it’s exhilarating how liberated you feel.

No holiday lists.

No spending of money trying to figure out what the other person wants.

No stress of trying to outdo anyone or to deal with family who really pushes your buttons.

No gifts!! —- (Extra clutter that gives you GUILT sucks)

 

3. I’ve switched out Christmas shame and guilt for Inner Happiness & Minimalism

Less clutter, and more love is my philosophy.

When I DO give the occasional gift to people, it’s unexpected (not on their birthdays or holidays), and it’s something they need or REALLY want that’s practical.

Maybe it comes from the fact that my family halted gift giving once you turned 10.

(Arggg, cheapos! )

But when my dad or my mom DID give me a gift, it was out of the blue and totally unexpected.

My mom still does it to this day!

She’ll ask me to come back and see her, and she’ll have new dresses purchased for me that immediately made her think of me, so she had to buy it for me.

Sometimes I want to tell her I don’t need anything, but my mom gets more pleasure out of it than I do.

No ulterior motive, and no real purpose to give the gift, except to give it out of sincerity and unexpectedly.

People (myself included) seem to be the most surprised and happy when it’s a surprise out of nowhere with no forced purpose.

I’m not saying this attitude is any better or worse than what most people do, but it’s the way I feel.

I don’t know what changed over the years, but I’ve eventually just seen forced gift-giving as a burden and this sounds cliche, but I wanted to be the opposite of that.

I don’t even miss it.

I don’t feel the shame.

I don’t feel guilty.

And I’d rather have food. 

So Deb, you can bake for me any time

It’d be the only gift I’d want!!!

I’ll admit. I used to spend about $70 a month on beauty things. Trying out new eyeshadows, Bare Escentuals foundation, concealers, mascaras, hair products, shampoos, lotions.. you name it, I spent it.

Now, my beauty and toiletry spending has been very low. Like… $10 a month or less.

It’s because I stopped dying my hair, wearing a lot of makeup, and makeup everyday, the cost of keeping myself up has gone down.

I really just wear minimal makeup to work, heavy duty when I go to events (but then I find it makes me look a bit older so I tend to lay off the makeup or at least, use techniques that make me look more natural).

What I do spend a lot on is lotions for my skin like moisturizer, exfoliants, toners, cleansers, and acne fighting agents.

What I’ve mostly purchased from is Paula’s Choice, and her stuff is not cheap at around $20 a bottle. I think I spent $90 the last time I went on a splurge and bought enough stuff to last me for the next couple of months and longer since I use small dabbed amounts.

My budget used to be $50/month, but now it’s around $15 a month and if I don’t spend it, I throw it into savings and pull on that if I have to when I go on my little yearly purchase of toiletries and makeup when I run out of products.

Other than that, I find that my skin has responded better to not being covered in makeup, I don’t spend money on buying makeup removers to remove this makeup, and my hair has gotten a lot softer, shinier and more manageable.

(That of course, will NOT put me off wearing makeup or experimenting if only I had girl friends in the city to play with )

Not only that, it helps de-clutter your bathroom and give it more of a minimalist feel.

Which would you prefer, a bathroom filled with half used bottles?

Or a bathroom with just a couple of well-selected products?

It looks more visually appealing with less products, and you also don’t feel as guilty that you didn’t use up all of that lotion before buying another fragrance.

Some options of what to do when you have too much:

1. Toss anything that’s hardened or expired

2. Give them away. It could be a neat thing to try it, like a sample for your friends. It’s also a frugal way to try out your friends’ unused products as well

3. Use it all up and ban yourself from buying any more products until #1 or #2 has been completed

A while ago as some of you may remember, I sold 50% of my clothing & accessories on something I called “FB Closet” — BUY IT ALL!

I ended up making ~$1000 at the end of it all (I donated some of it to a charity), and here’s how I did it.

Sort your wardrobe into a “Lose It” pile

Donate, sell, toss, use as a rag. Whatever.

Just get it out of your closet and into boxes or bags in a separate area of your home so that you KNOW it will not be staying in your closet any longer.

You have to start losing that emotional attachment to your items.

And don’t let your mom into the room or else she’ll start picking through the pile and trying to fit into the clothing to show you that it can be worn again.

Sort that Lose It pile into 4 categories

SELL: Any item that you would purchase for yourself and things you KNOW other people would buy

So.. anything with a brand name or looks almost new are pretty good bets to sell.

Anything from the 80s, or t-shirts with excessive beer logos or random cutesy pictures is not acceptable for sale.

DONATE: Anything that is WEARABLE that didn’t make it in the Sell pile

Please be reasonable.

If people cannot wear it, don’t donate it.

Do not donate anything with holes, rips, tears, stains… I mean, really.

Donating things to Goodwill or to charitable organizations is not carte blanche to be able to get rid of all of your rags.

They aren’t a garbage dump.

RE-PURPOSE: Anything that is NOT wearable

If you can tear up that fugly t-shirt to use as a rag, or to wear it while painting the house next week, then by all means keep it.

Everyone should keep ONE set of ugly clothes in my opinion. You never know when they’ll come in handy when you have to do dirty things and don’t want to ruin your nice yellow, hole-free, stain-free t-shirt.

TOSS: Anything that is not able to be re-purposed or worn again

This was the last option on my list, the toss pile.

Get rid of the Donate and Toss piles

Toss the Toss pile, and physically box up the donate piles (in properly sealed boxes) and drive them over to your local Goodwill.

You are going to feel an euphoric rush from de-cluttering, I swear! It’s like a runner’s high.

And put the Re-Purpose items aside in another container to let you know that it’s a safe place to go to for a clean set of “ugly” clothes and clean rags to use for cleaning or staining that new table you bought at the antique fair last week.

Start photographing & organizing the Sell Pile

I won’t lie. This is the worst freaking part of the whole ordeal and I hated, every single minute of it.

What to photograph:

• Front
• Back
• Details (Pockets for example)
• Collar area

What to note down:

• How it fits on YOU (I am a Small-Medium, Size 6 so I noted if it felt big or tight on me)
• Measurements (Sleeve, Collar, Back, Front, Written Tag Size)
• The Brand
• The Materials (Silk, Cashmere, Polyester-Cotton Blend, etc)

Doesn’t sound so bad right?

Now imagine doing this even 100 times. It is really time consuming to do it alone, and it helps if you have someone else around, which I didn’t.

Set up the listing on eBay

I used eBay, but you can use Craigslist, Les Pac, or any other site to sell your items. eBay reaches more people on the whole.

You can perfect a SINGLE listing and just copy it for the rest of the items, changing the measurements & description.

This is also time consuming but a bit more fun than just trying to take down measurements or photograph the
items.

The rule of thumb: There is never enough or too much information you can give a buyer.

Some buyers, like myself, will really pick through a listing with a fine tooth comb and if I don’t see or read what I want to know, I am going to bother you with questions.

Your goal is to have a buy never have the urge to ask you a single question, because you’ve answered EVERYTHING they could imagine in the listing.

For your listing, you will want to talk about the following:

Tell them a bit about yourself

Corny, but as a buyer I like to know who I’m buying from.

Makes me happy.

A DETAILED description of the item

I am talking about making it funny, interesting, and helpful. Please don’t just list “A yellow shirt”.

Talk about how it fits on you, what you can pair it with (white jeans?) and what shade of yellow it is in the light (buttercup? lemon? mellow? pale?).

People aren’t just buying a yellow shirt for $1. They could go to Goodwill for that. Tell them WHY that yellow shirt is cool.

Shipping & Location

It might help to tell people if you are located in Austria or Canada. It matters to some people. Don’t ask me why.

Along the lines of that, tell them WHERE you are shipping. Only to the U.S.? Only to Canada? Only to North America? Anywhere in the World?

Make it clear that the buyer pays for all shipping. You will have to estimate in this case using one of two methods:

• Sell the item and then get the buyer’s address, take it to the Post Office & have the actual cost to give
• Estimate the shipping price and eat the costs if it goes over what they gave you for shipping

You also want to make sure to mention how you are shipping the items — usually by using a domestic postal carrier like USPS (United States Postal Service) or Canada Post.

For something like clothing, I wouldn’t ever suggest offering the services of couriers like Fedex or UPS unless unless the buyer is WILLING TO PAY for that shipping method.

Packing & Packaging

If it comes from a smoke-free or pet-free home.

If you have pets, please list where you store the clothing.

I am particularly sensitive to this, because I am allergic and if I buy a piece of clothing covered in dog fur, there is going to be hell to pay.

People will want to know how you are going to ship it.

You can choose a couple of options like buying a cardboard box from the post office, assembling it and putting the items in it.

Or just using big manila bubbled envelopes and stuffing the clothes in there.

The most inexpensive way in my 9 years of selling things on eBay is to go around the home and…

1. Repurpose the old cardboard you have lying around.

Break apart boxes with a razor & make your own makeshift shipping box for items that are more fragile in nature and need structure.

This takes more time, but is worth it for breakable items.

2. Wrap clothing and soft un-damageable (sp?) items in brown paper

On the front, write the address in big, bold, badass, block letter printing using a permanent black marker so that the addres doesn’t wipe off.

Then cover the entire brown paper package in clear packing tape so that in case the package gets wet, the clothes won’t get stained on the inside AND the address won’t smudge or run as it is protected by the tape.

Genius, huh? Thank my brother for that tip.

Payment & Discounts

What kind of payments do you accept?

• Cash in an envelope (Send at your own risk)
• Paypal (the easiest, fastest way)
• Google Pay
• Western Union Bill Pay
• Cashiers Cheque made out to the COUNTRY you are in (Canada and the U.S. are different cheques)

And what kind of discounts do you give?

• Buy one get one free
• Buy a second item, shipping is only an extra $1 using the most expensive item’s shipping price as the base (for example, shoes cost $15 to ship and if they buy a top, shipping is free or an extra $1 above the cost to ship the shoes)

You can also talk about how the process goes once you get the payment. Do you ship within 3-5 days? At the end of the week?

Return & Refunds Policy

You can have NO returns and NO refunds.

Or, a mix of both. It’s up to you.

Here’s my story:

I never issued returns or refunds ever again thanks to being burned by some lousy buyers in Ottawa who ran a boutique and *rolls eyes* told me that my item looked used.

To be clear, I had NEVER worn the sandals at all, but I had bought them as they were in the store, and people wear it to try it out in the shoe store, which adds a little wear and tear on the sole. But it was SO unnoticeable, AND I gave very clear pictures of the sole and the sides that were rubbed slightly.

They still raised a huge fuss, tried to get me banned from eBay… never again.

I take extensive, detailed photos and you get what you see in the photos.

End of story.

But it’s up to you to decide what you think is fair, but do NOT LIE IN YOUR LISTINGS, and just be honest.

If they want to buy it anyway, they will.

But they’ll be more disappointed if they would have been happy in the first place with slightly used items and you told them it was new.

If it’s a FAKE designer bag, and you damn well know it.. then say so.

Or provide the certificate of authenticity.

You might also want to note clearly that it is the buyers duty to ask a million and one questions before buying.

I personally didn’t mind answering questions, taking more pictures… I just want them happy, but not if they’re going to lie afterwards and plead the 5th.

Start selling

Make sure the items are clean and in good condition before you package them.

If they are NOT, or if your cat chewed the pair of boots before you listed them, then TELL THE BUYER before you ship them and offer them a discount or to refund them their money.

Throw in a business card if you want. I did simple, handwritten notes thanking them.

Keep a detailed list or Excel sheet of your buyers’:

• Names
• Email Addresses
• Physical Addresses
• Items purchased
• Profit & Loss on items (Gross $ Sold, Net Price ($) after eBay, Paypal & Shipping Fees)
• Date you expect to ship the items
• If they bought more than one item
• Special surcharges (if any, like alterations you may do for a fee)
• Special notes from the buyer

Keep in constant communication

• Tell them you’ve received the payment
• THANK THEM.
• Ask them if that’s all they want to buy.
• Give them a rough date of when you want to ship it.
• Tell them when you have shipped the items.
• Ask them to email back once they’ve gotten the items and/or leave positive feedback.
• THANK THEM.
• Tell them that if they are unhappy to please contact you immediately before leaving bad feedback.

The rest of the story

I sold 25% of what I wanted to sell on eBay (the really nice almost new items), and then the rest, I just dumped into 5 huge garbage bags, and put a listing on Craig’s List that said:

BUY THE REST OF MY WARDROBE FOR $500. LOCAL PICK-UP ONLY.

Some fashion student came along, answered my ad the next day and snatched it all up.

Her boyfriend thought she was effing NUTS. It was cute.

That about does it.

That’s how I sold almost everything.

Now my closet is clutter-free and happy.

ONE FB GIVEAWAY THIS MONTH!

To be honest, I don’t want too much choice.

I mean, I want choice. I want about 3-6 choices, and that’s it. I don’t want to be shown 50 different things, because there are a couple things that could go wrong:

1. I end up liking all 50 and now have to go through and rank them until I pick the top choice
2. I get confused and end up not wanting anything at all

So how does this play into decluttering my life?

Simple. I cleaned out about 50% – 60% of my closet just so I’d only have my favourite things left. My favourite purses, jackets, dresses, necklaces.. you name it.

With all the choice I had before, I actually felt guilty for not wearing a necklace I liked but didn’t love.

I felt guilty for not having worn that pair of pants I got altered for $10 for one presentation.

That kind of guilt, weighs on you.

And now that I don’t have those things there to remind me to feel guilty, I don’t.

I just love what I have and for whatever I choose to wear or use, I’m happy with instead of being guilted into it.

(Who knew a necklace could guilt you into wearing it?)

ONE FB GIVEAWAY THIS MONTH!

Some of you had a positive response, others more neutral in a “hey, it’s your home, do with it what you want”…

While others are still challenging me (albeit a tad rudely), unable to believe that I could be happy in such a space because THEY couldn’t imagine living there.

I guess it’s a good thing you don’t then. Because I’d probably hate to live in your place

Do you look around and smile when you are in your home? Because I do.

Of course we do. *odd look*

We smile every time we see the view and each other.

We don’t focus on things when we’re in our apartment, things like paintings or stuffed animals.

Please note that I’m not saying it’s a good or bad thing to want to decorate, I am just trying to explain that there ARE people out there like us who don’t like to decorate in conventional ways.

I think.. you may not be understanding what I am really trying to get across in terms of our view.

I’d show a picture but that’d give away where we live. Literally.

See, we don’t walk in and just stare at our walls. When we walk into our home, the view is right there, front and center. The parks, the river, the city landscape and the sky.

THAT, is our view and what makes me smile.

Seeing the people outside our apartment, the trees and the sun streaming through everything. It’s relaxing just to watch the view and see the birds land on our ledge, hop around and chirp (we’re on the highest floor).

When we talk to each other, I focus on BF and he focuses on me, or our eyes wander to the view that we have from our apartment.

We don’t actually have any spots in the home where we sit and stare at a blank wall. I’d rather just decorate where I DO spend time staring — my laptop.

aladyinred says that my place looks like a student starting out, empty, bare and not her style because let’s face it, I’m sleeping on the floor

Harsh. I find your comment quite rude, to be honest.

You’re passing judgment on a lifestyle that is not your personal style.

Can’t you just accept that people like us exist and don’t think we’re living a bare bones student lifestyle, and that we CHOSE to live like this?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What you find comforting, warm and beautiful is not what I find comforting warm or beautiful.

Where you see beauty in hanging items on walls, we see junk.

I for one, can appreciate people’s beautiful homes, am an addict of Apartment Therapy, home decorating shows and I love to see how people decorate their space.

So yours might be quite appealing to me the way you’ve decorated it, and I might appreciate it… but for my own style, I can’t live day-to-day in that.

As a student, I never lived like this. I had all the conventional decoration and all the cheap knickknacks all around my room.

I wasn’t happy, because I didn’t have any restful places to let my eye wander towards. It was filled with clutter.

By choice. Not because I want to be a minimalist or not have furniture (those are bonuses).

We sleep on the floor by choice, because we can’t sleep in a regular bed.

We could buy a platform to make it look like a traditional bed but that’d just be the same thing to us, and going against our whole idea of not decorating for others.

We don’t see our apartment as bare.

You do, because you might like to decorate and smile at things you own, but we don’t need stuffed animals to remind us of people. I have one teddy bear, and she sits on my bed with me when I read, which makes me smile.

I don’t like displaying things. I don’t like displaying little teacups, little knicknacks, stuffed animals, pictures, prints… that stuff is not really our style. I hate fake flowers, I hate tables that aren’t big enough to hold anything of interest, and standing picture frames drive me mad when they’re propped up on a table.

We like actually having items to be able to use, that are functional, and still nice to look at.

Bottom line is: WE like it. YOU don’t live here. I’m trying to just show a way of life that may appeal to others. Clearly, not you.