Why I'm Selling My Possessions

If you’ve been to our house, you know we don’t have a lot of “stuff”. Our house is clutter free, pretty clean, not a lot knick-knacks, etc.

We’re secret minimalists. If I could have it my way, our fridge would always be empty, the closets clean, and we would not have one item in our house we don’t need or use. I love the philosophy of simple living, and have been trying to convince Santino that we should sell all of our stuff and move into the trailer park near our church to REALLY simplify. You can imagine how that conversation went!

Last year around this time, I learned that Americans waste about 40% of their food. Meaning we throw out leftovers, we buy produce that rots before we use it and then throw it away, etc. That statistic frustrated me! I started examining our grocery bills and food waste, and saw that we were part of the problem. I stopped buying food we didn’t need, started making our own granola bars for breakfast, wouldn’t cook a new dinner until all the leftovers were gone, etc. (We even have survival week in our house sometimes- I don’t go grocery shopping and we have to make dinners based on the food we already have in our house! I could write another blog on some of our very weird (and creative) dinners!).

And most people I talk to have said “oh I could never do that. We don’t really like leftovers. I like variety. Don’t you get sick of eating the same dinner 3 nights in a row? Well sometimes, yes! But I started thinking about every time I threw food away, it was like throwing $$ in my trash can. It was wasteful and bad stewardship.

Needless to say . . . I hate wasting food. And I hate having things in my house that I don’t use, that others might need or use. So, recently a friend added me to a local Facebook resale page (thanks Layla for starting this!) where you can post items and sell them to friends or friends of friends, and it’s my new obsession!

I absolutely love cleaning and purging things in my house! I have sold left over wedding favors, baking utensils I never used, home decor I was using but didn’t need, bedding, books, clothes, etc. Really if it’s something I haven’t used or worn in the past year, or something I didn’t need, I listed it for sale.

And in just 2 1/2 weeks, I’ve made over $700! My finance/budget minded husband is loving my new hobby! You see, I took a huge pay cut when I stopped teaching full-time, and started to work as volunteer staff at our church 20 hours a week. Not only did I take a pay cut, but my spending went up because I meet people for lunch/coffee nearly every day of the week. So each time I sold an item for $5 I thought, I just made $$ for another coffee date!

(*Bonus side note: we've racked up medical bills through doctor visits/surgeries in trying to find answers for our infertility, and God has provided and covered our bills this month and more!)

All of that to say, we are selling our possessions most of all to simplify. We just don’t need 8 cocktail glasses that I registered for when we got married that have been sitting in our cabinets for almost 7 years, never used. We don’t need to keep that hand mixer around “just in case I need it” in the future. We certainly don’t need 3 vacuums, or 5 table runners, or 22 pairs of earrings, or 10 purses, or 5 dresses I haven’t worn in 2 years . . . see what I mean?

So I’m selling because it’s stuff we don’t need. We like it, we may even be using it, but we don’t need it. I'm not selling because we're hard up for cash, or we want to buy a boat, but because we can do with a lot less.

I’m selling because I want to be consumed with treasures in heaven.

I’m selling to live in simplicity.

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Matthew 6:19-21)

“She perceives that her merchandise is profitable.” (Proverbs 31:18)

PS I do have a small investment idea that I’m thinking about based on Luke 19, but I’ll share that with you guys on another day . . . stay tuned. {The Mina Project}