Living like a hoarder? Ask yourself these 3 questions

In this day of great deals and easy shopping, it’s very likely that we have too many things in our Toronto apartments, cluttering everything up and making you constantly wonder if you really need everything in your apartment.

When the boxes start to pile up, all your shelves and cupboards are packed to the max, and you can’t possibly shove another pair of shoes in your closet, it’s time to purge – or at least cut out the unnecessary extras in your apartment.

Here are three questions you MUST ask yourself as you go through your apartment to decide what stays, and what goes.

“Do I need this?”

The first and easiest thing to do is simply look at something you’re thinking about getting rid of and ask if you truly need it. That old couch that your parents gave you or that piece of art your high school friend made (that really doesn’t look as good as you first thought), that old bookshelf or that old stool, these are all things that you can grow out of, especially if they’re not doing anything for you anymore. That old bike sitting in the corner probably isn’t going to get a new tire and a new coat of paint. Just get rid of it.

“Can something else do double duty?”

Why have a dinner table, a coffee table, end tables and desks if your apartment isn’t big enough to handle all of it? Why have two extra chairs when you only really ever use one? It’s important for items to pull double duty when possible – everything you can make serve another purpose is one less thing you need to buy to fill up space. If you can use your coffee mug for tea as well, you don’t need a new set of teacups. If you can use your laptop to watch TV on, you may not need that 40 inch screen.

“Can I just borrow or rent it instead?”

You may really want to go camping this summer, but how often do you go camping? You may really love to paint, but will you do it all the time? Anything you can just borrow or rent when you need will save you money and space, because you can use it as long as you need to and then give it right back. You probably don’t need to buy thousands of dollars’ worth of camping gear when you can borrow some off your friends!

Tidying up your apartment as much as you can by cleaning out the clutter is a great way to ease your mind and really remember what’s important – your quality of life, not the amount of stuff you have!

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Born on the Prairies, Erin Cardone grew up knowing there was more to life than canola fields and AAA Alberta Angus. So she escaped, living in Europe and Australia, white-knuckling it through plates of calf brains and raw horse meat, and learning languages she can't remember anymore. After a stint as a jaded, skeptical journalist, she changed tack and began writing rather awesome blogs and showing businesses that advertising is dead, so long live social media, with her businesses Legendary Social Media. She now splits her time between various Canadian cities, Costa Rica and wherever else the wind blows.

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