Expat Living: De Cluttering Project

Here is my article for The Reader Edition 26th June

Our move to Spain full time wasn’t exactly planned, and as such we have ended up with far too much stuff! Combine that with a significant change in lifestyle and a combined tendency to horde and we are pretty much full to the brim here in the Apartment!

Let me explain ….

When we bought the apartment it was very much as a ‘holiday home’. We thought we would spend the occasional long weekend here, a couple of holidays a year, and eventually retire out here. All pretty normal. As a result we decided that we really didn’t want to be moving stuff back and forth every trip so we furnished and set up the apartment effectively to ‘mirror’ our life at home. We literally only ever had to travel in the clothes we were wearing each trip.

Fast forward a couple of years and we were living here full time! As a result it wasn’t really planned and we ended up shipping most of the stuff down from the UK. One reason for this is that the quality of what we had bought in the UK was better than the items we had bought for our ‘holiday home’. Another reason was sentimental value. Another reason was just far too ‘tight’ to just discard items, and didn’t have time to sell them or find good homes for things.

We managed to stuff most things into some cupboard or other, where much of it still resides unused for years!

For example we have a 10 piece Wedgwood Dinner Service that we where given when we got married in 1992. I reckon we only used it a couple of dozen times in the UK and maybe 6 times since we have been here, and even then for no more than 6 people. We don’t ‘do’ dinner parties! In fact we hardly ever have anybody round to eat, and when we do it is a BBQ, or a bowl of pasta type of thing i.e. very informal. I can’t think there is a great eBay market for the dinner service, even if I wanted to sell it which I don’t as has huge sentimental value, but it really doesn’t need to be taking up a whole cupboard in the kitchen. I doubt very much that we will suddenly start having dinner parties in the future, but there is no point in throwing it away as over the years we could use parts of it as and when we need new plates, bowls, dishes etc. So for now; box, newspaper, and store on top of the kitchen units so we know it is safe – it is reasonablly accessible, and we get a whole cupboard back to use more productively!

Over the last couple of weeks we have been going through every room identifying what we can do to de clutter each room, and as a result make life easier. Living in Almerimar is great, with the very minor exception of all the dust. Part because of the beach, part because of the building work (well not now!), but primarily because of the strong winds we get from time to time, we can get a lot of dust! The more stuff that is out and requires moving and dusting the less likley it is to happen in our house, so we are aiming for as many free and clean spaces as possible:

The list goes on (and on) trust me!

So over the next couple of weeks we are going through each room packing away the stuff that we want to keep but don’t use. There will no doubt be a fair amount of stuff (as a gadget junkie I have accumulated so much, especially as I review it from time to time on my Chris Marshall blog put up for sale on the Forum, and the rest we will donate to the Almerimar Life Strays fundraising efforts ….. maybe they can get enough from people to have a one off garage sale?

I am sure we are not alone in having cluttered up our lives? Our circumstances while not unique are somewhat different from the norm, but I suspect many people’s circumstances, lifestyles, interests and styles have changed over the years and they have a lot of stuff that they could de-clutter.

BUT …… it isn’t just material things that fall into this equation! A few years ago we decided to de-clutter our TV viewing and stopped watching ‘soaps’. We have gradually done something similar with food. I know, sounds weird but one thing that we have noticed about eating in Spain is that the range of food isn’t (generally) as varied as in the UK. Defined very much by the Mediterranean Diet and the habit of eating local and in season food, with much less processed and junk food, we find that the overall range of food we eat is less. We have taken that and refined it further and settled on a pretty small range of recipes that we eat on a regular basis. Most of these are meals that we can prepare and eat over a couple of days. Why clutter up life standing in the kitchen …….

Books ….. boy we had a lot of books! We still have a fair amount but they are all ones that we are pretty sure we will read again or specifically want to keep ….. the whole series of Lord of the Rings for example.

CD’s ….. with them all on the Mac now and backed up twice didn’t need to keep all 500+

The list goes on, but I won’t! I have enough de cluttering to be getting on with!

I will leave you with some advice though: if you are fortunate to be moving to Spain don’t think in terms of your UK lifestyle and bring everything with you. Talk to people here and try and figure out what you will really need. I know so many people that have paid to ship stuff from the UK, only to end up giving it away or selling it for peanuts. They would probably only have got peanuts for it back in the UK, but at least they wouldn’t have shipped it all down here. Living in Spain as an Expat gives you a great opportunity to ‘do things differently’ so make the most of the opportunity by NOT replicating what you did in the UK. It is too late for me. I can’t escape the next month or so of de cluttering, but it doesn’t have to happen to you. Save yourselves, let my experience be a lesson to you al