150 items

This was an amazing challenge! I did manage it and the whole experience did really make me take a good hard look at what stuff is actually important and what I actually really need. In reality I am not emotionally attached to many of my possessions or need too much stuff. In fact my smart phone got damaged on a mountain hike in the Lakes in torrential rain and I lived absolutely happily without it - it was everyone else that got annoyed that they could not contact me!

I began the week thinking about what impact giving away my large DVD collection had had on me a number of months ago and I realised that it didn't have any impact at all. We now have instant access to movies and TV series online and no longer need to collect DVDs. I then moved on to thinking about the books that I own. I rarely read the books I have and to be honest I have started to make a lot more use of the local library these days; I have always loved it but I have recently rediscovered that love. I also thought about the last time that I used a cookbook and found that I always refer to the BBC's online food guide - it is amazing! Basically, after a lot of sorting out I put a ridiculous amount of stuff onto Freecycle and have had people coming and going from my flat to collect goodies all week. It has been absolutely great to see that others will get some use out of these items. I also have created several bags of goods for the local charity shops too and I will distribute these in the coming weeks. This challenge has been made a little easier for me as I am moving into a shared house in about 5 weeks and everything will be provided. This has enabled me to get rid of all of the furniture in the flat and kitchen items - these things tend to make our number of possessions go up. I am leaving the flat with the absolute bare minimum amount of possessions. There is absolutely no way I could get my stuff down to 150 items in any other circumstance as we need certain things to live - something to sit on, something to cook with and eat off, something to put our clothes in and some general decoration in a place.

I am now left with my absolute favourite things: a laptop, a phone, a camera, an ipod, a motorbike and kit, a box of clothes, a box of craft items, old university notebooks (this is something I find hard to part with- I have this dream to go back and study again), a tent and kit, roller skates and blades, a folder of trail hikes, a tennis racket, a badminton racket, a bicycle, my bag from Marrakech, a couple of frames and pictures, a flower jar, a vintage looking candle holder, brownie baking kit, a box of adminy stuff and most importantly my passport.