Creating a neighbourhood Amazon

As I mention always, I have been bitten by a bug called minimalism and that is the best thing that has ever happened to me. For those of you who are new to this term, Minimalism is living with lesser things. Now, this might seem like a negative thing so it has been rebranded to Essentialism- hence living with the absolutely necessary things.

Today’s topic is junk. What I meant was, today I will put some light on the amount of stuff we hoard in our houses thinking we will need it someday. As humans, we are always fond of buying things in the hope that they will bring happiness. Well, it is true to an extent. I won’t deny it, since I was also one of those people a while ago. But what happens when you get bored of that stuff. It just goes and sits at the back of your drawer. We never think of getting rid of that stuff. Usually, it is because of one of these 2 reasons —

1. Emotionally attached to it — Most of us feel we bought it using our first earned salary and we will keep it as a memento of our struggle. So our first phone, first cycle, first bike, and so on are still with us. In certain cases, these things are gifts from people who are/were close to us. Remember the first chocolate your crush gifted you? Chances are you will still have a wrapper somewhere. Maybe it’s just me :O Weird!
2. Too lazy — Well this one is easy. You are too lazy to clean up. So you dump it somewhere out of sight. And slowly and slowly the dump grows larger and larger till you have no more place left. So you find a new dumping ground :P.

The Eye Opener
The problem is these habits cost you in the long run. I experienced the wrath of this when I suddenly had to relocate my family. I made a list of things to be moved and believe me it was never-ending. I had to book a “bigger than a standard” truck to move my stuff. And mind you this was after selling off the not-so-necessary things. The best part of this was the things that I felt had some value and should not be sold, were sold at rates you wouldn’t believe. It was next to free. I remember how I used to start the conversation with the buyer even today. It always started with — “Hey, how much are you willing to pay for this?”. Damn you people who took advantage of my situation and bought my stuff at such cheap rates. Just kidding. I am grateful that I got all the help I needed :P

A garage sale is an informal event for the sale of used goods by private individuals, in which sellers are not required to obtain business licenses or collect sales tax. Typically the goods in a garage sale are unwanted items from the household with its owners conducting the sale

A garage sale is not too popular a concept in India as we like to hold on to things. But if you can do this you would actually be helping yourself and others out. Here is how —

1. Reusing things — Someone lesser privileged could have something at a cost that s/he can afford. You get happiness helping others out. Remember the pile of clothes that don’t fit you? Take some time out and donate them to your nearest orphanages. You would be amazed at the happiness you impart when you give a kid your undersized shirts.
2. Better resource usage — Since people are reusing things, there is lesser waste produced and lesser nature being destroyed.
3. More space — Your house starts becoming cleaner and emptier of junk. You only have things that are important. This automatically equates to a lesser space to live in. Maybe you could move into a smaller house tomorrow with lesser loan repayments.
4. Educate others — You can pass on these habits to your peers and start a domino effect.
5. Ka-ching! — Now obviously you will make money. In the long run you might even become a good salesman.

But it would be really weird to do that backyard sale right? I mean sitting with all the unwanted things in front of your house. Well, you don’t have to. There are apps that allow you to do that in this digital age.

What works for me
Dukaan is an app that I use for this purpose. It’s like any other e-commerce app out there. You can add products to it and create a public shop. In our case, all the products will be “used goods”. The app creates a public url which looks something like this — sample. I use this link on my WhatsApp bio or Instagram bio where people can reach and see things I am letting go off. The app gives you an option to chat with the customer, shows how many people have viewed. Maybe it will pave the way to a barter system too. You never know. I will create a detailed article on how I arrange my shop once it’s completely setup.

So to summarize try and declutter things. It’s totally upto if you want to buy new things. But try to balance it — one new thing means one old thing is out. The more you make life simple and create lesser waste, the more happier you will be. This process will soon take away the need to buy more and more stuff too.

Please share this among your peers. You never know, you might be creating a self sustaining neighbourhood altogether :P