I’ve recently donated a few books and some clothes to charity, sold a couple of no longer used items on Gumtree, and all because I bought a new water bottle to use at work; a 1 litre Camelbak Chute (yes the type of water bottle is important in this context, or at least, the design of it is).
I drink a lot of water thanks to being on a diuretic and to working in a perpetually warm office, so I drink at least 2 litres of water at work every day. The Camelbak Chute was a deliberate upgrade on my older (smaller) water bottle, which was cheap and would occasionally leak so I plumped for a better designed water bottle and was happy to pay a little extra for it.
The water bottle is one of those things I use everyday and, whilst it is performing a simple function, I like the form factor. It feels robust, the cap clicks in to the lid so you don’t lose it, and I especially like the fact the water pours out of it as opposed to the slow gurgle of the last one. I’m not quite sure it’s bringing me Kondo-esque joy but it’s definitely been a simple, happy, purchase that I appreciate every day.
It’s a small example of focussing on better, nicer, things that I’ve been increasingly conscious of since moving to a smaller flat.
In fact I was so impressed with it I bought a second (smaller) version to use at home and at the gym. Again, this is replacing a cheaper water bottle I picked up in Primark and, again, it feels like a big upgrade for such a simple item. It really is the little things, right?
After making my purchases, the two old water bottles sat forlornly on the kitchen window ledge for a couple of weeks until I realised I was just-in-case-ing them. I do not need four water bottles, hell I don’t really need one, but I can justify two (one stays at work, one stays at home). Yet for some reason I didn’t get rid of the other two for quite a while.
Thankfully the cheaper, now unused, water bottles were recycleable so off they went into the recycle bin and as I looked around I realised that, since moving flat and starting to replace old for ‘new and improved’ I had more things lying around that I no longer needed.
What else was lying there unused? Three recently read books on a shelf, a mirror propped against the wall in the bedroom, shirts I no longer fit in (because they are TOO BIG! HUZZAH!!), and a few other bits and bobs. It felt good to have a wee mini-clear out and that’s before I go back through some of the boxes of stuff I brought from my old flat and left to look at later.
Long-term I’m looking to focus more on replacing larger pieces of furniture but I’m going to try and do a more regular sweep of the things I own and make sure that I don’t end up with a flat full of stuff I don’t need or use.
All of that thanks to a simple purchase of something new.
And yes, this is all very much #firstworldproblems