#647 The Shame-Free Path to Conquering Clutter

by Clutter Free Academy Team | Dec 10, 2024 | Clutter Free, Clutter Free For Life, Clutter Free Home, Clutter Free Podcast, Home, How to, Organizing, Overwhelmed, Parenting, Podcast, Tasks, tips and ideas | 0 comments

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647 – The Shame-Free Path to Conquering Clutter

Hey friends! Have you ever felt so ashamed of your home that you would rather hide than invite anyone over?

In this powerful episode of Clutter Free Academy, hosts Kathi Lipp and Tonya Kubo dive deep into the emotional landscape of clutter, shame, and isolation. They candidly share personal experiences of feeling trapped by household disorganization and the psychological barriers that prevent people from seeking help.

Listeners will discover:

How clutter can lead to social withdrawal
The importance of accountability and community in overcoming organizational challenges
The benefits of joining the supportive, compassionate Clutter Free for Life community

Listeners will find inspiration in their message of self-acceptance and practical strategies for creating functional, livable spaces and transforming one’s relationship with home organization.

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Join Clutter Free For Life

While Clutter Free for Life comes with a plan of action to keep you moving forward in your decluttering journey day after day, the true magic of this membership program is in the community. It’s a program FOR cluttery people BY cluttery people.

It’s a family of cluttery people who want better for themselves and for you. We all understand the emotional weight of clutter and the physical barriers it causes. Clutter Free for Life members have a team of experts who know what it’s like to feel overwhelmed as their guides. Want to see whether the membership is right for you? Check out our info page Clutter Free For Life.

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Meet Our Guest

Tonya Kubo

Tonya Kubo is the illustrious and fearless leader of Kathi Lipp’s Clutter Free Academy Facebook group and the Clutter Free for Life membership program. A speaker and writer, Tonya makes her home in the heart of California with her husband, Brian, their two spirited daughters, and one very tolerant cat. Visit her at www.tonyakubo.com.

Transcript

Well, hey friends, welcome to clutter free Academy where our goal is to help you take small doable steps to live every day with less clutter and more life And I’m back and you know guys, we’re just gonna keep talking about it. We’re gonna keep talking about clutter. We’re gonna keep talking about all the reasons that we need to crush the clutter in our lives, especially as we’re going into the holidays because can we just, okay, I’m gonna say something controversial. Hey, Tonya, by the way. Hey, Tonya’s here. Can I say holidays are their own form of clutter?

Tonya Kubo (00:42.622)

Bye.

Tonya Kubo (00:49.406)

they totally are.

Kathi (00:51.2)

Yeah, that you know, clutter is not always bad. I right now downstairs, I’ve got some clutter on my table. But the clutter on my table is stuff I want. Or I don’t know if I want it, but I have to investigate like there’s mail down there. One of another podcaster I was on her show, we were talking about soups and we were talking about her favorite soup. And she said, my favorite soup is made with chow chow.

Tonya Kubo (00:57.49)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (01:21.676)

And I’m like, the only thing I know that is chow chow is either dog foods or dogs. So, do you know what chow chow is? How do you know what chow chow is?

Tonya Kubo (01:28.584)

Mm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Church fundraiser cookbooks?

Kathi (01:39.523)

Okay, that is fascinating. So, chow chow, would you explain it because I’ve actually never tasted it. Go for it. Or do you know? I know it’s made with cabbage, right? It’s like a relish with cabbage.

Tonya Kubo (01:56.11)

It’s, I think it’s a relish and people put whatever they want in it. It’s one of those things, it reminds me of, you know, it’s like every family has their own way of doing it, but it’s like canned, it’s home canned. And the people who love it, really, really love it. My mom hated it. My mom was like, ehh.

Kathi (02:17.48)

Mm-hmm. Okay.

Kathi (02:23.128)

So I was having this conversation with another podcaster and she was telling me about her, believe it’s a beef stew recipe that uses chow chow as a main ingredient. And I said, well, that sounds really interesting. She was kind enough to, she went to an Amish store and shipped me two cans of chow chow, or at least that’s what she’s told me. I have not opened the box yet, but I’m gonna go buy the ingredients to make her recipe and.

Tonya Kubo (02:27.016)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (02:31.986)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (02:42.162)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (02:47.517)

Right.

Kathi (02:52.738)

do that. So it’s clutter, because it’s not put away. But also there’s a category of clutter, where there’s no way to put it yet, because I have never had a chow chow section of my pantry before. And I just like saying chow chow. Can you tell?

Tonya Kubo (02:55.676)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (03:07.456)

Right. I know. But remember, our definition of clutter is do you love it? Do you use it? Would you? Could you buy it again? I add the could you part. But for you, you know, it’s like it just needs to find a home.

Kathi (03:13.688)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kathi (03:25.408)

So, so Tonya what this is is Schrodinger’s chow chow because I both want it and don’t know if I want it I both will use it and have never used it And I don’t know that I would buy it again because I’ve never bought it once So it is it is Schrodinger’s chow chow and that’s okay. That’s okay

Tonya Kubo (03:51.55)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (03:52.362)

We don’t need to we don’t need to have a category for everything there has to be some space in your house for the things that you haven’t decided on but I do want to talk about what clutter can do to us because you and I have both lived with hoarders and I would say one of the the worst part about clutter hoarding is the extreme version obviously

Tonya Kubo (04:01.447)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (04:17.662)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (04:20.792)

But even as a young mom, I really struggled with clutter. And I would say it was isolating for me. Like I didn’t want to have people over. I remember thinking, it’s okay to have kids over, but I don’t want to have their parents over until a kid said something about my clutter. And I’m like, well, I don’t want to have anybody over anymore. And I, did you…

Tonya Kubo (04:39.154)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (04:48.61)

Did you also experience that isolation with your clutter?

Tonya Kubo (04:53.116)

Yeah, well, I mean, you referenced it in your book, Clutter Free. And I remember the first time I read that and realizing, right, like I couldn’t have anybody over when I was a kid. I mean, every now and then my mom would make an exception. But, you know, it was always having to balance like, OK, if I let a friend come over, were they going to go to school and talk about how my house looked? Right. And then, you know, I made a conscious decision, especially when the girls were little, that I wasn’t going to let the condition of my house.

Kathi (04:56.492)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (05:13.342)

Right. Yeah, right.

Tonya Kubo (05:23.326)

prevent me from inviting people over. So I would just tell people, I’m not cleaning for you. But I had a similar experience when I was pregnant with Abby. And like I had a potluck, a mops potluck at my house. And this one little girl came up to me and she was like, why is your house so messy? And my friend got offended for me. My friend Justine, who you know, got really offended for me. And she was like,

Kathi (05:49.358)

Bye now, Justine.

Tonya Kubo (05:51.612)

because she works full time. That’s why. she, I remember the little girl, cause she said, you only have one child and my mom has four. Why is your house so messy? My mom keeps our house clean. Which you know she got because her parents were talking about that at home, right?

Kathi (06:06.169)

Kathi (06:10.798)

I want to retroactively punch somebody in that family. Maybe not the child, but somebody.

Tonya Kubo (06:15.836)

Ha ha ha ha ha!

Tonya Kubo (06:20.994)

Right, and so then of course you have my friend Justine Popsin, well because she works full time and your mom doesn’t. Right, which is of course like total mommy-war stuff.

Kathi (06:31.106)

Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (06:33.054)

I just looked at it I said, know what? A clean house is a higher priority for your mom and your dad than it is for me and my husband. That’s all.

Kathi (06:44.494)

Okay, you gave the highly evolved answer. I might have said something like, well, your mommy’s also on antidepressants, which really helps with the… No, I wouldn’t have said that, but I’d want to say that because there’s no shame in being on antidepressants at all. Let’s be super clear. But also, I would want that little girl to be… I would want to punish her.

Tonya Kubo (06:44.572)

End.

Tonya Kubo (07:13.15)

Nah, she didn’t know any better.

Kathi (07:13.334)

Okay, you know what? I take back what I said about the antidepressants because people I love the most in the world are antidepressants. But that would have been my very unevolved response 30 years ago when I had kids and mops. Okay, that’s cute that I think I had kids. Yeah, 30 years ago. Okay, yeah. So I’m sorry. I’m just I’m, I’m, I’m D detangling stuff.

Tonya Kubo (07:30.686)

No.

Tonya Kubo (07:36.296)

I apologize for derailing our conversation about isolation.

Kathi (07:40.366)

You know, I think about it though, because well, okay, I think we just proved something there, or at least I did my unevolved response proves something. What will make me act terribly faster than shame?

Tonya Kubo (07:58.482)

Mm-hmm. yeah, totally. Well, and we have talked about this several times, right? We see that in Clutterfree Academy. I mean, so often, you know, we don’t get a lot of prickly people in there nowadays, right? Because we have such a strong culture and everybody really does want to be kind, but…

Kathi (08:01.923)

Kathi (08:08.47)

Yeah. Yeah.

Kathi (08:14.272)

No. Mm hmm.

Kathi (08:21.027)

Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (08:21.746)

The times that we do get somebody super prickly, it’s because they are so deeply embedded in shame that they can’t see their way out of it. And I feel like, you know, it’s that hurting people hurt. A lot of times they’ll lash out because they want to take the offensive rather than, cause they assume somebody’s going to lash out at them.

Kathi (08:28.941)

Yeah.

Kathi (08:34.902)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (08:39.81)

Yeah.

Kathi (08:44.844)

Yeah, Tonya, have you heard that? Maybe we’ve talked about it on here, the 17 diapers discussion. Have we talked about that? Yeah. And, you know, I think the people who are so hard on the mom who had 17 diapers for her brand newborn, who was doing it all on her own, are the people who either there are two ends of the spectrum. They get their validation from their house being perfect.

Tonya Kubo (08:51.034)

Yes, I think a couple episodes ago.

Tonya Kubo (09:04.883)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (09:14.846)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (09:15.554)

Or I could never live like that, but they’ve got some something else that they would never ever tell another human being. And so like, well, I’m not 17 diapers, so you’re worse than I am. Well, yeah, but you know, you do this other thing that you would never want the world to know about. it’s clutter can be so isolating, you know, and I think

Tonya Kubo (09:29.896)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (09:43.938)

once we get to a certain point, we feel like we can’t ask for help. Like I dug myself into this. I’m going to dig myself out. And we just don’t have a support system. And we get to this place where there’s so much self-criticism. We start to change the chemistry of our brain to believe, can we actually do something about this or not? So we have well articulated the problem. You have also seen my

Tonya Kubo (09:51.036)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (10:13.656)

propensity for rage based on something that was said to Tonya maybe 10 years ago, but here we are. Here we are, friends.

Tonya Kubo (10:20.594)

Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (10:25.786)

Everybody knows what a loyal friend you are though, Kathi, now.

Kathi (10:28.442)

Yeah, I write it done But I want to come back to what are some things that if you’re feeling in that space where you feel like you can’t do anything What are some things that you can actually get done? So we’re gonna take a little break and come right back

Okay, friends, we’re talking about the shame and isolation of clutter. And Tonya and I want to come back and talk to you about that. Because we’ve both been there. We know a lot of people who have been there. And we know that there’s a way out because here, I love that story about the man who falls down in the hole. And a you know this story. And I’m sure most of our listeners do but

Tonya Kubo (11:06.856)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (11:11.97)

You know, a priest walks by and says, I see you’re down in the hole. And he throws a prayer down to him. And then a politician comes by. He says, I see you’re down in the hole. And he throws a law down to him. And then there’s a police officer who comes by and he throws a law about you’re not supposed to be down in the hole. And then finally, a friend comes by and

He jumps in to the hole and the guy in the hole says, why did you do that? Now we’re both stuck in the hole. And the friend who jumped in says, yeah friend, but I know the way out and I can show you. So let’s get out together. like I’ve heard that story for 25 years ever since I first heard it on West Wing and it still gives me chills because I feel like

Tonya Kubo (11:56.36)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (12:10.924)

That is so much of what we do in Clutter-Free Academy and Clutter-Free Life is friend, I’ve been in the hole before, but I actually know the way out. Let’s get out together. And maybe you don’t know your way completely out of the hole. And by the way, Tonya, that person from the Mops group would come to my house today and her daughter would say, why is your house so messy?

Tonya Kubo (12:12.882)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (12:39.264)

And I would say, you know what, my house is perfect for me. Because apparently her mom had different priorities and that is just fine for her family. But my home is happy, my home is clean. And we get to do a lot of wonderful cooking and loving and entertaining and work in our homes. And I’m really, really grateful. And so if that sounds like how you want your home to be.

Tonya Kubo (12:42.333)

Hahaha

Tonya Kubo (12:52.488)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (13:08.18)

If that sounds like how the kind of home you would like your kids or your grandkids to be in, I would love to tell you some things that have happened for us. So first of all, accountability. Tonya, how do you feel like accountability works in our groups?

Tonya Kubo (13:26.192)

Yeah, well, in ClutterFree Academy, right, the accountability piece is really more on the member. We have some members that want to be, you know, they want support and accountability. And so they post their before and after pictures. They ask specifically like, hey, you know what, can somebody check in on me at the end of the day, make sure I did what I said I would do. Whereas in ClutterFree for life, because it’s a paid membership program,

Kathi (13:34.786)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (13:54.608)

and people really are saying, I am going to pay you to boss me around, Tonya Kathi Grace, right? We actually are a little bit more proactive in the accountability. So we’re checking in daily. I am somebody who pays attention if somebody who has been active is quiet and I reach out to them. And usually, I mean, like I’m not like calling them or showing up at their house, okay? I’m not over the top, but I’ll tag them in a post in the group.

Kathi (13:59.778)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kathi (14:12.812)

Mmm. Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (14:23.486)

I might drop them an email just to see. Because the thing is, is I know life gets in the way of our best intentions all the time. And what I know is that once you fall out of that routine, sometimes, like for me, all I need to do is skip two days and it’s no longer my routine. It’s no longer a habit. Like that’s how fragile my habits are. And so I know that on day three, it’s very easy to say, well, you know what? I messed up. I’m out for the whole month.

Kathi (14:31.63)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kathi (14:52.332)

Right. If it’s not perfect, then I’m not going to get the rewards of somebody who’s perfect. So I’m out of here.

Tonya Kubo (14:52.999)

Right?

Tonya Kubo (14:58.982)

Yeah, or you know what? I have let Tonya and Kathi down. I get apology emails left and right. I am so sorry, Tonya, but this happened and that happened and you know what? I’m like, I get it because I felt that way too. And I’m always like, please pick up wherever you left off, just pick it up. We’re here for you. Is there something I can immediately help you with? And I’ll tag them in that post or that coaching session. Because that’s the other thing is,

Kathi (15:17.101)

Yeah.

Yes.

Tonya Kubo (15:28.062)

Our weekly coaching sessions, as much as they are designed to help people with the next step, they’re a great place for people to come and discuss what’s hard and get peer-to-peer support in addition to support from our team.

Kathi (15:39.074)

Yeah.

Kathi (15:43.758)

Yes, and I love the accountability. It keeps me on track because it’s so easy for life to crowd out things in another way. But the accountability says, no, Kathi, you’ve said that this is important to you. We’re just reminding ourselves of what’s important and that’s what we need. So there’s power and accountability being able and I think part of the accountability for me is to say I’m not the worst person in the world.

Tonya Kubo (15:52.819)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (16:00.538)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (16:14.297)

yeah.

Kathi (16:14.316)

that I don’t have the worst house in the world. And another part, and I know you’ll get this Tonya, and I think our listeners will too, cleaning out that drawer in my bathroom that has been bugging me for so long and has made me feel gross. If I shared that with my family, they might say, well, that’s what you’re supposed to do. But if I share it with,

Tonya Kubo (16:17.34)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (16:24.04)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (16:33.555)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (16:41.435)

Right.

Kathi (16:43.776)

My clutter free group. They’re going to say no we get this that’s important. That’s big And getting that, you know sharing strategies getting that support Is so crucial, but I think the number one thing for me is saying You don’t need to live in shame I have been there or I am there and you know, the only shameful thing is to give up and I don’t even want to shame people who are giving up because

But the only thing that should be like, I need to change this desperately right now is giving up. Because you’ve said that this is important to you and you wanna live a different way and we wanna be there to help you. And the longer I do this, Tonya, the more I see our clutter-free group being like any other recovery group, like an AA meeting or an NA meeting or.

Tonya Kubo (17:25.502)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (17:38.322)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (17:42.358)

You know a whatever whatever kind of meeting you can think of way that Yeah, you can do it on your own, but why make it a thousand times harder?

You know, because be around people who not only support your recovery, but understand the challenges you’re having in that recovery.

Tonya Kubo (18:03.386)

Yeah, well, people having ideas that you haven’t thought of. mean, this is something that has come up quite a bit in the paid membership program is a shoe or buying a shoe organizer to organize unmentionables in a way that they hang on the back of a door in a house that doesn’t have a lot of space. Right.

Kathi (18:19.47)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (18:27.138)

Yeah, interesting.

Tonya Kubo (18:28.796)

I mean, it’s fascinating actually, the different things you can put in a shoe organizer. But some of us are like, well, it says shoe organizer, so we only think of using that for shoes. And then somebody else says, this is what I do. And you go, I can’t even visualize that. And then they say, well, I’ll just post a picture. And then you’re like, wow.

Kathi (18:33.667)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (18:39.512)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (18:50.006)

Yeah. Okay. You know why I love that so much, Tonya? my goodness. Do you know why I love that? Because the things online are only the aesthetically pleasing things because you want to be able to go to your drawer and see all the little compartments and you want to get that high from it being overly organized and color coordinated. And you know, there are organizing systems out there that, you know, you, you put things from yellow to purple.

Tonya Kubo (19:01.32)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (19:19.772)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (19:20.026)

And that’s the only way you’re and it makes me crazy because our houses are not set up like that I don’t have a walk-in closet My closet is a walkout closet, know, and I do have a shoe organizer in there But can I tell you my shoe organizing system? Do you want to hear how awesome this? Okay So every night when I’m getting into bed and I’m changing into my clothes, I kick my shoes into the bottom

Tonya Kubo (19:27.773)

Right.

Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (19:39.366)

I do, I wanna hear it.

Kathi (19:49.39)

the closet in a jumble and then on Saturdays I put them away so You usually have five to six pairs of shoes on the bottom of the closet For about a week and then I put them away so I can find them again But you know what it works for me. Yeah, am I am I ready to get photographed for House Beautiful? I am NOT and if they came here, I’d break their camera, but it

Tonya Kubo (19:51.07)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (20:13.852)

Right.

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (20:17.792)

My life is so much better than my shoes being all over the house every day tripping over them. It’s, it’s, do I want to be perfect or do I want to be sustainable? I want to be sustainable.

Tonya Kubo (20:30.46)

Yeah, no, exactly. mean, and I’m somebody, I only like alternate between two pairs of shoes usually. I tuck them underneath the bed, right? Because I get dressed in the dark because I get up hours before Brian does. So I just, there’s one little spot underneath the bed. That’s where my shoes live. I put them on, I’m good to go. And I think that’s the other thing that, so there is a time for aesthetics. There really is.

Kathi (20:36.824)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (20:40.366)

Perfect. Yeah.

Kathi (20:45.836)

Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (21:00.892)

But most of us now is not that time, right? Now is the time to minimize, like get as much out of there and to make our houses functional. So, you know, like for us right now, like socks are such a battle when you have kids and it was fine when their feet were not as big as mine. Now that our feet are all the same size.

Kathi (21:12.782)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (21:18.638)

Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (21:27.774)

It’s a problem. So we have two of those fabric cubes and all the socks go in there and we don’t match them. We don’t do anything. It is absolutely not a great long-term solution, but I don’t have socks all over the house and I’m not worried about whose socks are in whose drawer.

Kathi (21:44.814)

Okay, can I tell you my ultimate sock solution that I did when I had teenagers? I don’t know if this will work for you, but my girls would keep stealing my socks. I had black no-show socks. So what I did was I ordered a dozen Barney socks and.

Tonya Kubo (21:48.59)

I’ll take it. I will take it.

Kathi (22:11.726)

they were never touched by my teenage girls.

Tonya Kubo (22:15.423)

that’s funny.

Kathi (22:16.972)

Because I was so sick of, I literally did not have socks. And I’m like, I, go ahead.

Tonya Kubo (22:21.478)

Right. Well, I was going to say, yeah, I don’t have socks, but it’s not the girl’s fault. Remember, Brian does the laundry and Brian has an organization system that is called Mine Not Mine.

Kathi (22:29.326)

Right?

Tonya Kubo (22:36.922)

And if it is not his, then it goes all in the same pile. Right? And so the girls and I, was like their underwear in my drawer, my underwear in their drawer. And I would always like hold up their underwear. like, what part of you thinks this is my size? And that’s when he explained, he’s like, Tonya, it’s a simple system. It’s mine and not mine. And if it’s not mine, I just kind of assume maybe it’s yours.

Kathi (22:43.01)

Yes.

Kathi (22:47.726)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (22:53.366)

Right, right, right, right.

Kathi (23:05.302)

Okay, thank you, Brian, for doing laundry. Grateful.

Tonya Kubo (23:06.59)

Exactly. I am grateful for the laundry and now we have this weird commingled sock thing, but it works for now. once, Lily and I have been talking about this, it’s like, okay, once our frustration level gets to the point that we are ready to solve it on our own, we will do that. Until then we do not complain and we tolerate the solution that dad has come up

Kathi (23:25.708)

Right. Right.

Yes, Barney the Dinosaur, just keep that in your back pocket.

Tonya Kubo (23:34.928)

I might actually, that’s tempting.

Kathi (23:39.138)

Yeah, just make your stuff so undesirable that nobody else in the house will touch it. Yeah. Okay. So Tonya, this is literally the last day of our sale.

Tonya Kubo (23:44.872)

Right.

Tonya Kubo (23:51.794)

Right, well, we haven’t even talked about the clutter free for life sale!

Kathi (23:54.646)

So here’s why I’m gonna ask you if people are feeling isolated, what is our last ditch effort to say one, you’re the person who might benefit from this and two, what it’s gonna change for you.

Tonya Kubo (24:09.05)

I mean, it’s clutter free for life, right? So I guess here’s the thing is if you were looking for your house to be Pinterest perfect in 30 days, this is not the program for you. This is for the person who says it’s going to take time. It’s going to take effort. It’s a day to day thing that I’m going to have to work on. I’m going to slip. I’m going to fall. I might not even like look at the program materials for three months time. I may not. But when I’m ready,

Kathi (24:12.045)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (24:39.354)

I will have this whole community of people who are waiting for me and are happy to help me pick back up. Then Clutter Free for Life is 100 % for you. You can do our annual pass right now. It’s over 60 % off of regular price. Month to month is totally an option as well. But right now the annual pass is just 118 for a whole year. That’s what, like nine bucks? You do the math way better than I do, Kathi. It’s like nine bucks a month.

Kathi (25:04.098)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (25:07.958)

And it’s worth trying out and giving it a go. And if it’s not for you, then you’ll know in the first 30 days, I think. Because we’re pretty laid back and sometimes we’re just too laid back for people. I get that. But I really think you just… They do. People do come in really expecting me to be mean. And I’m just like, I don’t have it in me. I’m sorry.

Kathi (25:16.482)

Yeah, for sure.

Kathi (25:21.696)

Yeah, no, they want us to be meaner to them.

Kathi (25:30.732)

No, that’s not what we do here. We’re nice and Right

Tonya Kubo (25:34.106)

I have a lot of compassion and I think my compassion, I actually had somebody last January who was like, no, like I don’t deserve compassion. And I was like, yeah, you do. And they were telling me, they’re like, you don’t understand. And they were telling me like how lazy they were and all these things. And I said, wow, you have really high expectations of yourself. And they were like, well, yeah. And I said, and how’s that working? And they just kind of stopped. And I said, you know, like,

Kathi (25:46.04)

We all deserve compassion.

Tonya Kubo (26:04.07)

I can’t say the word right now. Recrimination, self-recrimination has, like it sounds like you have a history of that and it hasn’t been effective. So what if we tried compassion?

Kathi (26:06.636)

Yeah, yeah.

Kathi (26:14.092)

Yeah, yeah, because if you’re going to keep doing the same thing you’ve always been doing and it hasn’t worked And here’s the thing I come from a generation I come from generations of people who wanted to shame themselves into better behavior And it just it doesn’t work. Okay friends today’s the last day, but here’s the beautiful thing if it doesn’t work for you 30-day guarantee what if you got to lose and I think

Tonya Kubo (26:28.882)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kathi (26:43.488)

If you stick with it, you’re gonna see results. You may not feel like you see results in the first week, but within the first two weeks, you’re gonna start to see some noticeable results in your life. And we wanna be there to cheer you on. So I’m putting the link down there. It’s normally 299. You can join any time of the year for 299. But if you wanna get the super, because we like to onboard everybody at once. It saves our team a lot of time and a lot of energy.

Tonya Kubo (26:55.166)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (27:10.79)

Yep.

Kathi (27:13.006)

118 and That’s It’s less than $10 a month To know that you’re on the right track Tonya. Thanks for hanging out with me Okay, and friends, thank you for hanging out you’ve been listening to clutter free Academy. I’m Kathi lip now Go start the clutter free life. You’ve always wanted to live

Tonya Kubo (27:21.63)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (27:26.44)

Thanks for having me.

#646 Why Your House Won’t Stay Clean: Breaking Free from the Clutter Cycle

#645 Reclaiming Your Space: Your First Steps to a Clutter-Free Life

#644 Meet the TikTok Star Making Saving Money on Food Cool Again

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#646 Why Your House Won’t Stay Clean: Breaking Free from the Clutter Cycle

by Clutter Free Academy Team | Dec 3, 2024 | Clutter Free, Clutter Free For Life, Clutter Free Home, Clutter Free Podcast, Home, How to, Organizing, Overwhelmed, Parenting, Podcast, Tasks, tips and ideas | 0 comments

Listen Now

646 – Why Your House Won’t Stay Clean: Breaking Free from the Clutter Cycle

Hey there, friend! You know that feeling when you’ve spent an entire weekend decluttering, only to find your house looking exactly the same three weeks later?

You are definitely not alone!

In this enlightening episode of Clutter Free Academy, Kathi Lipp and Tonya Kubo tackle the persistent challenge of the clutter cycle. They explore why homes seem to accumulate clutter despite repeated decluttering efforts and offer practical solutions for creating lasting change.

Listeners will discover:

The value of setting realistic goals with a maximum of three priorities per day
Ways to help children develop organizational skills without creating tension
The importance of understanding different organizational styles within the family
Why small, consistent actions lead to lasting change

The hosts share personal experiences with generational clutter patterns and discuss how different organizational styles within families can impact home management.

Click here to be notified when the next podcast episode is released!

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What’s your advice for someone who feels overwhelmed by generational clutter patterns?

Share in the comments!

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Meet Our Guest

Tonya Kubo

Transcript

Well, hey friends, welcome to Clutter-Free Academy, where our goal is to help you take small, doable steps to live every day with less clutter and more life. And I am back with your Clutter Crusader. It is Tonya Kubo. Hey, Tonya. So today, I think this is such an interesting topic that we’re gonna be talking about today, is the clutter cycle.

Tonya Kubo (00:49.324)

Hey Kathi.

Kathi (00:59.717)

And there are lots of ways that we can be talking about the clutter cycle. You and I have both had cycles in our family that were clutter. I mean, I remember, I don’t know, did you know your grandparents? You did? Okay, were they cluttery people?

Tonya Kubo (01:17.426)

so my grandmother died before I was born, but my grandfather, he was disabled. like, he didn’t, like he, we lived with him. So it can’t really say whether he was cluddery or not.

Kathi (01:27.337)

Kathi (01:30.863)

Got it. Okay, because your mom who was a hoarder could have been the one who was bringing the clutter in. Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (01:39.328)

Yeah, I mean, so what I know is that my grandmother was very, very particular about how clean the house was. And there was a 100 % right way to do things and then everything else was wrong.

Kathi (01:48.133)

Mmm.

Kathi (01:52.655)

Got it. Isn’t that interesting? So on my mom’s side, like my mom would get in trouble if she didn’t clean up all the little pieces of paper from the paper dolls, or if she left the scissors out. And on my dad’s side, I just remember chaos. Like, you know, my grandfather was a house painter after his sports career, and my grandmother was an artist.

Tonya Kubo (02:06.317)

Mmm.

Tonya Kubo (02:11.63)

Mm.

Kathi (02:21.569)

And I just remember there was always stuff around, like just stuff. But it didn’t feel cluttered to me. It just felt full. I don’t know, you know, a perspective of little kids. So there’s those kind of cycles. But then there’s also the cycle of just the overwhelm of our own house’s clutter. And I think that there is that feeling of overwhelm. And I don’t know where to start.

Tonya Kubo (02:27.288)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (02:31.117)

Yeah.

Kathi (02:51.333)

which is the internalized criticism. But then there’s also, if you live with other human beings, the frustration of, is it all up to me? Should it all be up to me? Why is this my problem and not the household problem? I think that you and I have felt that at different times, probably with our kids, but

I also have to defend other people in my family saying, you know, it’s a kid’s job to be cluttery. Like that’s part of their role. And so it’s for me, it’s always been more of a partner thing than it has been a parenting thing. How about for you?

Tonya Kubo (03:27.832)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (03:35.146)

Mm-hmm. Well, think, yeah, that’s the same. I just, I’m not bothered like other people are bothered by it because I just understand the nature of clutter is that it’s a cycle. And I think other people, and I mean, we see this all the time in the Facebook group, especially when people come in brand new, there is this skewed perspective.

Kathi (03:46.341)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (03:50.213)

Yeah, yeah.

Tonya Kubo (04:01.974)

that if I just get the house decluttered, then it’ll stay that way without me having to do anything extra. And I understand that it’s just an ebb and a flow.

Kathi (04:05.711)

Mm-hmm.

Right. Right. Yes.

Yeah, because we all love that high right after something’s been decluttered, right? Where we know where the scissors are, we can open that box and what it says on the outside of the box is on the inside of the box. And it feels so good. And then, but I think lots of times those decluttering, let’s just say binges where we binge declutter, we are relying

Tonya Kubo (04:39.308)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (04:44.011)

less on systems and more on memory. Like I just put this thing there last Tuesday, so it’s probably still there. I just put the scissors there last Wednesday, so they’re probably still there. And so we have less of a system and more of a, I just put it there. And then as other people start to get involved in the binge, that’s when it tends to fall apart.

And I know I will admit, I have been the person who says, why can’t you just put it back where it belongs? And they’re like, well, where would that be? Because I wonder if this is part of the cluttering profile, because I’m always trying to improve systems. Because I’m kind of equal creative and executing.

Tonya Kubo (05:34.446)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (05:41.57)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (05:42.669)

So I’m always trying to think of could we do this better? Could we do this better? Instead of, you know, pouring into deep systems, I’m just trying to always improve the system. So what was true last week is no longer true. Do you feel like that about yourself? Not at all. Do tell.

Tonya Kubo (05:51.48)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (06:00.302)

Right. Not at all. No. I never, I will never rearrange my furniture. I am the person who moved into a house that had pictures on the walls and I never removed them.

Kathi (06:14.607)

Shut up.

Tonya Kubo (06:16.782)

Just don’t care. Like, it’s just, can I live here? Sure. Can I live with this? Fine. I like, I have zero desire for decoration and it falls into my clothing too. You and me talk about clothing all the time. You know, some people are like, Tonya, you’re so good. You know, you just, you’re so into what your purpose here is in the world that you don’t care about styles or trends. And I’m like, no, it’s not cause I’m a better human. It’s cause quite honestly, I don’t have the energy for

Kathi (06:29.123)

Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (06:46.892)

Like, I do not feel like I haven’t like ascended to some special like, I don’t need to care about my appearance. I still have the energy. It’s like it has nothing to do with that, but sure.

Kathi (06:56.401)

Tonya, you’re just so much closer to Jesus than the rest of us.

someday I will be like Tonya. By the way, you look fabulous today. Your glasses are so on point. I love them so much. you know, I also know, yeah, so I do try and I’m not always good about updating the decor. I will say a lot of things that we when we bought this house, they had some really cute stuff that they left behind and it’s still in the same spot.

Tonya Kubo (07:06.318)

No!

Tonya Kubo (07:10.318)

Thanks.

Tonya Kubo (07:28.814)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kathi (07:32.513)

Then we have people like to kneel in our lives who come to our house and say, can I just rearrange everything? And I’m like, sure, I don’t care.

Tonya Kubo (07:36.099)

Yeah

After, after to Neil and I visited your house, was like to Neil, can never come to my house. Cause like I like, no, no, you can, you cannot do those things. But you know, and I say this, you know, for our listener, because I do know that some of them kind of trend more toward where I’m at. You know, we had a situation where like where we kept our leftover containers, right? Some people call those tougher wear reusable containers, whatever you call them. We kept them in one like.

Kathi (08:04.133)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (08:06.636)

when we moved into the house, it was like, yeah, that seems like a good place to put things. So we put them there. We knew for years it was not really functional. were all these problems with it. It took me a year of thinking before I could come up with another place to put it. It’s just, it’s really hard for me to shift. I’m not a good systems creator. I’m a good systems assimilator. Right? So I can ass…

Kathi (08:28.785)

that’s good. That’s a real skill though.

Tonya Kubo (08:31.606)

I can assimilate into just about anybody’s system, but to create one from scratch is hard. So no, I’m never thinking of ways to improve the process.

Kathi (08:40.133)

See I am the good creator, but not the good assimilator like even into my own systems But I am let me just say this a good systems Bullpucky detector When I you know, I just saw an article yesterday dollar store solutions For your storage needs and they were talking about like the Tupperware stuff

Tonya Kubo (08:45.168)

Tonya Kubo (09:05.486)

Ugh.

Kathi (09:07.741)

And they were saying, you should put all of your small storage containers and lids in lingerie bag. And I say, I call a bullpucky on that. No, that would, it’ll make you feel good for a moment, but it will not, it will not make your life better. So here’s what Tonya and I are gonna do. We’re gonna go pay some bills and when you come back, we have fully explored the problem.

Now we’re gonna come up with some solutions to breaking that clutter cycle. So stick with us and we’ll be right back. Okay, Tonya and I are back. we wanna talk about how can you break those clutter cycles. I would love to say for once and for all, this is like those Buzzfeed articles that say,

Stop your snacking once and for all. There’s no stopping your snacking once and for all, but I can give you, Tonya can give you some ideas of how you can interrupt those cycles so that you’re constantly getting better. Because here’s what I’ll say, Tonya, I don’t feel like there has ever been one trick, one solution, anything that has changed my life, but it’s been a lot of small decisions reinforced day over day over day that have

taken me from cluttery to come onto my house. You know, like I feel like that that is the evolution. So the first thing is no overhauls, right? No overhauls. I give you permission from the Lord of Decluttering on High to do 15 minute sessions.

Tonya Kubo (10:35.042)

Nice, yeah.

Tonya Kubo (10:44.566)

Hmm.

Kathi (10:58.213)

If you have set aside time I give you permission to do up to an hour of decluttering if you’re gonna be going deep on a project because I understand if you’re trying to Declutter a kitchen cabinet It could take 15 minutes. It could take 45 minutes and you don’t want to just do that in 15 minute segments. So Giving yourself focus on 15 minutes

Tonya Kubo (11:18.894)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (11:27.959)

and give yourself permission once at the maximum twice a week, unless you’re moving or something, for an hour session. Tonya, how does this look in your household?

Tonya Kubo (11:40.59)

Well, for us, you know, I think we run kind of like a lot of families with small kids. you know, Monday through Friday is really about survival. And then the weekends are where you try to get things reset. So I do like when we’re not and we have tons of activities. So when we don’t have a ton of activities or if we have at least one down day, I have everybody work on their space, their individual space for an hour.

Kathi (11:49.849)

Yeah.

Kathi (11:53.483)

Mm-hmm, yeah.

Kathi (12:09.637)

Mmm.

Tonya Kubo (12:09.942)

Right? So that can be the girls working on their room together for an hour. Sometimes actually I have to put one girl in there all by herself for an hour and then move that girl out and put another girl in because they don’t have the same systems. But that’s what we do. And then in terms of the day to day decluttering, that is all on me. Like there is nobody else in this house that’s going to set aside 15 minutes a day unless we’re in middle of a challenge of some sort to focus on decluttering.

Kathi (12:17.369)

Yeah. Right. Yes.

Kathi (12:27.886)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (12:34.529)

Yeah. So Brian is in charge of things like laundry and stuff like that, right? And so you’re more of the decluttering diva in the household. Okay, no, that totally makes sense. You both are contributing in ways that make sense to you and feel right to you. And I love that. Okay. So breaking those tasks into manageable, manageable chunks. So

Tonya Kubo (12:41.454)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (12:46.541)

Yeah.

Kathi (13:03.833)

Tell me how do you guide your girls through making it manageable to get rid of stuff?

Tonya Kubo (13:11.96)

Well, so for us, it’s never not a conversation. We talk about it in some way every single day. So it can be going through the backpacks, right? So, you know, both of my girls are neurodivergent. There’s just a lot about how their backpacks look that kind of fits both of their archetypes. And so going through and just saying, you know, it’s so much easier to throw away one piece of paper or to go through the pencils and toss the one broken pencil.

Kathi (13:20.323)

Hmm.

Kathi (13:24.922)

Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (13:42.426)

each day than it is to have to like go through that backpack at the on Friday and go through 10 crunched up pieces of paper or whatever else is in the bottom of the backpack, right? So that’s part of it is just reinforcing that if we do a little touch every single day, it’s so much easier than if we save it all up to the end of the week.

Kathi (13:52.644)

Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (14:04.93)

But then it’s also when they make some headway is giving them reminders. So like with Abby, you know, we’ve just gotten her started where she puts away her own clothes. And it’s like, you know, Abby, if you put it, if you put undies in this drawer and shirts in this drawer and pants in this drawer, it’s so much easier to get dressed in the morning than if you want to shove everything in one drawer. Because that’s really what she wants to do, because she doesn’t actually want to put her stuff away. So she just wants to shove it all together, right? It is.

Kathi (14:24.239)

Mm-hmm.

I don’t blame her. It’s the worst part of laundry. It is the worst part of laundry. Yes.

Tonya Kubo (14:33.366)

I will give you that. It is the worst part of laundry. So those are some things we do and just talk about like see how easy this makes our life isn’t this much easier than it was before.

Kathi (14:42.989)

Isn’t it so interesting that as kids, we buck those systems so much, but as adults, the thing I hear about decluttering so much is I need accountability. I need somebody to be in this with me. And we see what we needed as children. I think the difference is that you really know your girls’ types, and you’re able to say what works for Lily doesn’t work for Abby and vice versa.

Tonya Kubo (14:54.466)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (15:04.782)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (15:08.846)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (15:10.489)

And maybe we didn’t have a parent that was quite as in tune to that. So that makes a huge difference. OK, also, setting realistic goals. I know that this has been really hard for me. Like my to-do list at the beginning of the week can look like, do you have a crew coming over? Do you have magical elves that are going to help you with some of this stuff? So.

Tonya Kubo (15:30.53)

Yeah.

Kathi (15:38.853)

How do you keep your own goals realistic? And I’m asking this in a holistic sense because you also have a business, have, mean, so how do you keep your goals realistic throughout the day?

Tonya Kubo (15:46.126)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (15:52.686)

Well, so for me, I don’t ever allow myself to have more than three items on a list. Like that’s a hard rule. I remember years ago, you know, how I was introduced into the work world. And I think for some of us who didn’t grow up in environments that were organized, we learned organization and whatever was imposed upon us in our first jobs. And so, you know, I was trained by somebody who had this like running task list, we’d have like 25 items.

Kathi (15:57.743)

Mmm.

Kathi (16:12.419)

Right, yes, absolutely.

Tonya Kubo (16:20.812)

and they would just add stuff to the bottom and cross off from the top and then it would just roll over to the next day. So they were always making a new list every day and that would have stuff carried over. And I think that it just, it’s not helpful. It’s not helpful to have a list of 10 items. It’s like, okay, before my head hits the pillow, there are three things I have to get done today. What would those three things be? And there’s some days like today’s a day, for instance, I started with meetings at 4.30. I have not had more than a 30 minute break.

Kathi (16:34.351)

Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (16:49.824)

and I won’t get a break until six o’clock tonight, right? So that’s gonna be my day. So when I woke up this morning, I had my three priorities that I wrote last night. And it’s like, okay, now that I look at my calendar and I recognize that I am a human who hopes to at some point eat some food, it’s just one thing. What’s the one thing that I have to get done the day before my head hits the pillow? And then that’s how I said it. And I’ve learned to be okay with that. I think that’s the other thing is you have to not be

Kathi (16:53.713)

my word.

Kathi (17:06.937)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (17:12.591)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (17:20.47)

You have to not let yourself get into the place where you’re feeling guilty for not having more things on your list.

Kathi (17:25.327)

Right, because if only I were superhuman. And it’s like, well, that’s such a ridiculous statement, but for some reason, we don’t expect that of other people, but we expect of ourselves. And that’s something we need to combat. And that I know that when you have challenges, you have a family reward system. Talk a little bit about that.

Tonya Kubo (17:29.421)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (17:35.114)

Mm-hmm. Exactly.

Tonya Kubo (17:48.736)

I do. So when we do like, for instance, we’ve got 30 day 1K coming up, which is like my favorite time ever as of recording. So we have a tracking sheet. There’s four of us. So it’s very easy to find a pack of highlighters that has four colors in it. And everybody gets to mark theirs off. And then our reward system is the winner. In this case, it’s whoever declares more items. The winner gets to pick the prize.

for everybody, right? And sometimes I pick it just because, you know, one year it was like, well we should go to Disneyland for this. No, you’re not going to Disneyland because you declared 200 items. Sorry, it takes more than that. But, you know, being able to say, okay, we’re gonna have a family movie night. That’s the prize. And the winner picks the movie or the winner picks the snacks for family movie night. That’s a big one. Like the girls really love to pick the snacks for family movie night.

Kathi (18:29.615)

Right.

Kathi (18:45.887)

Okay, yeah, okay, so I just have to ask what are some favorite snacks?

Tonya Kubo (18:50.286)

Abby is all about popcorn, popcorn chips. She likes the salty stuff. Lily just wants chocolate. If Lily can have a buffet of chocolate, maybe a little gelato tub, that would make her very happy. She likes a charcuterie. She’s a big fan of a charcuterie too. Yes, yes.

Kathi (18:52.739)

Yeah. Yeah.

Kathi (19:00.387)

Kathi (19:03.883)

Okay. Yes. see, I love all these ideas. This is amazing. Yes. Yeah, they do not have cheap taste. They get that from their father and their mom in some in some regards. Yeah, you know, for us, you know, I think this is an adult thing. Like if I declutter, I can go to bed early and be in a decluttered room and moose and I can snuggle.

Tonya Kubo (19:09.984)

My kids are bougie though. They just are.

Tonya Kubo (19:15.434)

No. Right.

Kathi (19:32.675)

and it’s the best thing ever. And so that makes me super happy. Like that gives me joy, joy, joy down in my heart. And so I love that. I love that idea about that. Okay. So guys, if this is sounding appealing to you, if you need a little bit of accountability, you want to know more, you know, feel.

Tonya Kubo (19:34.132)

Yup.

Kathi (19:57.411)

like you’re being rewarded for this, but you also just know that part of the reward is living in a clutter-free house. If you are willing to get rid of some of that stuff in your house permanently, so you never have to revisit it again, I just wonder if Clutter-free for life might be for you. is, Tonya, tell them a little bit about Clutter-Free for life and how they’ll know if it’s for them.

Tonya Kubo (20:26.668)

Yeah, so, my gosh, I love Clutter-Free For Life as anybody who listens to this show should know by now. So, you Clutter-Free For Life is for the person who is like, you know, enough is enough. Like I’ve tried to do this on my own and it hasn’t been successful for me because I believe that we do have people in Clutter-Free Free For Life who genuinely would succeed with the membership or without it. They just…

Kathi (20:29.589)

I know, I do too. Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (20:52.914)

know that they are happier in the process by having community around them. But, you know, for most of us, and I’m thinking of me, I’m thinking of Grace Church who’s over there, if you’ve tried it by yourself and you haven’t been successful and you’re like, you know, there’s just something like I can get it to a place, but I can’t get it beyond that, or I can’t keep it that way, Clutter-Free for Life is designed specifically for that. It’s designed for the person who needs a little extra support.

Kathi (20:55.833)

Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (21:20.236)

Maybe the person who doesn’t have anybody in their life who understands how hard it is to actually release clutter and to keep things decluttered and they want somebody or would like to have somebody who shares those small wins like, hey, I just decluttered this one drawer. Clutter-free for life is perfect for that person in addition to those people who actually need a plan. And our plans are flexible. They work no matter how big or how small your house is.

They work if you live with other people or if you have your own space, you can rent, can own. We’ve made it a very flexible plan, but it is something, at least you wake up that day knowing what part of the house to focus on and what to do when you’re there.

Kathi (22:05.269)

And we see such huge success stories over in Clutter-Free for Life. It’s inspiring.

Tonya Kubo (22:10.858)

We do. And you know what, what’s funny is what some, each person when they say is like, this is what changed everything for me. It’s always different. You know, for some it’s the weekly coaching session. And it’s not because we like boss them around, right? But it’s because they get to show up. They get to look around and go, Hey, I’m not the only one who struggles. There’s, know, 10 people on this call, 20 people on this call who have the same struggle. We talk through.

Kathi (22:21.54)

Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (22:38.412)

like what works for us. Like I just got a great tip from somebody last week during a coaching session that’s totally changed our kitchen. And it was, my gosh. So shout out to Natasha, who’s in Clutter-Free for Life. We were talking about like ways to organize small spaces like bathrooms and stuff where you don’t have closets. And the idea came up, the little shoe boxes like the Sterilite plastic shoe boxes with the lid are a great way if you…

Kathi (22:46.031)

Do tell! You have to tell!

Kathi (22:51.019)

I love Natasha. Yeah.

Kathi (23:03.471)

Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (23:06.4)

if you have things that are just like lots of odds and ends that get lost in a drawer, well, what it made me think of is like, I have appliances that have lots of pieces. So think of like your food processor has all those things that come with it and you’re always looking for a random piece. So I was like, what if we got these shoe boxes and I put all my meat grinder attachments in one and I put all my food processor things in another and we have our sushi-making stuff in another.

Kathi (23:17.219)

Yeah, right.

Kathi (23:28.495)

Yeah, yeah.

Tonya Kubo (23:35.038)

And it all stacks beautifully all modularly in a little cupboard. But I’m not having to dig through drawers and go, well, this is kind of an odd shape. So it goes here and this is really tiny. So it goes there. And Brian was super excited, right? Because Brian was just like, my gosh, now I just have to pull out that one little box and everything I need is going to be in.

Kathi (23:50.277)

It’s amazing.

Kathi (23:57.943)

It’s you know, I have that kind of system, but it’s under my stairs in the Harry Potter closet where Yes, where you just have these these tubs that pull out and all my quazen art stuff is there and yeah It’s such a good idea. Yes, absolutely Well guys, you know the thing I love the most about clutter-free for life is we’re supporting people not just in their decluttering but that decluttering

Tonya Kubo (24:03.456)

I love the Harry Potter closet though.

Tonya Kubo (24:08.396)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (24:11.991)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (24:26.797)

is the undergirding to so much more in their lives. It’s the undergirding to buying less because you can find stuff in your closet. It’s the undergirding to paying your bills on time. It’s the undergirding to cooking more because your kitchen is not in chaos. And we have a sale going on right now that this runs through December 10th.

Tonya Kubo (24:30.136)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (24:43.48)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (24:54.981)

Clutter-Free for life is 2.99 a year, but if you buy it on this sale for, know, before December 10th, you can get it for $118. It’s a huge discount because we love to have everybody kind of come in at the same time. It saves us a lot of time and energy and that’s how we support it. And we would love to have you join us today.

You can go to the link in these show notes or if you just go to Kathi Lipp’s Clutterfree Academy, know, look over there. We’re going to have all sorts of information about it over there. So, and if you have questions, feel free to ask us questions over there because we would love to be able to support you in that. Tonya, what’s one thing you would like to encourage people with if they’re kind of on the fence about this?

Tonya Kubo (25:32.685)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (25:47.086)

if they’re on the fence, they just need to reach out to me. Seriously, just talk to me. I would say, you know, my email address is tonya@kathilipp.org. They can get information @kathi.link/CFL. But honestly, let’s just have a conversation. What I love about our community is we’ve got members. I mean, they’ll tell you like what they love. They’ll tell you what was hard for them when they started. They’ll tell you why they stay.

Kathi (25:50.147)

Okay.

Kathi (26:02.297)

Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (26:16.766)

We’re very honest because the truth is it doesn’t benefit us if it’s not a good fit for you either So we just want to see you. I mean, I would love to have you try it We do a 30-day guarantee. So we’ll give you your money back within 30 days if it’s not for you, but if You’re looking around and you’re like I want to live differently and I just don’t quite know how to do that day-to-day I really would encourage you to check us out.

Kathi (26:22.584)

It’s so true.

Tonya Kubo

Thanks for having me.

Kathi (26:41.925)

Tonya, thanks so much. And friends, thank you for being here. You’ve been listening to Clutter-Free Academy. I’m Kathi Lipp. Now, go create the clutter-free life you’ve always wanted to live.

#646 Why Your House Won’t Stay Clean: Breaking Free from the Clutter Cycle

#645 Reclaiming Your Space: Your First Steps to a Clutter-Free Life

#644 Meet the TikTok Star Making Saving Money on Food Cool Again

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#645 Reclaiming Your Space: Your First Steps to a Clutter-Free Life

by Clutter Free Academy Team | Nov 26, 2024 | Clutter Free, Clutter Free For Life, Clutter Free Home, Clutter Free Podcast, Home, Mental Load, Podcast | 0 comments

Listen Now

645 – Reclaiming Your Space: Your First Steps to a Clutter-Free Life

Hey there, friends! Have you ever struggled with an overwhelming burden of household clutter?

There is hope!

In this episode of the Clutter Free Academy podcast, hosts Kathi Lipp and Tonya Kubo dive deep into the challenges of managing household clutter and offer practical solutions to help listeners reclaim their spaces and find peace. They discuss the emotional toll that clutter can take. They share personal stories of their own clutter battles, including Tonya’s experience of renting dumpsters multiple times per year to clear out excess items.

Listeners will discover:

Research that shows cluttered homes can contribute to chronic stress and depression in mothers.
The importance of “pre-deciding”
How to create clutter-busting routines
The difference between their free Clutter Free Academy community and the more intensive Clutter Free for Life membership

By the end of the episode, listeners will be inspired to take the first steps towards a clutter-free life, whether that means joining the Clutter Free for Life program or simply implementing 15-minute daily decluttering routines.

A big shout out to CF4L member Natasha Berridge for the before and after pics used in the title graphics!

Click here to be notified when the next podcast episode is released!

Also, stay up to date and sign up here to receive our newsletter.

Join Clutter Free For Life

What are some of the biggest triggers that tend to cause clutter build-up in your home?

Share in the comments!

Let’s stay connected

To share your thoughts:

Leave a note in the comment section below.
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Meet Our Guest

Tonya Kubo

Transcript

Kathi (00:01.794)

Well, hey friends, welcome to Clutter Free Academy, where our goal is to help you take small, doable steps to live every day with less clutter and more life. And I am here with my co-clutter warrior, it’s Tonya Kubo. Hey, Tonya.

Tonya Kubo (00:15.794)

Hey, Kathi.

Kathi (00:17.95)

Okay, so this may sound like the basic of basic podcasts, but I think when people get overwhelmed by clutter, we do have to go back to the basics because you know that one of my pet peeves is somebody says, I’m gonna do your clutter program. I’m like, awesome, but I’m also doing Marie Kondo’s and I’m also doing the fly lady, and I’m also doing.

I’m like, please leave me out of this. Because what cluttery people tend to do is we tend to take the easiest part or the most attractive part from each system. Then we don’t understand why. Because let’s be honest, every system has their hard part.

Tonya Kubo (01:00.263)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (01:11.859)

Yes, that is 100 % true.

Kathi (01:15.584)

And so I wanna talk about why you may be completely overwhelmed right now when it comes to clutter. We’re recording this when Halloween is on its way out, Thanksgiving and Christmas are on their way in. I was just at, where was I? I was at Walmart and the amount of real estate that is dedicated to

Tonya Kubo (01:24.083)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (01:45.23)

I shouldn’t be surprised. I shouldn’t be surprised if we start to see Christmas in July.

Tonya Kubo (01:48.177)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (01:53.317)

Yeah, no, I have something to say about that because so we walked into Lowe’s like a week ago and Abby started cackling, and I was like, what? And she’s like, look at that, mom. And they had like an aisle of Halloween decorations. And of course, it’s Lowe’s, so it’s a lot of yard stuff. And it’s facing this whole section of Christmas. And it looks like Halloween is facing off with Christmas because it’s like,

Kathi (02:12.771)

Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (02:22.291)

a blow-up Santa, like an inflatable Santa, opposite an animatronic Grim Reaper. But it didn’t look like, my gosh, it looked like from like Lord of the Rings when they’re like facing off before the big war. And I had to take a picture of it because it was funny. I’ll have to post that to social. But yeah, Abby was just like, this is so funny. It’s like the war for Christmas.

Kathi (02:28.909)

my goodness.

Kathi (02:41.549)

Yeah.

Kathi (02:47.66)

Yeah, and fall is my favorite time of year. And I’m like, let me just enjoy fall. But the Christmas stuff is out. Well, I can’t even imagine what the temperature is where you’re at right now. But it’s still 100 degrees here. Yeah. Yeah, it’s just gross. Okay. But if we start to talk about Christmas and the holidays, there’s some anxiety over that. And you’re like, my house isn’t ready. And you want to do a deep dive.

Tonya Kubo (03:00.711)

yeah, same. Yeah, same.

Tonya Kubo (03:11.091)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (03:16.206)

on all the clutter in your house, but there just doesn’t feel like there’s time. So we’re gonna try a bunch of patch-it solutions. Like, I’m just gonna stick this pile of papers here for now. But I’ll totally remember where it is when I need to dig out that tax bill or whatever it is. And then, you know, we…

Tonya Kubo (03:28.839)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (03:34.064)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (03:38.9)

unearth all these memories, having to apologize for the state of our home, telling people don’t open that closet. For me, a long time, I felt like I had to take people out instead of having them over because my house wasn’t in a state where I could entertain people. But then when I take them out, because it was my idea, I felt like I had to pay. You know, there’s a real financial cost.

Tonya Kubo (03:54.087)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (04:04.327)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (04:08.056)

To clutter. Rebuying things. I don’t know if that’s ever been something you’ve had to do, Tonya, but I can’t find the cupcake liners that I bought two weeks ago, so I need to go buy more Valentine cupcake liners or Christmas.

Tonya Kubo (04:09.501)

Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (04:25.971)

That comes up, actually, that is a very acute common pain point in our Facebook group and Clutterfree Academy. Very common, both from a, I need this thing. I know I bought it. It’s somewhere around here. I can’t find it. I’m trying not to go out and buy it, right? To, holy cow, I thought I bought these things and now I just found where I stashed them.

Kathi (04:33.166)

Hmm

Tonya Kubo (04:54.713)

after I just bought them all over again.

Kathi (04:56.128)

Of course. Yes. I’m the person who will leave little notes for myself on my calendar. Like I leave breadcrumbs to say, this is where this thing is. And I leave, I leave also little hints in September. Do not buy Christmas wrap. You have plenty, Kathi. You know, do not buy tape or ribbons or

Tonya Kubo (05:02.3)

Yeah

Tonya Kubo (05:18.555)

Yes.

Kathi (05:23.35)

The little car like you don’t need any of that stuff. But also I know that one of the things that is the most clutter-producing are events and change. Tonya, you know, I live a pretty clutter-free life. We are not we are not by any means picture-perfect all the time. But this week I’m like, Roger, what has happened to our lives?

Tonya Kubo (05:33.511)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (05:41.213)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (05:50.808)

What has happened to our lives? Why is there so much stuff? Like our house was looking pretty good a week ago and kaboom. And he said, well, remember last week we had nine people living in our house. And I’m like, yeah, but I recovered from that. And he goes, yeah, but you launched a book on Tuesday. Like any time there’s this big event, even though it doesn’t feel like it should be so cluttery.

Tonya Kubo (05:57.203)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (06:03.687)

Right, you had to retreat.

Tonya Kubo (06:09.447)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (06:17.352)

things get left out, things get missed. Anytime that our patterns are interrupted, it’s harder and that is what the holidays are. Yes, so we talk about, know, how anything, have you had any of these things in your household in the past three months? Disaster, we’re recording this right about the time.

Tonya Kubo (06:26.213)

Mm-hmm. That is very true.

Kathi (06:41.588)

as we’ve just had major hurricanes go through a large part of the country. You we’ve had two. One specifically working its way through Florida right now. Sickness, the Kubo household, the plague befell you.

Tonya Kubo (06:47.187)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (06:55.013)

my gosh, it has been a year and then some. And you know, it’s not that far in the school year, but yes, plague.

Kathi (07:01.51)

Yes. A death in the family or close friends, you know, that is a major upheaval. Moving. I never want to move again. I want to be buried out in the North 40. Like I never want to move again. And then also we have a lot of our friends who are in Clutter-free for Life and Clutterfree Academy who deal with challenges with their mental health, whether it’s depression, ADHD,

Tonya Kubo (07:27.261)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (07:30.19)

We have a lot of people who are working through some of those challenges.

Tonya Kubo (07:33.585)

Yeah, well I would say actually, to be more accurate, it’s health issues. We see that all the time in Clutterfree Academy, the free group, right? When you join the group, you’re asked to answer several questions. And one is, what gets in the way of you and your decluttering goals? And one of the choices is health issues. And all the, like that gets picked probably five out of 10 times every single week. It’s health issues.

Kathi (07:38.988)

Yeah. Yes.

Kathi (07:49.646)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (08:01.489)

get in the way of my best efforts. And then we see a larger percentage of those individuals in Clutter Free for Life, a paid membership program, because quite honestly, they do not have the physical, mental or emotional bandwidth to decide what to do next. And so they join our paid program. So we do the decision-making for them. But yeah, I would say that those health issues, mental and physical, is a major barrier for our people. Major barrier.

Kathi (08:22.04)

Great.

Kathi (08:30.794)

So I want to give some really practical tools, whether it’s health issues, chaos in your family, sickness, whatever that is. What are some really practical things that we can do as we’re fighting clutter in our lives? And I think you just hit on such a huge one, that pre-deciding. Tell me, Tonya, how you’ve seen that live out in our groups that

Pre-deciding has helped them with this clutter battle.

Tonya Kubo (09:04.783)

Yeah, well, how many examples can I give you? Because I have a lot, Kathi, and this will help me prioritize in my brain. Say three, three. OK, I can do three. So the first one. So if you’ve been listening to the podcast for any length of time, you know that our clutter. Not it’s not 100 percent accurate, right, because context matters in many cases, but in general, the reasons behind our clutter fall into two areas.

Kathi (09:07.884)

Hahaha!

Kathi (09:12.206)

let’s say three. Three is good.

Tonya Kubo (09:34.637)

One is the acquisition of stuff, the amount of stuff that comes into our home. The other is in minimizing the stuff. You’re the one who taught me, Kathi, you must minimize before you organize, right? So that is getting the stuff out of the home. And I refer to that as managing the ebb and flow of stuff in our home or managing the ebb and flow of our possessions. And some people quite honestly struggle on both ends of that. I don’t know what you call that.

both ends of the relationship with clutter. And so in pre-deciding, one of the most powerful decisions I’ve seen made, and we’ve got one member and she has given me permission to talk about her publicly. Her name is Jackie. You know, she struggles with both sides. Yeah, both ends of the spectrum are hard for her, but she made a decision the first of this year that involved the acquisition of stuff. She was gonna really focus.

Kathi (10:05.261)

right.

Kathi (10:18.05)

We love Jackie. We love Jackie.

Tonya Kubo (10:30.931)

on minimizing how much came into her home. And one of those decisions meant that if she got a message from somebody, because she’s part of like by nothing groups and sort of these restoration groups, if somebody gave sent her a message of like, my gosh, there’s this incredible whatever over here on the side of the road, she was gonna say, you know what, I can’t think of anything to do with that. I’m gonna have to pass.

She pre-decided that, you know, she knows what days of the week people tend to put stuff out on the curb. She made, she pre-decided that she was not going to drive down certain streets on those days during those times of days because she knew early in the year, she knew she wasn’t going to be able to pass by certain things. She just knew it, right? Like if I pass by that, if I see a thing like that, it’s going in my truck.

Kathi (11:02.67)

Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (11:22.043)

and it’s going in my garage because in my mind, if I put it in my truck, I save it from a landfill. I don’t have the self-control to say no, but what I do have the self-control to do is not drive in that part of town on that day of the

Kathi (11:36.293)

my goodness, I had not heard this story. That is amazing. I’m so proud of her.

Tonya Kubo (11:41.095)

So, I am proud, Kathi, I could weep, and you know I’m not that emotional of a person, but I could weep daily over the growth that I see in our members because the thing is, is I remember it all. I remember them when they first joined. They don’t remember how far they’ve come. So the first thing I would say is, previous society, think of what Jackie did. Can you make a decision involving your routine?

Kathi (11:57.698)

Right.

Tonya Kubo (12:08.977)

that eliminates five other decisions. Because that’s a big one. The other thing I would say is, know, meal planning. It’s so funny. We are not a food group. We cannot sell you meal plans. don’t, well, we can sell you Sabbath soup, which has meal plans. But if you join Color Free Academy, I don’t have meal plans in there to sell you. I’m sorry. But, you know.

Kathi (12:13.614)

Yeah.

Kathi (12:25.656)

Yes, please.

Kathi (12:31.33)

Right.

Tonya Kubo (12:34.759)

The idea of a meal plan, of pre-deciding this is what we’re eating every day, prevents over buying a food, which prevents food waste. It does so much to save time at the end of the day when you’re tired and your energy is often at the lowest. And so by pre-deciding what you’re gonna eat, we’ve seen this in our house particularly. If I know what we’re having for dinner, I know exactly when to get started in the kitchen cooking and…

Because I’ve made so many mental decisions, I still have physical energy to clean up the kitchen after we eat.

Kathi (13:10.35)

Tonya, I really do think that meals need to become a bigger part of what we do in Clutterfree for Life. It’s just, it’s, you know, every day I spend about 15 minutes doing something towards my meal plan. You know, on Mondays I make my menu, on Tuesdays I make my shopping list and I order my groceries, on Wednesdays pick them up, Thursdays prep.

Tonya Kubo (13:20.101)

yes, definitely.

Tonya Kubo (13:28.761)

Mm hmm. Yeah.

Kathi (13:39.63)

You know, doing all those vegetables, you know, everything that involves a quiz and art or I pre-ground some meat or something like that. then Friday and Saturday I cook. It makes such a so I spend about 15 minutes doing that and I spend about 15 minutes decluttering every day. And then I, you know, specific rooms, you know, Monday I’m doing my kitchen Tuesday, I’m doing my living room. And then I spent about 15 minutes doing some kind of cleaning.

Tonya Kubo (13:40.723)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (13:57.767)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (14:08.822)

That is a little above and beyond and just by making those three decisions and those decisions are Predecisions like this is what I’m doing and this is what I’m going to do It’s changed the rhythm of my home. It’s made such a difference Tonya, I want to come back And I want to talk to the women You know, we have some guys who are here. We’re welcome, but you know what? I’m just going to be honest

Tonya Kubo (14:11.059)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (14:24.409)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kathi (14:39.086)

we are talking to women here because we have different kinds of pressures and different kinds of things we do and I want to talk about For the woman who feels perpetually behind Who just feels like she can’t catch up. We’re gonna come back and have some really practical solutions for you So stay tuned we’re gonna pay some bills and we’ll be right back

Tonya Kubo (14:51.495)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (15:03.104)

Okay, friends, we are back. I’m back with Tonya Kubo, who is not only our co-host, but the leader of all things clutter-free. And I just want to talk about what are the emotional tolls of clutter. You know that I often refer to this UCLA study that says, first of all, one in 11 Americans have so many possessions that they are currently paying for

storage space outside their home. Now this study is 10 years old at least 10 years old, and They haven’t stopped building storage units There are more storage unit businesses in the United States than there are McDonald’s and Subways combined that’s a lot. That is a lot and

Tonya Kubo (15:33.639)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (15:40.306)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (15:52.445)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (15:57.501)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (16:00.462)

In 2009, UCLA found that mothers who described their homes as cluttered, they self-described, they self-identified that their homes are cluttered, have a stress hormone profile indicative of chronic stress. And chronic stress, left untreated, turns into a chronic illness. That is the path. When you are constantly stressed, when you constantly feel your heart racing when you constantly feel

Tonya Kubo (16:09.127)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (16:30.612)

These things and these moms also tended to have more depressed moods throughout the day. Like clutter is affecting our mental health. It is making us sad and depressed. They’re more tired in the evenings. And I think about this. So, Tonya, I am no longer in the thick of it. I do not have kids at my house. When kids come to my house, what they do is they come by to steal food, steal wine.

Tonya Kubo (16:38.332)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (16:52.231)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (16:59.424)

and then go to their friends’ parties in Lake Tahoe. That’s what my kids do when they come to that. But you’re in the thick of it. Describe to me what your house feels like when it’s clear because you had a real clutter issue when your kids were little.

Tonya Kubo (16:59.795)

You

Tonya Kubo (17:08.519)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (17:18.355)

Yes, and because my kids are growing up, we still have clutter issues. They look different, right? I’ve I share this and I’ve been teaching in Clutter-Free for Life recently and I share this with them all the time. It’s like there is always one part of my house that I feel like is absolutely out of control. The difference is, is that in 2014, when I discovered Clutter-Free for Life, or actually 2015, it was my whole house, right? And so now

Kathi (17:23.924)

Right. Yeah.

Kathi (17:37.165)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (17:46.582)

Right. Right.

Tonya Kubo (17:48.207)

I have just accepted that in this phase of life, one part of the house being constantly chaotic is still growth and a win compared to where I used to be.

Kathi (17:59.182)

Tonya, Tonya, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Is still growth?

Tonya Kubo (18:05.253)

It is still growth!

Kathi (18:07.522)

This is such a huge victory, friend. I know it may not feel as different, but what you have done for your kids and for your own mental health is indescribable. It’s huge.

Tonya Kubo (18:10.972)

you

Tonya Kubo (18:18.024)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (18:22.937)

Yes, and it is a victory, but like we say in clutter free, right? It’s not one and done. It never is, right? So many people think, like, if I could just take a whole week off of work and get my house completely decluttered, it’ll be fine. I’ll never have to do it again. And I just feel like it’s so important to point out that for some of us, the goal is to just be better than we were when we started and to be on the path to be better a year from now than where we are right now.

Kathi (18:27.991)

Right, 100%.

Tonya Kubo (18:51.827)

constant state of improvement.

Kathi (18:51.98)

So Tonya, when you were first working the clutter free program, how often were you renting a dumpster?

Tonya Kubo (18:57.704)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (19:02.609)

Well, I had never rented one before we started, but that was like when we recognized we had no space. So we rented one, we could get one. I remember we could get one at a special deal once every three months. And so that’s what we did. The first year was four times. The second year was three times. And then we went to twice a year for a good chunk of years, maybe three years, until we bought this house.

Kathi (19:06.371)

Right?

Yeah.

Kathi (19:25.87)

For a long time, yeah.

Tonya Kubo (19:29.383)

We bought this house and we got one and that’s when they doubled the price. I was not happy, Kathi, at all. They doubled the price. We got one and then we kind of looked and we were like, we had enough for one dump because the way that our town had done it at the time is you would rent it for a month or four empties. And so initially we were filling it four times and then it went to where we’d fill it only like two to three.

Kathi (19:35.498)

I agree.

Kathi (19:48.941)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (19:53.004)

Mmm.

Tonya Kubo (19:56.775)

but that last time we actually did not have enough stuff to fill it once. It was still worthwhile because I still truly appreciate having the immediate free space, but it was huge progress. But what I want to also say is, you when we talk about stress and clutter, if you hear nothing else in this episode, this is what you need to hear. Yes, clutter causes stress and stress causes clutter.

Kathi (20:01.87)

That’s amazing.

Kathi (20:07.874)

Yes.

Kathi (20:24.42)

Yes, ex- go-

Tonya Kubo (20:25.507)

It goes both ways. I don’t want anybody listening to be like, well I’m stressed out because I’m failing at my decluttering because it is the most vicious cycle ever. And it’s one that I am living right now. Now it’s not throughout my whole house, but it’s my desk. So I am in a period of travel, which I don’t love doing during the school year. And when I cannot contain all that I have to do, I start writing everything on sticky notes and color coding them. And I,

I stick the sticky notes all around my, I kid you not, 27 inch monitor. And then when I have filled the edges of my monitor, I start just sticking them in random places all over my desk. And there was a point in time last week where you couldn’t see my desk because there were so many sticky notes of things. Now I will tell you this week, super empowering to be able to get rid of a stack of sticky notes every single day before I go to bed.

Kathi (21:12.504)

Yeah.

Kathi (21:20.258)

Nice So Tonya here’s what I would say too because I don’t want anybody to join us in the free group or potentially be in the clutter free for life group and think This is how I get my house perfect because let me be honest with you I Would still like ten more minutes before somebody comes over like I but but I don’t need

Tonya Kubo (21:45.299)

Amen. Brian would like 10 to 14 business days if you could arrange that for him. That would be his preference.

Kathi (21:55.384)

But here’s the thing, Tonya, and we’ve had this happen before, where friends have been in crisis and they need a place to sleep. And I say, come on down. And we can do that. You can’t do that because you have no room in your house.

Tonya Kubo (22:03.581)

Mm-hmm. Yup.

Tonya Kubo (22:09.381)

I was gonna say I only have as many beds as I have people in this house and well that oftentimes one of us is on the couch.

Kathi (22:17.452)

Yeah, but if somebody needs to come over and grab something to make their dinner, you could let them into your house and you can do that. And that’s the big difference, my friends, you know, that I live in a space that doesn’t stress me out every time I come downstairs. And I, you know, right now my garage is organized like, you know, miracles abound friend. Okay.

Tonya Kubo (22:21.139)

Mm-hmm.

yeah. Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (22:34.973)

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (22:41.405)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (22:49.27)

You know, we’ve talked a little bit about Clutterfree Academy, which is our free group that everybody is welcome into. You have to answer a few questions so we know that you’re not trying to one, try to teach other people because you were born organized and you know how to do it because we reject you in the name of Jesus Christ.

Tonya Kubo (23:08.347)

I will say this one more time, we are the kindest quarter of the internet except for that particular type of person.

Kathi (23:14.4)

Yes, yes. But also, we have our Clutter Free for Life group. here’s something I’ve been thinking about recently, Tonya, and a way I’m going to start teaching it in Clutter Free for Life. There are a lot of organization programs out there. And those programs are like

trimming your rose bushes, trimming your plants, like they may look good for a while, but you’re not getting to the root of the problem. And yeah, yeah. No.

Tonya Kubo (23:58.557)

Well, that’s the ultimate issue, isn’t it, Kathi? Please continue. But I mean, that really is the heart of it, is so many initiatives we have tried to solve our problem of clutter is bandaging a deeply infected wound.

Kathi (24:14.966)

Yeah. Yes. And what I want to do is I want you to get to the root of this problem. I want you to get to the place where you are pulling that rose bush that is not producing great roses anymore, but you keep trimming it and hoping it’ll come back and no, we’re just going to pull it out by the roots. And that’s what clutter free for life does, because what we want you to do is we want you to spend

Tonya Kubo (24:39.111)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (24:45.526)

Few minutes 15 minutes every day getting to the root of the issue and that means getting the stuff out of your house getting it out of your space because if You get it out. You never have to deal with that particular item again But if you keep it and organize it and put it into a folder or buy a plastic tub for it You’re gonna have to reorganize it and reorganize it and reorganize it

Tonya Kubo (24:55.324)

Yes.

Tonya Kubo (25:04.167)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (25:15.65)

Dozens of times and if you’re not going to use it, it’s time to remove it

Tonya Kubo (25:21.091)

Mm-hmm. 100%.

Kathi (25:22.766)

So, Tonya, can you explain a little bit of the difference between Clutter-Free Academy, our free group, and Clutter-Free for Life, which is our paid group? And let’s just be honest, we’re doing this podcast because we want to introduce, some of you just need the band-aid every once in a while. But most of the people who are searching out, decluttering, those kind of terms,

Tonya Kubo (25:30.685)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (25:52.65)

on Facebook looking for that kind of help often need deeper help and that’s what clutter free for life does.

Tonya Kubo (25:56.903)

Mm-hmm.

Okay, well, I could fill four episodes with everything that is involved in our Clutterfree Academy program and our Clutterfree for Life membership program. But here’s what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna give you some differences from the perspective of Grace Church. She is the community manager of our Clutterfree for Life, our membership program. And she just says it so well.

First things first, the free group is huge, depending on your relation with size. But it’s inching up towards 16,000 members now. And so it’s huge. So if you are the type of person that really feels like you are all alone in the world, you are the only person who has clutter, you’re the only person who hasn’t figured out how to get on top of your stuff, please by all means come into the free group and see that you have.

roughly about 15,900 close personal friends who also think they’re the only person in the world. If you need to know you’re in good company, by all means go there. If you are somebody who likes a big, busy group, lots of activity, talking about all sorts of different things, all that fall within the spectrum of clutter, Clutterfree Academy is a great place for you. And if you have just like one or two questions about clutter,

Kathi (26:59.977)

Right.

Tonya Kubo (27:21.841)

Like, my gosh, my mom just passed away. We’ve got this milk glass and we have no idea what one does with milk glass. Who here knows? We’re pretty good resource for that kind of thing, too. Excellent resource. However, if you are somebody who prefers a smaller, more intimate group that is action oriented because our free group has people, some people actually don’t believe they have any issue with clutter and they come into the group to prove

Kathi (27:31.381)

Excellent resource.

Tonya Kubo (27:51.461)

somebody in their life wrong, right? Somebody told them they were cluttering. They’re like, I’m not cluttering. I’m gonna go join this cluttering group and prove to you how uncluttery I am. Those folks are in there. Some folks are in there just because their clutter is situational. We get a lot of teachers, for instance, who are changing classrooms, changing jobs, and they’re just in there for some help in getting rid of some of the stuff that they’ve stockpiled. Clutter-free for life is for the person on a mission, right?

They know they have a clutter problem. nobody joins Clutter Free for Life because they’re curious on whether they have a clutter problem. They join because they know what? They have a problem. They want to be in company with other people doing, with the same shared goal, I should say, because not everybody is working on the same thing at the same time, but they all have the same mission. And they like more direct help.

Kathi (28:21.934)

Mm-hmm, right.

Tonya Kubo (28:42.577)

Some of our folks in Clutterfree Academy love the information we share. They binge this podcast. They go through, they pour through the website, but they are not ready to be visible yet, right? They don’t want Kathi to know what they look like. They don’t want Kathi to know them by name. Nobody’s scared of me. Everybody’s happy knowing me by name, but you know, Kathi, they really look to you as a mentor and as an expert. And so in Clutterfree for life is when they’re ready to be seen. We meet on zoom every single week.

Kathi (28:53.485)

Yeah.

You

Kathi (29:09.976)

Yeah.

every single week.

Tonya Kubo (29:12.741)

and we talk through these issues. Now there was a time where the calls on Zoom were just Q &A’s like, come and give us your clutter problems and we’ll answer. And what we have discovered is our people do not appreciate that. They come, they want us to pre-decide, they want us to look at what’s going on, what the theme is, and let them know what’s most important for them to know to take immediate action, and then support them in whatever obstacles are along the way. And so to do all that,

We have a calendar with a day-to-day decluttering plan for you. We do separate it in monthly themes because we have been at this long enough, Kathi Lipp has been at this longer than me, but we’ve been at this longer enough to know those rhythms and routines of where clutter rears its ugly head most often. And honestly, we’re just the nicest stinking people you could ever hope to be with our members. Like I get emotional every time I lead one of our weekly calls.

because they are so generous and so kind and so giving. And there is nobody who will ever answer your question with a, well, what you gotta do is, because all of us are aware that we are no more of an expert on the solution than you are, but we are experts on the journey.

Kathi (30:31.02)

Yes. And it is a journey. It takes time. This is not, like you said, a one and done. This is constantly keeping up on it and reframing how you think about your stuff. That’s a lot of what we do is help you reframe how you think about the things. Because many of us were raised by parents that if you give it away, that means you’re wasteful. Or, you know, that we have these tapes in our head.

that we don’t need to keep. And so we really try to give every, we lend each other our bravery to be able to say, you can get rid of it, it’s gonna be okay. Or, hey, you may need to hold onto that for another three months until you are ready to get rid of it. But in the meantime, here are the other things you can do. So friends, Clutter Free for Life, you can join it any time of the year. It’s 299.

Tonya Kubo (31:25.043)

Mm-hmm.

Kathi (31:27.63)

for the entire year or $24.99 per month or right now we’ve got a sale going on and we do this because we want you to be able to try this out and you guys it’s such a good sale it’s $118 for the entire year which is is pretty stunning

Tonya Kubo (31:30.163)

or $24.99 per month.

Kathi (31:55.022)

And you get all the same things that you get when you join at full price But I will say there is a limit to this because we have to hand process each of those ones So we are only offering this price through December 10th 2024 and You will be let into the group. You will get immediate access to our resources in there You’ll be able to look at all the past teaching. So if you’re like

I don’t have a lot going on for Christmas, then what you can do is you can start watching the videos. You can start being a part of the discussions. And can I just tell you this clutter free Academy is the kindest corner of the Internet. Clutter free for life is the kindest corner of the kindest corner of the Internet. You will never be shamed. You will never be said, you know, told, that’s what your house looks like because we’ve all been there.

Tonya and I were both raised by hoarders. My dad was a hoarder. Yeah, Tonya’s, my dad was a hoarder. Tonya’s mom was a hoarder. We get it, friends. We get that this, this is really hard, but we want you to be a part of it. So if you want to be a part of Clutter Free for Life, all you have to do is go to the show notes. We have a link there. It’s kathi.link/CFL and

Tonya Kubo (32:55.539)

Yeah, nothing ever surprises me. Nope.

Kathi (33:21.567)

You will get all the information you need. We would love for you to come and join. You can bring your clutter burdens to us. We will talk about it. Plus, you’re going to have hundreds of other people in there who have been through this journey and can give you the advice you need, not just the advice, the encouragement. So I want you to come check it out because it is a pretty spectacular place to be. Tonya, any final words of encouragement for our friends here?

Tonya Kubo (33:52.173)

You know what? It is not a personal failing to need help with your clutter. When I think back to a lot of our new members or a lot of the conversations I have with people in the free group who are thinking about joining the membership, what I hear a lot of is like, I should be able to do this, right? And I’m like, I’ve got a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree and a whole lot of life experience and I need help.

Even if I wasn’t on the team, I’d be paying to be part of this group because I need the plan. I need to know what the next step is and I need support in getting there and it’s okay if you do too.

Kathi (34:31.63)

We need support from each other. We just need support from each other to continue on the journey. Tonya, thank you so much for your wisdom today. Friends, thank you for being here. You’ve been listening to ClutterFree Academy. I’m Kathi Lipp. Now, go create the clutter free life you’ve always wanted to live.

#646 Why Your House Won’t Stay Clean: Breaking Free from the Clutter Cycle

#645 Reclaiming Your Space: Your First Steps to a Clutter-Free Life

#644 Meet the TikTok Star Making Saving Money on Food Cool Again

« Older Entries

#644 Meet the TikTok Star Making Saving Money on Food Cool Again

by Clutter Free Academy Team | Nov 19, 2024 | Clutter Free, Clutter Free For Life, Clutter Free Home, Clutter Free Podcast, Home, Mental Load, Podcast | 0 comments

Listen Now

644 – Meet the TikTok Star Making Saving Money on Food Cool Again

Hey friends!

You know how we’re always looking for ways to make our homes work better for us without breaking the bank?

We have a treat for you!

In this episode of Clutter Free Academy, Kathi Lipp interviews Lauren, a TikTok sensation known for her creative approaches to saving money on groceries. With a quarter million followers, Lauren shares her journey of feeding a family of seven while maintaining a tight grocery budget, as well as personal stories from her grandmother’s Depression-era cooking wisdom. She discusses how she manages to create meals using pantry cleanout items and creative substitutions.

Listeners will discover:

Lauren’s seven strategies for reducing grocery costs
The truth about expiration dates and food safety
How to effectively use Buy Nothing groups
Strategies for stretching ingredients
How to work around food allergies while staying on budget

Whether you’re dealing with a tight budget, wanting to waste less food, or just trying to be a better steward of what God’s given us, you’re going to love Lauren’s practical, down-to-earth approach.

Order your copy of Sabbath Soup here and sign up to receive your free ebook featuring four weeks’ worth of easy meal plans and delicious recipes.

Click here to be notified when the next podcast episode is released!

Also, stay up to date and sign up here to receive our newsletter.

Sabbath Soup: Weekly Menus and Rhythms to Make Space for a Day of Rest

Kathi Lipp gives readers an easy-to-follow process for meal planning and prep, so that they can enjoy a full day each week of real rest and refreshment.

Could you use a break from cooking (and everything else) once a week? Not only is rest vital for your mind and body, it’s good for your soul too. God designed us to enter into Sabbath rest one day per week, but as you know, meals still need to be made. Your family still needs to be fed.

Sabbath Soup includes convenient, seasonal meal plans that take the guesswork out of shopping and cooking. More than just a collection of delicious recipes—including main dishes, breads, breakfasts, desserts, salads, sides, and yes, soups—this is your guide to establishing a weekly rhythm and routine of meal planning and prep that allows you to have a true day off.

Do something good for your soul and experience the peace that comes with a full day dedicated to spending time with God, family, and friends. Savor your Sabbath as you proudly proclaim, “Soup’s on!”

Order your copy of Sabbath Soup: Weekly Menus and Rhythms to Make Space for a Day of Rest here.

Links Mentioned:

USDA website Shelf Stable Food information

Ready for Anything by Kathi Lipp

Ibotta

Find Lauren on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@totesma_gotes

Clutter Free Resources:

Join our Clutter Free Academy Facebook Group

Order Sabbath Soup here and sign up to receive your free ebook featuring four weeks’ worth of easy meal plans and delicious recipes.

What are your top tips for someone who wants to start stretching their grocery budget?

Share in the comments!

Let’s stay connected

To share your thoughts:

Leave a note in the comment section below.
Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one.

Subscribe on iTunes or subscribe to our newsletter now.

Meet Our Guest

Lauren

Lauren is a TikTok creator with over 250,000 followers. She started making TikTok videos, primarily sharing her home-cooked meals and budget-friendly recipes, as a hobby rather than a career. Her straightforward, relatable video style and willingness to show the “outtakes” have resonated with her large audience.

Find her on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@totesma_gotes

Transcript

Kathi (00:02.168)

Well, hey friends, welcome to Clutter-Free Academy where our goal is to help you take small doable steps to live every day with less clutter and more life. Guys, you know, okay, I’m gonna sound like a fangirl here. You guys have heard me interview celebrities. You have heard me interview famous, famous authors.

But I am interviewing Lauren today and she’s going to get really embarrassed here. You guys, feel like I’m interviewing one of my friends, but she doesn’t know me. So here’s how I know Lauren. As you guys know, I kind of love me a little TikTok. It’s kind of my wind down every night after a busy day of content creation and writing. And Lauren is one of the first people who comes up, which, okay, I have to say,

Lauren (00:37.737)

Thank

Kathi (01:02.392)

One of the reasons she’s one of the first that comes up is she actually accepted a friend request one time. And I don’t do that. I don’t do that. So how I first started following Lauren is we have an epic battle in our house, my husband Roger and I, about use by and sell by dates. This is a battle to the death. I live on the edge. Like if it smells good and it tastes good, it is good.

Lauren (01:51.561)

Yes.

Kathi (01:56.574)

And Roger thinks that if a can of peaches is one day past its expiration date, that that may cause him botulism and he may die right here as I’m serving him peach cobbler. So I started watching you and I’m like, yes, somebody who is saying about this. And I started following your videos and they’re just delightful. They’re delightful. So I’m going to stop talking and I’m going to ask Lauren to talk.

Lauren (02:09.845)

Poor guy.

Lauren (02:17.691)

Thank

Kathi (02:25.365)

Lauren, welcome to Clutterfree Academy.

Lauren (02:27.841)

Thank you, Kathi.

Kathi (02:29.8)

And this is your first time ever on a podcast, even though you have a quarter of a million followers on TikTok. This is your first time on a podcast, right?

Lauren (02:38.055)

Yeah, I’m actually not big on social media. TikTok is pretty much the only social media I do. It just kind of happened.

Kathi (02:44.884)

Okay, let’s be clear, you’re huge on social media, you just have one form of it. So I’m just gonna, I am going to do a different podcast with you to talk about your TikTok journey, because I find that fascinating. But today, what I want to talk to you about is how you you are extreme when it comes to I think you’re extreme when it comes to saving money on your budget.

Would you call yourself extreme? Are you okay with that term?

Lauren (03:15.081)

I I feel I don’t feel like I’m extreme, but realistically, I probably am.

Kathi (03:19.768)

I was going to say, as the population goes, I would say you’re in the top 10 % of saving money on your budget. You are always looking for ways to save money on your budget. And so I tried to think out how many ways I have seen you save money on TikTok. And I just want to go over these because there’s about, I guess there’s seven that I have noticed.

Lauren (03:27.999)

Probably.

Kathi (03:46.748)

and I may be missing something. But I think the first video I ever saw was you using some ground beef that you traded for concrete work, right?

Lauren (03:59.488)

Yeah, I mean it was it wasn’t a straight-across trade, but it was a good portion of it. Yes

Kathi (04:05.022)

Okay, so you actually, your husband has a concrete company. And so what you did is you guys did this concrete work and part of the payment, was it a full cow? Was it half a cow? What was it?

Lauren (04:19.699)

It was a quarter cow, we traded for our labor portion.

Kathi (04:23.082)

Okay. And by the way, you have stretched that cow. Holy cow. Like you’ve made, I’ve seen you use that quite a bit. You’ve been able to use it quite a bit. So trading, have you ever done trades like that before? Is this your first time?

Lauren (04:38.365)

Not necessarily for the business, but we do trades all the time. You know, like my neighbors, we trade produce in the summer and she’ll leave me a big bouquet of flowers because I can’t grow flowers or, you know, we trade our land. People put their bees on it and they trade us honey for use of our land. We have all kinds of stuff like that.

Kathi (04:57.292)

That’s amazing. here’s a question, because I think people might feel awkward about asking, you know, would you be willing to trade? Can you give us just an idea of how you approach the subject or do you just hang out with people where this is kind of a way of life?

Lauren (05:14.837)

pretty normal in our community. We’re pretty rural. So a lot of us have more, you know, like food items than we do money. So plenty of us trade and it’s not a big deal. but we also, you know, if there’s something we’re super interested in sometimes just say, how would you feel about, know, we deduct a portion of this in exchange for this? And usually people are very open to it.

Kathi (05:22.54)

Yeah.

Kathi (05:36.386)

Yeah, and even if they can’t at that time, they may be open to it later on. For us, you know, we’ve done some trades and what I’ve noticed is the first thing to trade is something of small value if you’re like just kind of sussing out if somebody wants to do something. So like if we had extra chicken eggs, seeing if they might want to trade for some honey or something like that, and you know, getting your feet wet. But yeah, when you know you have something, especially when

Kathi (06:05.716)

egg prices were going through the roof, we could have traded them for bars of gold. It would not have mattered. Not that we could do anything with bars of gold, but yeah. Okay. So that was the first time I met you was finding out about the trade. But the reason I hung with you is the buy-nothing groups. So can you tell me a little bit about how you use buy nothing? And let’s talk a little bit about the extremes of your buy-nothing.

Lauren (06:10.209)

We kind of traded stuff off on that so come back.

Kathi (06:35.478)

Because you kind of don’t, when people do pantry cleanouts, you kind of don’t care. Well, you explain it, please.

Lauren (06:43.861)

The buy-nothing group is amazing. They’re actually all over the place and they’re specifically to Facebook. Well, I think they have a website that’s not, but they are everywhere. Some towns don’t have them, but people can create their own. There’s just a website. It’s, I think it’s like buy nothing.org that tells you kind of what they expect. So it’s sort of across the board. So it’s not like a need-based website. What it is is everybody has the exact same opportunity. If there’s stuff that you don’t want or aren’t going to use, you post it up there.

And you just let it sit for a day or two and let everybody that’s interested get a chance to say, Hey, I’m interested. You don’t really volunteer extra information. Like I could use this for, or I really need this because you just, I’m interested. And then they just randomly choose whoever they’re interested in gifting it to. So it’s cool. Cause everybody has the exact same opportunity. Nobody feels put on the spot. Nobody feels strange about it. And there’s a lot of things. mean, there’s clothes, there’s food items, there’s anything, anything in your house you would give to Goodwill. It goes on by nothing.

Kathi (07:43.04)

Okay, so I’m already finding out I did it wrong because I, we just had a big order at Sam’s and they, my husband went to pick it up and they accidentally included five gallons of two and a half percent milk, a bunch of Lunchables and some Romaine lettuce. And literally I just picked up 2 % milk and Romaine lettuce and I’m not a big Lunchables fan.

Lauren (07:59.777)

Wow.

Kathi (08:11.286)

So I put it up on our community group, because we live in such a small town, we don’t have a buy-nothing group. And I just gave it to the first person, but it was our school. So I feel good about that. But you’re kind of supposed to let a bunch of people leave it up for a couple of days and then pick somebody. Is that kind of the standard? Or can you give it away right away? Is that OK to do?

Lauren (08:30.606)

You can.

Lauren (08:35.421)

You can, yeah. People put like flash gift and like for example, last summer somebody cleaned out their freezer because they needed room and they had a picture of a bag on their porch with frozen stuff in it and just said, Hey, I cleaned out the freezer. Whoever can get here first can have it. And literally nobody commented on it, but me. So I ended up getting a big paper bag full of random, like the spinach I used in the spinach artichoke dip and peas and all kinds of stuff.

Kathi (09:01.058)

That’s amazing, I love it. Okay, so why are those pantry cleanouts so controversial? Because you get some pushback on them.

Lauren (09:09.757)

I get a lot of people that are really angry about the pantry pickups. Like there are so many people that are so angry, but I don’t know. I think it’s maybe the thought that like people think that I’m taking from somebody who needs it more. But like I explained, the buy-nothing group is everybody has the exact same chance and you just get randomly selected.

Kathi (09:12.812)

They’re mad at you, Lauren. How dare you? There are a couple of reasons, right? Yes.

Lauren (09:33.057)

But in our town, also have multiple, I think we’ve got like four churches that do food drives every single week. We’ve got our school that has a pantry twice a week. We’ve got a food bank. We’ve got so many resources in our community that nobody is lacking.

Kathi (09:48.46)

Yeah, and as somebody who gives things away when I don’t need them, we have a business here and we have to buy lots of food sometimes and sometimes there’s extra. And I just want what’s going to be convenient for me as I’m hosting all these people. Like we’ve got too much stuff. I just need the first person who could come here. And so there are lots of opportunities for people who are needs-based to get free food in our community.

Kathi (10:16.652)

but I’m just trying to manage my resources and get it out the door. The other reason that people get upset with you is because you take things past their expiration date and they think you’re going to die, right?

Lauren (10:31.297)

Yeah, a lot of the things that we get in pantry cleanouts are opened, which some things I feel comfortable using because I might know the people or I just, I don’t know, just get a wild hair and think it’s fine and use it. Anyway, a lot of people are like, aren’t you going to get poised? Yeah.

Kathi (10:44.072)

and you’re still here to talk about it. You are still here to talk about it.

Lauren (10:49.025)

Yeah, most people are good. They’re not out there trying to poison somebody randomly. I mean, they’re good-hearted enough to give away their extra. They’re probably not trying to kill you. And then the rest of it is just expired. Our food pantry can take up to a year, I think expired or maybe it’s six months past. It’s not very long, but everything else they just can’t give away to food pantries. And like we just used a can of soup from 2017 the other day, which freaked Devin out. He’s like, you try it first.

Kathi (10:57.942)

Right.

Kathi (11:17.367)

You

Lauren (11:18.45)

BOOF!

Kathi (11:19.926)

You’re the king’s food taster. I love that.

Lauren (11:22.305)

But you know, like I said in a million of my videos, mean, shelf stable foods are made to last. The USDA website even has a thing on it. I mean, it’s indefinite. The food is indefinite. It’s not going to stay tasting great, but it’s not going to kill you.

Kathi (11:40.396)

Well, Lauren, I wrote a book several years ago called Ready for Anything about being prepared for disasters and things like that. And that’s when I found out canned food almost doesn’t expire. It might lose a little of its flavor, but you’ve been trying to educate people on this. they’re staunch like if it’s a day past it on the box, I’m throwing it out. And I found out something really interesting.

You live north of me, I’m in California. And they are going to radically change the food date system in California. You heard about this, huh?

Lauren (12:21.217)

Well, I actually heard about Canada changing their food. They’re taking off the Best Buy dates.

Kathi (12:26.786)

Yes, because there’s so much food waste for people not sniffing or tasting, but just saying it’s a day past, I’m throwing it out. And the estimate is that Americans waste about 40 % of their food that they purchase. It’s crazy.

Lauren (12:43.133)

which is crazy. There are so many Americans that are hungry every day that don’t need to be because this stuff doesn’t need to be thrown away.

Kathi (12:49.674)

It does not need to be thrown away. Okay, the fourth way I’ve noticed that you are saving money on your food is gardening. say you can’t grow flowers. I’m very sad.

Lauren (13:04.863)

No, I am not a flower person or an indoor plant person.

Kathi (13:07.223)

Okay, that’s a hey, it’s good to know our strengths, right? It’s good to know what we’re able to do. But what do you grow that you feel like makes the biggest impact on your grocery bill?

Lauren (13:13.153)

Thanks.

Lauren (13:20.641)

the berries 100%. My kids, we have five boys. They, they just want berries. So we do strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, cherries. I mean, if it’s a fruit, we probably grow it. So that makes the biggest impact.

Kathi (13:32.728)

I’m surprised you didn’t say blackberries. Do you have blackberries on your land?

Lauren (13:38.323)

We do have blackberries. just, it’s not something you really try to grow in Oregon. They just kind of do their own thing and you try to rip them out constantly.

Kathi (13:44.696)

Yes. I was going to say we have a constant supply of blackberries, not necessarily ones we want, but yeah. Okay, so the berries are making the biggest, I think that’s really interesting. So, but you also grow a really big variety. I’ve seen beans and jalapenos and things like that. So what do you grow that adds the best flavor to your food? Like that you get excited about?

Lauren (14:12.885)

The potatoes are my favorite. I know they’re not a flavor item, but they’re my favorite. They’re so versatile.

Kathi (14:16.16)

Yes, because I tell people how you grow them.

Lauren (14:20.777)

Well, I’m actually I’m doing a video on it now, but I won’t post it until I’ve got like showing how it actually does. But so you use layering method. It’s really awesome. We do it in buckets. You put a potato in the very bottom and just cover the top of the potato with dirt. And when it starts to sprout its little leaves, you cover those and then you just keep on repeating. So you hit the top of the bucket and wait till the leaves die and then you harvest.

Kathi (14:41.496)

Okay, I am 100 % gonna try that. I can’t wait for that video. You guys, I’m obsessed with her. She probably thinks I’m creepy at this point. You guys know I’m not creepy. can I just tell you, because I live rurally, and most people are not going to adopt all seven of your practices. Do you love that I’ve just said, here are your seven practices, Lauren? But so many of these,

Lauren (14:44.347)

It’s so easy.

Kathi (15:10.253)

I vibe with because it’s just we can’t get to the store but once a week. And so you start off almost all of your cooking videos. Can you give us the line?

Lauren (15:23.137)

It’s time to make dinner using what we have on hand. That we’re not going to the store, we’re not going out to eat. Yep.

Kathi (15:26.678)

Right.

Yes, because I can only cook from what I have on hand. There’s no going to Chipotle. So this makes me so happy when I’m able to see. Here’s my question. How did you get to be such a creative cook? Was it necessity? Your grandma. So tell me about her.

Lauren (15:43.553)

That would be my grandma.

Lauren (15:48.507)

she was obviously part of the great depression because she’s my grandma and that was the age, but she, her pantry was, I don’t think I ever ate food that was actually in date ever at her house. And she was just to keep it until it’s gone. Cause you used it person. She’s the one who taught me how to sniff and smell and you know what I mean? Make sure everything’s kosher, but she did, she just made what she had. So it was a lot of random. can see her pantry just stacked with like.

Kathi (16:00.384)

Okay.

Kathi (16:05.176)

Mm-hmm.

Lauren (16:17.633)

200 cans of random stuff and she’d throw it together because she’d say hey this looks good and I think this would go with this and this would go and she just had something.

Kathi (16:26.024)

That’s amazing. Okay, we’re gonna take a quick break, pay some bills, and when we come back, I wanna talk a little bit about how I see you stretching your food. Because I think that’s where you really shine. So we’re gonna take a quick break and come right back.

Lauren (16:37.449)

Okay.

Kathi (16:47.424)

Okay, friends, we are back with Lauren who is an extreme cooker, food buyer. She lowers her bills in such an amazing way. And I find it fascinating how you stretch what you have. So for those who listen, a lot of us have problems with clutter. My dad was a hoarder. We tend to collect, but don’t always use.

Kathi (17:16.352)

And so we may want to grab all those things from a buy nothing, but then they’ll sit in our pantry until they’re 10 years out of date and nobody in our family will touch them. How do you get yourself to be like, I’ve got this can of, don’t know, let’s, I’m trying to think of an ingredient.

Lauren (17:39.774)

Okay.

Kathi (17:41.298)

canned potatoes, because I’ve seen those before. I’ve never actually used them. But you would do something with those. How? What’s your thought process for? I’ve got this thing that I may have never used before, and I’m going to do something with it. How do you go? How do you approach that?

Lauren (17:58.764)

I tried to just figure out what the main ingredient that would be that could go with it like those hearts of palm that’s something I’ve never had before but I googled it like what are these because I didn’t know and it said it was similar to artichoke so I was like okay so we can just treat it like artichoke so hence the dip that was born

Kathi (18:08.662)

Right.

Kathi (18:17.782)

Yeah. Okay, so you’re kind of reverse engineering it instead of approaching it recipe first, you’re approaching it ingredient first and then googling or looking, you know, on recipe sites to figure out what you can do with it. Really.

Lauren (18:32.705)

pretty much or like the clams like what do do with this clam chowder? I didn’t make a dip but I will because I have more clams but I made a chowder just because it sounded the best and I had the closest ingredients to what I thought it would need on hand. Okay and the rest we win.

Kathi (18:35.988)

Yes, and you made a clam dip with those, right?

Kathi (18:51.028)

Okay, that’s okay. That’s, I love that. And if you’re saying, well, that’s easy for Lauren, but you know, we have food allergies, would please tell about your special circumstances.

Lauren (19:01.333)

We have food allergies. We have food allergies too. We, one of our children has a really severe peanut allergy. So we have to be careful with cross-contamination, which is big in dinner, obviously, but things like Asian dishes that use peanut sauces, you know, you got to watch. but I am gluten-free. The rest of my family is not. So I just have to be careful. but that even includes like these cream of soups or, know, like a tomato soup and I put in the meatloaf or those things all have.

Kathi (19:28.417)

It’s in everything.

Lauren (19:29.951)

wheat. Yeah. And some of the seasonings. some stuff I get a really unpleasant surprise once I’ve made it. I’m like, I feel like crap. And some stuff we just kinda, you know, I’ll make the recipe like it’s supposed to be. And then maybe I use gluten-free flour instead of regular flour, or I set off a little portion of my gluten-free noodles or my gluten-free sauce on the side and just kind of do it deconstructed. There’s ways around it.

Kathi (19:37.569)

Yes.

Kathi (19:52.978)

I love it. When you do those pantry cleanouts and there’s like a gluten-free cake mix or something, I’m so happy for you. It makes me so happy for you. Okay, another part of what you do is you shop the sales. I am on the constant lookout for the bacon deal at Safeway because of you. tell us your approach to shopping the sales.

Lauren (20:20.645)

so a lot of stores like Safeway specifically, they’re really expensive. I would not normally shop there, but they have loss leaders. So every week they post like just a couple things that are way below what they should be to drag you into the store. So you get the rest of this stuff while you’re there. We don’t do that. We, we have to drive 20 minutes to get groceries anyway, which is pretty normal. But if we’re going to trip, we hit Safeway for its little deals. And then we hop over to the Kroger store, Fred Meyer for its little deals. And you just kind of bundle it in. There’s a grocery outlet up there.

Kathi (20:24.972)

there. Yeah.

Lauren (20:51.041)

do, or like Fred Meyer started doing their weekend freebie this weekend, Saturday and Sunday it’s free bacon. So I was going to take my mom grocery shopping today, but if I literally just wait until tomorrow, cause she’s going to spend more than $35, she gets a free pack of bacon. So there’s no point not waiting.

Kathi (21:07.832)

Perfect. And I’m so jealous of your store selection. We have Safeway, which by the way, we have a child who works at Safeway and his girlfriend. so I was trying to shop the sales there and I was like, guys, it’s so confusing sometimes with their deals and things like that. And my son’s girlfriend says, yeah, they should offer a Duolingo course.

Kathi (21:35.988)

on how to read the Safeway ads. They work there, it’s confusing to them. But Fred Myers and all these croakers, you have some really good options over there. So you’re just kind of, you’re spending a little bit more time going to different places, but getting the things on sale that you know your family will use. Is that correct?

Lauren (21:57.313)

Yeah, and for me it makes sense because they’re all close together. So it’s not extra gas or really extra time. I mean, I’m spending the exact same amount of time and the same amount of gas. So, but it doesn’t make sense if they’re all spread out. Before we go, we look at, I look at the Safeway ad and the Fred Meyer ad and see what I want to do that’s on my list. I write it all down and then I check Ibotta, which is a, like a rebate app on your phone. See if anything matches there. Basically we just kind of hop around the coupons.

Kathi (22:25.272)

So you feel like Ibotta’s worth it?

Lauren (22:28.412)

I know a lot of people don’t, but I like it.

Kathi (22:30.38)

No, no, I’m just curious. I’ve never really used it. So I’m going to check if Lauren says check it out. I’m going to check it out. That’s what I’m going to do.

Lauren (22:38.468)

It’s worth it if you’re buying those items already. Like don’t go out of your way to buy something that they’re rebate. It’s not worth it that way, but if you’re already buying it, it’s just extra.

Kathi (22:43.671)

Right.

I love it. Stretching your cooking. You do such an amazing job stretching your cooking. I’ve seen you when you have a protein that you’re using instead of using a ton of that protein, adding beans and things like that to it to make it stretch. Give me a couple of ideas of some of your favorite stretching techniques because like you said,

you’re feeding five boys plus the two at seven people. And I remember having teenage boys and a couple of teenage girls that if it was on the table, it was being eaten. Like there was no end in sight. So I’d love to hear a couple of ways that you’ve found that you can really stretch that meal.

Lauren (23:34.613)

Rice is the cheapest, best stretcher that we have ever found. It is such a good filler. We do do mashed potatoes, but sometimes the kids aren’t super into those. So rice seems to be the go-to. Beans are really, really good one. It makes everybody super full. They don’t even know it’s there because we usually cook it in with like the taco meat or the soup or whatever. And it just, doubles your meat volume without actually changing what’s in it.

Kathi (23:39.927)

Yeah.

Kathi (24:00.02)

my goodness, I love it. And then the seventh way that I’ve noticed is substituting. You substitute all the time. You’re not going, I have never heard you say, like, I can’t make this because I don’t have X, Y, Z. You are constantly substituting. How do you get a sense of what to substitute? How do you know it?

Lauren (24:13.473)

Yeah.

you say like…

Kathi (24:29.588)

Is it just a sixth sense that none of us can really learn or how did you learn to substitute so well?

Lauren (24:37.63)

I actually just made a lot of stuff that tasted really bad and learned that that was not gonna work. Do it again!

Kathi (24:42.922)

I love it. It really is trial and error, right?

Lauren (24:47.585)

Yeah, it’s not some crazy sixth sense. just, you know, it’s like, this sounds like a good idea. And sometimes it is. And sometimes it’s really not.

Kathi (24:55.638)

Whenever I’m experimenting, I always tell my husband, and there’s a frozen pizza in the freezer if this is terrible. Like we have that back. Top Ramen, there you go, right? Because yeah, that’s the gold standard. Okay, is there any strategy that I haven’t mentioned that you feel like really helps with that grocery budget?

Lauren (25:17.71)

As silly as it sounds, I do the can collecting. I haven’t done a video in a very long time, but we live really so we live kind of by a park. And so there’s a ton of people that throw beer cans and things out their window, which is disgusting and a terrible habit. But I walk the road sometimes more frequently in the summer, but get exercise. You’re picking up the cans. Every bag is like seven bucks. It adds up over time.

Kathi (25:44.312)

And you’re helping the environment too. You’re helping to keep your community a place that people want to be. I love that. Okay.

Lauren (25:52.863)

You look like a weirdo, but it’s okay. I do it at at my son’s football game that we were just at I was picking up a couple that were under the bleachers and he was just like mom. my god

Kathi (26:01.813)

Mom. Yeah, but you know what? Here’s the beautiful thing. You’re not gonna have to take care of me in my old age because I’m in debt for the grocery bills of raising five boys. Yeah, you know what? If that’s the weirdest thing about you, mom, I think we’re good to go. Lauren, this has been so great. I’m gonna put your TikTok handle.

Lauren (26:14.657)

because I’ll be that little weirdo out the parking lot collecting cans, yep.

Kathi (26:26.424)

in the notes so that people can go find you. But I just think if you’re going to spend a few minutes on social media, spend them with Lauren. She is not controversial unless you’re weirded out by expiration date. She’s not controversial. You’re so encouraging to people. And I love that you’re helping us think about our food differently. Thank you so much for being on today.

Lauren (26:35.083)

for it.

Lauren (26:39.521)

I’ll play it twice.

Lauren (26:50.057)

today. Thank you, Kathi. This is really fun.

Kathi (26:52.998)

my goodness. And friends, thank you for being here. You’ve been listening to Clutter-Free Academy. I’m Kathi Lipp. Now, go create the clutter-free life you’ve always wanted to live.

#646 Why Your House Won’t Stay Clean: Breaking Free from the Clutter Cycle

#645 Reclaiming Your Space: Your First Steps to a Clutter-Free Life

#644 Meet the TikTok Star Making Saving Money on Food Cool Again

« Older Entries

#643 Before It’s Too Late: Why Now is the Time to Deal with Your Clutter

by Clutter Free Academy Team | Nov 12, 2024 | Clutter Free, Clutter Free For Life, Clutter Free Home, Clutter Free Podcast, Home, Mental Load, Podcast | 1 comment

Listen Now

643 – Before It’s Too Late: Why Now is the Time to Deal with Your Clutter

Have you ever looked around your home and felt that knot in your stomach, thinking, “I don’t want to leave this mess for my kids.”

In this poignant episode, Kathi Lipp welcomes literary agent and editor Kathleen Kerr to share her experience cleaning out her great aunt’s home. After her great aunt’s passing, Kathleen and her family faced the overwhelming task of sorting through decades of accumulated items in a historic Maine farmhouse where nothing had left since the 1930s. Kathleen discusses how her family approached this daunting project, working in teams to tackle different rooms while processing their grief and complex emotions.

Listeners will discover:

How to navigate family dynamics when dealing with heirlooms
The importance of asking for help before situations become unmanageable
How this experience has changed Kathleen’s own approach to keeping family mementos.

The episode offers practical advice for listeners who might face similar situations, while also providing a compassionate look at how hoarding affects both the individual and their loved ones.

Order your copy of Sabbath Soup here and sign up to receive your free ebook featuring four week’s worth of easy meal plans and delicious recipes.

Click here to be notified when the next podcast episode is released!

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An “old-school” family bathroom where even the littlest family members had their own special spot. Just one of the many treasures Kathleen’s family discovered after going through her great aunt’s possessions.

Sabbath Soup: Weekly Menus and Rhythms to Make Space for a Day of Rest

Kathi Lipp gives readers an easy-to-follow process for meal planning and prep, so that they can enjoy a full day each week of real rest and refreshment.

Order your copy of Sabbath Soup: Weekly Menus and Rhythms to Make Space for a Day of Rest here.

Clutter Free Resources:

Join our Clutter Free Academy Facebook Group

Order Sabbath Soup here and sign up for your free ebook featuring four weeks’ worth of easy meal plans and delicious recipes.

Have you ever experienced the emotional weight of sorting through someone else’s lifetime of belongings?

Share in the comments!

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Meet Our Guests

Kathleen Kerr

Kathleen Kerr is an agent with Alive Literary. Before joining Alive, Kathleen served as an acquisitions editor at Zondervan and Harvest House Publishers. She works with bestselling, debut, and award-winning authors, helping to refine their messages, build their careers, and partner in their ministries

Connect with Alive Literacy at www.aliveliterary.com.

Transcript

Kathi (00:01.484)

Well, hey friends, welcome to Clutter-Free Academy, where our goal is to help you take small doable steps to live every day with less clutter and more life. And today I wanna introduce you to an old friend of mine, but a new friend to the Clutter-Free side of podcasting. It’s Kathleen Kerr. Kathleen, welcome to the podcast.

Kathleen (00:20.924)

Thanks so much for having me today, Kathi.

Kathi (00:22.764)

Well, thank you for being here. Now, if people know you and me, they’d say you’re on the wrong podcast girl. Because as we also know, I have the writing at the Red House podcast where we talk all things writing. And Kathleen, in addition to being my agent, was my editor for years and years and years. And so we have had many a book conversation, many a writing conversation, many a marketing conversation. But

Kathleen (00:30.606)

You

Kathi (00:51.166)

You recently took a trip out east where you and I are both on the West Coast, all in the name of decluttering. And so this is your aunt who had passed away, correct? And your great aunt. Okay, so tell me a little bit about the situation. Why you?

Kathleen (01:06.248)

This is my great aunt. Yes.

Kathi (01:17.746)

What did you know you were getting into and what were you surprised that you were getting into?

Kathleen (01:23.336)

Cool, Glory. So this is my great aunt. And she had inherited a house from her parents. And nothing that came into that house since that family got the land in the 30s ever left the house. So my great aunt passed away. Her intention had been to leave it to my mother. My mother had passed away before her, so it went to my father instead.

When she passed away, we knew that we were going to have to clean out the house. And we had been there many times. I grew up every summer spending a few weeks on that property, spending a few weeks with her. And it was a dear, dear part of my childhood, very formative for me. This is land that my grandmother had grown up on, that my great-grandmother had lived and died on. It’s a really very, I mean, it’s sacred ground for me, for my family.

Kathi (02:20.046)

You’re right.

Kathleen (02:22.37)

And we knew that the house was bad. We could see the clutter growing over the years, but there were doors that always remained closed. When she died in May, I went into the house after her funeral and opened some of those doors and was swiftly overcome by a biological need to put on a mask and get out of there because I realized just how bad it was.

Kathi (02:33.25)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (02:48.398)

you

Kathleen (02:51.304)

at that point. Well, I think I realized about 75 % of how bad it was. So this past summer, I took my daughters out east, we went back to Maine, and I joined my father and a brother and his wife, some aunts and uncles, some cousins, just a whole crew of people that were all going to go through the house together. And we were beyond overwhelmed, all of us knowing how bad it was.

Kathi (02:57.282)

Hmm.

Kathleen (03:19.036)

We were overwhelmed by truly how unspeakable it was and really, truly overcome by grief again, grief that she had lived like that for so long, that she had not allowed any beauty into her life, that her private spaces were so full of junk. It felt self-punishing to me. It was truly hard to see it.

Kathi (03:28.622)

night.

Kathi (03:42.414)

Hmm.

Kathleen (03:46.012)

But our task in that week was just to go through enough of the clutter that we could be confident that we had everything that we could possibly save that we would want, family history, postcards, that we had everything so that we could just hire junk removal. It took a lot of dumpsters to get to that point.

Kathi (04:06.122)

Wow. Wow. it feels so completely overwhelming. And like you said, it feels sad that, you know, I’ve got some people in my life and, that want to make changes right before they sell the house. And I’m like, but I want you to be comfortable now. I want you to have, you know,

be surrounded by things that make you happy now. And I think that, you know, it’s so hard to help people see that that’s a possibility. How do you think your aunt got to that place? I know you’re not a psychologist, I know, but I’m just wondering, do you know how it got to be like that?

Kathleen (05:00.698)

It was little bit over a little bit over time and she kept closing off more doors. She couldn’t, and I do think this is generational as well because it wasn’t just once her parents died and she had the run of the house, the problem started. The problem had started before that. And certainly there’s some of the depression mentality that I’m sure you’ve talked about in this space, but it was far beyond that. was every piece of paper, every envelope, nothing, nothing.

Kathi (05:05.836)

Yeah.

Kathi (05:16.726)

Right. Yeah.

Kathi (05:22.124)

Yes, we have.

Kathleen (05:30.46)

was thrown out. had, you we found, I’m sure people have, these stories won’t surprise you, but we found, you know, those little cups of applesauce that you can get the little plastic containers. We found stacks of those cups that were in the pantry. Alongside really beautiful heirlooms, this place used to be a dairy farm and I found glass pint jars that were stamped with, you know, one pint in the name of the farm, the family name. That’s a treasure to me at that

Kathi (05:30.648)

Mm.

Kathi (05:36.878)

Yeah.

Kathi (05:58.102)

Right, of course.

Kathleen (05:59.964)

But it got to the point that we realized she hadn’t taken care of anything for so long that I couldn’t start. There was so little I could take. And even as I was throwing things away, I’m throwing away dumpsters full of items, much of which I think is would have value to someone, would have monetary value, has intrinsic value. And I’m tossing it all because I couldn’t start caring.

Kathi (06:21.185)

Right?

Kathleen (06:28.646)

when she hadn’t taken care of it for six decades.

Kathi (06:30.924)

Yeah, right. Yeah, I think that there is this idea that I can’t do it, so I’ll leave it for the next generation. And but I’m also going to judge how you take care of it or how you dispose of it or how you give it away. And we have to break those expectations because, you know, yes, there may have been.

depression, may have been other psychological factors going in, but I cannot care more than you did. I just can’t. And so we have to be able to say, you know, these things were not this person. And yes, it’s great if we can keep a few things that bring back beautiful memories of that person, but we can’t be responsible for categorizing a person’s entire life in those situations.

So I wanna get really practical here, Kathleen. You know what, actually, I wanna take a quick break. We’re gonna go pay some bills. And when we come back, I wanna get to the practical side of how you and your family approach this overwhelming task and how you were able to break it down. So we’re gonna go do that and we’ll be back in just a moment.

Hey there, we’re back here on Clutterfree Academy with Kathleen Kerr, my agent, but also the survivor.

of somebody who has had to deal with a hoarder’s house. I mean, that’s really where we are right now. So Kathleen, let’s get, because many of us are gonna have to face this. If it’s not our parents, it may be a sibling, it may be a child, it might be a grandparent, an aunt or uncle, but many of us, as we start to lose family members are going to be the, or the family member has to transition into assisted living or something like that.

We are going to be the ones who have to make sense of all of this. And so can you give me, you said you felt overwhelmed. You felt like, you know, that this was just too big of a task. So tell us how you even started to approach it and how did your plan change as you got into it.

Kathleen (08:51.88)

Oof. So yeah, the organization, just the brainstorming, how can we manage all of this? And I don’t have the luxury, my whole family doesn’t have the luxury of this is just across town or this is an hour drive away. This is a seven-hour plane ride for me to get to this space. and the closest other relatives who are involved in all of this are a 12-hour drive away. So this is not.

Kathi (09:08.696)

Yeah.

Kathleen (09:17.828)

A simple, can do this over a year on the odd weekend. Someone can just run over. This was, we have a finite period of time. We are all here for a week. We need to get done what we can get done in a week. So this was the first get-in and do-the-triage kind of time. So we went in and we split up into teams. We called them Team One and Team A.

Kathi (09:26.478)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (09:41.802)

Hahaha!

Kathleen (09:43.376)

of splitting up teams into Team One and team A may tell you something about the competitive nature of my family. But that kind of devolved into, we sort of split up into just groups of two. And it was, let’s pick a room and let’s get these rooms in some kind of order. Let’s go through, let’s just get this one room first of all. Let’s get this clean so that this is someplace that we can have.

Kathi (09:49.109)

Absolutely.

Kathleen (10:09.222)

We can set things up. can not really stage things, but we can set up a few things for someone from an estate sale to come in just to make some evaluations. We stationed the younger, stronger guys by the dumpster so they could be tossing things in. There were people who were like, OK, I’m really eager to see what’s up in that front attic. And that was a place of horror, let me tell you. That’s where we found all the Nazi memorabilia. And that was.

Kathi (10:37.577)

lean.

Kathleen (10:38.524)

We’re assuming that this was a war trophy from a great uncle of some kind, but there was a lot of Nazi stuff in there. Anyway, well, we had some bingo parts about who’s gonna find the most racist thing that used to be considered charmingly folksy.

Kathi (10:47.854)

Kathi (10:54.742)

Kathleen my grandfather, was part of The Hitler Youth so we all have those relatives, right? We all have those Yeah

Kathleen (11:03.176)

We all have the relatives. I’ve got them too. My maiden name is Schmidt. You can tell that we, yep, Yep, yep. So yeah, we split up and it was actually, I’m just gonna say, one of the better times I’ve ever spent with my extended family. It was so hard, but it was so good to have a project to work on with these people. Because frequently, I mean, for the last, what, 15 years,

Kathi (11:08.066)

Yeah, Von Campen, I get it.

Kathi (11:27.064)

Yeah.

Kathleen (11:30.544)

My aunts and uncles and cousins, I live on the opposite coast from them. They’re in a different country, actually. So I see them at weddings and funerals quickly, briefly catching up. But to have an actual project to work on, and it’s not just, hey, how’s it going, but how are we going to solve this problem together was a great bonding experience. So yeah.

Kathi (11:39.553)

Yeah.

Kathi (11:52.28)

Kathleen, let me ask, how did you handle it when you disagreed about how to handle something?

Kathleen (11:58.708)

good grief. We had those moments. I am, and a lot of my other family members are extremely practical about this stuff. I knew it was going to be a problem walking into, you know, going into the space. There was going to be so much that I saw that would look like a treasure. And I knew I wouldn’t have time to curate. And my whole methodology as I was going in was touch it once, make a decision about it, touch it once. And then it’s going in the bag to the dumpster.

Kathi (12:24.332)

Yeah.

Kathleen (12:27.746)

or it’s going in, my daughter was there, my nine-year-old daughter was there, so she had a pile of treasures that she was making. So it goes in her treasure pile or it goes to the dumpster. Those are the only two options. There were other family members there who had a very different approach. And for them, it was touch it and hold it and think about it and think about the person and think about the history and then be overwhelmed by love for that history and not be able to put it in any of the piles.

Kathi (12:56.429)

Right.

Kathleen (12:57.18)

And there were some big disagreements. And there were times that we would just defer to each other. If you care about it that much, it’s gonna go to your home. You can have that. We did find there were a few items. I mean, this was sweet. There’s my great -grandparents marriage certificate was framed and hung up above their marriage bed. I thought it was lovely. And I was like, I kinda like to have that. And my dad too was like, I’ve always wanted to have that.

Kathi (13:18.958)

Awwww.

Kathleen (13:25.978)

And ultimately my aunt mentioned as well, I really kind of love to have that. And, or she didn’t even say it that boldly. I think it was just, I always remember looking at that and thinking how nice it was. And she was the one who actually remembered both of those great-grandparents. So it went to her. So I think we were all in the end really good about just being deferential about those things. was so much that everyone could get something.

Kathi (13:40.942)

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah.

Right. you know, I think about it, there are, you if you think about a bullseye, you know, there are people who are closer to that center of the bullseye who have had those life experiences with the great grandparents with, and yeah, it makes sense that, you know, the people who are closest to the center get a little bit more weight in some of those decisions as long as they’re willing to follow that up.

You know, it’s not like, this is really important, Kathleen, you need to take it home. None of that can be allowed. But if it’s really important, they can take it home or they can say, no, we don’t need that. So I love that you deferred to certain people in there. And you know, my brother has already told my mom, yeah, I’m just backing up a U-Haul and taking everything straight to the dump.

And my mom says, and that’s why you don’t have keys to my house. And so.

Kathi (14:55.138)

But, yeah.

Kathleen (14:55.208)

And, you know, it’s acknowledging everyone grieves in different ways. And for me, the space I’ve gotten to, having lost many other relatives, no object, no finite object was worth the relationship. It is not worth continued bitterness. It’s not worth someone seeing that I’m wearing a ring 10 years later and thinking, that should have been mine. No object is worth that. If I really want a ring, I can go buy a ring.

Kathi (14:59.213)

Yes.

Kathi (15:08.888)

Right? Yes.

Kathleen (15:25.126)

Right? And that’s where I come from. Having grown up seeing this house, that’s the context I come from. I’ve chosen to live a very different way. And everyone is grappling with their own grief in different ways. And cleaning out this house for all of us was a deeply emotional experience. You know, if we’re talking just practically, one of the very practical things that I ended up needing to do was create some space.

Kathi (15:34.371)

Right.

Kathi (15:45.335)

you

Kathleen (15:55.096)

you know, when I was getting into my great aunt’s bedroom in particular, that was the worst. That was the space where there was the least beauty, where she had just piled up. There were load-bearing bags of trash. And I’m not exaggerating there load-bearing trash. she had chucked every shoe she’d ever owned just in a corner. There were Christmas gifts that she had been given that were just chucked in a corner. Every purse just chucked over there. Every article of clothing, every jar of deodorant was everything.

Kathi (16:24.182)

Wow.

Kathleen (16:25.154)

Everything was there. And it was so hard to see the way that she had lived. Someone I loved so desperately. And to see the extent of that illness. That was one of those doors that was always closed. And I could be in there for a bit. And then I needed to leave. And I needed to give myself time to walk around the fields that are there. It’s a beautiful piece of farmland. And I needed to go remind myself what was beautiful and get a little bit of distance from all of that.

Kathi (16:37.336)

Yeah.

Kathi (16:53.622)

Yeah, yeah. Obviously, there was probably some mental illness. There was definitely some, some, you know, some issues that she had. I, I have a lot of people who are listening right now, who probably are not in that extreme of a circumstance, but are embarrassed. And they don’t want their family to come over because they don’t want them to see it.

Kathi (17:26.36)

two questions for you. How do you feel about your aunt after seeing that? your feelings towards her change? Did your affection for her change? And I know we should obviously say no, of course not, because that’s the good and right thing for people to say. But I think people need to hear, were you able to stay in a place of compassion?

If there was one thing that your aunt could have done differently, one small thing, whether it was saying, hey, this thing is important, pay attention to it, or I don’t know. What do you wish your aunt knew?

Kathleen (18:00.551)

Yeah.

Kathleen (18:17.64)

I am able to get back to a place of compassion now. There were times when there was real anger when I was going through her room when I was going through her pantry, and there’s a whole barn that’s attached to the space as well that’s just full. There was anger. There was confusion. There was gratitude to God for not letting the whole place go up. There was…

Kathi (18:39.118)

Yeah.

Kathleen (18:46.108)

We found every printer she’d ever owned, every computer, and everything was still plugged into everything else. And I’m like, how did this place not go up? But there really was, there had been a sense of this property is such a gift, you know, that’s coming to my family. And it was not a gift. Going through all of that, that was not a gift. That was hard work. That was sacrifice. And I love her so much. I still love her. And

Kathi (19:01.71)

Hmm.

Kathi (19:12.972)

Yeah.

Kathleen (19:16.232)

I wanted my children to be able to go there and experience it and see what I had loved about that property. And instead I actually needed to send them away. They were there for about an hour and it was like, they shouldn’t be here. This isn’t good for them to see psychologically, biologically, this isn’t good for them. So they were out with my sister-in-law for a large part of this. It was such an overwhelming sense of, why didn’t you let me help? Did you not trust me with this?

Kathi (19:33.09)

Yeah.

Kathi (19:45.89)

Yeah.

Kathleen (19:45.916)

Did you think I would have loved you less if you had let me help with this? And I understand there was probably never a tipping point when there was never any impetus for her to say, I need the help here. But I wish she had. It was this, the last act of love that I could give her was taking that embarrassment for her.

Kathi (20:00.301)

Yeah.

Kathi (20:06.721)

Right. Right.

Kathleen (20:08.506)

I wish I could have done that for her. wish more than I can express that I could have said, okay, please just go away. I’m going to send you on a two-week vacation somewhere. Everyone who loves you, we’re going to help you out with this. Let us help. And sure, it would have been embarrassing. It’s always embarrassing to say I need help. But she just festered away in this house that was rotting around her.

Kathi (20:26.72)

Yes. Right.

Kathleen (20:35.688)

not caring for any of it, so now I can’t care for any of it. Now everything becomes trash. I was seeing things that were absolute treasures. I found a tin of three-by-five cards, and she had been a teacher for 30 some years. And on these three-by-five cards were nursery rhymes that she had written out. And they were all divided into, this is good for cleanup time, or these are fun songs to sing in the classroom while we’re waiting for lunch.

And I wanted to keep every one of them, but unfortunately I found that tin underneath a used adult diaper that had just been discarded. So I couldn’t keep any of it. So yeah, there was anger, there was compassion. It was all mixed together. And when it got to be too much, then I went for a walk.

Kathi (21:11.459)

Yeah.

Kathi (21:15.266)

Yeah.

Kathi (21:18.838)

Yeah. Yeah.

I think what I take away from this is to ask for the help sooner rather than later. And right now, if you’re feeling overwhelmed, right now is the sooner because it’s not going to get better on its own. It’s just not. And most of us have people in our lives who love us, who don’t want to see us living in squalor.

Kathleen (21:32.075)

yes.

Kathi (21:53.304)

who don’t, and here’s the thing, know, clutter is not a big issue for me anymore, but I have that tendency and all it takes is a hurt ankle or a change in circumstances. know, this has nothing to do with what you’ve been talking about with your aunt, but like three things at our house have died all at once, right?

Kathleen (22:07.574)

Yeah.

Kathi (22:22.804)

a light in our garage, our microwave, like everything. And so our lives are totally disjointed at this moment. You wouldn’t think that that would be enough to kind of throw things into a tailspin, but it really is. You know, when you’ve got the contents for your garage out on your driveway, it, it, and it just takes a few of those things to just feel like you’re not going to catch your breath again.

Kathleen (22:34.551)

You

Kathi (22:50.97)

and to say this is when I need the help before those dominoes completely fall. Kathleen, have you taken away anything from this about how you, I know you’re not a cluttery person. I’ve known you long enough to know that, but have you taken anything away from this where you’re like, this is something in my life I’m going to do differently because of this experience I’ve had in my great aunt’s home?

Kathleen (22:59.249)

Absolutely.

Kathleen (23:19.004)

Yes, I have a few items that I kept that are really, really special from in my direct line. I am the oldest woman in my family and I have a piece of kitchen equipment from all these other women. So those are in my China cabinet. Those were up in my China cabinet. So I would see them all the time. And okay, this is going to make me sound like I don’t like I don’t care about the family too much or I don’t care about this group, but.

Kathi (23:31.566)

Got it.

Kathi (23:47.178)

No, no.

Kathleen (23:48.974)

I realized I don’t want to be confronted with that memory and that grief every time I walk into my dining room. I don’t need to see that every time. So I have decided now that those go into my Christmas box. Those are things that I bring out in December. And once a year I can, this is also what I do with my, the family jewelry that I have. It’s not something I wear. You know, I don’t wear a lot of jewelry and,

Kathi (23:57.614)

Hmm.

Kathi (24:01.005)

Yeah.

Kathi (24:07.766)

Yes.

Kathi (24:17.219)

Right.

Kathleen (24:18.896)

just not really me, but I have all of this family jewelry. So I always put it on my Christmas tree to add a little bit of sparkle and bling. And these kitchen items that I have can, those can be part of a holiday centerpiece. I can bring those out. That’s a fun thing to look at, but I don’t need it all the time. My house doesn’t need to absorb someone else’s house.

Kathi (24:24.194)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (24:31.959)

Right.

Kathi (24:40.278)

Yes, it’s so true. You know, it’s so interesting. My best example of this is Susie Flory, who you know, gave me these handmade Native American dolls that I just love. I love them. I love them. But there’s not really like a place for them. So I put them with my fall decor. You know, like I have a little one box for each season. And every time I pull those out, they make me so happy.

But oftentimes when you have things out 24 seven 365, they just become part of the background noise. And when I pull those out, I think, gosh, I love Susie. I’m so grateful for her friendship. And she got me these specifically because they’re from a native American tribe in the area that she and I both live in. And so they’re really, you know, they have a story behind them and they’re meaningful to me. And

Kathleen (25:31.452)

Hmm.

Kathi (25:37.408)

I think about them every year instead of never. And I love that you’re saying there’s going to be a day each year where I pull those out. I think about the women in my family. you know, and knowing you, I thank God for their legacy and what they’ve sewn into me and your daughters and your sister. It’s, beautiful. It’s absolutely beautiful.

I think we have been tricked into thinking that if we love somebody, we keep their stuff around for the rest of our lives. you know, those dishes may be important to one of your girls when they get older, and they may not be. And both of those answers are okay. Both of those answers are okay because, you know, my daughters are not stuffed people.

Kathleen (26:14.119)

Yes.

Kathleen (26:27.996)

Right.

Kathi (26:34.466)

They don’t want all those things. My sons are definitely not stuffed people. And I’m okay with that. And so for our hearts to be settled to say we don’t need to keep all those things, and yet it doesn’t diminish our love for that person is bucking against society, but it is so true. It is so true.

Kathleen (26:58.428)

Yes.

Kathi (27:00.558)

Can I ask you, what’s the plan for the house now? Are you guys selling it to somebody local? Like, what’s the hope?

Kathleen (27:06.728)

It’s very much in my dad’s hands. So that is kind of a to be determined. The one thing that is certain is that the house needs to be demolished. Because again, she didn’t take care of it. She wasn’t capable of taking care of it. was too much house, was too much property. She had never been trained to. She grew up in a time when the men are doing the hard work and the light bulb goes out in the barn and she’s not gonna get on the ladder to fix it.

Kathi (27:13.464)

Yeah.

Kathi (27:18.956)

Yeah.

Yeah, right, right, absolutely.

Kathi (27:27.555)

Bye.

Kathi (27:34.423)

Yeah.

Kathleen (27:35.314)

You know, especially in the later years, she didn’t know what to do about the mold that was taking over. All of those things. So the house now is, I mean, it was never in fabulous shape, but now it’s the rats and the mice. And I think I told you that the mouse traps had been put out, but then the rats moved in and they stole the mouse traps, which I believe means that the mice have been enslaved by the rats. You could hear them.

Kathi (27:40.13)

Yeah. Yeah.

Kathi (27:47.361)

Right.

Kathi (27:51.895)

Yeah.

Kathleen (28:05.38)

everywhere. It’s the house needs to be demolished. So there’s I see so much in there. And there’s so much history that I can’t there’s there’s a grinding stone. It’s massive. It’s beautiful. It looks like a museum piece. It would be so cool to have I look at that. These old farm tools that my great grandfather and his sons all used. I would love to have them.

Kathi (28:05.637)

my god.

Yeah. Yeah.

Kathi (28:20.547)

Yeah.

Kathi (28:26.978)

Yeah.

Kathi (28:34.68)

Yeah. Right. Right.

Kathleen (28:34.834)

there’s no place in my house for this. What would I do with that? The one piece, the one piece I really want. I think, I don’t know if I showed you a photo of this. I can text you a photo of this for your show notes is that the indoor plumbing was installed in the sixties. And before then there’s a three-holer that’s out in the back that everyone would just use. There’s one hole that’s a little bit smaller. I think that’s for the baby butts and they’re the normal adult size. So, you know,

Kathi (28:47.277)

Yes, please.

Kathi (28:52.152)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (28:56.331)

No!

Kathi (29:00.77)

Yes. Right. I love the board. Yes.

Kathleen (29:04.764)

And I really want, I want that board. I want the board with the three holes in them. I want to hang that up in my bathroom. I want that so bad, Kathi. So that’s the one piece before the house is demolished that I would like to hold onto. But other than that, it’s all going. And that would have made my great aunt so sad. And she was thinking this could be donated to a historical society. We talked to a variety of historical societies and about all the great farm tools that were authentic and vintage. And they said,

Kathi (29:19.533)

Yeah.

Kathleen (29:34.866)

There are a lot of old farms. We have all of this. We’re good. Thank you so much. And to know that so much of this that she was so, that she put so much weight and identity on ended up in a dumpster in the rain. And it was all going to be ground up and then put in a landfill, all of it.

Kathi (29:37.346)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Kathi (29:50.796)

Yeah. Yeah.

Kathi (29:57.27)

I think to me the big lesson for this is ask for help sooner rather than later. And you know, it really is to know what you have. Because here on the West Coast, something that is that old is very rare. But on the East Coast, not so much. And so to know that is really, really interesting. And I know that

Kathleen (30:03.048)

Yes.

Kathleen (30:15.868)

Yes.

Kathi (30:27.018)

your husband’s job. Explain just really briefly what he does.

Kathleen (30:32.272)

Right, my husband is a historian, an architectural historian. So he works specifically with the national parks to do cultural resource surveys. But he is trained in fixing houses like this, period houses with the period tools and all the architecture of that.

Kathi (30:51.778)

Yeah, I was just gonna say anything you wanna bring home, he’d probably be okay with. Yeah, exactly. And he would know what to do with it, but he’s like the one person in my circle of people who would actually know what to do with it. The rest of us would be, we’d hang it on the wall and be done with it. But to ask for help, to ask for input, to ask for, is this actually worth something? Or is there somebody who would actually like this?

Kathleen (30:56.32)

he’d love it.

Kathleen (31:11.077)

Exactly.

Kathi (31:20.972)

Because I know your aunt didn’t want to leave you with a burden, but because she didn’t ask for help, she had no choice.

Kathleen (31:27.27)

No.

Mm.

Nor could she, I’m convinced, really process how much of a burden it would be. I don’t think she really knew how much of that, just how much she had. And if I could go back and tell her anything and show her anything, and I’m not sure how this would have been received or could have been received, it was so hard to do that work. was logistically, it is hard for me to get across the continent. Logistically, it is hard for me to take my kiddos with me.

Kathi (31:37.772)

Mm hmm. Yeah.

Kathi (31:49.356)

Right, sure.

Kathleen (32:02.376)

logistically and expensive, you know, that’s a big trip. It’s hard to figure out the Airbnb where we’re going to be staying. It’s hard just to take the week off work. It’s just hard. I wouldn’t give up that time for anything. The time that I spent nurturing new relationships with my cousins and my cousin’s fiance and seeing my kids and seeing the family grow and not being stuck in the past of what the family was in 1950.

Kathi (32:17.912)

Yeah.

Kathleen (32:31.624)

But seeing the family as it is in 2024 was an immense gift to me. It was a blessing to me, even when it hurt, even when it was hard. I wouldn’t give that up for anything. I wish I could have had that and given her the gift of a beautiful space to live at the same time.

Kathi (32:48.578)

Yeah. Yeah.

Kathleen, this is such a good reminder to not let your life become small. To ask for the help to change the light bulb, to take care of the mold the first time you see it, or ask somebody, how do I do this? This big, beautiful house became smaller and smaller because she didn’t know what to do.

Kathleen (32:57.288)

Hmm.

Kathi (33:15.114)

And it’s okay that you don’t know what to do. Roger and I are the world’s living example of like, we don’t know what to do. Like living in this big house and you know, what do you do? And so to get comfortable asking for help, get comfortable asking for help from your family, from friends, because people love you and they wanna help out. Kathleen, this has been a precious time. Thanks so much for spending it with me.

Kathleen (33:23.006)

I’m

Kathleen (33:43.56)

Thanks for making the space for it, Kathi.

Kathi (33:46.082)

Friends, thank you for being here. You’ve been listening to Clutterfree Academy. I’m Kathi Lipp. Now, go create the clutter-free life you’ve always wanted to live.

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