Our Christmas break was a blur. We moved over the break, and we’re working on getting our house show ready for the market to sell. I learned a few things while moving:

1. Moving with kids is near impossible. I basically kept the kids from getting in the way, while everyone else moved our crap. (Big shout out to all our friends and family that helped! Y’all rock!)

2. We have a LOT of stuff. Clothes, books I haven’t read in years, kitchen gadgets, toys that were lost and forgotten about, just a bunch of stuff.

This first month of the year I am tackling just that: stuff. I know it’s a broad category… But we’re having a garage sale soon, so I might as well document this as I go, right? The first week of January I worked on going through our wardrobes.

I first wanted to tackle the kids’ clothes. They seemed to have so. much. clothes. I had this philosophy: If I don’t love it, get rid of it. So that’s what I did. Y’all, they had boxes of clothes that were too small for them, too big for my oldest, and everything in between. I kept enough in their dresser to get them through a week without having to do laundry, and then headed to a second hand kids’ clothing store in town.

This was so liberating. It was almost like the kids had so much clothes that I didn’t really know what clothes they did have in their closets! And honestly, my boys pick out the same 4 T-shirts to wear on a regular basis anyway, so they aren’t missing a thing.

Next on my list: my closet. I have gotten so used to hanging on to maternity clothes, nursing tanks, jeans that are a size bigger than my normal size for that awkward post-baby time period when nothing fits right… I got rid of it all. The same philosophy went through my mind: If you don’t love it, get rid of it. Why would I want to hang on to a top that I don’t feel confident wearing? It makes no sense cluttering up my closet thinking one day I’ll wear it when I haven’t worn it in 2 years!

Now, my magic number is 5. I decided to keep 5 of everything: 5 short sleeved tops, 5 long sleeved tops, 5 tanks, 5 dresses, and 5 pairs of shoes. As far as jeans go, I currently only have 2 pairs that fit me and 1 pair of shorts so that kinda worked out on its own.

Again, it felt great. I know I’m going to love whatever I put on, because I didn’t bother to let anything else clutter my side of the closet. Even now, when I look back on my newly simplified closet, I still feel like I can empty it a little more, but I’m comfortable with where it’s at for now.

I’d love to hear about some of your journeys to simplify your closets! Share some of your tips on how to you keep your closets free of excess and and full of abundance!