From A Woman's Perspective: March 30th, 2024

Waste not, want not…

Good morning, Marilyn. Thank you for bringing our attention to the waste crisis our world is facing today. I wholeheartedly endorse your efforts to inspire listeners to careful consumption. 

If you’re like me, and grew up hearing, “Waste not, want not,” the message was to hang onto what we’ve got to protect against future scarcity. We often carry this message into adulthood, setting us up to keep accumulating, preparing, storing, warehousing. “Saving for a rainy day” became synonymous with prudence and wisdom. 

But I’d like to challenge that wisdom, and turn the definition of waste on its head. Have you ever considered that it might actually be wasteful to keep things that you don’t need? 

To explain, I’d like you to consider that clutter in our homes - otherwise known as the surplus we’ve accumulated over the years - is actually very wasteful. 

Clutter is a waste of:

1. Space - Did you know that 47% of Canadian seniors live in dwellings with 3 or more bedrooms? There are 2.2 million empty bedrooms in the GTA. 
2. Time - Experts estimate that a solid year of our lives is spent looking for lost items - The daily minutes that we lose in wasted productivity, not to mention having to rebuy items we know we have but just can’t find 
3. Money - In an average 3-bedroom home, there are usually around 10 separate rooms: 3 Bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, kitchen, living, dining, family, laundry room. How many of those are actually used? For most people it is about 3. That means fully 70% of the cost of running the house is for putting a roof over your stuff, not you! Reduce your stuff, and you could reduce the size of your dwelling. That could mean the difference of literally hundreds of thousands of dollars if you’re a homeowner! The average price of a detached house in Toronto is $1,650,000 and the average condo is $725,000. Do the math! Warehousing your surplus stuff is expensive!
4. Well-being - Lest you think it’s all about the money that clutter wastes, we need to address the most important cost of clutter: our sense of wellbeing. If we can’t invite people in and become isolated, or feel anxious in a visually chaotic environment, or feel trapped in a home that isn’t suited to our needs as we age, then we’re squandering the most important resource we have. A home that doesn’t support our wellness, financial and lifestyle goals is the ultimate in a misspending. 
5. Opportunity - The final way clutter is wasteful is that by holding onto things despite not using them, we are missing out on the opportunity to bless others with our surplus. By taking that thing, that unused appliance or power tool or whatever, and putting it back into circulation, you are giving it new life and helping someone else. No new item needs to be produced in some far away factory, and you experience the good feeling of preventing something good from  going to waste. 

If you’d like to start your Spring cleaning clearing out the surplus stuff, we have an amazing offer for you. It’s our “30-Day Decluttering Challenge” email campaign. Each day you will receive a straightforward task that can usually be finished in less than 30 minutes. There will also be tips from experts and inspirational quotes to keep you motivated. Sign up at smartrealtysolution.com.

And if all this talk about numbers has you wondering what kind of value your home might have in today’s real estate market, then head on over to smartrealtysolution.com or call me, Sharon, at 416-460-5636 and we can send your property report right away.

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