How a little spring clean could change your life

SPRING is an awesome time to liberate yourself from all the stuff that’s hanging around you like belly fat. It could change your life, writes the Barefoot Investor.

Spring is a good time to liberate yourself of things you simply hide away.

IT’S spring! And you know what spring means to me?

Cute little lambs! (“Awwww..!”).

Getting paid! (“Yeah!!”).

And mint jelly! (“Ohhh … I see where this is going”).

But for my mum, spring means something totally different: cleaning.

When I was a kid, it was time to eat all the weird and wonderful things lurking at the bottom of the deep freeze.

“What the hell is this?”

(Brushing off the ice like David Attenborough at the North Pole.)

“No idea, it could well be the cryogenic leg of Walt Disney.”

“Bugger it, let’s put it on the pan and cook ’er up!”

Hmm, spring.

Truth be told, now I’m getting older, I’m getting more like my mother. So here’s one for her ...

THE ULTIMATE SPRING CLEAN

Each year we collect more stuff. First we put it on the shelf. Then we put it in the cupboard. Then we put it in the garage (because we might need it).

And then, when we can’t open the car door any more, we put it in ... storage! (Which incidentally is a booming industry, with more than a thousand across the country, mostly chock-full of lemon-coloured sofas and footy trophies from yesteryear.)

Fight Club’s Tyler Durden was right: the things you own end up owning you.

If Tyler Durden didn’t convince you, try Japanese author Marie Kondo.

Well, spring is an awesome time to liberate yourself from all the stuff that’s hanging around you, like belly fat.

So with that, let me tell you about the ultimate spring clean.

There’s not only an art to it, there’s a worldwide best-selling book: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, by Japanese author Marie Kondo.

If you want to know about tidying up, just ask the Japanese — their public toilets are clean enough to eat off.

Well, today Barefoot’s turning Japanese. Here are five steps to cleaning out your clutter and bringing in some cash:

Step 1: Pick a room.

Begin with your “hoarding” place — it could be your garage or your living room.

Step 2: Dump everything on the floor.

Get everything out of the drawers, closets and any other hiding spots you have, and dump it on the floor in front of you. This is important because it’ll show you just how much you have.

Step 3: Pick up each item individually and ask yourself “is this useful or beautiful?”

Most things are neither useful nor beautiful (especially presents given to you by your family), so put them to one side.

The mindset we’re looking for is to actively choose what we’re going to keep, rather than to justify what we want to hoard. In other words, you need a bias towards getting rid of stuff. This is about simplifying your life, unclogging yourself from all the junk.

Step 4: Label it with a Post-it Note.

For the stuff that isn’t useful or beautiful (the majority), grab two different-coloured Post-it Notes: green for stuff to give to charity, and yellow for stuff to sell on eBay or at a garage sale.

Sort them accordingly. (Recycle the junk).

Step 5: Move around your house and repeat.

This exercise will take an afternoon for each room — but unclogging your life will give you a huge return in mental clarity. Even better, it’ll give you four other benefits:

First, you’ll find yourself enjoying the stuff you keep (some of which you’d forgotten about) — it’s like getting the buzz from buying it all over again.

Storage is not the answer.

Second, the money from what you sell can be put into Mojo.

Third, you’ll feel incredibly liberated not having to tidy up so much junk all the time.

Finally, and most importantly, it’ll tattoo the concept of “conscious spending” into your brain.

How could it not?

When you look at the pile of stuff you’re throwing out, take a few minutes to think how much you spent on it.

Baaa!

Tread your own path!

HATER OF THE WEEK

I’ve been on holiday, sucking back on a Bintang in Bali, lounging by the pool, and reading ... my hate mail. My favourite was from Todd (normally I change people’s names, but not for Todd).

Some context: a few weeks ago I did a column where I answered money questions from young readers. One of them was little Olivia, who wanted to know how to make her money grow.

But my answer so infuriated Todd that he got on the old tappety-tap and fired me this email.

Hi Scott,

I’m so disappointed in you. I can’t agree with your advice to six-year-old Olivia last week! I have known a few lovely, intelligent ladies over the years who were truly hopeless with money, and your advice to Olivia (with no justification at all) is to spend everything that she gets! Isn’t this a dangerous habit to teach?             Todd

OK, let’s look at what I actually said: Hi Olivia, I want you to ask your mum to get three glass jam jars (without the jam!).

Ask her to label them Save, Give and Spend. Then keep them in your room, where you can see the money piling up inside them ...

The Save jar is for something big you want to buy but you can’t afford right now (preferably something like a Super Soaker that your brother wants).

The Give jar is for helping other little girls who are not as lucky as you.

At Christmas time you can buy these girls presents, wrap them, and put them under a tree at the shopping centre.

The Spend jar is for lollies.

Not quite sure how this equates to “spend everything that she gets”, Todd.

If I can teach kids — in a fun way — the value of saving, the value of giving, and the value of enjoying the money they’ve saved, I’ll consider my job done.

When Olivia grows up, I hope she’ll save for a home, give some of her money away, and do something enjoyable with her money.