I’ve always loved magazines with their glossy photos of the perfect living room or birthday cake or beach vacation splashed across the cover. They are filled with helpful advice from how to save money at the grocery store to how not to marry the wrong guy.
My love of magazines started way back when I was a little girl tagging along with my father when he went to the newsstand in Brooklyn to pick up the paper. Sometimes the evening edition wouldn’t be in, and we had to wait for a few minutes until it arrived. I spent those minutes staring at the glossy magazines and thumbing through them, despite the sign on the wall about that proclaimed that the newsstand was not a library. Usually, my father would go ahead and buy me one, along with his paper. I had to narrow down and carefully make my selection.
Because I now practice frugal living, I seldom buy magazines. Spending three or four dollars, or sometimes even six or seven dollars for a bundle of paper seems frivolous, especially when it will eventually wind up in the recycling bin. I can get three dozen eggs for the farmer market for six dollars.
Still, I have too many magazines in the house, more than I can keep up with. This is because I get them all free, either through the free offers I signed up for years ago, or through friends and family.
I don’t like a lot of clutter, so I routinely go through the magazines and purge, it never seems to be enough. This is because I have been feeling that I need to go through each one before getting rid of it. I don’t want to miss anything, even if it was free.
Decluttering and minimalism isn’t just about stuff, though. It is also about time. The magazines have been taking up too much of my time. So this week, I went ahead and purged a stack of them without even flipping though the pile. My time is better spent elsewhere.
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