Today was just my 6-year old and I around the house and it made me realize one thing: there's just plenty of stuff lying around at home. Stuff that gets in the way, stuff that smells and stuff that I don't even know why it's there. We don't have a big house and not a lot of storage so when you have plenty of things, it gets in your nerves. And it's just not healthy, physiologically, mentally and financially.

I tweeted this today.

You have no idea what lurks in your fridge when you don't take out stale stuff once in a while. #domesticity

— Ppip Cimafranca (@rakstarppip) January 29, 2012

The fridge was a good start. There were a handful of medicine bottles, a couple of boxes of all-purpose cream and a box of cheese that already went past their expiry dates. They went straight to the trash - I made sure to pour the contents of the bottles at the sink first. For good measure, I went ahead and cleaned the trays in the fridge because it was already grimy.

There are two packs of pasta that have been there for quite a while now. I made a note in my iPad to cook them the next weekend.

Next up: toys.

When you have kids and take the effort of giving them as much toys as your wallet can afford, it wouldn't take long for these to pile up. Even the most frugal parent will have this problem eventually. Worse, toys don't last very long so the ones that lay around usually have their heads missing, one of the rear wheels broken, the remote control gone or the thing's just plain broken. There's nowhere to go but the trash.

After the first run of the cleanup, we had a black trash bag full of broken toys, torn kiddie books and plastic things I don't even know what they were! The toy box still looks full so I would expect to have another run or two in the next week or so.

Upstairs is even worse. Clothing I didn't know existed, stacks of paper and folders, boxes, knick knacks and tons of paper bags. The thing about these paper bags is that they look good and you'd want to keep them. You tell yourself you'll keep it and may need it in the future. Well, most often than not, you won't need them! They'll just stay there occupying space.

I decided to do the clean up on the second floor next week. There's just way too much to do and it was already Sunday afternoon.

This exercise is one of those that made me realize that I have to get my shit together at home. Consumerism without control is evil. My kids think that for them to get a certain object, they just have to buy it. We don't make stuff anymore. That's another thing I have to fix. 

The bags of trash that resulted to this cleanup is too much to throw at our landfills. I remember back in the fifth grade when we visited a trash dumping site. There were mountains and mountain of trash and I kept wondering how the hell can people throw so much stuff. I also visited the Payatas dumping site back in college. That was even worse. That visit made me realize how broken as a people we all are - Consumerism, impulse, plastics and environmental irresponsibility.

All of these had me thinking. Actually, I have been thinking about this since last year. What can my household do to cut the crap lying around the house and sustain it?

Go digital 

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

There was a time when my wife and I would regularly go to the local "dibidi" (slang for pirated DVD) stalls. We would watch the flicks on a Saturday or Sunday night. What would happen to the discs and its cases after watching them? They just sit there occupying space. We don't usually watch them again. Actually, we never watch them again. When I did a cleanup sometime last year, I had two bagfuls of those that went to the trash. So I decided to stop this habit and just download flicks either through torrent sites or through iTunes. I would only buy physical copies of movies and music if I know I'd keep them for long like the limited edition album Bipolar by Up Dharma Down.

We also do not have photo books just like most people. All of our photos are in iPhoto and there are tons of them. One day I was browsing through photos and though, "What if this computer would crash?!" It didn't take long for me to secure a backup drive.

Avoid plastic bags

Image via Wikipedia

When I bought this yesterday, I told the guy at the store to take out the merchandise from its box since I won't be bringing the box with me. When he was about to put it in plastic bag, I told him not to bother. I just took the merchandise and the receipt.

I also did this when I bought some personal essentials at Watson's - just stashed it on my bag without the obligatory plastic bags.

Although going zero on plastics is impossible especially here in the PH where environmental legislation is weak, there's still a lot citizens can do to contribute. Just avoid plastic bags as much as you can and that alone can already make a big impact.

I plan to get one of those reusable bags and start using them when I do groceries. For this household, that means a reduction of eight big plastic bags per month to zero. That's almost a hundred bags a year not used and not thrown into our landfills.

A place for everything and everything in its place

The top of the fridge is just a mess. Whenever we get mail, usually bills, they are placed there. Whenever we buy meds (tablets and capsules), the excess are placed there. Whenever there's an object that does not have its own storage (e.g., nailcutter, leaflets, wedding giveaways), they go to the top of the fridge.

This spells trouble. A good household must have storage for everything otherwise it would be a pain to find them when you need them. It is also a good way to sort things and pick which ones that go to the trash in order to reduce stuff that stay lying around dusted.

I just signed up to have our phone and internet bill emailed to us. That'll help deal with the mail. I plan to get a big kitchen cabinet. That should solve a lot of issues with our kitchen storage.

Everything else? To the trash. This would drive us to avoid bringing a lot of stuff at home because, again, we want to avoid throwing a lot of stuff.

Plain penny-pinching

Just avoid buying stuff especially those that we don't need. I look at our bookshelf and there's just plenty of books here that my wife and I bought just because they were at a discount. Have I read all of them? No. Are they going to be read within this lifetime? Probably not.

I saw this Ted Talk last year and it really inspired me to work on "editing" my life and my family's. It talks about having less = getting more. About really caring only for the stuff that matters, stuff that makes you happy.

I plan to continue doing this and set a target of end of March this year. By that time, this household would be clean, uncluttered and "edited."