I moved halfway across the world to the United States in order to pursue further education. This halted all my decluttering activities as I had to basically pack my whole life into 2 suitcases and hope I could just buy anything I needed without it costing too much.
After a grueling 24-hour flight with layovers, I landed in the East Coast and have started rebuilding my life in terms of the things that I need to support me. This first month was filled with Amazon purchases of essentials, such as deodorant and moisturizer, as well as nice-to-haves like a ring light I purchased for my desk interviews.
While I feel bad that I have been spending too much, more than I would spend normally, I think that I should be gentle to myself because I am undergoing a huge change that definitely affects a lot of parts of my life. Throughout the few weeks I’ve been here though, I’ve discovered something that made me very happy:
Buy Nothing groups! I discovered Buy Nothing when I was still back home, and was actually in the process of setting one up for my community. But since my move date got pushed up unexpectedly, I abandoned that plan. But there were several active Buy Nothing groups in my area, and I joined one to see how it was like. It was really active, and the members are very kind towards each other, which was encouraging. I hope to participate and give away some unneeded things in the future as well!
Another thing that was amazing was the prevalence of Facebook Marketplace. While I am not a big Facebook advocate, the active Marketplace made it easy for me to get a desk and a chair for less than $50 combined, while some of my classmates spent upwards of $200 on their furniture alone. As a student who is living on borrowed money, I do not want to have unnecessarily huge purchases and these were lifesavers for me!
I fixed my drawers in Marie Kondo fashion, with the folded clothes standing up, which saved me a lot of space. But I have yet to declutter everything in this apartment.
I will share more updates and photos next time, once I can set aside time to fix my surroundings. See you then!
