When I was around 7 years old, my sister and her son moved in with us. One thing that my sister did on a regular basis was to give things to “charity”. This meant going through toys, clothes and whatever else and giving away the old things we didn’t need or simply didn’t use. The first time she approached my room with a giant black trash bag, I definitely freaked out internally. Less stuff?? What if she gave away my favorite shirt with that beautiful horse or my favorite stuffed dog from Build-a-bear! She, in fact, did not get rid of those things but she did give away the things at the way back of my closet that I never used. Over the years, we made this a yearly routine, going through our closets and giving bags away or simply passing them to our younger friends. Though it was annoying sometimes, and sometimes I didn’t want to give up something, even though I hadn’t used it in years, I am incredibly grateful for my sister’s ways. Now, I continue this tradition and it greatly helps, especially with living in a very small apartment downtown. I have grown less attached to my stuff and it greatly cuts down on clutter, which is definitely a stress reliever.  I think that it has also cut down on the amount of clothes and other things that I buy. If I know I am only going to wear it once, I’m not going to buy it. To me, the movie Minimalism was simply on cutting down on the amount that we buy. I absolutely love this idea, and though I am not perfect at it, I try to buy less and have less clutter. It’s not only helpful to our environment, but also to the level of stress I have (plus, it’s a lot better for moving).