#679 – Grief and Clutter – A Journey Through Loss and Letting Go

#679 – Grief and Clutter – A Journey Through Loss and Letting Go

#679 – Grief and Clutter – A Journey Through Loss and Letting Go

Join Kathi as she has a conversation with Lisa Woolery who lost her husband Eric suddenly at age 50. Lisa faced an overwhelming reality: not only was she grieving the love of her life, but she also inherited his extensive collection that filled their 6,700 square foot home. From dozens of guns to barrels of water and MREs, Eric’s “beautiful, cluttery” nature had created a different kind of burden for his wife and their two children. 

In this deeply moving episode of Clutter Free Academy, Lisa shares her raw and honest journey of grieving not just her husband, but also dealing with the mountain of possessions he left behind. You’ll discover how she navigated the anger, the overwhelm, and ultimately found peace through intentional decluttering. 

Listeners will gain an inside look at someone having to manage a loved one’s clutter after they are gone, learn practical strategies for honoring a loved one’s memory without keeping everything, including Lisa’s “five box rule” that helped her teenagers choose what mattered most when they downsized. She reveals the difference between sentimental items worth keeping and collections that served their purpose, and how creating a curated space helped her heal and move forward. 

Whether you’re dealing with your own loss or simply struggling with a partner’s clutter, this episode offers hope, practical wisdom, and permission to choose peace over possessions. 

Sabbath Soup: Weekly Menus and Rhythms to Make Space for a Day of Rest

Kathi Lipp gives readers an easy-to-follow process for meal planning and prep, so that they can enjoy a full day each week of real rest and refreshment.

Could you use a break from cooking (and everything else) once a week? Not only is rest vital for your mind and body, it’s good for your soul too. God designed us to enter into Sabbath rest one day per week, but as you know, meals still need to be made. Your family still needs to be fed.

Sabbath Soup includes convenient, seasonal meal plans that take the guesswork out of shopping and cooking. More than just a collection of delicious recipes—including main dishes, breads, breakfasts, desserts, salads, sides, and yes, soups—this is your guide to establishing a weekly rhythm and routine of meal planning and prep that allows you to have a true day off.

Do something good for your soul and experience the peace that comes with a full day dedicated to spending time with God, family, and friends. Savor your Sabbath as you proudly proclaim, “Soup’s on!”

Order your copy of Sabbath Soup: Weekly Menus and Rhythms to Make Space for a Day of Rest here.

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Meet Our Guest

 

Lisa Woolery

After two decades as a public relations executive, Lisa was thrown into widowing without warning. Not ashamed of her many “hot messes,” she shares the challenges of rebuilding life after the desolation of losing her husband.

Lisa writes with grit, humor, and raw honesty so other widows know they don’t have to be perfect in the face of grief. In The Widow’s Comeback, she dives into money, abandonment, parenting tweens, dating, self-forgiveness, and faith—offering companionship and hope for the road ahead.

She lives in Kansas City, loving on her two teenagers while chasing after her three rapscallion dogs. For fun, she travels the world, plays pickleball, and reads in her cheetah-print recliner.

The Widow’s Comeback memoir and the companion 365-Day Grieving Calendar are her first books. Lisa is currently working on her first Widow’s Comeback comedic novel. Stay tuned.

Follow her journey at TheWidowsComeback.com or on Facebook and Instagram @TheWidowsComeback.

Tonya Kubo Picture
Transcript

Kathi Lipp (00:08) 

Well, hey friends, welcome to Clutter Free Academy where our goal is to help you take small doable steps every day to live with less clutter and more life. And I’m so excited to have one of my friends on the podcast. She’s never been here before, but we are talking about, it’s a hard topic, but it’s also gonna be a good topic today. ? the title that we’re working with is A Minimalist Journey Through Loss and Letting Go. 

  

This is my friend Lisa Woolery. She recently wrote a book called The Widow’s Comeback. What if you knew you’d be okay? Lisa, welcome to the program. 

  

Lisa Woolery (00:47) 

Well, thanks for having me, Kathi. I’m really excited to be here. I just love your ministry and the work that you do. 

  

Kathi Lipp (00:51) 

Hmm 

  

Well, and you’re part of that. You help, especially over on our writer’s side, and I’m so grateful for that. And we’ve already done some foreshadowing here about what this topic is going to be. ? You are widowed. And tell us just really briefly ? that portion of your story. 

  

Lisa Woolery (01:14) 

Yeah. Well, one day when I was 50, I was making dinner for my husband who was 53 and he died suddenly while I was chopping broccoli. I unsuccessfully gave him CPR and suddenly my life really was over because I had to figure out how to create a new life without him. And I had two tweens at the time. 

  

Kathi Lipp (01:27) 

Wow. 

  

my goodness. It just unimaginable. And I will say that you do live with a lot of joy. I see that every single time I’m in a room with you, a zoom room or in a room physically with you, you do live with a lot of joy, which I’m sure at the time seemed impossible. And you had not only did you have grief, but you had a lot of really practical things to take care of. 

  

And when we were talking about doing this podcast, you said that you’re more of a minimalist. I mean, I see in your house almost every single day. We’re on Zoom almost every single day. And I would never, ever think that you have a clutter problem. But maybe your husband was a little bit more on the cluttery side. Is that the impression I’m getting? 

  

Lisa Woolery (02:35) 

My husband was a beautiful, cluttery person. Yes. 

  

Kathi Lipp (02:38) 

Yes, they’re the best, right? This is why 

  

we all marry them. And then we figure out, oh, no, oh, no, what have I done? But you guys were married for almost 30 years, you know, and very, very close. But your husband, you say was a little bit of a prepper. And you know, that’s close to my heart. I’ve written a book on prepping. But it sounds like maybe he was a little bit more extreme than I was. 

  

Lisa Woolery (02:45) 

Hahaha. 

  

Hello. 

  

Yeah, well, I think that, so my husband was a member of the NRA, lifelong gun owner, ? loved to shoot, hunt, these kinds of things. And then some new topic or hobby came about, which was called prepping. And it sort of… 

  

Kathi Lipp (03:13) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Yes. 

  

Lisa Woolery (03:30) 

it sort of fell into what my husband loved to do, which was to collect things and go like all out. Like I used to joke that Eric Woolery put in 100 % when he had a new hobby. And so when we were young in our marriage and had our first apartments, he immediately got the extra bedroom for his clutter. And then as our marriage grew and we became… 

  

Kathi Lipp (03:41) 

Right. 

  

? got it. 

  

Lisa Woolery (03:58) 

better at our careers and made more money. We just bought bigger houses so he could have more space for his things. And ? I like to laugh and say that Eric Woolery died like eight months early because he missed COVID and all of the collecting of toilet paper and all of those things. Yeah. 

  

Kathi Lipp (04:15) 

? He would have been proven right! 

  

Yes. I, my big flex was when I went to Costco, 

  

just as COVID was emerging, they’re like, you don’t need to buy toilet paper. I’m like, baby, I’m set. I’m good. Don’t you worry about Ms. Kathi. We’re good here. And yes, you know, I, first of all, I’m glad that you had whatever you needed in that time. ? you know, he probably would have looked at it like, Hey baby, look, I was taking good care of you. 

  

Lisa Woolery (04:35) 

Ha ha ha! 

  

Yeah. 

  

Kathi Lipp (04:50) 

I 

  

made sure that you were prepared. So here’s my question. ? Was it a big point of contention? Was it a big point of frustration in your marriage? Tell me, unpack that for me. 

  

Lisa Woolery (04:54) 

You 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Well, we had two topics throughout our 28 year marriage that we never resolved. One was junk food. One was clutter. And so we, like I said, we managed it by having more rooms and, and we had an agreement that the house was mine to keep neat and tidy and his rooms were his to do what he wanted. And so, ? 

  

Kathi Lipp (05:10) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Okay. 

  

Yeah. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Lisa Woolery (05:32) 

That’s kind of how we dealt with that. 

  

Kathi Lipp (05:34) 

You know, and it’s really interesting. ? That is pretty much the conclusion I’ve come to for a lot of people is that we may never resolve with our, it’s the people who have a lot of clutter and are not working on it that I know can be very, very frustrating. And so that clutter has to be contained behind the door or, you know, on shelves or something like that. So what you guys really did was, 

  

You didn’t argue over stuff you agreed on space Yeah, and that is something that we really Preach here because you’re probably never going to change somebody else’s clutter personality But you can say hey, it’s important to me that I live in a house that I feel comfortable in and that means not having guns and ammo Because I we’ve talked a little bit about this 

  

Lisa Woolery (06:08) 

100%, yes. 

  

you 

  

Kathi Lipp (06:32) 

He wasn’t just collecting toilet paper and food, right? 

  

Lisa Woolery (06:35) 

No, 

  

  1. When he died, we had in the basement of our 6,700 square foot house, he had these big rooms down there where he had his prepper things. And yeah, he liked guns. We had a joke. He never counted my shoes. I never counted his guns. And when he died, actually our estate was frozen for three months.

  

Kathi Lipp (06:46) 

Wow. 

  

Yes. 

  

Lisa Woolery (07:04) 

for an investigation and a delayed death certificate and some things. So luckily actually, because I sold his 74 guns and that allowed us to have food on the table and go on field trips with school, rent a violin and et cetera. So that was actually a little helpful. Yeah, yeah. 

  

Kathi Lipp (07:04) 

Hmm. Yeah. 

  

Yeah. 

  

Yeah, he was taking care of you from the beyond. He absolutely was. Yeah. 

  

And guys, we know people have a lot of different feelings about guns. We’re just telling you what the actual story is. Yeah. I, I, have to understand, ? you know, a lot of people really draw a line in the sand and say, you know, I, I know what’s in these rooms. So you have to, you have to get rid of this stuff. And, but 

  

That stuff made Eric very happy. ? I right? And it wasn’t a financial burden or was it? Okay. 

  

Lisa Woolery (08:00) 

Yeah. 

  

It was not. And he 

  

and he actually would invite the kids in he would take the kids to gun shows and they would buy MREs and all of these things and they would make bug out bags together. And he enjoyed it. It was his hobby. And that’s fine. I was fine with that. 

  

Kathi Lipp (08:15) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Yeah, 

  

I wonder if he and I ever ran into each other at PrepperCon, because we did go one year in Utah. You know what, we’re going to take a little commercial break. And then when we come back, I want to talk about grieving, not just Eric, but the stuff and how you dealt with that, if there was resentment. And just giving us the non-cluttery person’s perspective about 

  

you know, what we leave behind. And I think that that could be really helpful. We’re gonna take a quick break and we’ll come right back. Okay, friends, I am back with Lisa Woolery, The Widow’s Comeback, and we are talking, I’m sorry, I didn’t even get that into frame there. ? We are talking about the stuff that’s left behind when somebody you love is gone. And, 

  

not only were you grieving, but you had a lot of practical things you had to take care of. And, you know, one of them was selling some of the things. Tell me some of the other things that, you know, you were left to deal with that some of us might not think of because I’ve never lost a spouse. I’ve lost my dad, but I haven’t. My mom is still with us. I’m so grateful. So I know that there are going to be big things I have to deal with that I didn’t have to deal with with the loss of my dad. 

  

because, ? you know, and it’s a little bit different because than losing parents because that’s closing an entire estate, but you were still around. still had, you still had to live life even though your partner was gone. 

  

Lisa Woolery (10:04) 

Yeah. Well, I have a scene in my book where I wasn’t expecting this, but over the course of five days, five huge crates came from Southern California to my house in Kansas. We had lived in Kansas for nine months and he was ? working super commuting and his staff finally, a few months later, was probably six months later, packed up his stuff and sent it. And it was four very large crates. 

  

Kathi Lipp (10:34) 

  1. my.

  

Lisa Woolery (10:34) 

One day, 

  

yeah, one day I looked out on to the front yard and my puppies were out there just tearing things up and there was just trash everywhere. And one of the crates had arrived and the puppies tore into it. And it was such a huge mess. I kenneled the dogs and I went outside and was just like the wind was blowing. I was trying to get a hold of all this stuff and I hadn’t yet been mad at Eric, but ? 

  

Kathi Lipp (10:45) 

Mm. 

  

Lisa Woolery (11:03) 

I was burning mad. Like I remember being out there just yelling you F F F. You leave me with this and I have to clean up more. When will it end? And I just had a horrendous meltdown in my front yard. I mean, I don’t know who saw or who heard or like I don’t even care. But ? so there was some anger. 

  

Kathi Lipp (11:09) 

Mmm. 

  

Yeah. 

  

Of course, of course. 

  

Lisa Woolery (11:31) 

in dealing with some of that stuff. And, you know, it was probably the resolution of all the fights that we had had about his stuff. But, you know, I cleaned it up, I dealt with it, and then I moved forward. And it was kind of empowering that I was allowed to choose what to do with this stuff. And I actually called my neighbor and said, all this stuff is here. I don’t want the kids to see it. And so she said, 

  

Kathi Lipp (11:38) 

Right. 

  

Yeah. 

  

Lisa Woolery (12:00) 

put it all in your car, bring it down and I’ll put my trash cans up at the curb. And then I just threw it all out and I did that for four days. I did it for four days straight. The last day I took the last crate, I put it down in the basement in this kid room where they had their puzzles and sleeping bags and just put it in the back and thought, well, they can find that one day. 

  

Kathi Lipp (12:07) 

wow. 

  

Okay, okay, so it was is a process of going through that I You know, I it’s such a weird question, but I’m gonna ask it anyway You know those of us who struggle with our clutter when we live with other people You know, they they get to share that burden What what do you wish Eric would have known? Maybe in the five years before he passed that would have helped you 

  

it not only in the grieving process, but the going on process. 

  

Lisa Woolery (12:57) 

Well, I think that his prepper stuff is okay. Like it’s fine. I dealt with it. Like I loved the guy and I loved all of his silly, silly quirks. I mean, I would say that the things that I wish we would have prepared for better were ? like financial things. Like we never got around to finishing our ? estate because we couldn’t decide who the kids would go to. And he left a business loan. 

  

Kathi Lipp (13:03) 

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. 

  

Mmm. 

  

Yeah. 

  

Lisa Woolery (13:25) 

? Just like some things like that. So I can’t even say it was clutter. Like I’m a good cleaner out or I’m not sentimental. I just threw it all away. Well, actually, I’ll say this. And for anybody who’s dealing with a cluttery prepper husband and gets to get rid of some of the stuff, I would like take pictures of these big barrels that you could put water in or just MREs. And I just put it up on Marketplace and I’d say, 

  

Kathi Lipp (13:33) 

Yeah. 

  

Yeah, yeah. 

  

Lisa Woolery (13:55) 

prepper stuff, $100. And people would come to my house and they’d just take it away. And some of the guys would be like, are you sure I can take this? I feel like I’m leaving you in an unsafe position. And I would be like in my head, COVID happened. My husband died. What worse things am I going to have to live through where I’m going to need an MRE? 

  

Kathi Lipp (13:56) 

Mm-hmm, yeah. 

  

Yeah. 

  

Yeah, it’s so it’s so true you’ve already lived through the worst of it and Here we are and you know, I will always keep prepper stuff. Just I’m not an extensive prepper I’m a very practical prepper like I go through my stuff. We have lots of canned food. We’re good you know, we make sure that we have a ? Non-electric can opener so we can get into that food that kind of thing 

  

Lisa Woolery (14:23) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (14:46) 

? You say you’re not sentimental, but ? was there any struggle with getting rid of some of these things that Eric cared about? Or did you really from the start know this isn’t Eric, this is things he cared about. There are two different things. Like how did you rationalize all that? 

  

Lisa Woolery (15:08) 

Well, I didn’t feel sentimental about any of the prepper stuff. But when Eric first died, I took these two beautiful Tiffany boxes that we had that had had some large purchases that he had made for me. So like, I loved those boxes. And I took those boxes and I filled them with his personal items. ? And then I… 

  

Kathi Lipp (15:28) 

Mmm. 

  

Lisa Woolery (15:31) 

have them saved for my kids. They know when they graduate from college, they’re allowed to come in and choose. And occasionally, if they’re having a really hard time, I let them come in and choose things. But they’re like, so here’s, ? I’m holding up, I wear Eric’s watch every day. He had a lot of watches. He had a lot of, so many things. And so I was able to choose like some beautiful sentimental things. So I guess I am a little sentimental to keep. But then some of the other things like, 

  

Kathi Lipp (15:41) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Mmm. 

  

Yeah. 

  

Yeah. 

  

Lisa Woolery (16:01) 

MREs were just junk to me. They weren’t, it wasn’t his beautiful watch or his personal things. 

  

Kathi Lipp (16:07) 

Guys, 

  

MREs are like, ? no, that’s okay, packaged food that lasts a really long time, backpackers, preppers, know, astronauts, yes, yes, they all, MREs are something that they do. ? How did you decide what to keep and what to let go? I mean, okay, so the prepper stuff was easy, but then you get to his watches or… 

  

Lisa Woolery (16:11) 

? sorry. 

  

Army guys. 

  

Kathi Lipp (16:34) 

You know some of the other thing and what did you how did you decide what I love that you created two boxes? For your kids for things that they could have I my kids are in their 30s and they still they still feel like mom I’m not settled enough to take Grandpa’s ring yet. Can you hold on to it? And I’m like, absolutely I’m not gonna hang on to a car for you, but I can hang on to grandpa’s ring. So how did you decide what to keep? 

  

Was it about him? Was it about your relationship with him and the kids? Like, how did you go through that thought process? 

  

Lisa Woolery (17:09) 

Well, I went through when I was cleaning his things out and this was over some time. I would if I felt sentimental about it or I felt like, ? it’s Eric, then I would put it in the box. And that’s how I did it. But a year ago, we moved out of our six thousand seven square foot house with all of the things. And I took some time to get rid of things and. 

  

Kathi Lipp (17:29) 

Yeah. 

  

Lisa Woolery (17:34) 

I did what I told my kids was right sizing, like getting to the right size house for us. And I gave my kids each five boxes and I said, here is what you get to take to the new house. So when you’re packing, they were 15 and 16 at the time. Like here, you can put whatever you want in these boxes and that’s what we’re moving. Everything else. 

  

Kathi Lipp (17:37) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Lisa Woolery (18:02) 

we’re throwing away or we’re going to give to people who need it like the goodwill. So and then I said, you know, if your five boxes fill and you still have some things, you know, come and talk to me and we’ll discuss it. And so my daughter did very well. My son, who is, I think, a little cluttery, ? had some trouble. So I went down and just had a session with him where I’m like, keep or throw out, keep or throw out, keep or throw out. And 

  

Kathi Lipp (18:07) 

Right, yeah. 

  

Lisa Woolery (18:32) 

that I could walk him through, why is this special? Do you feel something special about it? Or is this just something that’s been sitting around for a long time? Like, how do you feel dad in this? And so, yeah. So I feel like we did pretty well and there’s only been like maybe one or two things that the kids have asked about. Nothing. I haven’t missed anything. 

  

Kathi Lipp (18:42) 

Mm-hmm. What a great question. What a great question. Yeah. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Lisa Woolery (19:01) 

So 

  

when they do say like, well, you didn’t bring that or something, then I’ll just say, I’m so sorry. Let’s just talk about it. And then we do. And then they can get mad at me if they want. And then we just move on. 

  

Kathi Lipp (19:09) 

Mm-hmm, yeah. 

  

I love that. ? I love that you had them be part of the process. yeah, there are always going to be things, it’s never gonna go perfectly, right? It’s never going to be 100%, but we can say, we can gather these things and we can say, this is just a small representation of everything that he was to us. And these spark great memories. ? 

  

I know you live in a pretty clutter free space. ? Does that make you miss Eric more Does it give you a sense of peace? how, how is it to not be surrounded by the stuff? 

  

Lisa Woolery (20:00) 

Well, I don’t do well with clutter. I can’t write if my space isn’t perfectly clear. So I feel very empowered in my new house. And I feel like it’s a fresh start. if, like right now, where I’m sitting in my living room in a chair, and I can just glance to my right a little bit and look at my bookshelves. I have these bookshelves. 

  

Kathi Lipp (20:03) 

Yeah. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Mmm. 

  

Lisa Woolery (20:27) 

Looking at the bookshelves on the very top shelf. I have five yearbooks Some of the yearbooks Eric and I shared because we were high school sweethearts. Some of them were his Before he knew me so I have those I look over on the shelf and I have his two pens sitting there and I have ? behind it like I have a beer stein with like pens in it and Behind it is the preppy handbook, which he loved in high school 

  

Kathi Lipp (20:35) 

Mmm. 

  

Hahaha! 

  

Lisa Woolery (20:57) 

And so ? then I have like on the other side back here, I have a picture of us. And so I just have some little things around that I can look at or like my son signed some papers the other day and he used his dad’s pen. So ? he’s here. Yeah. 

  

Kathi Lipp (21:06) 

Yeah. 

  

? You’ve really curated it you’ve really 

  

curated Eric around your house I love that for somebody who is going through a loss and They feel the need to keep everything because it feels like that’s how you honor the person What would be your advice? To somebody who is is really struggling with the the things left behind 

  

Lisa Woolery (21:46) 

Well, I can say for how I feel and everyone feels differently about clutter, but what I can say is you, like your loved one dies and then you have to start over. So how do you want to start over? What feels comfortable for you? Does it feel comfortable to have all this clutter around? Well, I don’t know what to say about that because I’m not a cluttery person, but for me having, and I love the word you used, having curated. 

  

Kathi Lipp (22:09) 

Yeah. Yeah. 

  

Lisa Woolery (22:15) 

the things that mean something to me about Eric and then moving forward feel really good. And ? I know that you talk a little bit about like making a video about something. I didn’t know that at the time, but I still like, this is going to make me like tear up a little bit. I remember when I got to Eric’s first briefcase because we like, he was so proud of that briefcase. He was the first person in his family to not be blue collar. And he was so proud of that. 

  

Kathi Lipp (22:27) 

Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. ? 

  

Lisa Woolery (22:44) 

and he took it to his accounting job at Ernst & Winnie and like circa 1990 or something. And that was so hard for me to get rid of, but I knew that I had to, because it was old and janky and dust collecting. And so I took it to the trash can. It’s gonna make me cry a little bit. And I said to him, this was your beginning and we don’t need it anymore. 

  

Kathi Lipp (22:48) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Yeah. 

  

Lisa Woolery (23:13) 

And so I threw away a close to trash can and I went in and cried. But you know, like sometimes it’s hard, like it’s gonna make you cry and just, but kind of going through all of it helped my healing. And so now here I am in this new house, new neighborhood, new fresh start, some of Eric’s things and I can be happy. 

  

Kathi Lipp (23:17) 

Yeah. 

  

Yeah. Right? 

  

? What a great note to end on guys if you are interested in Lisa’s book it’s called the widow’s comeback. What if you knew you’d be okay? It’s Lisa Woolery Lisa. Thank you so much for being on the podcast today And thanks for letting us get to know Eric a little bit ? You know, they’re never truly gone as long as we keep their memories alive ? Friends 

  

Lisa Woolery (23:55) 

Well, thanks for inviting me. 

  

Thank you. 

  

Yeah. 

  

Kathi Lipp (24:09) 

? We’re gonna take a quick commercial break and we’re gonna come back and it is this week’s ? installment of things that have earned a place in my clutter free home. So stick with us and we’ll be right back. 

  

Lisa Woolery (24:20) 

You 

 

 

 

Kathi Lipp (00:00) 

Hey, welcome back. This is my favorite part of the show, the part where I talk about these clutter-free items that have earned a place in my home. And I’ve got Tonya Kubo on the line. And so Tonya, I’m very excited to talk to you about can openers. Yay! 

  

Tonya Kubo (00:21) 

Tell me more? 

  

Kathi Lipp (00:23) 

Okay, I’m sending you a link right now. It’s called the Kitchen Mama Auto Electric Can Opener. so I discovered this when I was going through some mobility issues. I overused my phone and my kids are all embarrassed. They’re like, mom, it’s too much TikTok. I’m like, I know, I know, babe. here’s the problem. 

  

Tonya Kubo (00:27) 

  1.  

  

Kathi Lipp (00:50) 

I had a real hard time with my right hand, which is not my dominant hand, but grasping things, holding things. And I saw this online. it’s a can opener that you put on top of the can and you hit a button and it spins around and does a clean cut of your can and without you even having to touch it. 

  

Tonya Kubo (00:54) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (01:18) 

It’s so great and can I tell you it’s not just a mobility thing but when I’m doing my chili which has a lot of cans in it I just sit that on top of the can push the button and it has to be seated properly it takes a second but it just spins around does it and I can open the can so if if a can opener is never anything you’ve thought about before 

  

Tonya Kubo (01:27) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (01:46) 

But I’ll tell you, there are more items in your kitchen that really take strong mobility than you might imagine. A salt grinder, a pepper grinder. And I bought one of these can operators for my mom and she’s like, Kathi, that seems a little ridiculous. And now if there was a fire, it would be one of the top five things she takes out. 

  

Tonya Kubo (01:53) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Well, you know, it’s funny is because I looked at I was like, that doesn’t look like anything. And they’re like, no, Tonya, really. But I mean, I’ve been a desk worker since college, which, you know, keyboards long before they ever knew what ergonomics was. So, yeah, my grip strength is terrible. So the idea. Yeah. But the idea that I could open cans. 

  

Kathi Lipp (02:13) 

Yeah. 

  

Yes. 

  

Yes. 

  

Right, so we have to work on our grip strength and do this. Yes. Yeah, this is 

  

Tonya Kubo (02:35) 

Cause my hand will cramp if I try to open three cans just to make chili, right? It’s like three cans of beans. 

  

Kathi Lipp (02:39) 

This is exactly where I’m 

  

  1. And I like this because one, a couple of things. It’s not electric. So in an emergency situation, you know, your power’s out, battery operated, you’re good to go. The other thing I like about it is, you know, we’ve all used or seen those electric can openers that sit on your counter. I don’t want an electric can opener on my counter. I just stick this in the drawer and I pull it back. It takes four batteries.

  

Tonya Kubo (02:52) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (03:09) 

And it’s, I love it. I can’t even tell you, I love it so much. It can open any kind of can that you need it to. I have used it on soda cans that I lost a little tab on. So that was nice. And I just, yeah, so like I said, if it’s not a big deal for you, this may not be. 

  

Tonya Kubo (03:27) 

Ooh. 

  

Kathi Lipp (03:35) 

the things that have earned a place in my clutter free home, this may not be it for you. But if you have arthritis in your hands, ? if you’re careful with sharp edges. Now, one of the fun things was I was making chili when we had some friends over and their seven year old asked how they could help. And I’m like, you know, you can’t help fry the ground beef necessarily. Mom might not. And then I’m like, 

  

Tonya Kubo (03:56) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (04:02) 

you can open all the cans. And this was the most fun that seven year old had had in a really long time. And I wasn’t worried about it because all the edges are, they’re the non-sharp edges. And so that makes me super, yeah. So this is something that Abby would have no problem working with. regular can openers can be frustrating. And by the way, I know there’s a can opener where you lay it flat on top of the can. 

  

Tonya Kubo (04:06) 

Ha ha! 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Right, that’s so important. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

I have 

  

Kathi Lipp (04:31) 

And okay, can I, yes. 

  

Tonya Kubo (04:31) 

that. But my hand cramps because I just don’t have that dexterity and Abby has a hard time because her hands aren’t yet big enough. 

  

Kathi Lipp (04:40) 

Okay, see, and this would solve both of those. And can I tell you who this would make a great gift for? The lefty in your life. Because can, yeah, can openers are not designed for lefties. And as a lefty, yeah, yeah, exactly. So if anybody wants to buy a second one for me or Tonya, yeah, this is great. Go ahead, Tonya. 

  

Tonya Kubo (04:55) 

No, no, fellow lefty here. 

  

Yeah, 

  

we’ll take it. I just have one very important question. What color do you have? 

  

Kathi Lipp (05:09) 

I have red because I live at the Red House, but ? mom has blue So that will never get them mixed up. There are different colors There’s just the plain white one if you’re more of a minimalist And there’s a green one now I am I am buying the turquoise one because the blue is kind of a turquoisey blue for our RV because everything in an RV is ? Is turquoise blue so that how what color would you order? 

  

Tonya Kubo (05:10) 

Okay, right. 

  

Mmm. 

  

Got it. Okay. 

  

A blue. I was gonna order a blue. Cause it’ll stand out. I have a yellow kitchen and so I want to be able to like see it across the room. 

  

Kathi Lipp (05:39) 

Okay, yeah. 

  

Yes, I love it. Okay, so by the way, if you’re into tinned fish, which everybody is these days, this also works on that. It opens like any weird can. So I love that for us. Yes. Okay, so the link will be in the show notes. Let me be honest, we get a little kickback. I think it’s probably gonna be a whole 40 cents from the $22 that you might spend. 

  

Tonya Kubo (05:58) 

Yay! 

  

Ooh, I was gonna 

  

say, I thought it would be like, you know, 2.8 cents. So, hey, 40 cents. 

  

Kathi Lipp (06:17) 

I don’t know, 

  

I don’t know. Who knows, maybe this is the way I get rich, I don’t know. But I wanna be honest with you, but this is something that I personally use and love and wanted to share with you guys. So friends, thank you for listening to Clutter-Free Academy, I’m Kathi Lipp. Now, go create the clutter-free life you’ve always wanted to live. 

 

 

More Posts 

#678 – The Great Laundry Debate: Sorting, Systems, and Space-Saving Secrets

#678 – The Great Laundry Debate: Sorting, Systems, and Space-Saving Secrets

#678 – The Great Laundry Debate: Sorting, Systems, and Space-Saving Secrets

Join Kathi Lipp and Tonya Kubo as they tackle the challenges and opportunities of laundry room organization. Explore the practical steps you can take to transform your laundry space from chaos to calm. In this episode, discover why your laundry room may be a hidden source of stress and how you can revamp it into a place of order and efficiency. Whether it’s optimal storage solutions, must-have products, or debunking the biggest laundry myths, Kathi and Tonya offer practical tips and insights to refresh your routine. This episode is your guide to a clutter-free laundry life, filled with humor, honesty, and hope. Don’t miss out on learning how to make laundry less of a chore and more of a breeze. 

Sabbath Soup: Weekly Menus and Rhythms to Make Space for a Day of Rest

Kathi Lipp gives readers an easy-to-follow process for meal planning and prep, so that they can enjoy a full day each week of real rest and refreshment.

Could you use a break from cooking (and everything else) once a week? Not only is rest vital for your mind and body, it’s good for your soul too. God designed us to enter into Sabbath rest one day per week, but as you know, meals still need to be made. Your family still needs to be fed.

Sabbath Soup includes convenient, seasonal meal plans that take the guesswork out of shopping and cooking. More than just a collection of delicious recipes—including main dishes, breads, breakfasts, desserts, salads, sides, and yes, soups—this is your guide to establishing a weekly rhythm and routine of meal planning and prep that allows you to have a true day off.

Do something good for your soul and experience the peace that comes with a full day dedicated to spending time with God, family, and friends. Savor your Sabbath as you proudly proclaim, “Soup’s on!”

Order your copy of Sabbath Soup: Weekly Menus and Rhythms to Make Space for a Day of Rest here.

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Meet Our Co-Host

 

Tonya Kubo

Tonya Kubo is the illustrious and fearless leader of Kathi Lipp’s Clutter Free Academy Facebook group and the Clutter Free for Life membership program. A professional community strategist, she believes everyone deserves to have a place online where they feel like they belong. Raised by a hoarder, Tonya knows firsthand the pain and isolation that comes from living in conditions others don’t understand. She wants better for her family and her cluttery peeps, which is why she is passionate about the compassionate slow-and-steady approach that makes Clutter Free unique. She lives in the heart of California with her husband, Brian, their two spirited daughters, and one very tolerant cat. Visit tonyakubo.com to find out more about her community work, or email her at tonya@kathilipp.org to discuss the Clutter Free Academy podcast and programs.

Tonya Kubo Picture

Meet Our Guest

 

Julie Ubbenga

Julia is a wife, a mom of five, and a minimalist-living coach. Julia is passionate about helping others live a more meaningful life with less stuff. See what she’s up to in her journey of simplifying and making space for what matters at her website.

Tonya Kubo Picture
Transcript

Kathi Lipp (00:10) 

Hey friends, welcome to Clutter Free Academy where our goal is to help you take small doable steps to live every day with less clutter and more life. I am here with Tonya Kubo and Tonya, we have a very deep topic today, one that people have big feelings about. We’ve recently done some laundry episodes, but I want to talk about the actual space ? where your laundry is. Now you and I have different spaces for our laundry. 

  

? Yours is in the garage, right? Yeah, I lived for many, years with laundry in the garage. Can I just say it had some pros and cons. I wonder if it does for you as well. What are your feelings about laundry in the garage, your garage being your laundry room? 

  

Tonya Kubo (00:42) 

Correct. 

  

? like this is the only time I’ve ever lived someplace where the laundry was in the garage. So ? I don’t have a lot of comparison. I don’t like it being outside of the house, but at the same time, it’s nice not to have the laundry pile inside the house. 

  

Kathi Lipp (00:59) 

Okay? 

  

Yeah, I had it ? at one of my homes. Well, actually, growing up, it was outside in the garage. And then the first house I co-owned with my then husband, it was outside. And I liked it not being in the house, but I missed it being in the house. Yeah, OK. So that’s not helpful, I know. But ? yes, yes. 

  

Tonya Kubo (01:40) 

? I feel like that’s exactly how I feel. 

  

Kathi Lipp (01:44) 

It was just nice that, you know, we could put things out there. There was enough room for like a rolling rack so we could hang things. And my laundry room currently, which you have seen, is the smallest laundry room I’ve ever seen in my entire life. ? I think it was built for when laundry, when washing machines were much, they weren’t as deep. And so, ? 

  

Tonya Kubo (01:50) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (02:09) 

You have to kind of slide in there to do things, but you make what you make work, right? And so, yeah. So I recently, ? I like having my laundry space indoors now, especially since we live in such, it can be very, very cold here. And the laundry room can either be a stress zone or a streamlined system. 

  

Tonya Kubo (02:15) 

Right. 

  

Kathi Lipp (02:36) 

And so let’s spend some time to make it streamlined. Let’s make this happen. we just recently did a post over on my page about laundry where people had very strong opinions, very, very strong feelings. We will talk about that in this episode. So if you’re like, are they gonna talk about it? Yes, we are. But. ? 

  

I want to talk about how we can make that space, no matter what your sorting system is, as streamlined as possible. So I think the most important thing, at least for me, that nothing that is, anything that has nothing to do with laundry has no place in the laundry room, unless you have one of those giant laundry rooms where you can also put in a StairMaster or something. 

  

That has never been my situation. Mine has always been in closets or those kind of things. So you clear the clutter. You know what you need in there. You need things like your detergent, your fabric softener, your color catchers, which if you don’t know what a color catcher is, that’s part of the big discussion going on in Facebook. These are, I found out about these because my mom’s a quilter. 

  

And before you use a fabric to quilt with, you need to wash it to get all the dyes out. But you don’t want that dark red going on to the white polka dot. So you put in, it’s a shout color catcher, and we’ll put that in here in the show notes. And that little piece of absorbs, or I guess it’s a piece of paper, absorbs all that dye. And so your things don’t get messed up. 

  

If you like to wash dangerously like I do, which means mixing colors and things like that, that is a beautiful thing to have. You also want your dryer sheets, your stain removers. We use dryer balls, all that kind of stuff. ? Let go of old empty products. We just recently, okay, my mom said she told me about this like seven years ago and apparently I ignored her. We’re not supposed to use bleach in our septic system. 

  

Tonya Kubo (04:56) 

Mmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (04:56) 

? 

  

Because it eats the microbes and yeah, which totally makes sense So we don’t need bleach anymore. So I got that out of there now. I still have a bleach pen I will die with that bleach pen in my cold dead hand ? Because I love Yes, if you see me being buried without that bleach pen You go talk to Roger. Okay, cuz something so some something suspicious. All right and then 

  

Tonya Kubo (04:59) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Okay, good to know. 

  

Kathi Lipp (05:26) 

Also, I think it’s time, I’ll never forget this. When we first bought our first house and there was a coat closet, I thought, wait, I could have matching hangers in that coat closet? Because we had come from a tiny, tiny apartment. And I guess it wasn’t the first house I owned, but it was the first house that was kind of big and it was my first coat closet. And my mom’s like, yeah, go crazy. And I bought matching hangers. And there is just something. 

  

about matching hangers for me. You too, Tonya, I can see you nodding. 

  

Tonya Kubo (05:59) 

Oh yeah, 

  

no, think, well, maybe not everybody, but yes, matching hangers, I feel like everything just is so much easier to like fit when all, cause all the hangers are the same size, the same length, all of that, that’s part of the matching piece. I love 

  

Kathi Lipp (06:09) 

Yes. 

  

Yes, so Roger has white plastic hangers and I have the black velvet covered hangers because those velvet ones skeeve him out and the white ones my clothes fall off on them because all of his shirts are the button-up collar so like we just know what works for us so get rid of anything that it that you don’t need in there hangers baskets 

  

Tonya Kubo (06:27) 

Hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (06:43) 

Laundry gadgets that you thought were going to solve all your problems and they just took up space and then I want you to think about Zones, this is step two. So do you need ? if you’re a sorter? Do you need different bins for maybe whites darks delicates that kind of thing. We have cabinets over our washing machine and dryers so we have some things in there like our lingerie bags and the cleaning products and things like that. 

  

? So you need a sorting zone or you know, I don’t really have space for that So our sorting zone is if we’re sort anything it’s gonna be up in Roger’s closet where we keep the dirty clothes ? Don’t worry. I store a lot of things for him ? the cleaning zone. So all the cleaning products together ? Folding zone again. Mine is too small. We don’t really have a space for folding out there. So this is our very sophisticated syndrome 

  

system, we grab everything from the dryer that doesn’t need to be hung up and we put it on the couch for Moose to then lay in. Because this is one of her chief, chief ? gifts in life is being able to lay in warm clothes. Now, where do you fold? 

  

Tonya Kubo (08:03) 

On the bed, on our bed specifically. 

  

Kathi Lipp (08:06) 

Okay, okay. That’s a bit. Yes. And that works for you, right? Like what other space are you going to do? 

  

Tonya Kubo (08:10) 

Yeah, 

  

yeah, we don’t have a lot of other space and Otto also appreciates a nice pile of clean laundry to lay in as well. 

  

Kathi Lipp (08:17) 

Mmm. 

  

Okay, 

  

so has is it Susu is that am I? The new kitten who’s by the way doing great, right? Yes Has Susu discovered the warm laundry pile yet? 

  

Tonya Kubo (08:23) 

Yeah, Susu’s the kitten. 

  

Yes, yes, very, very healthy. 

  

Yes, yes. you know, it’s funny is Otto even likes an empty laundry basket. Like they just like baskets. But yes, we we put the laundry on the bed and we just tip the basket over on the side. So it doesn’t topple off the bed because that is really upsetting. And then we came in and he was like tucked all the way in the back, just like perched like a king on top of the pile. 

  

Kathi Lipp (08:40) 

Yes, right. 

  

Oh, 

  

I love it. I love it so much. It makes me so happy. Also, you know, all of this may not be contained in your laundry room, but if you have a big laundry room, a hanging zone, so we do, we have little hooks all across and then we have another bar that has S hooks on it that we can use for drying things or hanging shirts, that kind of thing. So that’s been really, really helpful. 

  

We also air dry a lot of our stuff. And so we have a bathroom right next to the laundry room. So I’ll often just hang things from hangers in that bathroom that works for us. And then an ironing zone. So we don’t iron a bunch of stuff. We have pretty much decided unless somebody is getting married or buried, we’re probably not wearing something that’s ironed. But we do have ? up in one of our 

  

Tonya Kubo (09:47) 

Hahaha 

  

Kathi Lipp (09:53) 

Extra bedrooms, we have an ironing board that kind of thing So I think the important thing is here It may not all be contained in your laundry room But you should have a system of where you are sorting your clothes where you’re keeping the cleaning supplies where you’re putting where you’re folding things Where you’re hanging things and where you’re ironing things if those are all part of your system ? Any any thoughts on that tonya anything that you would do differently or anything that you think about differently on that? 

  

Tonya Kubo (10:23) 

No, I think, you know, I mean, ultimately what you’re saying, Kathi is is it needs to function for you, for your family and for the space you have. Like you could never set up your laundry space like mine simply because you’ve got like this much space and like. 

  

Kathi Lipp (10:42) 

It’s a it’s 

  

it’s the size of a half bathroom is our our whole laundry room. 

  

Tonya Kubo (10:49) 

? really? Is it that big? I feel like it’s much smaller than a half bathroom. 

  

Kathi Lipp (10:51) 

Okay, I was gonna say, I was gonna 

  

say if that, yeah, yeah, it’s the size for a toilet in the sink. Yeah. 

  

Tonya Kubo (10:59) 

Yeah, like, yeah, like 

  

if you lived in Japan or in the downtown San Francisco. Yeah, super tiny, right? Whereas for, mean, like I don’t have a dedicated laundry room on one hand, but on the other hand, I have an entire garage and my washer and dryer set up against one wall. I could choose to make as much of that space my laundry room as I want. 

  

Kathi Lipp (11:04) 

Right, yes, it’s very tiny. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Yeah, absolutely. Just know what it is and make sure that everybody in the family knows what it is and then you can go. Okay, so number three, ? toss or store. So get rid of broken or mismatched laundry baskets. Store off-season items like heavy blankets or guest bedding in someplace else. know, make sure that… 

  

Tonya Kubo (11:31) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (11:49) 

You know, one of my fatal flaws is just leaving things on top of the dryer for way too long. I’ve been known to, I know, I’m the only one, right? And so just making sure that you’re making it as intentional and useful as possible. Don’t let things linger there. Okay, and then number four, make it manageable. ? you figure out how many loads you’re doing in a week and 

  

Tonya Kubo (11:55) 

What? What? No. Shh. 

  

Yes! 

  

Kathi Lipp (12:18) 

Can you do one load a day? And I don’t sort my clothes, which is the big controversy. But one thing I do do, and it’s not sorting by colors, it’s sorting by textures, is I’ll do one load a week of things that I don’t wanna iron. Like all of Roger’s cotton shirts, my cotton shirts, cotton pants, that kind of thing. So. ? 

  

Tonya Kubo (12:21) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (12:46) 

But I will do that all at one space. So I will go and grab that out immediately. So there’s very little ironing to do. Now you have one person in your family who just does her own laundry. And so does she have a day of the week? What is that? 

  

Tonya Kubo (12:59) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Lily usually does her laundry on weekends, so either Saturday or Sunday, depending. But all of her clothes is like one load. 

  

Kathi Lipp (13:12) 

Right, right. And they’re mostly black, right? Yeah. Yes, I’ve met her. Yes. She’s a mini of my kids. Like, yeah, Kimberly ? and Amanda for a long time. Amanda, there was there used to be, I don’t know if there is anymore, a special detergent that’s just for black clothes. And yeah, so that was very important to Amanda for a very long time. Okay. 

  

Tonya Kubo (13:15) 

Yes, because you’ve met her. 

  

Yeah. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Mm-hmm. Mmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (13:38) 

We’re going to take a quick break and when we come back, we’re going to talk about organizing your laundry room and some ideas around that. So we’ll be right back. 

  

Okay, friends, let’s talk about organizing this. Now, let me say between decluttering and organizing, let’s talk about a couple of things that maybe you should do. One thing is dust behind your dryer, especially. ? Get down there with a vacuum, really clean that out. Having a long, long reaching feather duster or ? one of those bristly brooms is a good thing. 

  

And then also, if you haven’t done it in a while, cleaning out your dryer duct. So there are kits you can buy online or at Home Depot that is just a big snake to get down there because fires start this way and you should be cleaning that out either every six months or once a year, depending on how often you use it. But if your dryer is not functioning the way it should be, before you call a repairman, 

  

Get that all cleaned out because you can have that so backed up that no air is flowing and it could be a real struggle and it causes a lot of dust in there. So give everything a good wipe down. Get a cleaner that you love. I have a combination of okay, I’m bougie. Let’s just be clear. I am super bougie. I love the smell of grapefruit. Don’t necessarily love the taste, love the smell. And so ? 

  

I ordered Clorox wipes that are a grapefruit smell and I use the method cleaner that is that. So grabbing your roll of paper towels, giving everything a good wipe down, ? wiping the top of your washing machine. like the lid lifted but in there. And then also you should be washing the inside of your washing machine. 

  

Tonya Kubo (15:19) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (15:44) 

At least once every six months and so there’s a product for that. There’s a product for everything guys Of course there is I will put that in there, but you just want to clear that out now I’ve noticed also this may help one or two people out there ? When we back when we were using bleach like it wasn’t affecting anything ? It really damaged the top of our washing machine, and so I got some spray paint 

  

that is for ? white enamel appliances. And I took some blue painter tape and I marked off all the things that I didn’t want that color and then laid an old towel across the tub so it didn’t get in there. And now you have to be willing to not use your washing machine for like a full day. But I sprayed that on there so it wouldn’t keep ? rusting and getting degraded. ? 

  

? That’s something to think about with that, but clean that space really really well. You’re gonna feel so good ? And then this is the time to think about could I put some wall-mounted shelves or cabinets for storage in there if I need it a small rolling cart between the washer and dryer is a great like a slimline one ? Over-the-door racks for hanging items or storing cleaning supplies that those are some great ways to maximize space 

  

I’ve also done, in one of my houses, we did an over the door shoe organizer for ? sorting. So we had some cleaning supplies in there, but I would also put things like single socks, that kind of thing. ? And then the next step, label everything. As I get older, I’m a bigger believer in… 

  

marking it up like a kindergarten room and just labeling absolutely everything you need in there. ? And then installing hooks for things like if you’re keeping brooms or mops or reusable bags in there. And then I did something last year that ? I guess it’s been a couple of years now that I’m really glad I did. We’ve got those giant ? containers of laundry soap from Costco and they’re so 

  

Tonya Kubo (18:06) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (18:08) 

Heavy and for a while you knew that I had a problem with my thumb going all the way up to my shoulder and You trying to lift that thing was making me be in so much pain So I got these refillable jugs off of Amazon. I’ll put a link in there that are really cute and so I would put most of the soap in there and then I had a couple of leftover smaller containers soap containers and 

  

and I would just fill that up. So it was like three containers, but I stored that, I could get rid of that giant container. None of these were super heavy and it just made everything look 10 % cuter and I’ll take 10%. So using clear jars or label container for things like detergent, dryer sheets, I have my dryer sheets in a little wooden crate. They’re not scented, so I’m not trying to keep the scent in them. They’re unscented. 

  

Tonya Kubo (19:01) 

Mm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (19:04) 

? has been really, really helpful. ? Anything you’ve done to make your space, I know probably in the garage you’re not so worried about cute, but anything you’ve done to make it more functional. 

  

Tonya Kubo (19:14) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Yeah, so we do have a hanging rack, right? Because certain things that we want to hang to dry. So we have a shelf that is over the washer and dryer. And so I like that a lot ? because it makes the laundry detergent, the dryer sheets and everything in easy access. And I keep a little tiny, it’s a very tiny trash can up there to put like the balls of lint. 

  

Kathi Lipp (19:41) 

Hmm, 

  

guess. 

  

Tonya Kubo (19:44) 

I will share a cleaning tip. It’s a little weird, but I’m going to share it anyway. those of us like the one thing I will say that’s problematic about having your washer and dryer in the garage is you get a lot more dust than you would inside the house. But years ago, somebody had talked to me about taking the ball of lint out of the dryer trap and using that to clean off the top of the dryer because 

  

Kathi Lipp (19:47) 

Please. 

  

yeah. 

  

Interesting. 

  

Tonya Kubo (20:08) 

It takes 

  

all the lint in the surface desk by static because there’s a bunch of static in there. And so I’ll do that to clean it off and then I wipe it down. But I don’t have like the balls of lint that collect once you get it wet. So that that’s my cleaning tip right there. That’s all I got for you folks. But it’s funny is it’s you know, it’s the only trash can in the whole house that actually doesn’t have trash. It’s just like very light because it just has lint balls in there. 

  

Kathi Lipp (20:13) 

Yeah! 

  

Yeah! 

  

Tonya Kubo (20:34) 

But 

  

it has been very helpful to us in terms of keeping the washer and the dryer a lot less dusty than they typically would be. 

  

Kathi Lipp (20:42) 

That’s nice. 

  

I like that then you feel like you can actually use that surface. I love that so much Okay. Now let’s just talk about maintaining that area So you just got Tonya’s tip wipe down the washer and dryer regularly to prevent that dust buildup ? Clean out the lint trap after every load ? Kim had a roommate who didn’t know you were supposed to do that. She she went on vacation 

  

Kim went on vacation and she comes back and she’s like, guys, this is a fire hazard. So I will tell you, if you take nothing else from this, clean out your vent, clean out your lint trap. Like, please, please, ? And regularly check behind the machines for stray socks or lint. ? We’ve gotten down there with like a flashlight just to see. And I will tell you, I… 

  

Tonya Kubo (21:35) 

Hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (21:42) 

I’m not short, but I’m not tall. I’m a little bit taller than the average American woman. I’m 5’6″. And one of the things that’s really helped me is because washing machines now are built so they’re so, so deep. I keep a pair of barbecue tongs in the laundry room so I can reach that little tiny sock that’s all the way in the back. yeah, that’s… 

  

I that has been very very helpful and I use that to grab things behind it and then Run that cleaning cycle on your washing machine with a wash cleaner. It really really does help Okay, so as we promised we’re talking about the link to the laundry post. So ? a few days ago I Admitted that I don’t sort my clothes and 

  

People kept saying, can’t do that. They’re gonna become so dingy and so dark and your clothes are gonna be so gross. Okay, Tonya, have you ever seen me be dingy in my life? I am not a dingy person, okay? So I reject that in the name of Jesus Christ. now people have very, very big feelings. What were some of the reactions you saw, Tonya? 

  

Tonya Kubo (22:43) 

No. ? 

  

Hahaha 

  

you 

  

But how I would sum it up is people have big feelings about laundry. And I think we see this a lot of times with our cluttery community, right? Is so many of us were raised in homes where there is a way, you know, there is the right way and then everything else is wrong and only idiots do it that way. And apparently like laundry brings that side out of everybody. 

  

Kathi Lipp (23:17) 

Yes. 

  

It really does. It’s I hadn’t. Yeah. 

  

Tonya Kubo (23:24) 

Because I have to, 

  

I just want to tell you, Kathi like, I don’t actually care that much about what you do with your laundry, because you know what, I barely care about what I do with my laundry. But people, people are passionate about how other people do their laundry. That’s what I’m going to say. 

  

Kathi Lipp (23:37) 

Yes. 

  

It’s really wild isn’t it? It’s very very wild. So here’s what I’ll say I’m gonna put a link to this in the show notes ? And I think I think you guys are going to enjoy reading that now right after I posted that because people were good I would say they’re getting heated but they were getting a little tiny some people were getting a little tiny judgy and Or they were saying, you know, could never do that. And so 

  

Tonya Kubo (23:53) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (24:12) 

This is how I’d like to reframe it for those of us who feel very religious about how we do laundry. If you are doing micro loads, like, you know, I my blues and my purples because, you know, that’s just that’s how I’ve always said and you are not overwhelmed by that. Go off you, you quiet queen. I love that for you. I love that you have so much calm in your life. 

  

Tonya Kubo (24:28) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (24:41) 

And I have never experienced that level of calm in my life. And so if you’re looking for ways to maybe change some things up, try washing dangerously. Like I have no problem. If I’ve got a new pair of jeans, I’m throwing a color catcher in there. And that color catcher is going to absorb that. Now, if you’re like, no, I’ve had these kinds of jeans before. They have such a dark dye. 

  

They bleed for weeks. I don’t know why you would still buy those jeans, ? do what’s going to work for you. But that doesn’t mean just because it worked for your mom, it’s the best system. And so I want us to have laundry freedom, Tonya. This is really my siren call. 

  

Tonya Kubo (25:25) 

I’m just telling you, Kathi, we haven’t seen this level of controversy since I came out on this podcast about not using a top sheet in my bed. Do you remember that? Yeah, it’s okay. 

  

Kathi Lipp (25:36) 

Yeah, okay. I still have a little judgment for you. No, I know it’s very 

  

European. I really do It’s okay. You know what? Here’s the thing Tonya, I never have to sleep in your bed Yeah, so it’s all good. It’s all good Yeah, when I did I will say when we were traveling to new york and we got an airbnb and there was no top sheet on it I I was like, yeah 

  

Tonya Kubo (25:42) 

Hahaha 

  

You were like Tonya was 

  

here first! 

  

Kathi Lipp (26:06) 

Yes, exactly. This is not for me. This is not for me. This is not for me. ? Okay, guys, we’re going to take a break and we’re going to come back and I’m going to talk about ? something that has earned a spot in my clutter free home. ? We are going to have such a great conversation with Julie Abenga. I never pronounce her name right. I never pronounce the same the twice. 

  

But she said that that was fine. She has a new book called Declutter Your Heart and Your Home, How a Minimalist Life Yields Maximum Joy. And it’s such a great conversation. You’re gonna love it. Okay, so we will be right back. 

 

Kathi Lipp (00:00) 

Well, hey friends, welcome to Clutter Free Academy, where our goal is to help you take small, doable steps to live every day with less clutter and more life. 

  

And guys, if you have been a listener to this podcast for any length of time, you know I am not a minimalist. You know that I might even be described by some people as a maximalist, but I’ve been able to take my maximalism, woo, if that’s even a word, and coexist with it in a joyful way. But I know some of you really desire to live a more minimalist life. 

  

and have I got the guest for you. You guys, her name is Julia Ubbenga and she has this, you guys, it’s a fantastic new book, Declutter Your Heart and Your Home, How a Minimalist Life Yields Maximum Joy. guys, she is all about the joy. Julia, welcome to the podcast. We’re so grateful you’re here. 

  

Julia Ubbenga (01:01) 

Thank you, Kathi, It’s wonderful to be here talking with you today. 

  

Kathi Lipp (01:04) 

? Yeah, I, you know, like I told you before the show, we don’t have a lot of people on who are talking about decluttering because as a cluttering person, I love to collect other decluttering systems and things like that. But I could not get over your story. And so I’m just, I don’t know that I’ve ever just jumped in and said, hey, tell me your story. But that’s what I’m doing it today because your path to minimalism. 

  

I feel like is really unique but also kind of universal in many ways in what you’ve gone through. So tell me more about that. 

  

Julia Ubbenga (01:38) 

Yeah, so I have not always been a minimalist. Pretty far from it actually. I’m an unlikely minimalist, you could say. And my story starts in childhood. I grew up close to my grandma and my grandma loved to shop. She would buy things whether she needed it or not. It was her love language to give people gifts, to give me gifts. And so we’d stroll the malls together and I I soon learned that shopping was fun. It was a way to feel good. It was a way not to feel bad to kind of cover up hard feelings. 

  

And so I carried this mindset with me into my twenties. I started making money. I started spending money and pretty soon I had all this stuff and $40,000 worth of consumer debt. Yeah. So when I thought about this debt, I felt bad, but when I felt bad, I’d go buy something new because that’s what I thought would make me feel good and make me feel happy. And so this cycle, it continued up until the time our second daughter was born. And I was working outside the home as a speech language pathologist at the time. 

  

Kathi Lipp (02:28) 

You 

  

Julia Ubbenga (02:37) 

but I’d always wanted to stay home with our kids. So that was my dream to be a stay at home mom. And my husband got a promotion at the time and I could stay home. I was so excited, but I had this really idyllic vision of what stay at home mom life would be like. thought, yeah, I thought my daughters and I would be snuggled on the couch, reading Little House on the Prairie, would be giggling over tea parties. In my mind, it was just going to be great. Well, a couple of weeks into the stay at home mom gig, I would not even called myself a stay at home mom. I would have said, 

  

Kathi Lipp (02:51) 

right? 

  

Julia Ubbenga (03:07) 

A full-time stuff manager would have been a better title because Kathi, that is what I did. I was constantly looking for things and picking things up and cleaning things, tripping over things that I hadn’t picked up yet. It was just all consuming. was exhausted. I was stressed. I couldn’t really be present to the people around me. Like I was there, but I wasn’t really there as distracted and just, I was overwhelmed. So. 

  

Kathi Lipp (03:13) 

Yeah. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Yeah. 

  

Julia Ubbenga (03:33) 

A couple months into living this way, I was diagnosed with postpartum depression. And I remember this morning where I was up in the nursery in the recliner chair. I was feeding our baby and I was talking with God, really pleading with God. was like, God, what is going on here? This isn’t what I signed up for. Something needs to change. And I was reading the Bible and a couple of verses from Luke chapter 12. They just jumped off the page at me and they said, your life. 

  

Kathi Lipp (03:39) 

? 

  

Julia Ubbenga (04:02) 

does not consist of possessions, be rich in what matters. And so I paused right there and I asked myself, was I rich in what mattered? Was I rich in relationships, time for a faith life, time for hobbies that I loved? And no, the answer was absolutely not, I wasn’t. So that planted the seed that something in my life in the area of possessions needed to change. But I didn’t know what, I didn’t know where to go from there. And that same week, I had a therapy appointment. 

  

And at the end of the session, just as I was leaving, the therapist said, Julia, have you ever heard of minimalism? I’m like, you mean houses with white walls and next to nothing in them. And she’s like, no, there’s more to it than that. Look into it. I think you might be interested. So I was curious and I did a Google search there in the car just right after the session and realized that there’s a lot of resources about minimalism. So I started reading books and blogs and listening to podcasts about it. And this idea. 

  

that I didn’t need all this stuff to be happy. And in fact, I’d be a whole lot happier with less of it because then I’d have more time and energy to focus on who and what mattered. It was a mindset shift that was life-changing. And it finally gave me a vision of how to get out from under all this stress and anxiety that I was feeling at the time. So I went all in on minimalism. I started a blog at the time. I called it Rich in What Matters after the Bible verse that spoke to me. 

  

And we let go of 75 % of our stuff over the course of the first year. And then we downsized to an apartment home and got rid of our consumer debt. We built our own intentionally smaller new home. And so yeah, we’ve been living as a minimalist family for six years now, and we have five kids ages 11, seven, four, three, and three months. And yeah, and now I have this book that I’ve written, Declutter Your Heart in Your Home, How a Minimalist Life Yields Maximum Joy. 

  

Kathi Lipp (05:45) 

Wow. 

  

Julia Ubbenga (05:52) 

Because I want to give other people the tools to live less stuff, to live a lighter life if they feel called to do that. 

  

Kathi Lipp (06:00) 

Okay, first of all, birthing a baby in a book at the same time, I give you major props, my friends. I think that there are a lot of people out there who say, this sounds amazing. To not be dealing with my stuff all the time, to not be shuffling it from one room to another, to not spend my entire life picking up and putting away and all of that. 

  

Julia Ubbenga (06:06) 

Thank you. 

  

Kathi Lipp (06:26) 

What does practical minimalism actually look like in everyday life? What can you give me like one or two practices or mindset shifts that have made the biggest impact for you? 

  

Julia Ubbenga (06:39) 

Yeah, that’s a great question. Well, I think that minimalism itself is misunderstood, that it’s about more than just your stuff. So if we’re talking mindset, minimalism is just a tool to live your life with intention. And so it’s about letting go of the things in your life that don’t matter, to make space in your life for the things that do matter. And that does apply to your possessions, but it also applies to your calendar commitments, to your self-talk thoughts, your thought patterns. 

  

So it’s you’re constantly discerning what are you letting into your life? And then if it’s not supporting your life, it’s not aligned with your values, if it’s not serving you, you’re letting it go. And so practically this would look like keeping a calendar that doesn’t have half-hearted commitments on it. ? It would also just mean you’re constantly looking around at your things in your home wondering, this still serving me? Is this distracting me from my present life? 

  

? you know, what matters to me from my kids, from my spouse, is it distracting me? Is it taking my time and my energy and attention? Or is it helping me better connect with them? So I think it’s really just you’re kind of the gatekeeper of your home and your world and just discerning what you let into it. 

  

Kathi Lipp (07:49) 

Yeah, I would say as I am on this journey, because it will always be a journey for me. I’m never going to be in a finished space, but this spot where I am more comfortable in my home than I’ve ever been before, but what I’m also noticing is, I don’t know that I’ll ever be a minimalist, but it’s the same questions. Is this still serving me? And I think we all have different levels of 

  

Julia Ubbenga (07:56) 

Yes. 

  

Yes. 

  

Kathi Lipp (08:19) 

the amount of stuff around us that makes us comfortable or more importantly uncomfortable at you know the the not disease like a sickness but the dis-ease in our lives because I feel like I’m being suffocated or I can’t find what I need. I would love to know from you what was the overwhelming feeling before you started on this minimalist path? 

  

and contrast that with what does it feel like now. When you wake up in the morning and you look around, what was the feeling you had before and what is it now? 

  

Julia Ubbenga (09:01) 

That’s a great question. So I think that before minimalism when I’d wake up the more in the morning and look around I Felt like the home had the upper hand like I would look at a mess and I was like I have no idea when I am going to find the time to even start taking care of that and I would feel stressed and I would feel anxious even ? and So now when I look around and I see a mess definitely we have messes We have five kids, but I see the messes and they’re manageable. They’re easily tidied 

  

Kathi Lipp (09:26) 

Right. 

  

Julia Ubbenga (09:30) 

They don’t have the upper hand. don’t spark that same feeling of overwhelm in me. It’s more of a mindset shift of where, ? okay, there’s a mess there and I can take care of that in five minutes later when I’m done playing with my kids. And so, yeah, so it’s just this idea that you are feeling good in your home. You’re not overwhelmed by your home and that just helps you become more present to the people around you in your home. 

  

Kathi Lipp (09:42) 

Yeah. 

  

Guys, even if your goal isn’t to be a minimalist, what I love about this book is it will help you develop a minimalist mindset that says, I don’t have to keep things out of fear, guilt, or shame. I don’t have to keep things because somebody gave them to me. And here’s what I love. You talk about your grandmother with such love and respect that you knew that that was her love language. And you can also say, 

  

I received that from my grandmother, but I don’t have to carry it forward. And I love that. Julia, I would love, as we are wrapping up here, one or two practical things that somebody can do today to start developing this mindset. Is it a practice? ? What is it that would help somebody get started with this today? 

  

Julia Ubbenga (10:49) 

Well, a super practical thing that I love is just getting a quick decluttering win and going and clearing off the front of your fridge or maybe just keeping one or two of your favorite things on it. And the reason I say go tackle the front of your fridge is because there’s a study done at UCLA and in it they found that the average fridge in a home has 52 items on it. And there was a connection between the amount of stuff on a fridge and the amount of clutter in a home. So if your goal is to live a clutter free life, 

  

then clear off that front of your fridge, something you see very often, and you’ll see that. And that can be a reminder that can help you shift your mindset that, hey, I am not gonna live in a cluttered home anymore. I see that clear fridge and I am going to live a clutter-free life. 

  

Kathi Lipp (11:35) 

Julia, I love that you and I referenced the same UCLA study. Have you read that book? I love that book so much. Guys, if you don’t know what we’re talking about, I can’t remember the name of the book. Maybe you do. ? If you don’t, it’s okay. I will put it in the show notes. But they went and lived basically with dozens and dozens of families to study clutter in homes around the LA area mostly. 

  

Julia Ubbenga (11:40) 

Yes, it’s a great one. Yes, I have it at home. Me too. 

  

hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (12:06) 

And ? first of all, if you read that book, you’re going to realize you are not weird, you are normal. I don’t care how much clutter you have in your home. If you are below hoarder, you are normal. But also talking about cortisone levels in women who live with a lot of stuff. And Julia, I know for me, and I can already tell from speaking with you that our cortisone levels changed as we decluttered. 

  

I don’t have any scientific proof of that, but the feeling of not being on edge all the time is life changing, isn’t it? 

  

Julia Ubbenga (12:40) 

Yes. 

  

It is life-changing. is. Yeah. I think the book is called life at home in the 21st century. Does that ring a bell? Yeah. It just came to me. Yeah. And it is such a life-changing experience to not being on, not to be on edge in your home all the time. And I think that actually makes your nervous system shift out of that fight or flight response that we get stuck in so much. And that has implications for our health, Kathi. mean, stress and nervous system dysregulation can lead to health problems. And so. 

  

Kathi Lipp (12:49) 

Yes, yes, yes, exactly. Yeah. 

  

Julia Ubbenga (13:14) 

It goes deeper than, yeah. 

  

Kathi Lipp (13:14) 

And 

  

we discount those health dangers in women. We know about it for men, but heart disease and from stress is a huge factor for a lot of women. And so I love that we are having this conversation. And while you and I come at it from different levels, the heart is the same. We want you to be at peace in your home. And guys, ? 

  

Julia Ubbenga (13:22) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (13:44) 

? This is such a great read and it’s gonna be so if you found Julia inspirational and I know my listeners I know you found her inspirational today. You said I want a piece of that ? Guys, you know this segment things that have earned a space in my clutter free home And this book has declutter your heart and your home how to how a minimalist life yields maximum joy We’ll have a link in our show notes 

  

Julia thanks for being on today. This this book is a treasure. I’m gonna read it again I’m gonna pass it along to a friend who I know also needs to hear your words. I’m so grateful for you today 

  

Julia Ubbenga (14:23) 

Thank you so much for having me on, Kathi. It was a fun conversation. 

  

Kathi Lipp (14:26) 

And friends, I’m just so grateful you’ve been here today. You’ve been listening to Clutter-Free Academy. I’m Kathi Lipp. Now, go create the clutter-free life you’ve always wanted to live. 

 

 

More Posts 

#631 Holiday Headstart: 5 More Tips for a Relaxed Season

#631 Holiday Headstart: 5 More Tips for a Relaxed Season

631 Holiday Headstart: 5 More Tips for a Relaxed Season

Do you ever say you’ll start holiday prep early, but then suddenly it’s December and you’re in a tinsel-covered panic? Well, no more!

In this episode, Kathi and co-host Tonya Kubo dive into part two of their discussion on preparing for the holidays in August. They offer practical advice for early holiday planning. Kathi and Tonya emphasize the importance of considering family needs, budgeting, and self-care in the planning process.

Listeners will discover:

  • How to plan for those perfect holiday photos
  • How to plan for budget-friendly holiday travel
  • How to create a realistic holiday decor plan (even if your husband Roger thinks there’s no such thing as too many Christmas lights.)

Throughout the episode, Kathi and Tonya offer relatable anecdotes and practical strategies to help listeners reduce holiday stress by planning ahead.

Kathi shares her love for early holiday meal planning and cookbook perusing in this episode. She mentions one of her favorite recipes called Raclette. Check out Raclette photos in the banner as well as the recipe below!

 Raclette

3 to 7 oz. raclette cheese per person, sliced to fit the small trays under the raclette grill. (We find this at Trader Joe’s and at some of the fancier stores from around November through February, and we’ve even found it on Amazon.)

4 to 6 potatoes new potatoes per person, boiled with the skins on. (You have better things to do with your life than peel tiny potatoes.)

Optional Ingredients: Everything else is what you like or have on hand. That’s the beauty of this meal—you get to make it what you love. Here are some ideas: bacon, beef fillet, thickly sliced, pork sausage, zucchini, thickly sliced, mushrooms, grape tomatoes, white pearl onions, bell peppers, thickly sliced, cornichons or pickled gherkins (traditional dinners call for sweet pickles, but we only use dill), pickled baby corn, asparagus, crusty hearty bread, barbecue sauce or ketchup (I have found this to be a game changer)

Directions

1. Turn the raclette grill on to medium-high heat.

2. If you are using bacon, place the slices on the grill plate and cook to your liking.

3. Use the bacon fat to cook the other ingredients. (If you are not using bacon, simply brush the grill plate with some olive oil.)

4. Place some meat and vegetables on the hot grill plate. (When we have vegetarians or vegans visiting, we use two grills. You could even just use a tabletop skillet for the veggies and the raclette skillet for the cheese and meat.)

5. While the meat and vegetables are cooking on the grill plate, place slices of raclette cheese on the small trays and put them under the heating element.

6. Slice or smash the potatoes on your plate. Scrape the melted raclette cheese out of the tray and serve it over the warm potatoes. It is also common to place the melted cheese over the cooked vegetables. Some people even put slices of potatoes into the handled trays so that the cheese melts directly on top.

About eight people can use one raclette set at a time. This is a warm, hearty dinner that is a universal hit at our house and with our guests.

If you want to keep the whole meal on the tabletop, you can even use it to prepare dessert. Just clean off the grill and roast marshmallows over it to create tabletop s’mores. (Is there a better way to end a meal than with chocolate and marshmallows?)

Did you miss part one of this conversation? Click #630 Plan Now, Relax Later: 5 August Tips for a Peaceful Christmas 

Would you like to receive an early Christmas gift? Join the Clutter Free Facebook Group where they will provide you with a download of all 10 Planning Tips! Remember,. Remember, you can’t join the CFA Facebook Group without answering the membership questions. It’s how we keep it the kindest corner of the internet.

Click here to be notified when the next episode is released.

Also, stay up to date and sign up here to receive our newsletter.

 

Sabbath Soup: Weekly Menus and Rhythms to Make Space for a Day of Rest

Kathi Lipp gives readers an easy-to-follow process for meal planning and prep, so that they can enjoy a full day each week of real rest and refreshment.

Could you use a break from cooking (and everything else) once a week? Not only is rest vital for your mind and body, it’s good for your soul too. God designed us to enter into Sabbath rest one day per week, but as you know, meals still need to be made. Your family still needs to be fed.

Sabbath Soup includes convenient, seasonal meal plans that take the guesswork out of shopping and cooking. More than just a collection of delicious recipes—including main dishes, breads, breakfasts, desserts, salads, sides, and yes, soups—this is your guide to establishing a weekly rhythm and routine of meal planning and prep that allows you to have a true day off.

Do something good for your soul and experience the peace that comes with a full day dedicated to spending time with God, family, and friends. Savor your Sabbath as you proudly proclaim, “Soup’s on!”

Preorder your copy of Sabbath Soup: Weekly Menus and Rhythms to Make Space for a Day of Rest here. Preorder offer ends October 8, 2024.

Links Mentioned:

Clutter Free Resources:

What do you do in August that helps you make the holidays stress free?

Share in the comments!

Let’s stay connected

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  • Leave a note in the comment section below.
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Meet Our Guest 

 

Tonya Kubo

Tonya Kubo is the illustrious and fearless leader of Kathi Lipp’s Clutter Free Academy Facebook group and the Clutter Free for Life membership program. A speaker and writer, Tonya makes her home in the heart of California with her husband, Brian, their two spirited daughters, and one very tolerant cat. Visit her at www.tonyakubo.com.

 

Tonya Kubo Picture
Transcript

Kathi Well, hey friends, welcome to Clutter Free Academy, where our goal is to help you take small, doable steps to live every day with less clutter and more

And I am back with co -host of Clutterfree Academy. It is Tonya Kubo. Hey, Tonya!

Tonya Kubo (00:33.21)

Hey, Kathi!

Kathi (00:35.134)

I’m excited. Okay. You know, I was super excited last week about Our 10 tips for a stress -free holiday. We we got through five last week I’m finally getting smarter in my old age not trying to do 10 tips in one episode Like let’s break because then we have super size episodes and you have to go back. No, no, no We just we started we knew this was gonna be a two episode series, but we’re talking in August about

what to do to prepare for Christmas and Thanksgiving and all the holidays in the winter. And why are we doing that, Tonya? Why are we just that organized and type A and so on top of it?

Tonya Kubo (01:18.478)

No, but we wish we were. Actually, the reason we’re doing it is because we cluttery people need time to plan to plan, right? So when it comes in October, it is two months too late. We need time in August to make some decisions, sit with those decisions, recover from the effort of making the decisions so that then when push comes to shove, October, November, we’ve already know what we’re doing and then we just forge ahead.

Kathi (01:20.188)

We do.

Kathi (01:27.09)

Yes.

Kathi (01:47.354)

And that’s what we need. need some time, space, and we need to take care of our future selves because otherwise it all comes down to us. I know how these things

Tonya Kubo (01:57.82)

Right, and so because it all comes down to us, I am gonna jump us right in. If you didn’t catch the last episode, I just encourage you to go back and look at it. It should be pretty easy to find in the player that you’re listening to. Or head over into Clutterfree Academy, our free Facebook group, because we have a download with all 10 tips. It’s called 10 Decisions to Make in August for a Less Stressed Holiday. That’s waiting for you there right now. Kathi, just take it away

Tip number six.

Kathi (02:28.83)

Yeah, so we talked about are you gonna do Christmas cards or not? And both decisions are 100 % fine, friends. But if you are gonna do Christmas cards and you want a picture of your family, or if you just want a cute Christmas picture to put up on social media or to hang up in your house without sending Christmas cards, that’s allowed too. It actually is. And

Also, our vet, if we didn’t give them a picture of moose each year, there would be a revolt. So maybe they do that just to make us feel good, but I don’t care. It does make me feel good. So now is the time to make plans for that Christmas picture. Now, maybe plans are, hey, we took this great picture on our vacation. Let’s use that. That is a perfectly acceptable picture. Our Christmas card last year, somebody came to our house and took a great picture of moose.

holding one of her toys and she looks a little mischievous. And so we just, we knew that that was the perfect card. So, or maybe you want to get a professional set of pictures taken of you and your family. All of these are options in August. But as we get closer to November, our options get

And then we’re sending out for Christmas cards on December 1st. We get them back on the 15th. We don’t have time to send them out. And then we have 200 Christmas cards that we’re like, well, maybe next year. So now is the time to take the picture, okay? And we do have, what is your favorite tip for taking a great picture? Do you have one? I’ll tell you mine and then you can tell me yours. Okay.

Tonya Kubo (04:01.254)

Right.

Yes.

Tonya Kubo (04:16.954)

Sure.

Kathi (04:18.578)

So I think the best pictures are where people feel comfortable. And so not so staged, not so posed. We just did a whole photo shoot here at the Red House. And Tenille, our photographer, kept telling us how great we looked. And if your photographer is not doing that, you need to find a new photographer. So also if you’re a parent, especially of a tween or teen,

and you just want to, you know, to be able to say, hey, you look great or have somebody else tell them they look great. That would be my go -to move. Okay, how about you, Tonya?

Tonya Kubo (04:54.108)

I was gonna say my tip is take 400 pictures because one of them is bound to look good. right? Because the more people you have, the harder it is to make sure everybody is looking at the camera at the same time with their eyes

Kathi (04:57.946)

Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

Kathi (05:10.096)

It’s so true. And I think the other thing to say on that is, boy, just wear something comfortable. The best pictures are where you’re wearing jeans and you feel great.

Tonya Kubo (05:16.144)

Mm -hmm.

Tonya Kubo (05:19.824)

Yep, that is so true. All right, Kathi, go ahead and give us tip number seven.

Kathi (05:26.278)

Okay, it’s time to plan for Christmas travel. So if you’re gonna be flying cross country, if you need an Airbnb, you need hotel rooms, you need flights, now is the time to get that information nailed down. Can I tell you just the mistake we made recently? Roger and I were gonna do this big, big, big trip and we’re like, okay, we think we can save enough money for this. It’s gonna be tight.

Tonya Kubo (05:48.934)

Sure.

Kathi (05:56.038)

You know with the flights and the everything we’re doing, but I think we can do that so we we went ahead and booked we got the travel insurance and Then we looked at the flights Holy cow, Tonya. I had no idea how it’s an international flight. I had no idea I had no idea so We’ve made the hard decision to not go until we think we’re gonna do like in five years because we want more time

to gather our pennies together. So instead of our 20th anniversary, this will be a great 25th anniversary. We’re gonna do something fun and fabulous for 20 years. But start to get those numbers into your head now. Start to look for flights now. Maybe sign up for a flight tracker to see if the cost goes down. Get an idea of what hotels or Airbnbs are gonna cost in that area of the country or the world, whatever that is.

Tonya Kubo (06:27.578)

Right.

Kathi (06:55.568)

Start to nail some of that information down now so you’re not in a panic in November. Now, you don’t travel for holidays usually, do you? Okay, so for you, it’s just, should we clean out the car or not, right?

Tonya Kubo (07:04.567)

Not usually, no.

Tonya Kubo (07:11.072)

Yeah, well for me, so I have a couple of relatives that live in other states, right? So our big thing is, yes, should we clean out the car or not? The other thing that we have, if we’re road tripping, because that does happen sometimes, when the girls were younger, especially, it’s nap time. When are you going to leave, right? When do you leave the house? When do you plan to come back? You know, because ideally, if you’re doing the holiday thing, somebody else’s house, you don’t want your kids to lose their charm before you have a chance to get them into the

Kathi (07:21.872)

Yeah. Yeah.

Kathi (07:40.73)

Right, Yeah, that charm covers a multitude of sins. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, and this is a great point. You know, for us, we may be RVing this Thanksgiving. And so, like, it’s time to look at those RV spots. It’s time to look at packing, you know, road tripping. What kind of food are we going to bring? Because if you are planning to eat out every meal while you’re road tripping,

Tonya Kubo (07:45.914)

Yeah, yeah.

Kathi (08:09.32)

that’s gonna cost you as much as Christmas. maybe, you know, maybe make those plans now. And also, if it is now the time to discuss, do you want to stay with relatives or is that a terrible idea? We had to, you know, there were some relatives we would have loved to have stayed with them. There were other relatives for other reasons that it was very hard to stay with. So to start preparing people early for those decisions,

is really, really good and

Tonya Kubo (08:41.946)

Yes, yes. Okay. So what is tip number

Kathi (08:48.734)

Now is the time to ask for do you need time off from work? Do you need to make other arrangements? Do you need to offer yourself a sacrifice for Christmas so you can get Thanksgiving off? You know what so start to ask now because you’re starting to plan so early and you’re starting to connect with the people that you’re planning

you might be able to ask earlier than you’ve ever been able to ask before. And if you’re, especially if you’re working someplace like retail or you’re in a hotel or a restaurant situation, getting that time off request in as early as possible or to find out, no, I can’t take time off then. Those are all good things to know. And the earlier you can get that request in,

more likely you are able to do it. This is why I also really suggest if you have any possibility of celebrating on a day other than Christmas or other than Thanksgiving, boy, it alleviates a lot of stress for a lot of people. I know that it’s nice to have that Friday off between Thanksgiving and the weekend, but also the cost of traveling.

Tonya Kubo (09:53.19)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (10:06.085)

That week is extraordinary. The cost, could you take a different set of days off and make it easier on

Tonya Kubo (10:15.644)

Mm -hmm. Excellent tips, excellent tips. And especially, you what’s nice is if you’ve got people who work retail, there’s blackout dates already set, right? So that helps you plan accordingly. I love that. So we need to take a quick break, because as you like to remind me, Kathi, we like to keep the lights on around here, right? So we will be back with tips nine and 10 after our commercial

Kathi (10:24.379)

Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Kathi (10:34.792)

Pay the bills.

Kathi (10:45.456)

Okay, we are back and we are diving right back into our tips. Tonya, I’m just gonna go into nine. This is especially important for the lip household.

Tonya Kubo (10:57.39)

Right, it is not important for the Kubo household. So you go for it, Kathi. Yeah.

Kathi (11:00.424)

You know what, see this is good to know, right? This is good information to know. A holiday decor plan. you know, like Tonya’s like, well that’s easy, no.

And that’s okay. And I think, you know what, if I wasn’t married to Mr. Christmas, that might be my plan too. I might have just a cute little tree off in the corner or something like that. Our first Christmas together, we decided to not celebrate on Christmas because we knew that, we had had a wedding that year and we thought, well, the kids will wanna be with their other parents and that’s fine. So what we did is we bought a two foot,

Christmas tree and we did a road trip to a bunch of different B &Bs and we took that Christmas tree to each B &B and it was perfect. But Roger likes some lighting. He likes to dec… Yes, he likes to decorate the yard. Now since we get free Christmas trees because they’re all in our backyard, we set up three Christmas trees often in our household. And so

Tonya Kubo (11:45.456)

Mm -hmm.

Tonya Kubo (11:52.024)

how fun.

Tonya Kubo (11:58.779)

He does.

Tonya Kubo (12:07.099)

Yeah.

Kathi (12:13.938)

For me, it’s very important that we go in having a budget because every year, Tanya, every single year, I think, well, surely we have enough lights. We must have enough lights. His last name is Griswold. I don’t understand it. But yes, every year we go by the lights. So one thing I’m going to insist on this year, insist on is

Tonya Kubo (12:25.04)

You’d never have enough lights for Mr. Lip.

Tonya Kubo (12:39.515)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (12:43.376)

Mr. Lip, we need an inventory of what we have because what often happens is, that might be in the attic or it might be in the storage shed, but I’m not sure. So while we’re here at Home Depot, Lowe’s, Ace Hardware, we might as well get XYZ. No, no. Well, okay, if he really wants to, we will, but.

Tonya Kubo (12:48.42)

yeah.

Tonya Kubo (13:05.04)

Mm -hmm.

No. Yes. I was gonna say yes.

Kathi (13:13.266)

But could we find that information out in August? Or let’s be kind to ourselves even September when it’s not blazing hot in the attic. Could we put a plan together so that we actually know what we have? Do you wanna change up the theme? So in our bedroom, we put up a Christmas tree that’s very Woodland themed. In Roger’s office, we put up a tree that’s very Disney themed.

and then downstairs it’s bright and shiny things. So we know, do we want to change any of that? And then what do we need to do with DIY project? Is there something that we’d like to do? Let’s budget for it now, let’s go in with a plan so we’re not doing last minute things. And I think this is a good, I’m gonna put cooking under this as well. Now it’s harder to plan for cooking four months in advance, but.

Tonya Kubo (13:48.474)

Yeah.

Kathi (14:10.8)

If you’re gonna be trying a bunch of new recipes, does that require a new KitchenAid? Does that require a new thingamajig? What are we doing? Or maybe, for us, we often wanna smoke a turkey. We need to make sure that the barbecue that we’re using, or the Traeger, or whatever we’re doing, is in proper working order if we haven’t been using it.

Tonya Kubo (14:25.285)

Kathi (14:35.698)

Because I cannot tell you the number of times we’ve gone to use the thing and we haven’t used it for nine months and the thing maybe had some friends living in it. Let’s check that out. Let’s not be surprised. How about that? Let’s not be surprised.

Tonya Kubo (14:53.341)

That’s a surprise you never want, but it’s so much better to have it in August than it is to have it like the week before you plan to use

Kathi (14:57.956)

Right? Right, especially if you’re snowed in. Now you have to dig your way. Yeah, there’s just a million reasons to check early

Tonya Kubo (15:07.14)

I was like, hear the emotional scarring from your past experiences, Kathi.

Kathi (15:09.679)

my goodness. Yeah, ask me how I know, friends. Ask me how I know. No, actually don’t ask me, trauma. Okay.

Tonya Kubo (15:13.722)

Ahahaha!

Tonya Kubo (15:17.36)

No. All right, Kathi, give us tip number

Kathi (15:21.15)

Okay, this may be the most important one, the most important one. really, one through nine is leading up to 10. And this is just, it’s gonna sound very new agey, self -care and boundaries, self -care and boundaries. Think back with your spouse, your kids, your parents. Was last year’s Christmas just a little too long?

Tonya Kubo (15:36.678)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (15:50.492)

Were there a few too many people? Were there a few too many dishes that were required to be made? I really believe in saying, know, one thing I’ve learned, I used to think, it’s less stress for me to make all the food because I have control over when things are happening in my kitchen. No, that was just me being a little bit of a control

It’s so much better to say, you know what, you’re really good. Like my sister -in -law, this is an underrated talent. She makes the best salads in the world. I don’t know anybody who makes a better salad than Lucinda Richardson. I don’t know anybody. So let Lucinda bring the salad. Beg her to bring the salad. Let people contribute. If people are saying,

Hey, Kathi, I would love for you to do your Raclette. I’d say, yes, that would be great. Would you bring the Raclette cheese? Yes, I’d be happy to do that. But you know what? I have a lot of people who live closer to Whole Foods than I do. And that’s a Whole Foods item. To be able to say, you know what? This year, we’re not going to be able to go to three different family events in a short amount of time. You were talking about this with your kids.

You know, do we need to be aware of nap time and travel time? And thinking, you know, as adults, sometimes we can, but we shouldn’t suck it up. But kids, they’re not known for their suck it up abilities, right? So to be able to say, you know what, our first day, and we’ve done this when we travel now, our first day, hey, our whole job is just to get there and then go to the hotel and order some food.

Tonya Kubo (17:22.854)

Mm -hmm.

Tonya Kubo (17:26.897)

right?

Kathi (17:41.914)

and not be on for anybody. And that’s a beautiful thing. And that’s what I think we need to say, you know what, I’m gonna be better on Thursday, Friday and Saturday if it went on Wednesday. It’s just me and the people I love because we can figure it out. We can sleep in, we can do what we need to do. But to just say

Do we say no to overwhelming commitments? And one way for me to do that, and I would love to hear any tips you have, Tonya, because you guys are really good at boundaries, is we just got an invitation today to one of our favorite humans’ 30th birthdays. The 30 -year -old is inviting us to their birthday and we’re not related to them. I feel highly honored. But instead of saying, of course we’ll be there, I said, let me check with Roger. Because I just need to know.

What’s gonna make him most comfortable? What’s gonna be the best thing? It sounds precious of us, but also sometimes I forget, oh wait, we’ve got a big deadline the day before. So it just says, hey, let me check the calendar and let me check with my significant other and we’ll get back to you. And if I get back within 24 hours, no harm, no foul. So what’s a good way for you that you have set boundaries around the holidays?

Tonya Kubo (18:40.678)

Mm -hmm.

Tonya Kubo (18:53.046)

Right.

Tonya Kubo (18:58.702)

Yeah, so it’s interesting having kids who are growing up, right? Because what I discovered the hard way is, you know, they have school events, if they have extracurricular activities, oftentimes there’s holiday events associated with that. Like, Brian and I do not have the luxury of complete control over our calendars, even outside of work. And so for us,

A lot of it has to do with if it involves school. ask like as soon as back to school night is, which is late August, I will be asking, do you have a calendar of all events for the fall? Do you have a calendar for the whole academic year? You know, we’re recording this and it’s not quite August yet because that’s how you get August episodes, folks, if you record them before August. And I just found out

Kathi (19:37.98)

Yeah

Kathi (19:46.727)

Right?

Tonya Kubo (19:51.064)

there’s a mandatory commitment for Lily that runs for the next eight days. And by the way, we’re out of town, right? Yeah, exactly. And so I am learning now, okay, so I need to set some boundaries and say, we’re a family that has to plan ahead and we are more than happy to show up to mandatory events. However, you’re gonna need to get us those dates right now. And so again, just to kind of like tie that up in a bow, what I would say is for the school stuff, I ask for the calendars.

Kathi (19:56.263)

What?

Tonya Kubo (20:19.642)

Like early, I ask often. And then when it comes to the personal commitments, I pretty much just tell folks, know, let me check my calendar. And if I can make it, say, I’m gonna make every attempt to be there. However, you know that schools are really good about spring and last minute stuff on you. So if I have to shift it, I’ll let you know. And then I leave it at

Kathi (20:40.988)

Yeah, yeah, it’s really smart because yeah, there are so many competing priorities and whoever made that mandatory last minute commitment, unless they’re paying you, no, that’s crazy, that’s just crazy. I love these and I think that our community is gonna have some really great ideas about what to do in August to make things easier.

Tonya, know one of the things I like, and here’s one of my little gifts to myself in August, is that I’m a cookbook peruser. I like to dive into a good cookbook and I’m gonna start planning my meals for the holidays early in August because that’s something I enjoy. That’s not something everybody enjoys, but I do. So I’m gonna have my little stack and I’m going to spend some time perusing.

Tonya Kubo (21:19.11)

Mm -hmm.

Tonya Kubo (21:31.097)

Right.

Kathi (21:37.392)

and just bring some delight and it’s gonna make me look forward to the holidays more because I, yeah, I’m excited about that. This is, yeah, and like I said, our Facebook group is gonna have so many great ideas because they’ve all done this. They bought the t -shirts for sure.

Tonya Kubo (21:46.181)

I love that.

Tonya Kubo (21:56.348)

That is true. And as a reminder about the Facebook group, if you’re not in there, you want to be in there because we’re going to put a download with all tips this episode and last episode. It’s going to be called 10 Decisions to Make in August for a Less Stressed Holiday. And Kathi is so good about reminding you this. If you are requesting to join the group, please answer the questions. If you don’t answer the questions, we don’t let you in. We want that community to be as kind as possible. All right, Kathi, anything else you want to add?

Kathi (22:16.627)

Yes.

Kathi (22:26.392)

No, I just want to say thank you for listening. Tonya, thank you for leading us so well. And friends, thank you for being here. You’ve been listening to Clutter -Free Academy. I’m Kathi Lipp. Now, go create the Clutter -Free life you were always designed to live.

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  • How to plan gift exchanges, considering family dynamics and financial situations.
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So grab a cool drink, find a comfy spot, and listen in on how to get started on making this Christmas your most organized and enjoyable one yet!

Would you like to receive an early Christmas gift? Join the Clutter Free Facebook Group where they will provide you with a download of all 10 Planning Tips! Remember, you can’t join the CFA Facebook Group without answering the membership questions. It’s how we keep it the kindest corner of the internet.

Click here to be notified when part 2 of this episode is released.

Also, stay up to date and sign up here to receive our newsletter.

 

Sabbath Soup: Weekly Menus and Rhythms to Make Space for a Day of Rest

Kathi Lipp gives readers an easy-to-follow process for meal planning and prep, so that they can enjoy a full day each week of real rest and refreshment.

Could you use a break from cooking (and everything else) once a week? Not only is rest vital for your mind and body, it’s good for your soul too. God designed us to enter into Sabbath rest one day per week, but as you know, meals still need to be made. Your family still needs to be fed.

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Do something good for your soul and experience the peace that comes with a full day dedicated to spending time with God, family, and friends. Savor your Sabbath as you proudly proclaim, “Soup’s on!”

Preorder your copy of Sabbath Soup: Weekly Menus and Rhythms to Make Space for a Day of Rest here. Preorder offer ends October 8, 2024.

Links Mentioned:

www.Tonyakubo.com

Join the Clutter Free Academy Facebook Group and remember to answer the Membership Questions when prompted.

 

 

 

Clutter Free Resources:

What are some of your creative ways to approach gift exchanges with extended family?

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Meet Our Guest 

 

Tonya Kubo

Tonya Kubo is the illustrious and fearless leader of Kathi Lipp’s Clutter Free Academy Facebook group and the Clutter Free for Life membership program. A speaker and writer, Tonya makes her home in the heart of California with her husband, Brian, their two spirited daughters, and one very tolerant cat. Visit her at www.tonyakubo.com.

 

Tonya Kubo Picture
Transcript

Kathi (00:01.084)

Well, hey friends, welcome to Clutter Free Academy where our goal is to help you take small doable steps to live every day with less clutter and more life. And I am here with the co -hostess with the mostest, it is Tonya Kubo. Hey Tonya.

Tonya Kubo (00:47.113)

Yay!

Tonya Kubo (01:08.736)

Hey, Kathy.

Kathi (01:10.444)

I’m excited about today’s episode. feel like as we’re planning ahead, nothing makes me feel like so smart as planning ahead, as pre -deciding, as getting decisions out of the way so that August Kathi is a hero in November Kathi’s eyes. And that’s what we’re gonna do for each of our listeners today. So I’m gonna turn it over to you because my excitement is gonna spill out so much. not even.

Let’s just admit it, I had trouble doing the intro today. I was so excited about this.

Tonya Kubo (01:43.165)

I was just saying, you’re so excited that you have 400 words trying to come out of your mouth at the same

Kathi (01:48.873)

All at the same time, but let’s let’s dive in. Let’s do

Tonya Kubo (01:52.954)

Okay, so what we’re actually talking about is Christmas. And if you are like me, I was gonna say, if you’re grinchy like I am, you’re like, seriously, what is this? But here is something that I know from several years of leading Clutterfree Academy and our Clutterfree for Life membership program, Kathy, and that is that we cluttery people have a true biological need

Kathi (01:58.737)

Yes! Yay! In August!

Tonya Kubo (02:22.22)

to plan to plan. See, Christmas planning in October is about two months too late for most of us.

Kathi (02:29.754)

It really is for us cluttering friends, yes.

Tonya Kubo (02:33.346)

So what we are going to do is this is a two part episode, I believe, and we are going to be it has to be because because I wrote out 10 tips and you wrote out 10 tips and that’s 20 and we’re only going to give you 10 folks. We’re only going to give you 10. So can we just get started, Kathi? I want you to jump right in with what is your first tip when it comes to making a decision in August to have a stress free

Kathi (02:37.892)

Yes, it has to

Kathi (02:42.49)

Yeah

Kathi (02:46.606)

Right.

Kathi (02:57.112)

Okay, so this may sound so basic and for some of you, this is just gonna be a check mark because you’re gonna say, I host Christmas every year on the 24th and 25th and how awesome to have a life that is that perfectly ordered. But for many of us, that is not our reality because we have in -laws, out -laws, blended families, divorced families, all of that kind of thing. So I would implore

to nail down what you’re celebrating, when you’re celebrating, and where you’re celebrating. So for us, we often don’t celebrate Thanksgiving just because we have four kids, some of them work retail, some of them, you know, they all have these schedules where it’s really hard for them to get away from work. And so we just say, you know what, stay with your families in the Bay Area and we’ll do something fun later

So we don’t really worry about Thanksgiving so much, but sometimes we’ll have friends or other family over and that’s great. But Christmas, Christmas needs to be decided. It’s great if it’s decided a year in advance. We often have everybody show up with their little phones and figure out dates. But if we can’t decide a year in advance, August is when you should be doing that. Because if you

If you have other adults coming to your house or you’re going to theirs, I think four months is a really good timeframe to start nailing all that down. makes a lot of sense. And we have one of our kids who’s like, I can’t plan that far in advance. I’m like, well, if you get a better offer, you go for it. But the rest of us, we need to know. So, you know, he’s never planned an adult family function in his life. So it’s okay.

Tonya Kubo (04:32.928)

Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (04:51.667)

Right, right well then

Kathi (04:52.452)

So what do you guys

Tonya Kubo (04:55.328)

Well, so we actually are the, how do I put this? Like we can’t, we have a core member of the family that will not be able to tell us when they can celebrate Christmas until sometime around December 15th and they are typically the host. So yeah, so we spent several years not spending Christmas or any holiday with family. We did friend.

Kathi (05:08.367)

Yes.

Kathi (05:13.596)

wow!

Tonya Kubo (05:22.486)

We had some friends and we would just spend holidays with them because they had a similar lifestyle to us. They needed to plan several months in advance. And so we would just book it out. But then as the kids get older, right, it’s harder to like explain why we’re not spending Christmas and Thanksgiving with aunts and uncles and grandparents and all of that stuff. So we try to be fluid, but to some degree there’s like, I can only be so fluid, right?

Kathi (05:49.742)

Right, right. Yeah, and I think that that’s okay to say this is what I’m able to do. So what I do in August, if I haven’t done it already, is say, here is the date range of when you can come hang out with us, and here’s the one day that if you can make it work great. If you can’t, let us know now. But if I don’t hear from you in the next few days, I’m going forward, no turning back.

to get that planted so other people can make their plans, so they can do their shop, so they can do all of that kind of stuff. They can figure out their New Year’s plans. Like we’re celebrating as a family the day after Christmas through the next couple of days. you’ve heard me give this advice a thousand times. You can have everybody celebrate together. You can celebrate on the actual date.

you can have people be happy about it. Pick two out of three. And my preference is to have us all together and people to be happy about it. I don’t care if it’s happening on the actual date, but if you can get that nailed down as soon as possible, I think that that is a really smart thing to

Tonya Kubo (06:58.892)

Mm -hmm. Right.

Tonya Kubo (07:09.082)

Awesome. Okay. So that is really good advice. You covered both the importance of ahead, but also how to handle it when it’s sticky, which is something I appreciate because of course, just because you have a need to plan ahead doesn’t mean everybody else has a need. What would be your second

Kathi (07:24.066)

Right. Okay, so while you’re getting together the date and the time and where, know, whose house it’s going to be at, I think it’s all really great to have that conversation about gift exchange. You know, maybe you guys already have a family or friends tradition that is, but also we had kids who were growing into adults and wanted to set the expectation

Tonya Kubo (07:50.348)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (07:53.852)

Early that hey, we don’t need 75 gifts from anybody, but also maybe as you guys get older We don’t need to give you 75 gifts So we’re pretty much at the place where we do three gifts for everybody except we have one teenager in our family And I’m like no we’re gonna buy her the things that she wants and so to just set that expectation also to set expectation with young adults about You know you do get your grandmother a gift

Come on, be a good human being. Like they, you know, they don’t know sometimes because they’ve always had mom and dad take care of it. And so is there, do you need to pull back on some of that? Maybe because somebody in the family is having some financial constraints. You know, what taking the temperature in August is better than announcing in December what you’re going to do. So do you have like

Tonya Kubo (08:23.82)

Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (08:48.609)

right.

Kathi (08:50.256)

family code when it comes to gift exchange or is it a free for

Tonya Kubo (08:54.723)

Well, so it’s been a free for all for years and this last year the extended family one of the cousins reached out and was just like it’s ridiculous. I do not want to carry all that stuff home ever again. And so they do a trellis. do a bowling day. In lieu of a gift. So everybody goes and bowls for half a day and then they go to somebody’s house and has dinner.

Kathi (09:07.567)

Yeah.

Kathi (09:11.92)

Mmm. Okay.

Tonya Kubo (09:19.49)

And that’s what they do. And the kids love it. It’s so much better than going home with 32 different bags that they can’t remember who gave them what. It’s just so much more

Kathi (09:30.106)

Yeah, you know, Tonya, you and I both have given birth to children who like to open gifts like that. That’s a big part of what they like. And I don’t want to take that away from them. But to be able to do an experience like that, I think that that is tremendous. And especially if that’s like a cool cousin or aunt or uncle, like, you know, then the kid that’s you’re forming core memories there. That is so, so, so

Tonya Kubo (09:36.096)

Yes.

Tonya Kubo (09:54.995)

Right. And of course, I mean, they still get Christmas gifts here. They still get presents at our house, right? It’s just not having that overwhelming

Kathi (09:59.364)

Yes. Yes.

Yes. I love it. I also think this is a good idea to start kind of putting in your mind when people ask you what you would like for Christmas to start coming up with that list, start making decisions and keeping track. If you’re the parent, maybe keeping track of some of the things that your kids have mentioned and to keep that as a curated list. So grandparents, know, aunts, uncles. And then also, I also like to just keep track of where

Tonya Kubo (10:12.098)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (10:32.74)

be a good gift card for that person. If I’m not coming up with anything specific, what can we do to make them feel just loved and appreciated? Tonya, I think we need to take a quick little break. We need to go pay some bills. We’re going to come back and we’re going to go with number three of our five decisions to make in August to have a less stressed holiday.

Tonya Kubo (10:45.73)

Okay.

Tonya Kubo (10:58.954)

All right, so we are back and Cathy, let’s just jump right into number

Kathi (11:04.718)

Yes. Okay. I think this is a great time for you to have a discussion with your spouse, your partner, your kids, your parents, whomever it is about the holiday budget. this money, money. People would rather talk about money than let’s just say for little ears who are listening, more intimate subjects that I consider more intimate subjects, but, they would rather talk about those more intimate subjects than money.

because money has so much dynamic that’s attached to it. But I think the further out you are from the holiday and gift buying, the easier it is to have those conversations. So have those conversations in August instead of October. And you will take a lot of stress off of people. I, you know, Roger and I will have a budget that includes

Tonya Kubo (11:47.33)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (12:03.66)

a couple of different categories like gifts, entertaining. Entertaining makes it sound fancy. Let’s just say food, okay? One of the core budget items you need to have if you’re married to Roger Lipp is lighting. We have to have a lighting budget each year. So creating those realistic budgets. And one of the things that I wanna talk to Roger about

Tonya Kubo (12:11.511)

Yeah.

Kathi (12:32.728)

August is to start doing kind of like a Christmas club thing Do you remember clip Christmas clubs from like the seven sixty seventies and they well you weren’t around for some of those decades, but Yeah, okay, so I grew up in a time where you could at your bank open a Christmas club account and Okay, okay you do okay, so tell me about that,

Tonya Kubo (12:43.754)

I was gonna say, no.

Tonya Kubo (12:52.885)

yeah, we have

Yeah, we do that. Yeah. So it’s just, it’s a direct deposit every month and it goes into an account and I have mine set up. the regular Christmas club, it dumps the money automatically into your account like Thanksgiving week. And then it’s everything that you’ve saved up for the last year gets dumped into your account Thanksgiving week. And then that’s your money to go Christmas shopping or do whatever. And ours has, you can do Christmas club and you can

vacation club, which your money gets dumped in the summertime. I don’t like the automatic dumping because sometimes I lose track of it, right? Or, you know, Brian goes, woo, windfall. And there went my Christmas budget. So I haven’t set up to where I manually move the money

Kathi (13:30.214)

Cool.

Kathi (13:36.56)

Mm -hmm.

Right

Kathi (13:47.106)

I like the manually moving because you can start to determine, you know, where are we going to put this? What categories are we going to put this into? I love that. Yeah. So I want to, that’s what I want to do next year is to this August say, okay, let’s start setting up, you know, let’s, let’s start in January of next year, start putting some money aside. I, know, Roger gets a bonus most years and that’s usually

Tonya Kubo (13:49.44)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (14:16.252)

Christmas comes out of. We don’t know that that’s happening this year. So we’re going to need to, you know, do some creative financing, but that’s okay. And I think it’s good to have a realistic budget. Not like I know that we spent $2 ,000 last year, but we need to keep it to 1000 this year. Like, is that really going to work for you? Or what major thing are you going to take out? Roger and I have decided this year not to do Christmas gifts for each other because

Tonya Kubo (14:29.036)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (14:43.962)

We want to take a trip next year, things like that. think that that is, you know, having those conversations now so you’re not disappointed when the time comes.

Tonya Kubo (14:53.876)

Right, and I’ll just add another one for families. I have several friends that they actually theme their Christmases, and so they alternate. So there’s an electronics Christmas, and then the next year is a reading Christmas. And they only do so many gifts per child, but so that they know they need a little bit more set aside for electronics Christmas, but they spend a lot less on reading Christmas. And so that helps them balance it

Kathi (14:56.302)

Yeah.

Kathi (15:04.467)

Kathi (15:08.562)

okay.

Kathi (15:12.582)

Mm -hmm.

Tonya Kubo (15:23.55)

on a two year cycle. I love that idea. So I just feel the need to share that with everybody.

Kathi (15:25.24)

Mm, I love that. Yeah. I think that’s so great. Yes. We did, we, when my kids were growing up, we did more of like, okay, there was a reading gift, there were clothes gifts, and then there was that fun gift, which often had a plug. So yes, I think that that, I think having a theme helps you narrow your decisions and helps you pre -decide, which is what this, this whole episode is about. It’s pre

Tonya Kubo (15:37.782)

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Tonya Kubo (15:52.566)

Right. Well, like you said earlier on, right? It’s about making sure that November you likes August version of you and isn’t like cursing the name of August version of you. So Kathi, we are at tip number four. Do you need me to recap? Cause you may have lost track. Okay.

Kathi (16:01.329)

Yes.

Right, absolutely.

Kathi (16:11.036)

No, I’m good. Number four is your Christmas card list. So here’s what I mean by that. Figure out how many Christmas cards you’re gonna send. So the first decision is, are you sending Christmas cards? And go for

Tonya Kubo (16:28.692)

And Kathy Lipp, can I say something right now? That is the best thing ever. That I read your Christmas project planner after my mom had died. And the year that my mom died, when I read that, that gave me permission not to send Christmas cards that year. And I needed that relief so much.

Kathi (16:46.62)

I’m so glad.

Kathi (16:51.45)

Yeah, you know what and here’s the Brilliant thing. It’s not a binary decision It’s not we are a christmas card family or we’re not a christmas card family We’re like an every other year christmas card family now We did send them last year and my plan is to send them this year because if you listen, you know a big thing that’s going on our life on in our lives

Moose has cancer and this is probably her last Christmas with us and I’m not crying and so I want to have a great picture with me and Roger and Moose for our Christmas card and so I’m probably gonna send them this year and even on the years I don’t send them I love receiving them so I’m honored if I’m on your Christmas card list but I also understand the years where I don’t hear from you for a couple of years because life got in the

Tonya Kubo (17:18.028)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (17:45.518)

So I think it’s really a great idea in August because can we just say in December trying to send Christmas cards out, like Christmas is a part -time job.

Tonya Kubo (17:57.983)

It is.

Kathi (17:59.469)

And do we really need administrative tasks in December? No, no. So if you can, just get the list together. We’re talk about the cards and everything like that. But just decide if you’re gonna send them and be okay with not sending them. The other thing you can do, okay, Tonya, I will also say this. If you have some people in your family or like aunts or uncles or grandparents,

Tonya Kubo (18:04.266)

No, no, we do

Kathi (18:29.244)

like they live for the Christmas card, you can also buy a pack of like 10 Christmas cards and just send five of them and it’ll be okay. So you sent Christmas cards to these five people who it really means something to and that’s okay. Yes. I do believe that you will not be arrested. Yes, I do believe.

Tonya Kubo (18:41.372)

What?

Tonya Kubo (18:48.047)

I don’t know. Are you sure? Are you

Tonya Kubo (18:54.3)

okay. That reminds me of Abby. Abby will say, is that legal? Yes, yes, there is no law against not sending Christmas cards or only sending part

Kathi (18:58.926)

Right? Right. Yes, it

Tonya Kubo (00:20.329)

All right, Kathy. So I think we are ready for tip number

Kathi (00:25.942)

Okay, so this is like we’re thinking ahead about the Christmas card list. I also want you to think about the Christmas gift list. Like who are you actually giving gifts to this year? And are there people that maybe it’s time to have a discussion, hey, you know, we keep exchanging Amazon gift cards every year. What if we just went to dinner?

Or what if, you know, like I would rather spend time with you than to feel that obligation. And because I love you, don’t need a gift from you to be, now there are people in our lives we wanna do gifts for, our kids, maybe our parents, brothers, whatever. But get realistic about your Christmas card list. Do you have teachers from your kid’s school that you need to give to? Are there, you know,

Tonya Kubo (01:03.873)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (01:24.)

I also, I’ll put in this and in the Christmas budget some big tips that I give. Like we have a house cleaner that comes, you know, a couple of times a month. That I want to give a big tip to them. We have somebody who comes and helps with chopping down trees and things like that here on the property. We’re going to give them a big tip. Maybe it’s your hairdresser, maybe it’s your nail person. Like I give a big tip to the people who are loyal to me all year and who fit me in.

Tonya Kubo (01:38.135)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (01:53.614)

when it’s inconvenient. Because I want to stay on the nice list, not the naughty list. So do you need to have some hard conversations or maybe not hard conversations? Maybe you’re giving some freedom to people, but there’s advantages to early gift planning. Could you stock up on some things early on? Like I think about this, we’re big believers in stockings. We

Tonya Kubo (01:55.52)

Mm -hmm.

Tonya Kubo (01:59.515)

Right. Exactly.

Tonya Kubo (02:12.884)

Mm -hmm.

Tonya Kubo (02:22.135)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (02:22.724)

We like to do stockings for everybody in the family and we do stockings for every animal in the family. And so if I can buy those things, and we’ve got bunnies, we didn’t do them for all the chickens, but we do them for the dogs. Yeah, the quad pets, those are the ones that we’re doing it for. So I wanna get those things not in December. Let’s get those things early and so it’s not impacting us quite so much.

Tonya Kubo (02:35.703)

can understand that.

Kathi (02:50.36)

and I can start wrapping early and things like that. this is also a good time to keep track, to keep a list because it’s easy to forget what you’ve bought when you have a lot of kids and maybe they have their partners and they have their kids and all that kind of stuff. So starting a list either in your phone or an Excel spreadsheet or however you do it. Do you have any ideas for a Christmas gift?

creating the list.

Tonya Kubo (03:18.761)

Yes. Yeah, we all have a Google Doc and we just use the Google Doc all year long. And then when holidays come up, we know what to lean into. And, you know, we’ll have the girls prioritize like a little bit before the holiday. So we have a sense. But it’s really, really nice, especially when they’re younger, to just let them have a place where they can dream and then bring them back down to reality when it comes closer to the day.

Kathi (03:23.114)

okay.

Kathi (03:43.694)

Yeah. She’s speaking from experience because as we’ve recorded this, Sunday was a grand birthday in the Kubo home and there was a lot of dreaming and a lot of bringing back down to earth. But you know what? That’s what we do as parents. We give them wings and then we help them land safely.

Tonya Kubo (03:54.077)

Yes, it was a grand birthday.

Tonya Kubo (03:59.755)

Yes.

Tonya Kubo (04:05.549)

Yes. Okay. So Kathy, we have our five tips. I just want to recap them really quick for everybody. So these are our five August decisions for stress -free holiday. And this is part one. We’ve got five more coming up, don’t we? So the first decision is when and where will you have your holiday gatherings? The second is planning those gift exchanges.

Kathi (04:13.583)

Yeah.

Kathi (04:20.248)

Yes. That’s right, baby.

Tonya Kubo (04:34.391)

Who are we buying gifts for? Who’s buying gifts for us? What do we want to do? A little bit of spoiler alert if you’re just catching us. You know what? Do an experience. It’s just easier on everybody. Number three is set your holiday budget early. The further away that you are from the holiday, the less emotional it is. And I loved your tip, Cathy, about the Christmas club, right? Having a savings account that just manages the Christmas budget for you so you don’t have to stress about it.

Kathi (04:44.803)

It is easier.

Tonya Kubo (05:03.853)

Tip number four was your Christmas card list. Start that now, get the addresses now. Don’t do admin tasks a couple of weeks before Christmas. And then finally, along with don’t do admin tasks two weeks before Christmas is let’s get your Christmas gift list going. Now, if you are like me, Kathy, if our listeners are like me, it is hard to keep track of these things. Right now in August, this sounds brilliant, but I’m probably listening to this show on the way to somewhere else. So I cannot write these tips down.

So here’s what I think we should do. I think we should gather together all tips after our next episode and we should have a download for folks that they can find inside Clutterfree Academy, which is our free Facebook group open to all of our listeners and a few of their friends so long as they’re nice. And we will just so that everybody knows what to look for. It’s gonna be called 10 decisions to make in August for a less stressed holiday.

and you’ll find that inside our Clutterfree Academy Facebook group. And the link of that is gonna be in the show notes. Anything you wanna add, Cathy?

Kathi (06:08.336)

Yeah, if you’re saying, I’m gonna go be a part of that group, just know you have to answer a couple of questions before we let you in there. Lots of people apply and they skip over the questions, but we wanna keep that the kindest corner of the internet, and so we’re gonna make you answer the questions. So you have to read the rules, but come in there, you’re gonna find 15 ,000 of your new best friends, and you’re gonna all get clutter free together. Tonya, thank you so much for hosting us today.

Tonya Kubo (06:24.375)

Mm -hmm.

Tonya Kubo (06:37.675)

I am so happy to have been doing this. Thank you for having me, Kathy.

Kathi (06:41.84)

Friends join us next week for those other five tips because they really are going to make a difference You know we are going to take care of our future selves and the first way we’re going to do that is to get over the holiday hump with a lot of love a lot of fun and some cocoa, so I’m Kathy lip with Tonya Kubo.

Thank you for joining us. You’ve been listening to Clutterfree Academy. Now, go create the clutter free life you’ve always wanted to live.

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Did you miss part 1 of this insightful conversation? Listen to 628 How to Curate Your Life: The Way to Love Things Without Drowning in Them here.

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Kathi Lipp gives readers an easy-to-follow process for meal planning and prep, so that they can enjoy a full day each week of real rest and refreshment.

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Do something good for your soul and experience the peace that comes with a full day dedicated to spending time with God, family, and friends. Savor your Sabbath as you proudly proclaim, “Soup’s on!”

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What are some creative ways you display vintage collections without overwhelming a space?

Share in the comments!

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Meet Our Guest 

 

Hilary Prall

Hilary Prall is the creative mind behind Hilary Prall Blog, an online destination for vibrant, eclectic interior design. Hilary’s passion is creating unique, beautiful spaces that work for real-life budgets. Through her website and digital channels, she shares her colorful home design, DIY ideas, and a penchant for repurposing thrifted items with inspo-seekers all over.

Hilary’s design brightens the feeds of almost 40k fans on Instagram and Facebook. She has been featured regularly on Des Moines NBC affiliate WHO-TV, home retailer blogs, and several online magazines. She offers an array of affordable digital products that provide design help with the click of a mouse.

Before starting Hilary Prall Blog in 2015, Hilary spent years at a job that wasn’t her true calling. That experience, though, is what drives her enthusiasm for encouraging others to pursue their dreams and supporting other entrepreneurs.

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Visit her at www.hilaryprall.com.

 

Tonya Kubo Picture
Transcript

Kathi (00:01.381)

Well, hey friends, welcome to Clutter -Free Academy, where our heart is to help you take small, doable steps to live every day with less clutter and more life. And we are back. If you didn’t get to hear last week’s episode with designer Hilary Prall,

and content creator, and she’s just fabulous, you guys. You just need to go check her out. Go take a listen to that, because I think that that was a really rich and interesting conversation. Hilary is the daughter of a hoarder and has had to walk through that journey. And as many of you know, both Tonya and I have walked through that journey as well. And to get a little bit of an idea of what you can and cannot do in that journey.

Hilary Prall (00:32.557)

You

Kathi (01:00.549)

But today I want to tap into the other side of Hilary’s life and that is about the design side and You know Hilary I’m sure you said that you’re still going through some of your mom’s things like you’re still working on that situation in your life and That’s been kind of exhausting and I thought it was such an interesting point when we are surrounded by so much clutter

whether it’s ours or somebody else’s, it really can deplete you artistically, creatively, emotionally. Is that what you’ve been going through the past couple of years?

Hilary Prall (01:44.907)

Yeah, I think I just, I mean, aside from just, you know, the suddenness of losing my mom, but then knowing that I was gonna have to deal with all of this stuff. And it feels very lonely. I mean, people will offer to help you, but they have no idea. And we have had very helpful people in it. The sort of…

part of this is that my mom had gotten remarried and we love him and are very thankful to have him in our lives. We’re his only family. He’s our only family at this point. But it’s his house. And so, you know, whereas most people we would have sorted through everything and then had an auction or an estate sale, we have had to work around him and schlepping it and, you know,

Kathi (02:26.853)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Hilary Prall (02:38.794)

my husband likes to be very efficient and not touch things three times or four times. And it was, you know, and we’ve sort of had to deal with him saying, it’s totally fine. And he has been very patient, but then he would get a wild hair and like clear out a whole section of stuff and shove it in a closet. And so it’s like, so now I have to re go through that closet. So just kind of, you know, that part of, and then she lived an hour away. So just a lot of things that made.

Kathi (02:42.853)

Right.

Kathi (03:00.261)

Yeah.

Hilary Prall (03:07.977)

made it all just a little bit harder. It’s like, you know, couldn’t something be a little easier? So we have the bulk of it done now. The other thing is we had to go through every box because it was just, she did try to get organized several times. And so there would be stuff mixed in that shouldn’t have been and whatever. So we have the bulk of it done to the point that the rest can easily be.

Kathi (03:13.797)

Right.

Kathi (03:20.933)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Hilary Prall (03:33.161)

donated or taken to auction in just one of our vehicles. We had to rent a moving truck for the big auction. And then she just had a lot of jewelry. So I have taken, I think, three loads now to a local jewelry store to have to sell the metal. She had a lot of costume, but also, I mean, it’s worth money, the gold. So I probably have one.

Kathi (03:39.429)

Yeah.

Kathi (03:44.549)

Hmm.

Kathi (03:52.869)

Yeah, sure. Yeah.

Hilary Prall (04:00.392)

maybe one more, two more loads to take of that. So just the time that it takes. So it takes all your free time. And so, you know, I would do whatever work I could during the week that I felt like doing for myself, for my own business, keeping our house running. And then, you know, we really tried on the weekends to get down there and do some work. So.

Kathi (04:08.677)

Yeah.

Kathi (04:15.973)

Yeah.

Kathi (04:23.205)

Hilary, let me ask you a question before we dive into the design and decorating side of things. I was just listening to a great person on TikTok whose mother suddenly passed away. And she said she was giving advice for any parents out there about wills and estates and trusts and things like that. It was great, really terrific advice. I would love to hear from you as somebody who is going through the thick of it.

What would your top piece of advice be for somebody like your mom? Like, is there a list she could have left? What could she have done to make this a little bit easier? We know she wasn’t gonna get herself organized, but is there something she could have done? And then what would be your top piece of advice for somebody who’s in your situation, who’s going into a hoarder’s house? Who, what?

Hilary Prall (05:10.631)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (05:20.677)

I would love those two pieces of advice.

Hilary Prall (05:24.966)

So I think both pieces of advice can work for both parties. So number one, we’ve talked about this a whole bunch. Thankfully, my mom left us some money to work with. There was money in the estate, but no matter what you’re doing to get rid of stuff, it costs money. Dumpsters cost money. You can take stuff to the Goodwill or whatever, but when you’re talking about a hoarder’s house,

Kathi (05:29.029)

Okay.

Kathi (05:37.765)

Okay.

Hilary Prall (05:52.485)

And I know people think about hoarders as being dirty. My mom wasn’t like that. I think she could have gone down that road had she not gotten remarried. It was just such tremendous volumes of stuff. Some of it, you know, there was mold involved and things like that. But you have to somehow get it to wherever it’s going. And you can’t. It’s not just going to be a, you know, a few loads to goodwill. Number one, they don’t want all that stuff in one trip.

Kathi (05:52.581)

Yeah.

Kathi (05:57.893)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Kathi (06:20.357)

Right.

Hilary Prall (06:21.509)

but you have to somehow get rid of it. Thankfully we lived close enough that it was reasonable, but if you lived out of state, I don’t know what people would do if you’re not close. I mean, so have some money set aside, I guess. If you are not the parent and you’re the person who you know you’re gonna have to deal with this, I would start maybe talking to figure out.

Kathi (06:30.021)

Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Kathi (06:37.029)

Yes.

Hilary Prall (06:47.492)

Where’s my local auction? Who does the state sales? Now, again, other situations, you might be able to have someone come in and do the auction there or whatever. And a lot of times with hoarders, if it’s bad, the stuff’s not salvageable. So you could call, like you can hire 1 -800 -GOT -JUNK, but maybe just come up with a game plan of some sort of how you are gonna liquidate it because it is a lot and it’s a lot of work and it’s, you know,

Kathi (07:01.125)

Right. Yes.

Kathi (07:14.373)

Mmm.

Hilary Prall (07:17.156)

Again, you don’t want to, I don’t like to ask for help. That’s my personality, but at some point we just needed some bodies to help us get stuff upstairs and not completely break our bodies and burn out. So just how you’re gonna deal with it, the finances, what that looks like. We’ve spent a lot of money just trying to get rid of stuff, which seems crazy.

Kathi (07:21.893)

Yeah.

Kathi (07:30.629)

Yeah.

Kathi (07:42.949)

It does.

Hilary Prall (07:44.611)

The other thing that I think would be helpful, luckily, like I have said, I love old stuff. I have always loved old stuff. A lot of the stuff I have now acquired that was family, I looked at at my grandma’s house when she had it. And so I would just pour through stuff. So I knew what was a lot of family stuff. My sister would have had no idea, because she doesn’t care about that stuff. I wish I would have asked or,

Kathi (07:59.973)

Mm -hmm.

Hilary Prall (08:13.282)

enforced a little bit more with my mom, please write down the history of this or who did this belong to. Because at a certain point, not that it matters, you know, like 50 years from now, I’m not going to care if my nieces keep everything that was mine. And I don’t think that our ancestors think that you should. But it is important to you know, if something’s really important or has provenance, you should

Kathi (08:18.085)

Hmm, yeah.

Kathi (08:30.597)

Right.

Kathi (08:34.405)

Yeah.

Hilary Prall (08:40.546)

want to know those stories. And I did know some of it, but I wish either my mom had done more or I had asked more about it because she held on to those things so tightly that we didn’t know a lot of the stories behind them. There are things that I remember from my childhood, even from our own house that I wanted to hold on to, but I just wish I knew a little bit more of the history behind some of the stuff.

Kathi (09:02.565)

Sure. Yeah. Yeah, my mom is putting Post -it notes under things. And just to say a little bit about where she got that milk glass or whatever the thing is. And like, she is, you know, for a long time when I would go visit her, she would say, don’t throw away the milk glass. You can sell it, or you can keep it, but don’t throw it away. And I’m like, okay, mom.

Hilary Prall (09:10.241)

Okay, yeah.

Hilary Prall (09:15.905)

Yeah.

Hilary Prall (09:27.36)

Yep. Yep.

Kathi (09:28.869)

I’m learning about milk glass. I promise but you know, I just want to hear I want I want everybody who is in our clutter free Listening audience to hear what Hilary has said that Your mom who I’m sure was a lovely but complicated person Left you with a task that has left you feeling alone and

Hilary Prall (09:31.904)

Yes.

Kathi (09:58.341)

I don’t think any of us would wish that upon our children. And so to hear what Hilary is saying, if there are things that you can do right now, if there are things you can get rid of right now, if there are the stories that you can tell about those items so that your child or whomever is, your nieces, your nephews, your grandkids, whomever it is, they don’t.

End up feeling alone. I think that would be list. That would be a great service that you have provided here Hilary Okay, I want to talk about more fun things. Let’s talk about fun Okay So I want you love vintage. I think a lot of our cluttery people do I think one of the things and when I say cluttery people I count myself as as one of those people so i’m not pointing any finger. Well, if i’m pointing fingers i’m pointing them back at me but

Hilary Prall (10:29.211)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (10:56.517)

I think we, a lot of cluttery people have a real deep appreciation for vintage. And that’s why it is hard for us to get rid of things. So how do you incorporate your love for vintage into your designs in a way that promotes a healthy clutter -free living space? Because it can be really easy to do too much or keep things just because they were old. But how do you incorporate it into a way,

that it’s not just lovable, but livable.

Hilary Prall (11:30.014)

I will say we don’t have children, so it makes it a lot easier. I think if you have little kids running around, you’re not gonna have all of this stuff. That’s just how it is. We do have three active pets, so I have to be okay if things get broken or whatever. I have a few things even right now that…

Kathi (11:32.997)

Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Kathi (11:38.725)

Right.

Kathi (11:46.437)

Yes.

Hilary Prall (11:53.79)

I know I need to change out just because of how we live and I’m tired of messing with it. I think that’s part of it is if you if it’s constantly bringing you angst or whatever, then reevaluate it. You know, I really try to keep our bedroom very calm, very clutter free. And sometimes it’s just the addition of one extra thing that can just that’s it. I need to I need to clear the decks. So.

Kathi (12:21.957)

Mm -hmm.

Hilary Prall (12:23.101)

I think for me, I don’t ever want people to feel like they have to be overly careful. Last week, we have a cleaning lady that comes every couple of weeks and she does a great job considering how much nonsense I have. And so just very absentmindedly, she was here and I was out talking while she was working and I was just going through and fluffing my stuff because I’m also a little OCD.

Kathi (12:28.741)

Hmm.

Kathi (12:32.773)

Yeah.

Kathi (12:37.797)

Hahaha!

Hilary Prall (12:50.076)

And she said, I’m sorry. She said, I can’t ever remember how your stuff goes back. I said, do not worry about that. That’s on me. That is for me to go through and be fidgety about. So I think just manage your expectations. I mean, do you want people to feel comfortable in your house? Then, you know, they have to be able to live with your stuff. Plenty of people. I have an Instagram friend that has the most incredible home.

Kathi (13:10.917)

Yeah.

Hilary Prall (13:18.587)

and I was lucky enough to go and visit it and it is museum worthy. But also I think it’d be really hard to add anybody else to that house. So I think it does have to depend on what your, and he would say that, so I think it’s okay. But you have to be okay with whatever your situation is and what it can accommodate, I guess.

Kathi (13:23.365)

Hmm.

Kathi (13:32.357)

Mm -hmm. Yes.

Kathi (13:42.117)

I love that it’s being realistic about how you live so you can be realistic about how you design, how you bring things in and living with what you love. Guys, we’re gonna take a quick break and then when we come back, I wanna talk to Hilary about what advice she would give to somebody that she was helping with designs who struggles with clutter. We’re gonna take a quick break and then we’ll come back with that.

Hilary Prall (13:47.098)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (14:12.293)

Okay friends, we are back and Hilary knows our cluttery hearts. She knows our cluttery spaces. And so if you were working with a client, what advice would you give to somebody who tends towards clutter? Do you have any really practical ideas or solutions or maybe some inspiration for them?

Hilary Prall (14:27.962)

Mm -hmm.

Hilary Prall (14:33.689)

I think honestly the first thing is clear the decks a little bit. Take everything out if you’re redoing a space. If you’re unsure about something, put it in a tub and if you don’t care about it a month from now, three months from now, it can move on. It can find somewhere else to live. I also think same with clothing. If you’re tired of wearing something but you hold on to it because, I might use that, well, when you’re ready to use it,

maybe just go buy something new. Say I over the last three years have lost over 70 pounds. So I don’t need to hold on to those old clothes because I’m gonna buy something new. Life is very, very short. So I don’t think that you need to hold on to every last detail of everything. Keep the sentimental pieces. Part of…

Kathi (15:04.869)

Yeah, yeah.

Kathi (15:11.173)

Wow.

Mm -hmm. Right.

Hilary Prall (15:29.369)

Part of going through my mom’s stuff was I’ve really sifted through. So I’ve, you’ve touched every single thing. And I have an entire closet downstairs plus some overflow of family things that I’ve brought home. My sister needs to come through and go through them. And then the rest of it, I’m gonna pick the things that I really care about and the rest I’m gonna try to reach out to the historical society of where my grandma’s from and, you know, kind of liquidate some stuff that way. But, cause I…

Kathi (15:35.685)

Mmm.

Kathi (15:54.181)

yeah.

Hilary Prall (15:57.816)

They’re important things, but also I don’t need to keep them. So not everything has to be kept. Not everything in my house should be important to my nieces and nephews down the road. You know, it’s just not everything is sentimental.

Kathi (16:03.109)

Right.

Kathi (16:15.845)

Yes, and so I love that thought that yes, this is important history, but my house is not a museum. And, you know, we can take pictures. You’ve given me two ideas that I’ve never really considered auction houses and your grandmother’s local historical society. You know, is this something? Yeah. Tell me more about that.

Hilary Prall (16:38.839)

Yeah, they’re actually, yeah. So they’re, well, and this is just because I grew up going to this. There are a couple of, I think, there are always historical societies. So, I mean, they’re always looking for things. They want to have curated, you know, whatever. There’s a big event that we would go to every year. And I can specifically remember there is a whole little room or house devoted to scary old dolls, which I don’t want.

Kathi (16:47.173)

Yeah.

Kathi (17:07.173)

Mm -hmm, right.

Hilary Prall (17:07.958)

But I have two of my grandmas and I have her little baby buggy and that would be a great thing to give them. And, you know, my grandpa was a farmer down there and I mean, they, they want that stuff. They want ephemera and you know, all the things that for all intents and purposes, I will never really look at again, but I have all of this stuff. So unless I want to display it or really feel like I’m going to look at it again, I just, I don’t need that heaviness. But.

Kathi (17:19.205)

Yes.

Kathi (17:27.557)

Right.

Hilary Prall (17:37.973)

I didn’t want to make a rash decision while I was going through things and just pitch it. Because I did get rid of a few things that I kind of am like, shoot. But also, I’m not gonna let that, yeah.

Kathi (17:40.293)

Yeah.

Kathi (17:47.909)

Mm hmm. Well, that’s gonna happen with the amount of stuff you had to deal with. You’re gonna get you’re gonna get rid of a few things that, you know, maybe but we can’t let that keep us from getting rid of the things that are going to stop us from living. And, you know, when we bought this house, and you don’t know anything about my story, but we bought a house in the middle of the woods, like, and the people we bought it from,

Hilary Prall (17:54.293)

Yeah.

Hilary Prall (18:06.196)

No.

Hilary Prall (18:14.58)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (18:17.893)

they left a lot of their stuff here, including an antique water stand that we love and they loved it, but they had no place for it. Their kids had no place for it. And so the agreement we left with was if I ever decide to get rid of it, I call them. And if they don’t want it, then it’s up to me to get rid of it. And I was fine with that. And another thing that they…

Hilary Prall (18:29.236)

Mm -hmm.

Hilary Prall (18:36.148)

Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Kathi (18:45.221)

They had this giant list of all these things that they were leaving with us, but one thing they were not leaving was an IKEA table. And we’re like, well, that’s odd. You left all this other stuff. Why are you taking the IKEA table? Come to find out this IKEA table was from the original IKEA in… Yes, it was the IKEA in Europe. And it was bought, I think, either in the 40s or 50s and shipped to the United States.

Hilary Prall (18:54.099)

Hilary Prall (19:04.339)

IKEA.

Hilary Prall (19:11.795)

Okay.

Kathi (19:14.085)

And so that’s a part of their family history. And we love that story so much, and they still sell that brand of table at IKEA. We bought that, we bought the 2019 version of it. And you can still have the story without having the object. And to be able to carry that on is great. When do you know that your passion,

Hilary Prall (19:22.322)

Okay, yeah. that’s awesome.

Hilary Prall (19:29.778)

Yeah, yeah.

Hilary Prall (19:35.09)

Absolutely.

Kathi (19:42.757)

for board games or paint by numbers has gotten out of control. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, guys, she mentioned these in the last episode. But how do you know when it’s enough?

Hilary Prall (19:55.634)

Well, I have stipulations so for the the paint by numbers I don’t want although I just bought one that doesn’t doesn’t align with this but it’s it’s so different that it’s okay, but I Don’t really like people in them. I don’t like eyes So they have to sort of fit my colors and I want them to be pretty well done You know the board games I don’t

Kathi (20:05.577)

We won’t judge you.

Kathi (20:13.125)

Mmm.

Okay.

Yeah.

Hilary Prall (20:22.417)

I have shelves that I could stack them on, but part of the display is that I’ve hung a lot of them on the wall as display. So I don’t know, is there an end to something? I would say as long as it’s not stressing you out, you’re not putting yourself in financial distress, you can still walk in your house, I suppose it’s okay.

Kathi (20:28.261)

yes.

Kathi (20:41.253)

Yeah.

Hilary Prall (20:44.625)

But if you can no longer enjoy your stuff, that is for me genuinely it. I wanna look at it. I wanna look at it. I wanna enjoy it. I love my stuff, but I don’t wanna have to put it in a tote and think about it randomly. So for me, I don’t wanna store stuff. I want it out and about. And as far as like my family stuff, one thing I did wanna say is just because my mom had it or my grandma had it,

Kathi (20:44.805)

Yeah.

Kathi (20:55.461)

Yeah.

Kathi (21:00.677)

Right, right.

Hilary Prall (21:14.096)

I want to collect my own stuff. I have a whole life ahead of me. I very easily from the loss that has happened in my life could easily think, gosh, I don’t have a life left. But I have a lot of years left hopefully and I have a lot of collecting to do. So I want to have room to collect my own things. I don’t want to have to just have my mom’s stuff.

Kathi (21:16.389)

Right. Yes.

Kathi (21:28.997)

Guess.

Kathi (21:38.021)

I love that. And you said you want to enjoy your stuff, but you also want to enjoy your space. And I think that’s the perfect balance for what we’re talking about. To be able to enjoy your stuff and be able to put your, enjoy your space and to have some guidelines. I love your guidelines for your paint by numbers. It can’t have people, it can’t have I, and you said, but that you said there was an exception to that that you just bought.

Hilary Prall (21:44.431)

Yeah.

Hilary Prall (21:48.399)

Mm -hmm.

Hilary Prall (21:54.639)

Mm -hmm.

Hilary Prall (21:59.759)

Mm -hmm.

Hilary Prall (22:03.695)

Yeah.

Kathi (22:04.709)

but you must have loved it so much that you were willing to break your own rule. And I think that’s the reason we have rules and guidelines to keep us kind of contained. But then we know when something is outside of that and that’s really special. Hilary, you’ve given us so much to think about. Where would you like people most to seek you out? Is it through your website, through Instagram? Where should people go find you?

Hilary Prall (22:09.295)

Yeah.

Hilary Prall (22:14.415)

Mm -hmm.

Hilary Prall (22:29.807)

Instagram first, I hang out there a lot. I’m in stories a lot there, that’s what I love. I love to be able to connect with people that way. So I would say definitely Instagram. From there you can find me anywhere, but also if they go to my website, I have a pop -up to join my email list. I email once a week. I really try to share something there that I’m not sharing anywhere else, so it’s definitely bonus material, bonus content. And…

Kathi (22:33.797)

Yeah. Okay.

Kathi (22:42.181)

Okay.

Kathi (22:51.973)

Yeah.

Hilary Prall (22:58.766)

Yeah, I just really, as I have walked through this, the people who have reached out to me saying, I had to go through this, I’m going through this, I’m going to have to go through this, you know, and I think just the self -realization that we can all kind of struggle with it. I’ve had a few messages that were kind of rude, you know, saying this is a mental illness, you know, but I understand. I 100 % understand and I watched my mom struggle with it.

Kathi (23:10.757)

Yeah.

Kathi (23:23.589)

Yeah. Yeah.

Hilary Prall (23:27.629)

overtly for 20 years. You know, so I would be the last person to judge anybody about it, but it would be wonderful if people could seek the help that they, that I’m assuming is out there. I know people specialize in it, but also, you know, if you’re going through it with a family member, I know that, you know, it genuinely is like drugs or alcohol. I mean, I would try to explain that to my husband. It was really hard for him to understand it.

Kathi (23:29.893)

Yeah.

Kathi (23:40.133)

Right.

Kathi (23:50.149)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Hilary Prall (23:54.349)

And you know, I know people sometimes do have to just walk away from a situation. Luckily, I didn’t have to do that with my mom, but you have to have some boundaries and anyway, so.

Kathi (24:01.445)

Yeah.

100 % yeah, you know, lots of times with hoarders, they want you to hold on to their stuff. They want you to be a part of it. And just because one person suffers from hoarding doesn’t mean there aren’t other sufferers surrounding them. And, you know, can we acknowledge both as victims? I think that that’s a really important thing that you’re saying here. There’s more than one victim.

Hilary Prall (24:22.123)

Yes, absolutely.

Hilary Prall (24:30.123)

Absolutely.

Kathi (24:33.701)

Hilary, I love the compassion you have for your mom while also speaking the truth. Guys, she’s got tears in her eyes and as the fellow daughter of a hoarder, I feel those tears. I’m further removed than she is. She’s in the thick of it right now. So I wanna say an extra thank you for being here and sharing your story with us. Thank you so much. Okay.

Hilary Prall (24:58.475)

Absolutely, yeah. Thanks.

Kathi (25:01.637)

Friends, you’ve been listening to Clutterfree Academy. I’m Kathi Lipp. Now, go create the clutter free life you’ve always wanted to live.

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Hey there, friends! Have you ever struggled with finding the balance between loving vintage and clutter?

In this enlightening episode of Clutter Free Academy, host Kathi Lipp welcomes designer and content creator Hilary Prall. Kathi and Hilary explore the challenges of breaking free from generational clutter habits and finding a balance between loving vintage items and maintaining an organized home. As the daughter of a hoarder, Hilary offers valuable insights on curating spaces, letting go of sentimental items, and developing strategies to resist hoarding tendencies.

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Click here to be notified when Part 2 of this interview with Hilary Prall is released.

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To share your thoughts:

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Meet Our Guest 

 

Hilary Prall

Hilary Prall is the creative mind behind Hilary Prall Blog, an online destination for vibrant, eclectic interior design. Hilary’s passion is creating unique, beautiful spaces that work for real-life budgets. Through her website and digital channels, she shares her colorful home design, DIY ideas, and a penchant for repurposing thrifted items with inspo-seekers all over.

Hilary’s design brightens the feeds of almost 40k fans on Instagram and Facebook. She has been featured regularly on Des Moines NBC affiliate WHO-TV, home retailer blogs, and several online magazines. She offers an array of affordable digital products that provide design help with the click of a mouse.

Before starting Hilary Prall Blog in 2015, Hilary spent years at a job that wasn’t her true calling. That experience, though, is what drives her enthusiasm for encouraging others to pursue their dreams and supporting other entrepreneurs.

A life that blends work, creative interests, and family provides ongoing inspiration as Hilary and husband Jason (with support from Cooper the corgi and Sheldon + Howard the cats) turn the transformation of their builder-grade ranch home into endless sources of design ideas. When she’s not tinkering at home, the next best bets are thrifting, road-tripping, trying a locally-owned restaurant, or enjoying the outdoors.

Visit her at www.hilaryprall.com.

 

Tonya Kubo Picture
Transcript

Kathi (00:01.669)

Well, hey friends, welcome to Clutter Free Academy where our heart is to help you live with less clutter and more life. And today, I think this is gonna be a turning point episode for some of you. If you live with a hoarder,

If you grew up with a hoarder, if you have a hoarder in your extended family, today’s episode is for you. As many of you know, I grew up with a hoarder. Tanya, who is our most frequent co -host on here, also grew up with a hoarder. And I’ve got a new friend, guys. This is Hilary Prall. She is the creative mind behind Hilary Prall Vlog. It’s an online play. By the way, the website is gorgeous.

She had it’s it’s a vibrant like eclectic vibe I don’t even know how else to put it and if you guys are not seeing if you’re if you’re not watching this you’re just hearing this if You could just see Hillary’s background, you’d know what I was talking about, but we’re gonna put all the links in there She has featured regularly on the Des Moines NBC affiliate who TV She she’s all over the place on home retail block. So like I

Guys, she’s a designer. She’s got incredible style, but she has this part of her story that we’re going to dive deep into today. Hillary, welcome to the podcast.

Hilary Prall (01:38.988)

Hello, thank you for having me.

Kathi (01:41.125)

Well, I’m so excited because to Neil who is on my team introduced us and she she’s like you have to have Hillary on your podcast and I said say less and then I started to dig into what you’re all about. So tell us tell us what you’re about your day job. Let’s just start there. What’s your day job?

Hilary Prall (01:58.603)

Okay, yeah. My day job is basically content creation, digital content creation. And I feel like sort of part of where I am with my business ties into what we’ll talk about today with my mom, Justin. Things have sort of come to a little bit of a stall over the last couple of years working through things with my mom’s estate. But looking really forward to getting back on track of…

creating content and building a brand of business. I started out, I worked in retail for 20 years and I loved that, but it was nothing that I intended to do for so long. And I got started working with real estate agents and just local people doing some decorating and staging. Finally left my nine to five and pursued that full time.

Kathi (02:34.341)

you

Kathi (02:38.565)

Mm -hmm.

Hilary Prall (02:53.386)

as well as creating content online. And a couple of years ago, I thought, I can’t do both of these things to their fullest capacity. That’s not my personality. Like we talked about to Neil being able to do all the things. I am not able to do all the things. So I sort of pulled back from the decorating end and I could always go back to that. Not that I think that I will, but I wanted to see if I could harness what the internet had to offer for creating content, encouraging people.

Kathi (02:59.621)

Right?

Kathi (03:06.437)

Hehehe.

Kathi (03:19.589)

Yeah.

Hilary Prall (03:22.569)

inspiring them. That’s truly what I enjoy doing. I think we all have so many shared experiences that it’s hard to connect sometimes with the right people and find people who are like us, who share our stories. And so that is a big part of what I do in my space. I am very real. I do share all the good things and all the bad things. So.

Kathi (03:36.164)

Yeah.

Kathi (03:46.757)

Yeah, I started following her on Instagram and she’s a good follow you guys. She really is very down to earth and realistic but also inspirational which is kind of a hard line to walk but this is why I really wanted to talk to you was because I think you have the life that many of us who feel like we’re drowning in clutter. Your life online, while it looks real, it also looks beautiful.

Hilary Prall (03:51.049)

Hehehe.

Kathi (04:16.549)

And I think that’s what we want, but so many of us have the story of either we were raised by a hoarder or maybe we have those tendencies ourselves and we just feel like there is no hope for us. And when I heard about your journey with your mom, I wanted to dig a little deeper. So your mom would be considered a hoarder?

Hilary Prall (04:41.256)

Yes, I think for all intents and purposes she would. I mean, it’s not, I don’t know the legal definition of what a hoarder is. So some, she, I would say she always had the tendency. She grew up in a family that she never felt like they had anything nice. You know, her parents were raised during the depression. So, you know, you definitely may do and there’s nothing wrong with that. But along with that came some really,

Kathi (04:46.053)

Right.

Kathi (04:54.437)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (05:02.629)

Yeah.

Right.

Hilary Prall (05:09.671)

tough things as well. And I know that even people from that generation took that and just ran with it to the nth degree. So I think, I think, you know, even early in my parents’ marriage, they didn’t have the finances probably that she would have wanted. And so she couldn’t buy everything that she wanted. And my dad helped her to keep that in check to some degree. But when he passed away in 2004, it was just like, it,

Kathi (05:30.245)

Right?

Mm -hmm.

Hilary Prall (05:39.622)

I just felt like it just happened instantly, but it definitely had different waves of how it happened. It looked like her going to Target and shopping the clearance end caps and then, you know, whatever was on clearance, it was always, it wasn’t having something nice. It wasn’t like she went and bought one diamond ring. It was, you know, a hundred junky things.

Kathi (05:52.005)

Right.

Kathi (06:04.933)

Right.

Hilary Prall (06:05.829)

it was just to fill that void. She got really into home shopping network. I think just finding that connection with somebody. And then she got into thrifting, which we had grown up going to garage sales, but we didn’t really go to the thrift store. That wasn’t something that was like normal to us, but she really got into that Facebook marketplace, you know, whatever it was, wherever she could get a deal and she would drag stuff home. So,

Kathi (06:10.245)

Hmm.

Kathi (06:17.701)

wow.

Kathi (06:22.341)

Yeah.

Kathi (06:31.429)

Yeah.

Hilary Prall (06:34.949)

The first sort of round of it was she ended up selling our childhood home to my sister and my brother -in -law on contract. So she had to clear out to move and then she moved into a townhouse and…

Part of, she filled it, obviously. But also during that time she was doing a lot of hiding. So she had a couple of relationships that she wasn’t totally honest with us about and was just really in hiding. I can count on two hands the number of times I was in that house. And every time I went there it was fuller and fuller and…

Kathi (06:55.493)

Yeah.

Kathi (07:05.637)

Hmm.

Yeah.

Kathi (07:12.261)

Yeah.

Hilary Prall (07:18.34)

you know, there would be things like my wanted my childhood bedroom set and she couldn’t let go of that. That was hers. And just, I mean, she so I mean, it definitely was. I think that is a part of being a hoarder is everything is yours. You’re just gripping onto it so tightly. So she she quite filled that house and it was just a really big source of contention. From there, she did meet someone and.

Kathi (07:25.765)

Hmm.

Kathi (07:31.813)

Yeah. Right.

Hilary Prall (07:46.883)

was getting remarried in 2013 and we’re very happy and we were very honest with him. This is, you’re getting yourself into something here, but I don’t think you couldn’t, unless you’ve seen it or been involved in it, you can’t wrap your head around it. So we were able to get her moved from that house finally. She kept the house even after she got married for a couple of years, but then it was like, this is silly.

Kathi (07:55.557)

Right.

Kathi (08:00.261)

Right. Yeah.

Kathi (08:13.125)

Mm -hmm.

Hilary Prall (08:13.155)

But that meant she filled two storage units. She filled his giant Morton building. She, you know, started filling his basement and then just continued. So it was a big issue within their marriage as well.

Kathi (08:27.877)

So first of all, it is just so heartbreaking because hoarders and it does, I mean, again, I’m not a clinical psychologist, but it does sound like she has the classic symptoms of hoarding. Mom, why are you keeping this? And there’s not really a good explanation, but to take it from her would be devastating.

Hilary Prall (08:41.953)

absolutely.

Hilary Prall (08:53.633)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (08:53.989)

and the buying things that they don’t need and the hiding and the anger at anybody trying to change anything or judge anything. And so it does sound like she has some of the classic hallmarks of hoarding. And there’s not a lot that family can do. There just isn’t. So part of my question is,

Hilary Prall (09:18.177)

No.

Kathi (09:23.877)

Why do you think that you did not go in the same direction? Why do you think or did you did you like part of my story is my dad was a hoarder and I started to hang on to too much stuff. And then I got to a point where it’s like, no, I can’t live like this. I can’t be, you know, for me, it was clutter. It wasn’t hoarding, but I could definitely see the tendencies in my life. So where did you fall on that scale?

Hilary Prall (09:28.992)

Hmm.

Hilary Prall (09:37.248)

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Hilary Prall (09:51.072)

Sure, I mean I definitely have the tendencies. I mean, you know, and I love vintage, I love old things. So it’s been difficult going through my mom’s stuff because she kept, my grandma came out of, you know, the Victorian era where you did literally keep everything, you know, and then she was in the depression. And so she kept not only like sentimental things but,

Kathi (09:54.565)

Yeah.

Kathi (09:58.245)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (10:09.829)

Right.

Right.

Hilary Prall (10:19.935)

useful things. And so when she passed away, my mom, her siblings came and they took, you know, the few things that they wanted. And then literally, I think she hauled everything else home. So in having to go through all of my mom’s stuff, you know, there’s also a lot of family stuff and it’s hard to, it’s hard to decide because I love old things. It’s not just that it was family stuff, but it’s old stuff. So I feel like it has meaning. Like I don’t want to just see it.

Kathi (10:21.143)

Right.

Kathi (10:45.765)

Right.

Hilary Prall (10:49.151)

go in a dumpster somewhere or whatever. I think the difference comes in that because I’ve had to deal with this, a lot of things have lost sentimentality. Definitely for my sister. She couldn’t care less about most things. I go through seasons. I’ve been taking things to auction myself. So part of how my business started was buying and reselling vintage. So it’s definitely in my

Kathi (10:59.045)

Mmm.

Kathi (11:03.781)

Yeah.

Kathi (11:16.325)

Mm -hmm.

Hilary Prall (11:18.974)

in my DNA and I would say anybody who buys and sells vintage, it’s a really hard thing to stop. So it just is and you have to, there’s nothing wrong with it, but when it starts to cause you stress is when, that’s when it bothers my husband. Okay, it’s stressing you out, you’re causing yourself stress.

Kathi (11:20.293)

Right.

Kathi (11:26.373)

Yeah. Yeah.

Kathi (11:37.125)

Yes. Okay. Yeah.

Hilary Prall (11:42.558)

I have one room in our basement left that I’m working through, but I like to think that I don’t cling to things like she did. I’m willing to get rid of them. I try to give things to people who would enjoy them. I can see that it’s just stuff. So…

Kathi (11:50.949)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (12:00.681)

So we’re gonna take a quick break and when we come back I want to know how did you get to that point of knowing I love I really you know, I enjoy this I can appreciate it I may even love it, but I can’t keep everything so I would love to hear some of your thought process behind that and how you got to that point in your journey because as a designer as a decorator I

I bet you could imagine a use for almost anything and I would love to hear how you’re able to curate what you’re deciding to keep and what you’re giving away. So we will take a quick break and come right back.

Hey guys, we are back with Hilary Prall, who is a designer, a decorator, an online content creator, influencer, and daughter of a hoarder. And so we were just discussing, Hilary, how are you able to keep from keeping all the things?

Hilary Prall (13:06.587)

Number one, I try to keep what my goals are in mind. We have a goal of moving from our house eventually and moving to a town that we really love. And so the thought of having to move all of this stuff, we moved from a house that was half the size of our house now when we bought this house in 2018. And at that time I got rid of a lot of stuff. I collected…

Kathi (13:12.901)

Hmm.

Kathi (13:23.397)

Hmm.

Hilary Prall (13:35.355)

vintage Pyrex and I had so much you couldn’t imagine it. But I got rid of a lot because I thought I’m gonna have nowhere to put it and I don’t want to move it. So I do have that goal of eventually you know us downsizing. I don’t want to take care of a big house. It’s just the two of us and I just don’t want that to fill my mind and my space. I have gotten better in creating content. I do

Kathi (13:51.269)

Yeah.

Hilary Prall (14:04.346)

some DIYs and things like that. So I would accumulate things at the thrift store that I think, this would be a good project or whatever. I can go to the thrift store any day of the week and find a project to do. So I’ve tried to keep that in mind that I don’t need to keep a stash of, unless it’s something really unique and cool, I don’t need to have a stash of things like that. I’m constantly getting rid of. So I think that’s important. That is, it’s an ever evolving door here, whether I’m giving it to friends or,

Kathi (14:14.853)

Hmm.

Kathi (14:21.573)

Yeah.

Hmm.

Hilary Prall (14:34.298)

giving it to the thrift store, selling it, whatever that looks like. I do think you have to get over the part that you spent money on it. You can nickel and dime yourself to death. If it’s a really something that’s valuable, sell it. I have discovered it’s really easy to take stuff to our local auction house. So I can set up an appointment and just take the load and then they, whatever’s left, they liquidate. I don’t have to worry about it.

Kathi (14:42.245)

Yes, yes.

Hilary Prall (15:03.577)

So for me, that has become the best option for getting rid of a lot of stuff that to me has value. It’s not just garbage.

Kathi (15:10.949)

I think it’s great that you have found your path of least resistance and for you it’s the auction house and I think we all need to figure that out. Is it straight donation? Is it selling it on Facebook or Marketplace? What is it for you? And get really good at that and rinse and repeat, absolutely.

Hilary Prall (15:20.097)

Yeah. Yeah.

Hilary Prall (15:33.98)

Yeah, yeah, I mean, it’s, you know, I understand the guilt is there. So, okay, what does that do for you? You know, I mean, learn from it is all you can do. You know, maybe set a financial goal of something else that you would really enjoy and then, you know, sell your stuff or don’t buy new stuff.

Kathi (15:44.613)

Right, yes.

Hilary Prall (15:56.248)

Unfortunately, I probably would make a lot of environmentalists cry because I’m not doing a lot of recycling or you know, whatever. It just has to go. I think if you get that into your head, get rid of it. Just get rid of it. Don’t, you know, you’re not saving the planet in this one in this one moment. So I don’t, you know, one thing that my mom had was she would save. She had tons of medical.

Kathi (16:03.205)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Kathi (16:17.157)

Right.

Hilary Prall (16:24.599)

stuff that would come, whether it was a bill or insurance or whatever, and they always have that blank sheet of paper on the front of the back, and she would save it as scratch paper. She had more scratch paper than any one person could ever use, and so going through her stuff, I was like, gosh, I’m just gonna throw away all this scratch paper. It’s like, yes, just get rid of it, burn it, whatever.

Kathi (16:25.957)

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Kathi (16:36.933)

Right. Yeah.

Kathi (16:44.045)

Yeah. You know, I think, and I really do believe this is true, the best way for us to make an environmental impact is to choose who we’re buying from and what we’re buying. And instead of on the back end, once we already have the stuff and having to make those decisions. And we recycle, we bring out a big tub of recycling every single.

Hilary Prall (17:00.85)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (17:12.805)

But our community is set up for it and not all communities are. And so do what you can, but really if your biggest concern is the environment, it’s the not purchasing in the first place.

Hilary Prall (17:16.47)

Mm -hmm.

Hilary Prall (17:27.765)

Absolutely, and I would I would go a little bit further and say, you know, there’s even a new trend to like

I would say almost glamorize the reusable or the whatever. And so it’s almost like there’s an encouragement to like, okay, I have this bottle, but here’s this other bottle that’s really biodegradable and whatever. So you better throw away this bottle and go buy the other bottle. No, that’s no, you know, so then, but probably what would happen is you’d end up with like five of the bottles or whatever.

Kathi (17:42.501)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (17:52.197)

Right.

Kathi (17:56.549)

Yeah, it makes no sense.

Hilary Prall (18:05.396)

One thing my husband and I have done is just tried to focus on buying the best of whatever we’re buying. Buy at your top dollar. So hopefully it lasts and hopefully you’re just getting what you want. I think a big part of how hoarding can come about is that you feel like you’re never actually getting what you want. It’s the same with food addiction or whatever. You’re just not feeling fulfilled in it. So.

Kathi (18:11.045)

Mm. Right.

Yes.

Kathi (18:26.533)

Mm -hmm.

Yeah, yeah. Right. Because that target clearance purchase fills a need in the moment, but it doesn’t fill a long -term need. It fills that high of buying something. And by the way, I totally resonate with that high of buying something. But for me, it could be the high of buying a Costco chicken. Like, there, I…

Hilary Prall (18:40.468)

Mm -hmm. nope.

Kathi (18:58.213)

To me, it’s the same thing. And it’s like, okay, but also I’m learning to say, you know what, there’s also a thrill in using what I have. There’s also a thrill in feeling like I’m being wise and clever and smart with what I actually have. So how do you, what’s the thing that you say to yourself when you are purchasing something or when you’re considering purchasing something?

How what you know from vintage items to maybe you know craft supply whatever that is Do you have like? This is why i’m buying it. Do you have questions you ask yourself? Do you have something? What’s that thought process so that you are not acquiring and by the way? I love what you said about keeping the end goal in mind If the end goal is to move if the end goal is to enjoy your house

Hilary Prall (19:50.994)

Mm -hmm.

Hilary Prall (19:57.17)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (19:57.477)

and not feel overstuffed. If your end goal is to save up for a vacation, those end goals do not align with buying the clearance stuff at Target 99 % of the time. So I love that. So I would love to know, how do you keep that end goal in mind? What do you say to yourself when you’re considering a purchase?

Hilary Prall (20:10.641)

Mm -hmm.

Hilary Prall (20:19.249)

Well, I need to do better about it. I feel like I go in shifts. So one thing that I try…

Kathi (20:22.021)

We all do.

Hilary Prall (20:30.129)

I’ll phrase it this way. One thing that I do try to do is I am a very out of sight, out of mind person. So that means if my stuff isn’t out on display for me to enjoy, I don’t even care about it. So I think that is a little bit different than hoarders because they can pinpoint exactly where everything is and they’re very still concerned with it.

Kathi (20:47.205)

Mm -hmm.

Yes.

Hilary Prall (20:54.192)

That doesn’t mean I don’t have stuff still in my house that I’m not using or enjoying, but that’s out of laziness or whatever. But I try to keep that in focus. If I’m not using certain things, they can go by the wayside. So as I bring things in, can I take something out that is similar or that I’m not loving anymore? You know, I have a basement that I love very different styles of vintage. So our basement is like,

Kathi (21:14.853)

Mm -hmm.

Hilary Prall (21:24.016)

bright and colorful and has vintage board games and things like that. I’ve reached my capacity of vintage board games, I think, unless there’s just something that’s outstanding. So I think knowing, I mean, where’s the end? What’s your end? What’s the limit? Because I know that I want to be able to display these things. It’s not that I want to put them in a room for a later date.

Kathi (21:32.773)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (21:40.389)

Right.

Hilary Prall (21:49.807)

I have an entire wall filled with vintage paint by numbers. I don’t have any more room for paint by numbers. So unless one is just fabulous, there’s no reason for me to bring that home. So curation, I have a lot of stuff, but I think for the most part, I know when things are getting out of hand because stuff starts to feel wonky or off kilter or too crowded.

Kathi (22:01.605)

Mmm. I love that. It’s curation. Yeah.

Hilary Prall (22:17.871)

I think for the most part I still have visual space around everything. A lot of stacks and things like that, but I also know that I really don’t hold tightly to anything. If someone came in and said, Hillary, you need to sell all this stuff, great, that’s totally fine. But I know that telling that to my mom, that wouldn’t have mattered. Yeah.

Kathi (22:17.925)

Mm.

Kathi (22:22.213)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (22:42.725)

No, it would have been a very different thing. I love where you have come from in your journey to this because I think that one of the things that us cluttery people know, I think this is a really good sign of health, that we can be extremists sometimes. Either I’m a hoarder or a minimalist. And I think that there is a happy place. As a cluttery person, I enjoy stuff.

Hilary Prall (23:06.094)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (23:12.709)

I really do, but I also know that too much stuff will really weigh me down. So there’s a sweet spot and it sounds like in your business, in your personal kind of thinking around stuff, you have found that sweet spot of I’m not a hoarder, I’m not a minimalist, I’m Hillary, I have found.

Hilary Prall (23:12.878)

Mm -hmm.

Hilary Prall (23:40.589)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (23:41.765)

what works for me and I can feel when I want something new in my house, I can also feel when there’s too much in my house and to let that guide you. I think that that’s really, really amazing. Hillary, this has been such a great conversation. I would love to bring you back and talk a little bit more about as somebody who understands clutter, as somebody who has lived with a hoarder and doesn’t want to be on that end of it,

but also somebody who makes their living by creating spaces that they really, really love and other people love. How do we find that intersection? So if you’d be willing to come back, I would love to have that discussion with you. Okay, guys, I’m gonna put all of Hillary’s links and where to find her. Guys, go follow her on Instagram. She, just looking at her board, you’re…

Hilary Prall (24:25.259)

Absolutely.

Kathi (24:40.741)

You’re gonna be inspired, you’re gonna be encouraged, and you’re gonna know she’s one of us, so it’s okay. That she is not judging you for not having all of it together because we’re all works in progress. You guys have been listening to Clutter -Free Academy, I’m Kathi Lipp. Now, go create the clutter -free life you’ve always wanted to.

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