#659 Simple Soups for a Meaningful Lent Season

#659 Simple Soups for a Meaningful Lent Season

by | Mar 4, 2025 | Clutter Free, Clutter Free For Life, Clutter Free Home, Podcast, Spiritual Renewal | 0 comments

#659 Simple Soups for a Meaningful Lent Season

Listen Now

Are you looking for a simple way to bring more meaning to your Lenten season while also creating space for family connection? In this episode of Clutter-Free Academy, Kathi Lipp and Tonya Kubo share their love for soup and how it can become a meaningful Lenten practice for your family. 

For many, Lent represents a time to simplify, focus on what matters most, and create space for spiritual growth. Kathi and Tonya explain how incorporating a weekly soup tradition can help achieve these goals while also solving the “what’s for dinner?” dilemma. 

Listeners will discover: 

  • Why soup is the perfect one-pot meal for busy families during Lent 
  • How making soup can help reduce food waste and grocery bills 
  • The spiritual connection between slowing down for soup and creating space for what matters 
  • Six simple, delicious soup recipes that can be enjoyed throughout the Lenten season 

Whether you’re new to Lenten traditions or looking to refresh your practice, this episode offers practical ideas to help you slow down, simplify, and savor both your meals and your time together as a family. 

Click here to be notified when the next podcast episode is released!

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

As mentioned by Kathi: Broccoli Cheddar Soup

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons butter, divided

1/2 medium onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced (from recipe 1)

1/4 cup flour

2 cups low sodium chicken stock

1 tsp kosher salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg, optional

3 cups broccoli florets, chopped into bite size pieces

1 large carrot, grated or julienned

1 stalk celery, thinly sliced

2 cups half & half or milk

2 1/2 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese

 Instructions

 Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a large Dutch oven or pot over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook for 3-4 minutes or until softened and lightly golden. Add the garlic and sauté for another minute.

Add the remaining 3 tablespoons of butter to the pot. Once melted, sprinkle the flour over the mixture and whisk for 1-2 minutes or until the flour begins to turn golden in color.

 Gradually whisk in the half & half or milk, then pour in the chicken stock. Continue to whisk and cook, ensuring the mixture is well-blended.

 Add the broccoli, carrots, and celery. Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for 20-25 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender.

 Stir in the grated cheddar cheese, salt, pepper, and optional nutmeg. Continue to stir over low heat until the cheese has melted and the soup is well-mixed. Taste and adjust seasoning if needed before serving.

Soup Recipes from Sabbath Soup

1. Chili Recipe

Ingredients:

  • 3/4 lb. ground beef
  • 1 cup chopped onions
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 1 (16 oz.) can stewed tomatoes
  • 1 (16 oz.) can kidney beans, drained
  • 1 (16 oz.) can tomato sauce
  • 3 tsp. chili powder
  • 1/2 tsp. basil
  • 1 (6 oz.) can tomato paste
  • 2 cups chicken broth

Instructions:

  1. In a large saucepan, cook ground beef, onions, and garlic until the onions are translucent and the meat is brown. Drain.
  2. Stir in un-drained tomatoes, drained kidney beans, tomato sauce, chili powder, basil, chicken broth and pepper.
  3. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 30 minutes.

2. Cream of Mushroom Soup

Ingredients:

  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 1/2 pound sliced fresh mushrooms (cremini recommended)
  • 1/4 cup chopped onion
  • 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/8 teaspoon pepper
  • 1-2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce (to taste)
  • 2 cans (14-1/2 ounces each) chicken broth
  • 1 cup half-and-half cream

Directions:

  1. In a large saucepan, heat butter over medium heat. Add mushrooms and onion; cook and stir until tender.
  2. Stir in flour, salt, and pepper until blended; gradually whisk in broth. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened.
  3. Reduce heat; stir in cream and Worcestershire sauce. Simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
  4. Taste and adjust seasoning with additional salt, pepper, or more Worcestershire sauce to taste.

3. Five Spoon Interpretive Vegetable Soup

This is a flexible recipe for using up vegetables in your crisper.

Non-negotiable ingredients:

  • Stock (chicken, vegetable, or beef), approximately 4-6 cups
  • Oil (olive oil and butter preferred)
  • Salt and pepper

Cooking process:

  1. Cut up the aromatics — onions, garlic, and fresh herbs. If you have celery, add it at this point. Start sautéing in oil or butter until they get some color.
  2. Add heartier vegetables first — carrots, potatoes, turnips, and other root vegetables. Give them a few minutes. This is also when to add canned beans if using.
  3. Add other vegetables: squash, zucchini, tomatoes, green beans, asparagus, eggplant, and mushrooms. Let these get a little color.
  4. Can add canned vegetables (tomatoes, corn, green beans) and leftover meat at this point. Add thin vegetables like spinach, cabbage here too.
  5. Cover vegetables with broth.

Optional spice profiles:

  • Mexican: Cumin, chili powder, peppers, oregano, garlic
  • Italian: Basil, Italian herb blend, oregano
  • Indian: Tandoori spices, garam masala, curry, yogurt, coconut milk, tamarind, cardamom, cumin, coriander, cilantro, fennel, garlic, saffron

Taste and adjust as you go for the best flavor.

4. Minestrone Soup

Ingredients:

  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 large onion, chopped
  • 2 carrots, peeled and chopped
  • 2 stalks celery, chopped
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 zucchini, chopped
  • 1 medium potato, peeled and chopped
  • 1 can (14.5 ounces) diced tomatoes
  • 1 can (15 ounces) kidney beans, drained and rinsed
  • 4 cups vegetable broth
  • 2 teaspoons dried basil
  • 1 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
  • 1/2 cup small pasta (like ditalini or orzo)
  • 2 cups chopped fresh spinach
  • 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese (optional)

Instructions:

  1. In a large pot, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion, carrots, celery, and garlic. Cook until the vegetables are tender, about 5 minutes.
  2. Add the zucchini, potato, diced tomatoes, kidney beans, vegetable broth, basil, oregano, salt, and black pepper. Stir until everything is well combined.
  3. Bring the soup to a boil. Once boiling, reduce the heat to low, cover the pot, and let it simmer for about 15-20 minutes, or until the vegetables are soft.
  4. Meanwhile, in a separate pot, cook the pasta according to the package instructions. Drain once cooked.
  5. Add the cooked pasta and chopped spinach to the soup. Stir until the spinach has wilted and everything is well combined.
  6. Serve hot, garnished with Parmesan cheese if desired.

5. White Bean Chicken Chili

Ingredients:

  • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 1 yellow onion, chopped
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 2 (14.5 oz.) cans chicken broth
  • 4 cans Ro*Tel mild diced tomatoes and green chilies
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander seed
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 1 pound diced cooked chicken
  • 1 (16 oz.) can cannellini beans
  • 2 ears fresh corn cut from the cob, or 1 can drained corn, or 1½ cups frozen corn kernels
  • Salt and pepper, to taste

Directions:

  1. In a soup pot, heat vegetable oil and sauté onion over medium heat until soft, about 5 to 7 minutes. Add in the garlic and continue to sauté for 1 additional minute.
  2. Pour chicken broth into pan. Then add the tomatoes, oregano, coriander, and cumin. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes.
  3. Add in chicken, beans, corn, and salt and pepper to taste. Simmer on low for 10 minutes.
  4. Serve with tortilla chips, lime, and avocado slices.

6. Greek Lemon Soup

Ingredients:

  • 4 cups chicken broth
  • 1/2 cup uncooked orzo or rice
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • 3 eggs
  • Juice of 2 lemons (about 1/3 to 1/2 cup, depending on taste)
  • 1 cup shredded cooked chicken (optional)
  • Fresh chopped parsley or dill for garnish

Instructions:

  1. In a large pot, bring the chicken broth to a boil.
  2. Add the orzo or rice, reduce heat and simmer until tender. For orzo, this will be about 10 minutes, for rice about 18 minutes.
  3. Season with salt and pepper.
  4. While the orzo or rice is cooking, in a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs until well beaten. Continue to whisk and gradually add in the lemon juice.
  5. Once the orzo or rice is cooked, reduce the heat to low. Take a ladle full of hot broth and slowly add it to the egg-lemon mixture, whisking continuously. This process is called tempering and prevents the eggs from scrambling when added to the hot soup.
  6. Continue to slowly add another 2-3 ladles of broth into the egg-lemon mixture, making sure to keep whisking.
  7. Once the egg-lemon mixture is warmed, slowly pour it back into the soup pot, stirring the soup as you pour.
  8. Add in the shredded chicken, if using.
  9. Stir the soup over low heat for 2-3 minutes until heated through. Do not let it come to a boil.
  10. Taste and adjust the seasoning if needed.
  11. Ladle the soup into bowls, garnish with fresh chopped parsley or dill, and serve immediately.

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.

Links Mentioned:

Clutter Free Resources:

Join our Clutter Free Academy Facebook Group

Order Sabbath Soup here

Let’s stay connected

To share your thoughts:

  • Leave a note in the comment section below.
  • Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one.

Subscribe on iTunes or subscribe to our newsletter now.

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 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
Transcript

Kathi Lipp (00:09) 

Well, hey friends, welcome to Clutter-Free Academy, where our goal is to help you take small daily steps to help you live with less clutter and more life. And I am here with the goddess of all things clutter-free. And I mean that in a very non-religious way. It is Tonya Kubo. Hey, Tonya. You know what? Because you contain multitudes. You contain multitudes. 

  

Tonya Kubo (00:28) 

Hey, Kathi. I like that I get a new title every time. It’s fun. 

  

Kathi Lipp (00:36) 

and that reflects in our titling of you. We’re gonna talk about one of my favorite things. We’re gonna talk about a couple of my favorite things. We’re gonna talk about lent and we’re gonna talk about soup. Well, you know, we’ll talk about food, but we’re also gonna talk about soup. And so as you know, soup is one of my favorite things. It’s also one of your favorite things. We are both soup fanatics. Can I just tell you, we don’t have a recipe for broccoli cheddar soup in 

  

Tonya Kubo (00:44) 

Okay? 

  

Okay. 

  

Mm-hmm. yes. 

  

Kathi Lipp (01:06) 

in saba soup but i made a broccoli cheddar soup last night that almost made Roger weep it was 

  

And I do have leftovers too bad you are several hours away from me. I will post the recipe I found it online. I tweaked it just ever so slightly but I think a part part of the reason that it was so good is I bought a bag of rolls from just a supermarket, but they were the Cheesecake Factory brown bread rolls 

  

Tonya Kubo (01:44) 

All of those are so good. 

  

Kathi Lipp (01:46) 

Right? And can I tell you, can I tell you what you have to look forward to in your older age? You start to become weird about things. Roger and I have become weird about butter. 

  

Tonya Kubo (01:53) 

Sure. 

  

I love 

  

how you said you start to as if I’m not already weird about things like butter. 

  

Kathi Lipp (02:06) 

Yes, this is true. As you know, I have a podcast I love called Wirecutter. And this is the New York Times and they do lots of blind taste tests and things like that. And they did the butter episode. And so this is what made us buy a butter bell. So we now have a butter bell and butter bells are a part of a life. We were already buying pretty much the right kind of unsalted butter, which is the Costco. It’s very highly rated. 

  

Tonya Kubo (02:12) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (02:34) 

lots of fat and everything. But now we are exploring all sorts of different kinds of salted butter. So the Costco New Zealand brand of salted butter is very highly rated. So we had the broccoli soup and we were a little under the weather. That’s why I made the soup. The brown bread and the New Zealand butter. And if I never have to have another meal again, it’s OK. 

  

Tonya Kubo (03:04) 

Yeah, yeah, I would die happy with that. That’s good. 

  

Kathi Lipp (03:04) 

Yeah, 

  

it’s really good. I will put the link to that broccoli soup recipe in the notes because I think other people would enjoy that and it goes along with our theme here. Now you grew up Catholic, but you are in rubbing shoulders distance of a lot of Lutherans and I grew up Lutheran and one thing that we did growing up 

  

Tonya Kubo (03:21) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (03:33) 

as a church, not necessarily my family, but as a church, is soup and lent were closely tied. Now, how was it in the Catholic tradition? 

  

Tonya Kubo (03:34) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Well, so in the Catholic tradition, you know, there would be it was more at home because I grew up in a really small town. So we didn’t have a lot of like parish wide Lenten events, but we had a lot of soup on Fridays. It was that, you know, and fish because my family’s Portuguese. So we’re all about the fish. 

  

Kathi Lipp (03:50) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Yeah. 

  

Mmm. 

  

Yeah, 

  

yeah. So, did you understand growing up with the comp? Because I never really understood the… I just thought people liked soup, but apparently… Did you understand it growing up? 

  

Tonya Kubo (04:14) 

Eh. 

  

yeah, we had a wonderful nun who, you know, in second grade really explained Lent to us and Catechism. So, you know, understanding the idea of simplicity and kind of removing indulgence to really focus on the sacrifice that was, you know, Christ dying at the cross. 

  

Kathi Lipp (04:24) 

Okay. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Yeah, so we’re going to give you the second grade understanding. So Lent, as far as what my religious tradition is, is about what are you going to give up so you can decide what you’re going to fast so you can decide what to feast. And so the fast was, you know, I remember every year they wanted us to give up chocolate. And I just thought, you know, diving into the deep end of the pool, right? 

  

Tonya Kubo (04:43) 

You 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Mmm. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (05:07) 

But a lot of things that we gave up were things like meat or sometimes it was dairy products. Like none of those are my favorites to give up. I’m not gonna lie. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve just gone to eating more simply. like we may still have some chicken, but we’re not going to, and I’m not a hard and fast lenten person. I don’t feel like. 

  

Tonya Kubo (05:19) 

Hmm. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (05:36) 

the more I give up the closer I am to God. But it’s for me it’s been planning simpler meals. So maybe instead of you know I love my chicken and wild rice cream of chicken and wild rice soup. That’s one of my favorites. But maybe during this time I’m going to you know our soup of the week is going to be a black bean soup. Or it’s going to be something simple like an onion soup or something. Something that doesn’t have 

  

Tonya Kubo (05:56) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (06:05) 

a lot of cost to it, doesn’t have a lot of ingredients, just trying to keep it really simple. And one of the things that we grew up being told is when we experience some physical hunger, can also, we can satisfy that with less so we can develop our spiritual hunger. And it’s just a time of 40 days to be able to concentrate. 

  

Tonya Kubo (06:28) 

Mm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (06:34) 

on the things that we would love for our lives to be more centered on. Is there something that you are trying to focus more on in 2025? 

  

Tonya Kubo (06:45) 

Well, I think for us, it’s now that, you know, I’ve got a high schooler, I’ve got an elementary schooler, the opportunities together around the table are so limited. And so I feel like, you know, I don’t want to spend an hour and a half prepping a meal and then not being able to get together around the table. Like I’d much rather something simple. 

  

like soup and then we actually can just focus on our time together. 

  

Kathi Lipp (07:16) 

Yeah, and one of the reasons I love soup is because I can make a decent size batch of it and it’s prep once, eat twice, three times. know, for your family, it might be less because there are more people. But for Roger and I, that soup is not just going to be dinner that night. It’s going to be lunch another night and then maybe enough to take to my mom’s house or to feed our neighbor or something like that. And so it does 

  

Tonya Kubo (07:28) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (07:47) 

really help us be able to focus on some of those things. It’s a one-pot meal too. That’s why I love it. Less dishes. 

  

Tonya Kubo (07:56) 

Well, it’s a one pot 

  

meal. I’ve said this before, right? It’s a great way to minimize food waste, take all the bits and stuff from the week and throw those into a pot with some broth and it almost always tastes delicious. 

  

Kathi Lipp (08:04) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Yeah, it’s so true. And I love that because, yeah, like you said, when the vegetables are getting a little squishier, when the onions are starting to sprout, don’t throw those out, turn them into soup. When the celery’s getting a little flabby, don’t throw it away, turn it into soup. So. 

  

Tonya Kubo (08:25) 

you 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (08:36) 

Let me just give you my list of reasons. Well, we’re gonna take a quick break and we’re gonna come back and I’m gonna give you my list of reasons why I think you might want to consider a weekly soup tradition for lent. And I’m not the first to come up with this. We are not the first to talk about this. But if you can go into this season of simplicity with a focus already, and we’re also gonna share a couple of. 

  

my favorite recipes and we’ll include those in the show notes so that you’re going to be able to Really take that soup to the next level and it’s not next level of making it fancy To really be able to focus on the things that you care about. Okay, we’re gonna take a quick break come right back 

  

Okay, friends, we are back and we are talking lent and soup. Okay, so some reasons that we already love soup. One, it’s a one pot meal. Now I will say for that broccoli, there was a lot of chopping, there was a lot of shredding. So it was half a load of dishes, but it wasn’t cumbersome. And I was able to shred enough carrots, shred enough cheese that I was able to use that for other meals. Mostly, 

  

Tonya Kubo (09:40) 

Okay. 

  

Kathi Lipp (09:53) 

The the soups that we are focusing on during Lent are going to be meatless So I have some great meatless ideas of things that you are able to do I love soup because yes, you can make it once and you can eat it several times and that’s one of my As as the main cook in the house and you’re the main cook I you Brian cooks too, but you’re the main cook. Yeah 

  

Tonya Kubo (10:02) 

Hmm. 

  

Yes. 

  

Yeah 

  

Kathi Lipp (10:22) 

Any meal that will do double duty and will your family eat leftovers because lots of families won’t but mine definitely will Yeah, that’s a beautiful beautiful thing you’re using like Tonya said simple available ingredients and the thing that I love most is It gives us an opportunity to have some communal meals One of the fundraisers that we did up here in Omo Ranch 

  

Tonya Kubo (10:30) 

Yeah, mine will. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (10:51) 

was a soup night where 

  

everybody brought different soups. And I love what they did, Tonya. they took, everybody brought their own muffin tin and they put cups in the muffin tin and did different ladles of soup so you could try everybody’s soup. And then you had recipes you could take home. I love that idea. But I love also the spiritual side of this. Soup forces us to slow down. 

  

Tonya Kubo (11:01) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (11:20) 

You are not going to rush a pot of soup. And in fact, if you want to have soup on Sundays, which is a lot of people’s traditions, might I suggest you cook it on Friday so that you’re just reheating on Sunday and able to do that. Soup, you cannot rush eating soup. Soup is not something you can chow down on. It’s served hot. You have to slow down. You have to blow on it. 

  

Tonya Kubo (11:44) 

Mm-hmm 

  

Kathi Lipp (11:48) 

You have to be in the moment with it. And I think to me, soup is such a symbol of abundance that we have so much leftover from our week, that celery, that onion, that chicken, that rice, that we can create a whole nother meal out of it. Did you do the Stone Soup book when you were a kid? 

  

Tonya Kubo (11:59) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Yep, yep, and we made stone soup in school. It’s so yummy. 

  

Kathi Lipp (12:18) 

Yes, 

  

I remember my contribution, because we also did stone salad, was mandarin oranges. that was super fun to be able to do that. If you’re not familiar with that, might I suggest, especially if you have younger kids, to do a reading of stone soup. And you can find that story online, but you could do that for part of your Lenten practice. 

  

Tonya Kubo (12:24) 

Mmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (12:45) 

I just think soup helps us focus on gratitude. Look at all the abundance I have that I can make something out of this. And one of my favorite type of TikTokers, Instagrammers, YouTubers are the people who are using food banks to be able to create their meals, right? And 

  

Tonya Kubo (12:49) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (13:12) 

What I love about these there, and I’ll put a link into one of my favorite ones, is their creativity. Like they don’t go to the food bank saying I need this, this, this, this. They receive from the food bank and they create, and I think soup is one of the meals that you could absolutely do that with. And if you’re looking to have a little bit more focus, many of you have purchased Sabbath soup. 

  

Tonya Kubo (13:24) 

Right. 

  

Kathi Lipp (13:39) 

Go in there and look at the prayers. I will add a couple into our show notes here so that you can also have those. They were written by one of mine and Tonya’s friends, Bethany Howard. She did a beautiful job with a lot of these prayers. But Tonya, I wanna talk about what are some of your favorite soup memories. We may not have the recipes here, but what are some of the soups that you grew up on for Lent? And then I’m also going to suggest 

  

Tonya Kubo (14:02) 

Yeah. 

  

Kathi Lipp (14:09) 

Some soup recipes and we’re going to give you links to those in the show notes 

  

Tonya Kubo (14:14) 

Yeah, so in my family during Lent, the two main soups would be a watercress soup and watercress soup. Yeah, well, and so part of why the watercress soup is such a memory is we would have to go harvest our own watercress because at that time you couldn’t buy it at the store. You can get it at stores now. 

  

Kathi Lipp (14:21) 

A watercress soup, I have never heard of that. So tell me more about that. 

  

my goodness. 

  

Tonya Kubo (14:39) 

But 

  

Kathi Lipp (14:39) 

Yeah. 

  

Tonya Kubo (14:40) 

so we would have to, I don’t know where it was, but we would go to this place. My grandfather would park on the side of the road and my mom and I would walk and it felt like forever. But like try to jump over rattlesnake holes and all of these things. Cause it grows as it sounds by water. And then so having to pick it up, we had to avoid the stinging nettle because stinging nettle also grew near it. So we would harvest the watercress and we would make watercress soup. And it’s usually a mix of 

  

Kathi Lipp (14:57) 

Yes? 

  

Uh-oh. 

  

Tonya Kubo (15:08) 

It’s watercress, sometimes onion, potatoes, and then broth, but it’s very brothy. It’s not like a thick potato soup. And then you just sip it, or if you wanna use a spoon. My grandfather liked everything cut bigger. He liked it to be chunkier. I actually blend it all together, and I like it to be smooth. 

  

Kathi Lipp (15:13) 

Okay. Uh-huh. 

  

Mm-hmm. Okay. 

  

So you’re using the present tense. Do you still make it? okay. I’m gonna have to try some. 

  

Tonya Kubo (15:34) 

yeah, I love it. If I can see the grocery 

  

store, I’m not going and harvesting my own too old for that. But if I can find it in the grocery store, cause it just takes three bunches and it’s a bitter green, but with 

  

Kathi Lipp (15:39) 

No, no, yeah. 

  

So just gonna say, 

  

tell me what watercress is because I’ve heard of watercress sandwiches, but I’ve always thought of those as like you cut the crusts off because they’re fancy. 

  

Tonya Kubo (15:56) 

Yeah, no, it’s a little bit bitter, but it’s so good with, I like mine. Like I said, potato, onion, good chicken broth is what I use. And then I like it with a lot of black pepper. So delicious. Yeah, it makes me very happy. I’m like, I’m going to go make that. 

  

Kathi Lipp (16:10) 

okay. you know what I got? 

  

You know what I got for Christmas this year that I am absolutely loving and is upping our pepper consumption is a battery operated pepper grinder. 

  

Tonya Kubo (16:19) 

Hmm. 

  

Ugh. 

  

One day, one day. So it’s that soup and then kale soup. I love kale soup. 

  

Kathi Lipp (16:28) 

Yes. Yes. 

  

Okay, kale 

  

soup I have had before and it was delicious. okay, do you have recipes you could share with us? Okay. 

  

Tonya Kubo (16:40) 

I do. Yeah. have a great, 

  

it’s funny as my watercress, my watercress soup recipe was like from Women’s World Magazine. Victoria Beckham, I think is who it was, but it was like, she swore by like watercress soup to get ready for award shows. And I’m just like, well, I just like to eat watercress soup. So I use that recipe still. And then I’ve got some great kale recipes. 

  

Kathi Lipp (16:59) 

interesting, okay. 

  

Yeah, that just sounds good. 

  

Okay, I can’t wait. Yeah, the kale soup I have is with bacon. So maybe that’s not the same kind of emphasis. Okay, so I’m going to give you guys a couple of my recipes. So I think chili is a great lenten soup because you can do it with beans, you don’t have to do it with any kind of meat or you can use up leftover meat. I’ve even done chili with ham, which sounds different. 

  

Tonya Kubo (17:23) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (17:38) 

But it’s really good, it’s a lot of, you’re using a lot of onions and beans and tomatoes, things that you have cans of. You can almost do the entire soup out of cans and there’s nothing fancy that anything has to go with that. I will say the cream of mushroom soup that I made last week, maybe my favorite soup I’ve had in the past six months. It was, 

  

Tonya Kubo (17:52) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (18:08) 

I don’t know that broccoli was pretty good too, but the cream of mushroom soup was a killer. has a lot, I like soups with a lot of onion in them. So that makes me super, super happy. And this is, this to me is the ultimate lenten soup. I call it the five spoon interpretive vegetable soup. So it’s basically cleaning out your crisper drawer and 

  

Tonya Kubo (18:16) 

Mmm. 

  

Mmm. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (18:35) 

You know, there’s kind of an order that things go into it with. You you start with the potatoes because you want to get those softer and you end up with things like kale or, you know, spinach because that’s the thing that needs the least amount of cooking. And then you keep tasting it to say, does it need more salt? Does it need more pepper? Could it use more garlic? That kind of thing. But that’s one of my favorites. There’s gosh, there are so many. 

  

Tonya Kubo (18:44) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Do you want to hear 

  

Brian’s favorite from Sabbath Soup? The minestrone. 

  

Kathi Lipp (19:06) 

Yes, yes I 

  

was just gonna talk about the minestrone. he likes it. I’m so glad Yeah, you guys it’s so simple, but it’s so good and 

  

Tonya Kubo (19:17) 

He loves minestrone 

  

soup in general, but yeah, he was, that’s his favorite out of the whole cookbook. 

  

Kathi Lipp (19:23) 

my goodness, I’m so glad. I love that people have favorites. Okay, I’m going to give you one more because I want to make sure that we have six soups here so we can have it for the six weeks. I’m trying to think of like what would, you know, I’m trying to think of our meatless one. You could do the white bean. Now it’s chicken chili, but you don’t have to have the chicken in it. If you want to go meatless, the white bean chili. 

  

Tonya Kubo (19:31) 

Hmm 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (19:48) 

Super simple super easy. You’ve got some sauteed onions in there that they’re just gonna put it over the top It’s gonna make you super happy. You could also do the lasagna soup without any Meat with it and yeah, let’s be honest sausage makes soup taste better. I’m not gonna lie, but 

  

Tonya Kubo (20:08) 

Yeah, 

  

my traditional kale soup recipe uses sausage because it’s delicious. What about the lemon soup in there, the Greek lemon soup? 

  

Kathi Lipp (20:12) 

Yes. Okay. 

  

Yeah, the Greek 

  

lemon soup. now that sometimes you can have that with chicken or without, but that’s my son’s favorite soup. And so, yeah, and I, so everything I’m talking about, I suggest a lot of pepper with, I’m not gonna lie. I like a peppery oniony soup. It’s gonna make it all taste better. So we’re not saying you go without taste, but maybe just approach the meal differently. What do I already have? 

  

Tonya Kubo (20:25) 

So good 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (20:46) 

What can I give flavor with spices instead of meat or high, you know, expensive ingredients? What can I do with things that I already have on hand to keep it simple? What does not require a lot of fussy cooking? 

  

Tonya Kubo (20:52) 

Mmm. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (21:08) 

Like, 

  

you I made that broccoli soup. It probably took me 25 minutes to put together, but none of it was fussy. It was a little bit more labor intensive because I used fresh broccoli, because I used a hunk of cheese instead of pre-grated cheese. But I also think that those two decisions gave it more flavor. So, you know, I’m willing to make those trade-offs because 

  

Tonya Kubo (21:25) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (21:36) 

the better the ingredients, the better the soup. But you don’t have to use expensive ingredients, just the best ingredients you have available. So we’re gonna put those six recipes in the show notes so that you don’t have to buy Sabbath soup in order to do all this. But guys, I’m just gonna say, what can you do to make your life simpler during Lent so that you can focus on the things that you 

  

Tonya Kubo (21:45) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (22:06) 

Focus on the attributes of God. Focus on the things that God wants for you during Lent to live a simpler life, to live a plainer life, but one that is not boring. It’s not flavorless, but you’re just creating space. And that’s what I want for you. And if you’re like, I don’t even know when Lent is, Kathi. I don’t even know what we’re talking about here. So it’s March 5th through April 17th. 

  

Tonya Kubo (22:21) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (22:35) 

So it’s coming early this year. Like it’s right around the corner, but you guys were gonna do this together. I’ll be posting some of those recipes. Tonya, thanks for talking about this with me. food is one of our favorites, not gonna lie. 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’ve always wanted to live. 

  

Tonya Kubo (22:37) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Thanks for having me. I love to talk about food anytime. 

 

 

More Posts 

#659 Simple Soups for a Meaningful Lent Season

#658 The All or Nothing Trap: Why Good Enough is Good Enough

by | Feb 25, 2025 | Clutter Free, Clutter Free For Life, Clutter Free Home, Podcast, Spiritual Renewal | 0 comments

#658 The All or Nothing Trap: Why Good Enough is Good Enough

Listen Now

In this episode of Clutter Free Academy, host Kathi Lipp is joined by her clutter buddy, Tonya Kubo, to tackle the all-too-common mindset of “if you can’t do it right, don’t do it at all”. Together, they explore how this thinking impacts our homes and hearts, and share practical tips on shifting to a more grace-filled, progress-focused approach. Listeners will learn about the power of small steps in creating a tidier home and how to redefine the standards of a clutter-free living space. Tune in to hear a bit about Kathi’s strategy for managing clutter and hear about the upcoming Clutter Free Bible Study which offers insights on decluttering beyond just your physical space. 

Click here to be notified when the next podcast 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!”

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

Links Mentioned:

Clutter Free Resources:

Join our Clutter Free Academy Facebook Group

Order Sabbath Soup here

Let’s stay connected

To share your thoughts:

  • Leave a note in the comment section below.
  • Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one.

Subscribe on iTunes or subscribe to our newsletter now.

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 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
Transcript

Kathi Lipp (00:11) 

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 my friend, my clutter buddy. It is Tonya Kubo. Hey, Tonya. 

  

Tonya Kubo (00:26) 

Hey Kathi! 

  

Kathi Lipp (00:28) 

So I want to talk about something that I know that has been brought up a lot recently, especially in our paid group, Clutterfree for Life. And I know it’s something I’ve struggled with. You’ve talked about struggling with it. is. It makes me angry almost. If it’s the if you can’t do something right, don’t do something at all. If you, you know, OK. 

  

Tonya Kubo (00:47) 

Hmm. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (00:56) 

I will say, you know, we say around here every time, you can have it half donkeyed or you can do it full donkeyed. I’m trying to say it because I know we have a lot of people listening with little ears on. you know, around here, we’re full donkey people. so, but I will say, okay, can I call out a relative here just for a second? 

  

Tonya Kubo (01:13) 

Thank you. 

  

Kathi Lipp (01:24) 

So I was helping somebody at their house recently and I had spent, I don’t know, two hours working on cleaning and vacuuming and doing all the things, right? And then I get done and the sentence was, thank you, but there are still streaks on the window. 

  

Tonya Kubo (01:36) 

Yeah. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (01:52) 

And like, okay. And my goodness, it was so defeating. I’m not going to lie. I’m still a little bitter about it. I am recovering though. And you know, it’s, it, it brings up so much from my childhood, not necessarily from my parents, but from teachers, from neighbors who were like, well, if you can’t do it right, why do it at all? And I have come to learn. 

  

Tonya Kubo (01:57) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Right. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Right. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (02:22) 

that that was probably the motto in every house that a cluttery person has ever grown up in. How did this manifest for you as you were a child going into adulthood? Is that something that you heard and who did you hear from? 

  

Tonya Kubo (02:42) 

No, so like never really heard those words specifically at home. I mean, I think very much if you’re a child of the eighties, that’s just what you were taught, right? Child of the seventies, child of the eighties. It’s like, you can’t do something right. Don’t do something at all. I know people who grew up in like evangelical circles. There was a lot of like, you’re supposed to do everything like you’re doing it for Jesus. Would you do it like that for Jesus? No. Or if you didn’t like that for Jesus, like really? 

  

Kathi Lipp (02:46) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Yeah. Mm-hmm. 

  

Right, yes. 

  

Tonya Kubo (03:09) 

What do you think? That’s disrespectful to Jesus. But at home, again, I grew up with a hoarder who had a very interesting perspective on how other people should live. So I remember having to clean the house, like I’d be home alone, I’m supposed to clean the whole house, cleaning the whole house, and then being told that nothing I did counted because I had one fork in the sink. 

  

Kathi Lipp (03:12) 

Yeah. 

  

Hmm. 

  

Mmm. Ugh. 

  

Tonya Kubo (03:38) 

Right? It’s like the one fork in the sink negated the seven hours I had spent as, you know, a 12 year old cleaning an entire house on my own. And it was just always like, and then I remember, you know, going through high school, like, why should I do anything? 

  

Kathi Lipp (03:53) 

Absolutely. 

  

Tonya Kubo (03:55) 

Like why do anything 

  

if my best will never be good enough? And I remember my cousin who I’m very close with and we grew up, she would say, okay, here’s the deal, Tonya. We’re just gonna put the wind fork in the sink and we’re just gonna leave it there. And we will know between the two of us that when she comes home, she’s gonna complain about the fork in the sink, but see, we put it there on purpose. But it never mattered to me. 

  

Kathi Lipp (04:14) 

Mmm. That’s. 

  

That’s so hard as a kid. It really is. So the thing I want to think about here is one, how do we not do that to people we are raising? We still want, I don’t know, you know, I’ve grown up my whole life thinking we want excellence, but excellence, you know, yeah. 

  

Tonya Kubo (04:21) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Well, this all goes back to like my mantra, 

  

which I’ve said here on the podcast several times, which is if I don’t have to do it, I do not judge how it gets done. Because you know what the thing is, like, you know, my mom grew up in a household where there was one way that you folded things and that was the right way and everything else was wrong. So my mom grew up in an environment where if you didn’t fold a towel where it was perfect right angles and it had to be folded in thirds, 

  

Kathi Lipp (04:47) 

It’s so true, right? 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Tonya Kubo (05:08) 

The laundry basket got dumped out and you had to refold the entire load, not just the towels that were folded incorrectly, the entire load over and over and over again until every single towel was folded perfectly. So can I blame her for how she raised me? No, I can’t. 

  

Kathi Lipp (05:16) 

Ugh. 

  

I just gonna say, 

  

we need to give a little bit of a break to our parents who hopefully did better than their parents and hopefully we are doing better than them and our kids will do better than us. May it be so. 

  

Tonya Kubo (05:29) 

Right. 

  

Exactly! 

  

Mm-hmm. And I remember, 

  

yes, and I remember one time was when Brian and I were married and I was folding towels and my mom was over and she starts like in on me, right? About like, well, if your grandmother was alive, I’m like, well, number one, she’s not. And number two, why would you, I would tell her the same thing I’m gonna tell you. Why do you care you’re not folding my towels? They’re not going in your cabinet. It doesn’t matter. But I have carried that through, which means that Lily lives out of laundry baskets. I hate it with every fiber of my being, but you know what? 

  

Kathi Lipp (05:48) 

Right? 

  

Right, it’s not… Yeah. Yeah. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Tonya Kubo (06:04) 

She’s not asking me to find her clothes in the morning to get ready. It doesn’t affect me. So I just move on. 

  

Kathi Lipp (06:07) 

Right. 

  

Yes, it’s so true. And you know, I’ve had to fold my towels two different ways in my adulthood because in one cabinet they fit one way and in another cabinet they fit a different way. And now I live in a space where it doesn’t matter. So anybody can fold the towels. It’s okay. If you want to come fold towels at my house, I will give you the address that Google will send you to here. Yeah. So. 

  

Tonya Kubo (06:22) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Yeah, exactly. You are happy to full-tell your way at my house, 

  

I’ll let you. 

  

Kathi Lipp (06:40) 

Exactly. 

  

So here’s something that’s so interesting though. Like what I finally had to figure out is if I wanted to live in a house that met my own very mediocre standards, I couldn’t wait till I had time so I could do everything at once. Nothing in my house will all be the right right quote unquote way at the same time. 

  

Tonya Kubo (06:54) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Mm-hmm. Yeah. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (07:10) 

Because even if I have people coming over, that probably means that my bedroom is the receiving end of some nonsense. I’m just gonna make do. And so some of the things I’ve learned and some of the things that have really helped me in getting the kind of house that I want are doing things in tiny sections. So. 

  

Tonya Kubo (07:19) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (07:35) 

Used to wait until I could wipe the whole counter down so I’d spray the whole counter and I’d wait five minutes and then I’d wipe it all down and How often do I have time for that? Not never but now I’ll just do hey I can do the counter above the sink. So I’m gonna squirt that down I’m gonna let wait for a couple of minutes and then I’m gonna wipe all that down and Does that mean it’s how I want it to be? No, but does that mean I am closer to how I want it to be? 

  

Tonya Kubo (07:51) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (08:03) 

And when I come to prepare lunch later on there’s going to be a clean place for me to be able to do it huzzah You know, i’ve talked about this plenty of times on the On the podcast that my oatmeal now cooks for two minutes and 33 seconds I don’t know why the time has changed it has changed that is plenty of time for me to get at least half the dishes unloaded And that makes me so happy and I know you you’ve 

  

Tonya Kubo (08:09) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (08:32) 

mentioned that you thought it took like 15 minutes 20 minutes to unload a dishwasher and When you heard me talking about oatmeal, you’re like, I can get that done in about four or five minutes. Yeah, you actually can Unless you have a much bigger dishwasher than I do but doing things in sections and by the way People will tell me all the time. Well, then how does the next person know whether those are clean or dirty? I’m like, well I tell them or they ask 

  

Tonya Kubo (08:43) 

Yup. 

  

Kathi Lipp (09:01) 

Like we have communication in our house, so it’s okay. And you know, he knows I am a serial half dishwasher emptier and it’s okay. That’s totally fine. But I have struck upon this, this idea for me, and this might be helpful to somebody else out there that I am working on my house two by two by one at a time. And what I mean by that is the space 

  

Tonya Kubo (09:02) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (09:30) 

is not going to be bigger than two feet by two feet and it’s not going to be deeper than one foot. And that’s a drawer or half of a drawer or half of the kitchen table or half of the living room table or half of a shelf in the garage. And because my brain tells me I’m going to wait until I have three hours on Saturday to clean out the garage. 

  

Tonya Kubo (09:36) 

Okay. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (09:59) 

There is no three hours in my entire life where I want to spend it cleaning out the garage. But 30 minutes at a time, 20 minutes at a time, most of the time it’s just 15 minutes at a time, these little things. Now, there are things that you should be excellent at. If you are giving your child medication, be the best medication giver you can be. Do everything you can to make sure that that goes well. 

  

Tonya Kubo (10:23) 

Yes. 

  

Kathi Lipp (10:27) 

When it comes to wiping down your counter, I’m okay if you get a D plus at that. And I’m okay if I get a D plus at that as well. And so, you know, I feel like one of the things that we have to do is retrain our brains against this all or nothing thinking. Tonya, we’re gonna take a little break and we’re gonna talk about an opportunity that’s coming up. And this is gonna be an opportunity for you to get a D plus in decluttering. 

  

Tonya Kubo (10:28) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (10:58) 

We’re going to practice getting rid of all or nothing thinking. We’re going to take a break and we’ll be right back. 

  

Okay, we are back and we are going to practice our eliminating our all or nothing thinking. And if you listened to the podcast last week, you heard us talking about the clutter free Bible study, what Jesus has to say about your stuff. And lots of times people want to do the Bible study, but they’re like, I don’t have the time. I, I, you know, I don’t want to show up less than for the Bible study. 

  

Tonya Kubo (11:33) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (11:34) 

I don’t know that I have time to do the homework. so Tonya you have three levels of Bible study participate, which I love by the way, because there I think I told you I did Beth Moore’s Breaking Free probably 

  

Tonya Kubo (11:41) 

I do? 

  

yes, you and half the nation. Including me. 

  

Kathi Lipp (11:54) 

Right, like I probably did it, yeah, 10 times. I still have 

  

the workbook because I’ve gone back and looked at it. But there were times where I was leading the study and there were times where I was just barely making it there in my pajama bottoms. And you know what the beautiful thing was? The pajama bottoms times, I had a leader who every time just said, I’m so happy to see your face. 

  

Tonya Kubo (12:06) 

you 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (12:23) 

You know, it wasn’t I could never do bsf. I know that people love bsf and they are transformed people but the the kind of study where if you don’t do your homework basically I I think the premise is you’re not allowed to talk unless you’ve done all your homework and You know, hey that works for a lot of people. That is not my jam 

  

Tonya Kubo (12:27) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (12:47) 

And so this is leaning more towards my benevolent leader in Beth Moore’s Breaking Free, how Tonya runs the Bible study. So can you tell us a little bit about the Bible study and your three ways that you can participate? 

  

Tonya Kubo (13:00) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

So the Clutter Free Bible study is It’s a series of videos. So you watch a video We have a downloadable workbook that you can print or you can fill it online. Whatever makes you happy So you watch a video you have your workbook reflection and then once a week we gather together in the Facebook group we do a Facebook live and We have our discussion so and that 

  

for some of you, you’re a Beth Moore study person, that’s easy peasy, right? And if you’re not a Beth Moore study person, that already feels like a lot. So the small, medium, and large tiers that I have come up with is the small version is you know what, this is important, and yet I do not have time for one more thing in my life. So what I will do is I will mark the calendar for the weekly live discussions and I will show up to those. 

  

Kathi Lipp (13:32) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Tonya Kubo (13:56) 

I’m 

  

just gonna show up, I’m gonna listen. you know, if Tonya asks a question that I feel like I can respond to, sure, I’ll answer that question, that’s fine. But I’m just gonna show up and I’m just gonna pay attention to the conversation. Medium is I own the study, so I either have bought it fresh or I bought it years ago and I’m pulling it out. I’m watching the e-course, so I’m watching the videos, I’m looking at the workbook, fill out the questions, don’t fill out the questions, totally up to you, right? But that is medium. 

  

I’m watching the videos, I’m at least reading through the workbook questions, and maybe even digging out my Bible app to look at what scripture says to make sure that what Kathi says the scripture says is actually what my Bible says the scripture says. That’s very important to some people, by the way. And then large is I’m gonna do all of that, right? So I’m gonna watch the videos, work on the workbook, I’m gonna participate in the live discussion, and I’m gonna pull out my… 

  

Kathi Lipp (14:27) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Hahaha 

  

Okay. 

  

Tonya Kubo (14:54) 

handy-dandy copy of Clutter Free and I’m gonna follow the reading plan, right? Because the Clutter Free book is a separate purchase from the Bible study, but some people love to go through the book in conjunction with the Bible study and that is going all out. That is whole donkey, as you like to describe it. That is going whole donkey and I think every year maybe about 

  

Kathi Lipp (15:12) 

Right. 

  

Yeah. 

  

Tonya Kubo (15:21) 

15 % of our study participants do the whole thing. A lot of people will start in one level and life happens as we get closer to Easter and they drop down a level. But by being able to pick whether you’re going small, medium, and large, it completely eliminates the pass or fail that most of us tend to put ourselves under. 

  

Kathi Lipp (15:29) 

Right. 

  

Yes. 

  

You know, I think about it, it’s kind of like exercise for me because I get down on myself so much for missing exercise. But, know, really, if I’m showing up once a week, that’s more than I was showing up. That was once a week more than I was showing up a year ago. And we’re looking for trajectory, not perfection. And yeah, we want. And so if you pick up a couple of things during this Bible study, 

  

Tonya Kubo (16:02) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Exactly. 

  

Kathi Lipp (16:13) 

That could change your life. It absolutely could. Okay, tell us a little bit about the weekly schedule just so people know what they’re getting into. 

  

Tonya Kubo (16:14) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Yeah, 

  

so we’re gonna kick off February 28th. And that’s where I just, I’ll explain the small medium and large plan. I will answer any questions, but I’ll kind of talk about how we approach it, how it’s very easy and gentle. And that’s also where I explain to people, because a lot of people will enter into the Bible study assuming that their house is gonna be spick and span spotless by the end of it. I explained that the Bible study is not the kind of, 

  

decluttering process where you’re gonna see it play out in your house. It’s really about decluttering your heart and your emotions around stuff. Then we, it’s a six week discussion. So that goes from March 7th to April 11th. So you watch the videos, you do the workbook, then we come together and discuss like I mentioned. And then on Good Friday, which is April 18th, we will get together for a celebration. 

  

in advance of Easter and then on April 20th you get to have Easter with your family but you’re all done with the Bible study before Easter begins which I think is really important because we believe in holidays and rest over here in Clutter Free Academy and even when we lead a Bible study we want to build in periods of rest. 

  

Kathi Lipp (17:24) 

Guess. 

  

Yes. 

  

Absolutely. We love some good rest around here because we talked about guilt in our last podcast and the guilt keeps us from resting and until we have no choice but to rest. And that’s not how I want you to earn your rest friends. It’s really not. Okay. So what are people going to learn in this Bible study? 

  

Tonya Kubo (17:46) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

No. 

  

Yeah, so like I said, it’s not the kind of Bible study where you’re gonna clear out spaces in your home, but it digs deep into the heart of why you keep things, what the Bible says it means to be a good steward. Because again, so often in Clutter Free Academy, we assume being a good steward means we keep everything we’ve ever bought that could potentially be useful to somebody somewhere, even if not this century. And then we also kind of, 

  

Kathi Lipp (18:23) 

Right. 

  

Tonya Kubo (18:27) 

address the perspective of building new habits. Like one exercise that is a favorite that is part of the Bible study is going to a store like Target or Walmart, whatever you have in your area, and going into the store, walking around the store, and walking out without buying a single thing. Not because it makes you holier than anybody else to do that, but to prove to yourself that walking into a store does not obligate you to buy stuff. 

  

Kathi Lipp (18:54) 

Yes, it’s so true, right? 

  

Tonya Kubo (18:57) 

And 

  

people really believe that they can’t do it. And then they’re so proud of themselves when they can. you know, every year, people have some amazing experiences and their perspective shifts in incredible ways. And we have people who’ve been doing this every year with us since 2016. Grace Church, who’s been on the podcast before, she is the community manager over in our paid membership program, Clutter Free for Life. She joined. 

  

Kathi Lipp (19:00) 

Yeah. 

  

Mmm. 

  

Yeah. 

  

Tonya Kubo (19:25) 

  1. Like that’s how I first met her was when she did the initial Bible study and it was about three years in. So her third or fourth round with the Bible study where her big aha was that clutter was a boundary issue and that she had come so far in her life in asserting and maintaining strong healthy boundaries with people but she had no boundaries when it came to stuff.

  

Kathi Lipp (19:39) 

Mmm. 

  

Interesting. 

  

Tonya Kubo (19:53) 

And so, and she wrote this beautiful thing, which I need to pull out of the archives because we have it still, about how once she was able to make that association, the clutter shows that I don’t have boundaries around stuff. She was able to draw a really strong boundary about what could come into the house. And by having a strong boundary of what it was allowed in, that automatically reduced the amount of time and energy she had to spend in decluttering. 

  

Because if she could stop it at the front door, she never had to worry about when to get rid of it. 

  

Kathi Lipp (20:27) 

Yeah. it’s so interesting. Isn’t it interesting the folklore we have built up around our stuff and about keeping stuff. And I’m going to hurt Amazon’s feelings if I return this item. And, you know, it’s just all these things. It was very interesting to me, you know, because I’m I’m an over-politer and I don’t want to bother the person who’s waiting on us on the table and stuff like that. 

  

Tonya Kubo (20:34) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (20:55) 

And I just saw a TikTok recently where somebody said, you’ve got a normal request and you ask politely, you are doing better than 98 % of the people who come in. And it’s like, so me asking for more ranch or whatever it is, right? You’re not going to go back into the back kitchen and say, can you believe this woman? Can you? 

  

Tonya Kubo (21:05) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Yup. 

  

Right. 

  

Right? 

  

Kathi Lipp (21:23) 

And me returning things to an online retailer, that’s part of doing business. I am not offending somebody by doing that. But there is such folklore. If I go into a store, I need to buy something. Or if I use the bathroom, I need to buy something. You know what? I think I’ve paid for my bathroom trip about 1,000 times over. I think we’re good. 

  

Tonya Kubo (21:30) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Mm-hmm. Yep. 

  

Right. 

  

Kathi Lipp (21:50) 

I’m you know, you said you’re not going to get rid of clutter, but we can see some of our members creating new habits. And so so tell me a little bit about that. What have you seen in the past in the Bible study? 

  

Tonya Kubo (22:00) 

yeah! 

  

Yeah, so new habits. So a lot of the habits that our members have created, so like, you know, using Grace as an example is stopping clutter at the front door, whatever that looks like. So that could be, you know, at work, somebody says, hey, do you want to take this? No, I’m good. Right? Because if I don’t take it here, right, because once it goes into my car, now it’s my job to figure out what to do with it. 

  

Kathi Lipp (22:17) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Mmm, right. 

  

Yeah, 

  

it’s so true. 

  

Tonya Kubo (22:29) 

You know, 

  

for me, it was during the first Bible study that I started going through my mail over the recycling bin rather than bringing it into the house. So the only stuff that comes into the house is stuff I actually need or have to take action on. But a lot of folks have experienced complete shifts in their habits around shopping. So for some people, they broke the habit and Lent is such a great time for breaking habits that don’t actually benefit you. 

  

Kathi Lipp (22:37) 

Yeah. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Tonya Kubo (22:57) 

They broke their habit of automatically stopping at the grocery store or stopping at any store after work or shopping out of boredom. A lot of people recognize that they go, that Target, Walmart, those kind of super stores are an emotional coping mechanism. It’s where they go when they’re lonely. It’s where they go when they’re bored and they just kind of walk around the store and they tell themselves, well, it’s just free, right? Like it would cost me money to go to the movies. It would cost me money to take a friend out to lunch. 

  

Kathi Lipp (23:24) 

Hmm. 

  

Tonya Kubo (23:26) 

I go to Target and it’s free, but then they wouldn’t think about all the things that they would buy as part of their Target habit. We talk a lot about the dollar spot, right? Or the bargain bins at stores. well, it’s totally fine that I go to Target every single week. I know I’m picking on Target, but that’s just because that’s what we have where I live. But it’s fine that I go there because I only get stuff that’s at the dollar spot. Right, but five things from the dollar spot. 

  

Kathi Lipp (23:31) 

Right. 

  

Yeah. 

  

Right. 

  

Tonya Kubo (23:53) 

only cost you five dollars, but it takes up the space of five things. And it’s five things that at some point you’re going to have to get rid of. And did you need it to begin with? 

  

Kathi Lipp (24:03) 

And Tonya, the other thing I’m gonna say is stores are not dumb. They know that your house feels chaotic and their house feels bright and organized and it makes sense. And those mannequins give you ideas of how you could use those things. Those displays give you… 

  

Tonya Kubo (24:10) 

Mm-mm. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (24:31) 

And 

  

if I just had this thing, then my life, I know nobody is saying this to themselves, but your amygdala is saying this to yourself. If only I had those plates, then the rest of my kitchen would come together. If only I had that mail organizer, I would never have clutter again. And so the displays, the advertisements are promising a life that feels like an escape from your house. 

  

Tonya Kubo (24:46) 

Mm-hmm. 

  

Mm-hmm. 

  

Kathi Lipp (25:01) 

And what we want your house to be is to be that sanctuary that doesn’t mean you feel like you have to leave it all the time to get that peace. That’s what we want for you. Okay, guys, we are going to have all the information on how to join the Bible study in the show notes, all the links. Mark your calendars for February 28th for the kickoff. 

  

Tonya Kubo (25:09) 

Exactly. 

  

Kathi Lipp (25:27) 

You can invite some friends if you know that they also struggle with some of these things. It is so much more fun to do it together. If you don’t have a friend that you can invite, then you’re gonna make friends. That’s what we want you to do. We’re gonna make friends who understand your cluttering language. Tonya, this has been great. Thanks so much for being with us today and for leading this. I know how passionate you are about. 

  

Tonya Kubo (25:50) 

Yes, and I hope that everybody listening will join us because it really is a good time. It really is. 

  

Kathi Lipp (25:55) 

Yeah, it really is. And friends, you have 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 

#659 Simple Soups for a Meaningful Lent Season

#657 Rediscover Peace: The Psychological Benefits of Decluttering

by | Feb 18, 2025 | Clutter Free, Clutter Free For Life, Clutter Free Home, Podcast, Spiritual Renewal | 0 comments

#657 Rediscover Peace: The Psychological Benefits of Decluttering

Listen Now

In this episode of Clutter Free Academy, host Kathi Lipp is joined by Tonya Kubo to delve into the hidden costs of clutter and how it impacts our lives beyond the physical. They explore the emotional, spiritual, and financial toll that clutter can take and discuss practical steps to reclaim space and peace of mind. Tonya shares her personal journey from cluttered chaos to organized serenity, offering inspiration and insights for listeners. They also introduce the Clutter Free Bible study—an online program designed to help you tackle the root causes of clutter through a spiritual lens. Tune in to learn how decluttering can lead to emotional freedom and spiritual renewal just in time for Lent.

Click here to be notified when the next podcast 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!”

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

Links Mentioned:

Clutter Free Resources:

Join our Clutter Free Academy Facebook Group

Order Sabbath Soup here

Let’s stay connected

To share your thoughts:

  • Leave a note in the comment section below.
  • Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one.

Subscribe on iTunes or subscribe to our newsletter now.

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 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
Transcript

Kathi Lipp (00:10)
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 But more life and I am back here with the reigning queen of all things clutter. It is Tonya Kubo. Hey Tonya You know what we are diving into a season in Clutter Free Academy that really is all about Tonya and her people

Tonya Kubo (00:25)
Hey, Kathi

haha

Kathi Lipp (00:37)
And it’s it because we are coming up on link now. I’m doing some linty things Which sounds like I need to get one of those picker uppers to get stuff off my clothes. You’re right exactly Because I’m gonna be talking a lot about soup around lent because soup and lent go together really really really well Especially with the weather we’re having here in California today is is it crazy where you are to yes?

Tonya Kubo (00:43)
You are?

I was gonna say you need a roller. We need a roller.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

…Currential

Downpour.

Kathi Lipp (01:05)
Okay, totally off topic. Can I tell you how excited Roger is because we bought these giant backup batteries that for when you know, the power goes out, he wanted his computer and my computer to keep going. Sadly, the weather has been beautiful here. We have barely had a dusting of snow.

Tonya Kubo (01:14)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

And Roger did not get to play with his new toys.

Kathi Lipp (01:30)
Exactly until yesterday and then yesterday we still had beautiful weather But they had to turn our power off in order to do you know things and we got to use all of our giant batteries and Roger Lipp has never been happier, but this has nothing to do with what we’re talking about We are talking about as we go into lint I think you and I you know, we’re both looking at

Tonya Kubo (01:33)
Yeah

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Kathi Lipp (02:00)
We just cut off of a conversation where there’s a lot going on in Tonya’s life like right now like Tonya I hate to say this this has been like the most chill week I’ve had and it feels like five years

Tonya Kubo (02:11)
Yay! I was gonna

say because you haven’t had a chill week in five years, Kathi you deserve a chill week.

Kathi Lipp (02:19)
I am absorbing it and I’m doing some deep thinking and things like that. And on the opposite end of the spectrum is Tonya’s life. And it’s interesting, I’m gonna ask you a question that we did not prepare for. With everything going on in your life, there’s been some relationship stuff, emotional stuff, work stuff, kid stuff.

Tonya Kubo (02:33)
Mm-hmm.

Kathi Lipp (02:44)
If you were still where you were 10 years ago with clutter, how would this week have looked different for you? Because I know it’s been a very stressful week, but I also know you’ve made great progress in your life.

Tonya Kubo (02:49)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so the thing is, is when in my life, right, when I was early in my clutter journey, because I think like we have a lot of listeners who are like eons beyond where I started off with, right? Like they are just so much, their starting point is so much higher than where my starting point was. But I wouldn’t have been able to function. I mean, I think I would have had to take like a week off of work.

Kathi Lipp (03:14)
All right.

Right.

Tonya Kubo (03:26)
I’d probably have a really hard time. I definitely would have a hard time eating. That’s always one of the things is when I am overwhelmed and life is difficult, I really struggle to feed myself. I feed the people around me, but I don’t do well feeding myself. And then I just fall into like very base level survival habits. So I wouldn’t have slept. You know, my old life, I would frequently be up 18 to 20 hours a day.

Kathi Lipp (03:31)
you

Yeah.

my goodness. I can’t even imagine.

Tonya Kubo (03:56)
Because

I just didn’t feel like I had the luxury of sleep. And so…

Kathi Lipp (03:59)
And it

can I also point something else out that I I just want to say, you know, this is again, rough couple of weeks, lots of things going on. And not only clutter wise, are you so much further behind? And, know, if somebody says that, oh, I lost $50,000 in the stock market, that’s a lot of money. But depending on where you started from, that could be life changing.

Tonya Kubo (04:03)
Mm-hmm.

Exactly.

Kathi Lipp (04:28)
Or

I have to put off retirement for another three months. know, like for different people, yeah. So that you didn’t have to start with such a deficit because of this, but you have also done some big stuff for your health over the past couple of years that, you know, where, you know, 10 years ago, your health also would have taken. I’m just saying you have done so much progress in so many ways.

Tonya Kubo (04:32)
Right. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Kathi Lipp (04:58)
That while this has been an incredibly hard couple of weeks You have done it with you know, you’ve kept your nose above water

Tonya Kubo (05:06)
Right, well, it’s been very easy to figure out what to do and not do, right? So it’s one of those things where, you know, it’s like the, we’re kind of at the beginning of the month and we do a lot of our grocery shopping at the beginning of the month. But like my shelves weren’t bare. It was no hardship to put off grocery shopping for a week. You know, some people had offered to bring us meals and I just said yes. And it was very easy to say yes to that because I didn’t have food rotting in the fridge.

Kathi Lipp (05:10)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Right.

Good for you.

Right.

Tonya Kubo (05:35)
because we

have a great system for eating all the food that we cook. So it was like, yeah, actually, my leftovers will be tapped out on Wednesday. So if you want to bring dinner over for us on Wednesday, that will be awesome. And then somebody else was like, well, can I just send you Uber Eats gift card? You are welcome to send us that. That would be great. I have a great use for that. So I could, when people offered help, I knew exactly what kind of help I needed. But the main thing, Kathi, is I was in bed by eight o’clock every single night.

Kathi Lipp (05:38)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (06:04)
Now the one hard thing for me, right, is because again, when I get stressed out, like my body just does different things. I have not been able to get out of bed before 5 a.m., which you me, I’m a 4 a.m. person.

Kathi Lipp (06:15)
I’m sorry. Yeah, for the rest of the world, yes, but for Tonya, I know that’s sleeping in.

Tonya Kubo (06:21)
But being able to sleep for that kind of stretch would not have been possible before.

Kathi Lipp (06:26)
Yeah, and you know what I’m going to attribute a lot of this to not everything but a lot of it too is that you really are our champion when it comes to the hidden cost of clutter You’re the one who’s constantly pointing out No, it’s not just that you have to move stuff over if you want to sit down on your couch You you are the one who keeps bringing up in conversation the emotional drain

Tonya Kubo (06:41)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Kathi Lipp (06:55)
the spiritual drain. And so that’s what I want to talk to you about today is, is it possible, all these places where we just, we are feeling so incredibly tapped out, is it possible to make changes like that in your life? And I, you know, I’m just going to say yes, because I’ve seen it in your life. I’ve seen it in my own life.

Tonya Kubo (06:58)
Uh-huh.

Mm-hmm.

Kathi Lipp (07:22)
I’ve seen it in the lives of some of, you know, many of our members where, and I think we sometimes forget to do that because we see how much further we have to go. I’m doing this with my clutter right now. Like, can you believe how out of control my t-shirt drawer is? Like, why am I even teaching anything in Clutter Free? Because if you saw my t-shirt drawer, you’d be like, she has nothing to say. And, but before,

Tonya Kubo (07:33)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Kathi Lipp (07:51)
I was paying late charges on every bill we had. I couldn’t find, I remember the day I couldn’t find my toothbrush. Like Tonya, what happened to my toothbrush? Like where was I taking my toothbrush?

Tonya Kubo (07:55)
Right.

Yeah.

Kathi Lipp (08:09)
And if you came to my house right now, would I like five minutes heads up? Yeah. Do I need it? I don’t. so I, yes, that change is possible. I want to know for you, where have you seen the biggest difference in emotions from the time? And both of us are coming from guys, our houses are not perfect. And Tonya would be the first to say, cause she’s been to my house. You know, she is

Tonya Kubo (08:16)
Right.

Kathi Lipp (08:38)
Let’s just say she has a lot of life going on at her house. know, Roger and I, we could say, I could say I’m not cooking today, and it would just be fine. That would not go over so well at your house. You know, people…

Tonya Kubo (08:47)
Mm-hmm.

No. Well Abby would

love that because then Abby would be like, well, can we go to Olive Garden? answer is no, child. No, cannot. No.

Kathi Lipp (08:55)
Hahaha!

Abby and Roger are just two people separated by 50 years. That’s all there is to it.

I just want to know what, where have you seen the biggest emotional difference for you?

Tonya Kubo (09:13)
So this is, hard to articulate, but I’ll try and then you’ll make it sound like it makes sense. Before, there was always a level of chaos. So if you picture like, okay, my brain is cluttered and there’s a scale of one to 10. On a good day, my brain was already at level seven. So there was never much more space for things, right?

Kathi Lipp (09:40)
Right.

Right.

Tonya Kubo (09:41)
So

like prioritizing the simplest, I just couldn’t do it. By the end of the workday, I’d already made so many decisions. I couldn’t tell you what to have for dinner unless I’d planned that four days ago. Now, I would say my average level of like capacity of my brain taken up is like two. So like a lot of life can actually get thrown at me before I’m at that level of paralyzed that I was every single day.

Kathi Lipp (09:44)
Mm-hmm.

Right. Yes.

Mmm.

That’s such a gift. is. When you’re not having to spend, you know, your levels on finding the car keys, figuring out where that permission slip is that your kid brought home three days ago. When you are not having to, you know, when dishes are not a crisis. Because I remember thinking dishes are a crisis, not this is just a part of what we do every day. I know.

Tonya Kubo (10:13)
It really is.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Uh-huh.

Right?

Kathi Lipp (10:40)
I know that sounds dramatic, but it was amazing how long I could let the dishes go before I actually did something about them and how bad I felt about that.

Tonya Kubo (10:51)
Right. Well, so here’s the other thing, right? Is when you’re like underwater, literally underwater because life is that unmanageable because I’m sorry, but I know very few people who just have a cluttered home, right? Usually it’s a cluttered home, it’s a cluttered head, it’s a cluttered heart, it’s a cluttered schedule. And all of those things contribute to the cluttered home. So when you’re not…

Kathi Lipp (11:07)
Right.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (11:20)
that far underwater and life throws you a curve ball, it’s very easy to shift things around. You know, like you’re talking about dishes. So in our house, certain people have designated chores. It was a simple conversation of, with everything going on, Lily, I need you to be in charge of washing the dishes every day this week. Abby, I know that you’re used to three reminders to empty the dishwasher. I really need us to have a day where

Kathi Lipp (11:28)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (11:50)
I tell you something once and it gets done. Can you do that for me? Right? And I mean, she’s 10. Does she want to do it? No. She’s like, yeah, mommy, okay, I can do that. I see everything is going cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs around here. No problem. I got that. But 10 years ago, well, let’s see, Clutter, yeah, 10, it’s been 10 years since Clutter Free came out. 10 years ago, I couldn’t have even been able to tell you what to show.

Kathi Lipp (11:52)
Mm-hmm.

Of course not.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

It’s been 10 years.

Okay.

Tonya Kubo (12:18)
You would

have come to me and you would have said, Tonya, what’s not getting done this week because of all this stuff going on? I’d be like, I don’t know.

Kathi Lipp (12:24)
Yeah. And I think you made a really good point a bit ago when you are so underwater and somebody wants to throw you a rope and you’re like, I don’t even have a hand to catch that with. Like I can’t tell you how to help me. And I love that you were so specific in asking for help. We’re going to take a quick break. We’re going to come right back and I want to talk about a little bit more of the impact and then an opportunity for

Tonya Kubo (12:36)
Mmm.

Kathi Lipp (12:51)
everybody who’s listening, because I think we have some really cool stuff up coming up that I think will help you if you’re relating at all to this conversation. Okay, we’ll take a quick break and come right back.

Okay, I am back with Tonya, we’re just talking about what is the hidden cost of clutter. And you know, one of the things that we talk a lot about in the group is spiritual disconnection. And people, you know, I’ll never forget. I can quote you almost every bad review I’ve ever had on the book. By the way, I just got a one-star review on Sabbath Soup.

And she didn’t like that I said, you know, there are different days you can have your Sabbath. And her username is picky mommy. And I’m like, okay, if you see that, yeah, if she calls herself that it’s okay. But one of the bad reviews I got on Clutter Free back when it came out was that clutter isn’t a fight between good and evil. Clutter is not from the devil. Okay, fine. You know what?

Whatever you want to say, but here’s what I know. My clutter, so much of it has been rooted in fear, guilt, and shame. And those are things that leave me spiritually disconnected. Especially, I would say, especially shame. Shame is a big thing for me. I want to know from you in these past 10 years, was shame a part of your decluttering journey?

Tonya Kubo (14:03)
That’s fine.

Kathi Lipp (14:31)
Was it fear? Was it guilt? Or was that not really it? What would you say was your disconnect?

Tonya Kubo (14:39)
Well, for me, it was all three to different degrees. mean, definitely fear drove my Claire in a big way. The shame piece was… So I probably had less guilt than I had shame. I probably had more shame. For me, the shame was I really thought everybody else got this and I didn’t. Right. So I was ashamed of the fact that there was like some missing piece that I couldn’t figure out. And

Kathi Lipp (14:46)
Okay, yeah.

right.

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (15:09)
You know, because of course so many people think clutter is a housekeeping issue. We know it’s not, you know, so it’s like, you know, a shame that I couldn’t keep a house. Well, then once I understood the emotional drivers of clutter, then it’s like, well, no, it’s like, I didn’t understand how to manage the ebb and flow of stuff. I was overwhelmed. I had an unrealistic attachment to items. I really had deep, deep fear of scarcity.

Kathi Lipp (15:14)
It’s not.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (15:36)
You know, I still struggle with that. I talked to a lot of our members about that, right? Like, I feel like that will always be my albatross, like until the day I die. I will always default to this fear. But the shame piece has been gone for years. I think actually shame left first. I think guilt hung on a little bit longer, but shame left first simply because it’s like, you know what? Why is irrelevant? It just is. And this is who I am.

Kathi Lipp (15:37)
Yeah. Right.

Yes. Yeah.

Mmm, that’s so exciting.

Mmm.

Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (16:05)
and

I’m just, I’m working to get better each day.

Kathi Lipp (16:09)
Do you think the fear, I know for me, it came from parental underemployment? Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (16:15)
It’s poverty. Yeah, my fear

is 100 % poverty driven.

Kathi Lipp (16:19)
Yeah. And it’s a killer. part of our psyche now. It’s part of our DNA. so, you know, when you see people gathering too much or doing too much, just realize, you know, that’s probably based in real fear for them. And it’s good to have an understanding while still, you know, in ourselves trying to work on it. You know, I think about all of this, the fear, guilt and shame. It has an impact on our relationships.

Tonya Kubo (16:26)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Kathi Lipp (16:50)
financially, I think about this that I tend to buy things, you know, my my impulse is to buy things to have a backup of a backup of a backup because of some of that childhood stuff that is still going on. And I love that you have taken up the mantle in our group for not just Clutter Free, but for Clutter Free.

Tonya Kubo (17:01)
Mm-hmm.

Right?

Kathi Lipp (17:18)
We have a Bible study and the subtitle is, it’s Clutter Free Bible study, what Jesus has to say about your stuff. And because we know the number one topic in the New Testament isn’t anything that we are currently fighting about in the United States. It is money and stuff. Jesus knew that this was, you know, talk about an albatross around your neck. Jesus knew that this was going to be our biggest hang up.

Tonya Kubo (17:20)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Kathi Lipp (17:47)
in everything that we do. And so every year you lead a Bible study that I wrote 10 years ago. But it is, I would say, in many ways, it’s more relevant today in 2025 than it was in 2015. And can you tell me a little bit about why you’re so passionate about this Bible study for people who struggle with clutter?

Tonya Kubo (18:05)
Mm-hmm.

Okay, well, I mean, I’m passionate about it because this is how our Facebook group got started. I like, I’m just a little bit nostalgic about that. We got started as a Bible study. But see the thing with the Bible study, again, we have a tendency to think symptoms are the problem, right? And very rarely are symptoms and the problem the same. So where symptoms of a problem emerge oftentimes is very far from where the problem actually is rooted.

Kathi Lipp (18:16)
Guess. Mm-hmm. Guess.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (18:42)
And

clutter, this physical clutter, the stuff in our home is actually a symptom. The real problem, as you’ve pointed out, is fear, guilt, and shame. But the real problem, I think, especially for believers, is there’s this contradiction, right? We’re supposed to have this neat and tidy house, but then we have internalized this message that we’re supposed to keep every single thing we’ve bought because that’s the only way we can prove we’re a good steward of the money that we’ve been given.

Kathi Lipp (19:09)
Right.

Right.

Tonya Kubo (19:10)
And there’s

this battle that our cluttery people fight all the time between I want a tidy house. I have too much stuff in this house. I need less stuff, but I don’t want to be wasteful. And so what I love about the Bible study is it breaks it down scripture by scripture at what Jesus really says about stuff and

Kathi Lipp (19:24)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (19:34)
I think for most of us, because it’s a very internal process for the Bible city, this is not the sort of thing you can take before and after pictures of. This is you, your walk with clutter, you, your walk with Christ. But people kind of go internally and then they recognize, the stuff. For some people, they view the stuff as an idol. They recognize like, I’ve been idolizing these things. I think, I’m so safe and so secure because I’ve got

Kathi Lipp (19:41)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (20:03)
15 bags of flour in my pantry, but really the flour is an idol, right? I’m telling myself that I am better than the average person because I have 15 sacks of flour in my pantry. And if I stop and think about it, I don’t bake. So those 15 sacks of flour are actually the biggest waste. I’m better off giving it to a food bank. I’m better off giving it to somebody else. And so I just feel like

Kathi Lipp (20:08)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Tonya Kubo (20:32)
It drives home how, well, clutter can be a unifying problem, how individual the root cause of each of our clutter issue is.

Kathi Lipp (20:45)
And this Bible study helps people get to the root of it. And the Bible study doesn’t clean your house, but it starts to affect your thinking when you start to have those aha moments and start to see that, this is why I’m doing this. Or here’s the truth behind why I don’t need to do this anymore.

Tonya Kubo (20:49)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Right?

Kathi Lipp (21:12)
And it’s amazing what God can reveal in those times. Tonya, can you give us some details about the study of people are like, you know what, a Linton study is just what I need. And I don’t necessarily want to do the one at church because this one affects my life. I need this in my life.

Tonya Kubo (21:35)
Right, well, and the other thing is because we do it online, you don’t have to worry about walking into a building like with a big scarlet letter across your chest that says, hey, I have Claudia at my house. But the Bible says so Lent, know, Ash Wednesday is March 7th and Easter, I think if I’m not wrong, is like April 20th. So how we do the studies to the actual like core curriculum of the study is from March 7th to April 11th.

Kathi Lipp (21:45)
Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (22:04)
But I love to have a good kickoff call where I kind of lay out, I always have a small, medium and large plan for the study because I understand this time of year is very busy for some people and for other people it isn’t. And so you get to decide how deep you want to go. So on the kickoff call, we talk about, you know, sort of what your choices are with that. And then we’ll do a celebration to just kind of mark what we’ve done, the realizations that we’ve come to on April 18th.

Kathi Lipp (22:11)
Mm-hmm.

Tonya Kubo (22:32)
and then you have completed it before Easter starts and you can celebrate Easter with your family and the miracle that comes with that. The Bible study, if you don’t already own it, because if you own it, you own it for life. And so I would just say email us if you don’t know whether you own it and we’ll let you know because we can look that up. But it’s just twenty five dollars. It’s it’s a series of videos and then there’s a printable workbook that comes with it. So you’ve got the online videos, the workbook.

Kathi Lipp (22:44)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Tonya Kubo (22:59)
We have group discussions in our Clutterfree Academy Facebook group. If Facebook isn’t your thing, that’s totally fine. You can do the videos and the workbook and you can email us some of your reflections. I always love to answer people’s emails, so that doesn’t bother me one bit. The group discussions though are really fun because everybody gets something different out of the study every single year.

Kathi Lipp (23:14)
Yeah.

And we all learn from each other. That’s really cool. And then when somebody is talking about why they do the things they do, somebody else has an aha moment. It’s just, it’s really special. It’s really special in there. Okay, so if they want to join, what do they do?

Tonya Kubo (23:33)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so if you need to buy the study because you don’t already own it, it’s kathy.link slash study. We’ll put that in the show notes too, but it’s Kathi. Just make sure it’s Kathi with an I, not with a Y. Dot link slash study. And then our Facebook group is easy to find on Facebook. You can search Cholera Free Academy or just go to kathy.link slash CFA. And that’ll take you directly to the Facebook group where you can join. If you already own the study, you don’t have to make any other purchases.

Kathi Lipp (23:52)
Mm-hmm, for sure.

Hahaha

Tonya Kubo (24:15)
The, you can, some people do like to read the book Clutter Free alongside the study. I always say that that’s like for the A plus plus people. Cause you’re committing to reading a book plus doing the video series and the discussions for six weeks. That’s a lot. But I know some people love that. They want to really go in deep, but most folks will just watch the videos and participate in the discussions and we have a great time.

Kathi Lipp (24:28)
Yes. Yes.

I love it guys. We all again all of this is in the show notes. We’ll also be talking about it in Kathi lips Clutter Free Academy on Facebook but that if you are looking for something a linten study and you would like something that is hits you exactly where you’re at if you’re listening to this podcast This is the study for you and it’s nice that it can be done from home Sometimes when it’s really busy. This is a good thing to be able to do

Tonya Kubo (25:07)
Mm-hmm.

Kathi Lipp (25:08)
Tonya,

thank you so much for all this great insight. Come back next week. We are going to be talking about some of the practical transformation that can come from this Bible study. You’re gonna love it. Friends, you’ve been listening to Clutter-Free Academy. I’m Kathi Lip. Now, go live the clutter-free life you’ve always wanted to live.

 

More Posts 

#626 The Hidden Trauma Behind Clutter: How to Start Healing Your Relationship with Possessions

#626 The Hidden Trauma Behind Clutter: How to Start Healing Your Relationship with Possessions

by | Jul 16, 2024 | Clutter Free, Clutter Free For Life, Clutter Free Heart, Clutter Free Home, Clutter Free Podcast, Fear, Freedom, Home, Mental Load, Podcast | 0 comments

Listen Now

626 The Hidden Trauma Behind Clutter: How to Start Healing Your Relationship with Possessions

Have you ever struggled to give things away without feeling guilty, even when the items have only a slight chance of being useful in the future?

That very question came from our Clutter Free Academy listeners. In this CFA Mail Bag episode, Kathi Lipp and co-host Tonya Kubo answer that question and more. They dive deep into the emotional aspects of decluttering, focusing on the guilt that often accompanies getting rid of items.
Kathi and Tonya explore the roots of this guilt, discussing how childhood experiences and ingrained perfectionism can contribute to cluttering behaviors in adulthood. They share personal anecdotes and practical strategies for overcoming these emotional barriers to decluttering.

Listeners will discover:

  • Why it’s important to question why we’re not using certain items
  • How being intentional about what we bring into our homes is crucial
  • When considering environmental impact should happen

Throughout the episode, Kathi and Tonya offer encouragement and practical advice for breaking free from the cycle of clutter and creating a more peaceful, organized living space.

Click here to be notified when the next episode of Clutter Free Academy 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:

www.Tonyakubo.com

Information from the National Recording Preservation Board on Fibber McGee and Molly

Clutter Free Resources:

Learn more about Clutter Free for Life

Join our Clutter Free Academy Facebook Group

Have you taken the “Low Buy July” Challenge? How is that going?

Share in the comments!

Let’s stay connected

To share your thoughts:

  • Leave a note in the comment section below.
  • Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one.

Subscribe on iTunes or subscribe to our newsletter now.

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

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 -host with the most, it is Tonya Kubo. Although, here’s the thing. It’s so funny. Somehow, people got onto a discussion about who their favorite guests were on Clutter free Academy. It is a horse race between Tonya Kubo and Roger Lipp. If I could pick two people for it to be a horse race in, yes.

 

Tonya Kubo (00:40.974)

Tonya Kubo (00:45.454)

It is.

 

Kathi (00:55.489)

If I had to, we could do this entire podcast with just the two of you and be just fine. Because I feel like you bring the heart of a cluttery person who has done some healing to this. And Roger brings the, I live with a cluttery person. And, but I, I, I learned an interesting fact about our friend Roger Lipp. So we were, I learned we were driving away from my mom’s house and

 

Tonya Kubo (00:59.854)

Hahaha

 

Tonya Kubo (01:18.926)

What did you learn?

 

Kathi (01:25.281)

know, when we leave town, it’s kind of hilarious, Tonya, because we’ve got our Yeti cooler and we’ve got a pretty small car. We’ve got, we just bring the Jeep usually back and forth. So we had the Yeti cooler, we had our Sam’s order, we had, you know, I bring food back and forth from my mom’s. And then we had some dog food, like all this stuff. And my mom said, it looks like Fibber McGee is pulling out.

 

Tonya Kubo (01:28.398)

Mm -hmm.

 

Tonya Kubo (01:44.142)

Mm -hmm.

 

Kathi (01:54.625)

which I guess was a radio show in the 1940s. Right. Yeah, a little cultural context from 80 years ago. And so Roger says, I’ve been called that all my life. And I’m like, wait, what?

 

Tonya Kubo (01:57.966)

I’ve heard the name but I had no idea what it meant. So thank you for explaining for me. I appreciate this. Thanks.

 

Tonya Kubo (02:13.774)

Okay, now we need to know why.

 

Kathi (02:16.289)

Okay, so, you know, Roger’s mom got remarried in like the the 70s. And his new father, which is kind of funny. His name was Dr. Dobson. Now, not the Dr. Dobson. Yeah, yes, exactly. But this was Dr. Dobson who was a pastor. And he’s very interesting. He actually shook the hand of Einstein because they were both at college at the same time. Right? Right? So interesting.

 

Tonya Kubo (02:28.526)

Okay, not the Dr. Dobson.

 

Kathi (02:46.177)

But I know. Roger didn’t know that. I asked him. I asked him because I knew that they were at, I think it was Princeton at the same time. I had done a little research. Yeah, anywho. Yeah. And let’s just say Roger’s stepdad, much older than Roger’s stepmom. Little bit of a scandal, but you know, kind of anyway. That’s what keeps things interesting. Anyway, so Dr. Dean was his name.

 

Tonya Kubo (02:46.414)

Why isn’t Roger pulling that out at pub trivia?

 

Tonya Kubo (02:58.67)

Huh, okay.

 

Kathi (03:15.425)

Never raised his kids. They were always raised in like a missionary school things like that so Roger was the first kid he had ever really lived with and He thought Roger was this wild child and I’m like, my goodness. Tell me all the good stories He goes, yeah, he’d be up really late at night and I’m like tell me tell me more cuz I have no scandal on Roger He goes yeah working on that photography equipment. I’m like

 

Tonya Kubo (03:21.518)

Mmm.

 

Tonya Kubo (03:44.238)

he was in the dark room late at night alone with negatives.

 

Kathi (03:44.865)

Okay. Develop developing things for the yearbook and the newspaper. Yeah. So anywho, all this to say, Fibber McGee, so apparently Roger has been called cluttery his whole life. I have seen no evidence of this really in his life, but I just I, I, it felt good.

 

to know, you know, maybe we have a common core. This is way off topic. Okay.

 

Tonya Kubo (04:18.958)

off topic because today is my favorite episode. Okay, I do. I was like…

 

Kathi (04:24.641)

You love these episodes. I love them too, but you get a little bit of sick joy, I would just say.

 

Tonya Kubo (04:30.862)

Well, here’s what I love. So we’re doing a mailbag episode, which, and the mailbag episodes are my favorite. And the reason they are my favorite is twofold. Number one, I love, love, love, love, love that we can take the real life current experiences of our Clear Free Academy members and bring them onto the show to help other people who aren’t on Facebook.

 

Kathi (04:35.201)

Yep.

 

Kathi (04:54.945)

Mm -hmm.

 

Tonya Kubo (04:58.766)

didn’t know we have a Facebook group or any of that. Like I love that. I also love the message that we send to our Clutterfree Academy members who ask these questions that they’re really not alone. Because if they were the only person on the planet who had this problem, who had this question, we would not be devoting an entire episode to it.

 

Kathi (05:12.289)

Mm -hmm.

 

Kathi (05:20.161)

Right. And I love what you’re saying there, to feel less alone. Because we all sit in our houses, we only get invited over to perfect houses. And so we assume that we’re the only one without a perfect house. And just by our Facebook group statistics alone, which is over 15 ,000 people, I would challenge you to sit, I would challenge your thinking on that, that you’re the only one, because you’re not.

 

Tonya Kubo (05:31.214)

Right.

 

Tonya Kubo (05:41.262)

Mm -hmm.

 

Tonya Kubo (05:47.726)

Yeah, exactly. So today’s question, I feel like speaks to the heart of where many people are when they join Clutterfree Academy. So I find that we have a few composite new members. There is the person who is like me, feeling suffocated by their stuff to the point that actually being unhoused sounds liberating.

 

Kathi (06:02.465)

Mm -hmm.

 

Tonya Kubo (06:15.502)

Like the idea of having nothing but a backpack sounds like the ultimate liberation, which, go ahead.

 

Kathi (06:22.977)

My mom, Tonya, has a button that says potential bag lady. Like, yeah, she just, I think especially having two teenagers, she was like, just go and, you know, and by the way, we’re not making fun of unhoused people at all, friends, please, please, please. But I think everybody’s had, I think that’s why we like hotels so much.

 

Tonya Kubo (06:29.71)

Yeah!

 

Tonya Kubo (06:37.262)

Mm -hmm.

 

Tonya Kubo (06:44.27)

No.

 

Tonya Kubo (06:49.966)

Mm -hmm.

 

Kathi (06:51.201)

I think that’s why we like the thought of doing an RV or something like that. I think a lot of Cloré people have those same ideals.

 

Tonya Kubo (06:54.798)

Mm -hmm.

 

Tonya Kubo (06:58.574)

Right. And so to the point, right, because what I’m really getting at is so overwhelmed that you just want to escape. We have that person and they want to escape their living circumstances. And then we have the person who comes who actually has a moral struggle. Like they’re not sure. They know that other people have a problem with the condition of their house or other people have a problem with their cluttery ways, but they’re not actually sure that other people are right. Because

 

Kathi (07:05.921)

bright.

 

Yes.

 

Kathi (07:27.713)

What do you mean by that?

 

Tonya Kubo (07:28.745)

Because in their heart of hearts, they think they’re doing good in the world by keeping hold of things. And so that’s where this question comes from. Because I know, like the outsiders who are not cluttery assume that, you know, our group is full of people who just can’t keep house, which you know how I feel about that. And that’s an episode for another day. But this is the person who says, okay, I hear what you’re saying that

 

Kathi (07:34.913)

Mmm, yes.

 

Yes.

 

Kathi (07:48.481)

Yeah, right.

 

Tonya Kubo (07:57.006)

I, you know, that it makes sense and it’s a good idea to have a house that’s tidy, that’s peace -filled, that my family enjoys. And yet, I genuinely cannot give anything away if it has even a modicum, even like a little itty bitty hair’s breadth chance of being useful at some point in time to someone, even if that someone’s not me.

 

What do I do when I can’t give anything away without feeling guilty? That’s the question. And it’s a doozy, right, Kathi? Because there is the decluttering aspect. There is the internal emotional aspect of the guilt. And I would even argue the shame of releasing stuff.

 

Kathi (08:25.985)

Right.

 

Kathi (08:35.329)

Hmm.

 

Tonya Kubo (08:48.686)

And we’ve worked a lot of times with members who the shame and the guilt comes from they spent money on that thing, right? That they’re not using. But this is different. This is I can see that somewhere, somehow somebody might need an extra cord from a slow cooker and therefore I cannot get rid of the cord. So that’s the question that I’m bringing to you, OYZ1. Hit me with your knowledge now.

 

Kathi (08:56.577)

Right.

 

Kathi (09:08.481)

Mm -hmm.

 

Yeah.

 

Yeah.

 

Well, this is going to be a mutual knowledge thing. Okay. So can I tell you, I’m just gonna throw up confessions here. Okay. So, okay, I am a kid from the 80s, right? You know, Brat Pack, all that kind of stuff, like hardcore 80s. Yes, I know. I love them. And

 

Tonya Kubo (09:21.326)

Yeah

 

Tonya Kubo (09:30.734)

Sure, I’m all up for confessions.

 

Kathi (09:44.929)

But I grew up in a very black and white time. Like, excuse me. Like, if you were really hungry, you would eat those green peppers.

 

Tonya Kubo (09:54.094)

Mm -hmm.

 

Tonya Kubo (10:05.397)

I was like, and we all could finish your sentence for you. If you were really hungry, you would eat what I put in front of you.

 

Kathi (10:08.481)

Yes. Right, right. And, you know, if you if you, you know, you shouldn’t have to buy clothes, because you should be happy with what you have. It very black and white thinking. And, you know, to be grateful for everything you have, which I agree with, Tonya, I don’t actually know a lot of people. I feel like

 

that express their gratitude for what they have more than I do. And I’m not saying that I don’t think I’m a big bragger on here, but I just know like my intense gratitude for what I have. And that can also be a trap. Like,

 

Tonya Kubo (10:42.734)

Mm -hmm.

 

Tonya Kubo (10:52.718)

Mm -hmm.

 

Tonya Kubo (10:58.318)

Mm -hmm.

 

Kathi (11:01.249)

If you know, here’s a shirt and it has a bunch of stains on it. Okay, so I’m going to work really hard to get those stains out and I got those stains out, but now it’s a little frayed. But you know what? I’m going to, I’m going to, I’m going to do this, this, this, this. And then finally it gets to the place where that shirt can’t be used anymore. Well, I should be able to use that as a rag, even though it’s an ineffective way of cleaning my house. And I hate cleaning my house.

 

Tonya Kubo (11:08.494)

Mm -hmm.

 

Tonya Kubo (11:23.662)

Mm -hmm.

 

Kathi (11:30.657)

But I should, I should, I should. The person who is struggling to give things away without guilt, who I contend towards that, is we have got a brain full of shoulds. And maybe we grew up in a house where we were being corrected a lot. Like, okay, can I give a silly example without throwing my mom under the bus?

 

Tonya Kubo (11:32.942)

Mm -hmm.

 

Tonya Kubo (11:38.03)

Mm -hmm.

 

Tonya Kubo (11:45.902)

Mmm.

 

Kathi (12:00.769)

So yesterday, I was helping her clean her living room and there was just a plastic water bottle there. And I said, are you using this to water plants? And she goes, no, I think, you know, it just got left there by somebody. And I said, okay. So I go to the sink to dump it out. She goes, but water a plant with it, Kathi. And like, there’s…

 

Tonya Kubo (12:00.814)

Sure.

 

Tonya Kubo (12:18.862)

Mm -hmm.

 

Kathi (12:31.809)

So it’s just funny, it’s a funny example, right? But you may have grown up in a house that was like that about everything. Like, okay, when that shirt’s no longer good, then we’re gonna give it to goodwill, even if it has stains on it, because somebody should be grateful for it, and somebody should wear it. And…

 

Tonya Kubo (12:34.606)

Mm -hmm.

 

Tonya Kubo (12:41.806)

Mm -hmm.

 

Kathi (12:57.185)

I have always been under the impression, or not always, but definitely in the last 20 years, if I wouldn’t want to wear it, why should I expect somebody else to want to wear it? If I wouldn’t eat it, why should I expect somebody else to want to eat it? I’ve had to change my thinking on that and say, it’s not a bet. We can be in such a poverty mindset that it’s impossible for us to give things away or to

 

Tonya Kubo (13:21.23)

Mm -hmm.

 

Kathi (13:26.177)

throw things away. And, you know, like, okay, maybe that, you know, it’s that toaster oven, that if somebody spent $30 repairing it, that it could be useful. But most people don’t know how to repair a toaster oven, don’t know where to start with that. And yes, there are things you could do. And if you’re one of those naturally handy people, yay, but most of us aren’t.

 

Tonya Kubo (13:28.846)

Yeah…

 

Tonya Kubo (13:35.79)

Mm -hmm.

 

Kathi (13:56.321)

And we have to figure out where we’re going to put our time, effort, and energy. And all of this is trade -offs. There is no… So many of us, I struggle with this mightily, are closet perfectionists. We don’t look like we’re perfectionists because if you came into our house, you know I’m not a perfectionist, but I am. I’m trapped in the way I should be doing things and I’m not doing things.

 

Tonya Kubo (13:57.038)

right?

 

Tonya Kubo (14:01.55)

Mm -hmm.

 

Mm -hmm.

 

Kathi (14:23.777)

and I live with that guilt all the time. And Tony, I want to hear your response to this. We’re going to take a quick break. We’re going to go get some bills paid. We’re going to come right back. And I want to hear your response to that perfectionistic mindset and maybe the people we grew up with contributing to that.

 

Tonya Kubo (14:34.062)

Yeah

 

Tonya Kubo (14:38.638)

Mm -hmm.

 

Tonya Kubo (14:44.046)

Mm -hmm.

 

Kathi (14:46.561)

Okay friends, we are back. Tonya is going to give us all her wisdom about how perfectionism really can be one of the main reasons why it’s hard to give away clutter, items, et cetera, without guilt. Go Tonya.

 

Tonya Kubo (15:04.59)

Alrighty. So it’s interesting this perfectionist idea, because I definitely agree with it. And I, there’s so much wrapped up in there. And I think your point is, you know, so much of our adult cluttery ways are steeped in some form of childhood trauma. And I’m not saying like capital T front page headline trauma.

 

Kathi (15:30.625)

Goodbye.

 

No.

 

Tonya Kubo (15:33.998)

I am saying I’m really talking about the trauma that just builds up. It’s like the thing that hurts your feelings but maybe didn’t hurt your brother’s feelings. That sort of stuff, right? Like you just, you carried it differently.

 

Kathi (15:45.185)

It’s, you can be, yeah, you can be traumatized just by imperfect parenting. And that, it’s something you still have to work out. It’s okay, you know, because we were all raised by imperfect parents. That’s what happened.

 

Tonya Kubo (15:52.558)

Mm -hmm.

 

Tonya Kubo (16:01.71)

Exactly. So with that, I think that we also have to come to some point where we say, who do I really want to be? Right? What like what’s mine to carry? What do I want to carry? And I know for me, that cluttering journey has really been about going, huh, I don’t have to own this, right? Like this wasn’t even my junk to own in the first place.

 

Kathi (16:14.881)

Mm -hmm.

 

Kathi (16:18.849)

Mm -hmm.

 

Kathi (16:31.809)

That’s right.

 

Tonya Kubo (16:32.101)

And so, yes, there’s the perfectionistic part of wanting to do things right that our Clegary folks really, really struggle with. But I think the point you’re actually making is sometimes it’s not our own perfectionism, but it’s perfectionism that was projected onto us.

 

Kathi (16:51.041)

Mm -hmm. If you’re going to do it the right way, if you’re going to do, you know, there’s a moral attachment to being thrifty and reusing banks and a moral attachment to spending less money, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And some of those are good things. You know, I believe in those things, but also they can be guilt traps.

 

Tonya Kubo (17:04.462)

Mm -hmm.

 

Kathi (17:19.521)

They can be deep traps. And also, lots of times, Tonya, you may be done with something, but like we were talking about earlier, you still see the value in it. So you want to give it to me so that I can get the value out of it. I one time had somebody at church who said, Kathi,

 

Tonya Kubo (17:31.278)

Mm -hmm.

 

Tonya Kubo (17:39.726)

Right.

 

Kathi (17:47.041)

I can’t use these hundred baskets anymore. And I’m not even joking, a hundred different baskets. 100 baskets. There were more than that, but it was at a minimum of a hundred. But I’ve left them here for you because I know you could do something with them. And in my brain is like, do you just want me to take them to the dump? Like, what do you want me to do? And it was, she was putting,

 

Tonya Kubo (17:50.734)

Mm -hmm. 100 baskets.

 

Tonya Kubo (18:06.414)

Like what?

 

Kathi (18:15.649)

a judgment on me to say, basically, if you’re a good person, you would figure out how to let these not go to waste. In my thinking, it was like, lady, you should not have collected 100 baskets. And yeah, and this was a lovely lady and she has since passed. And I think sometimes, like I’ve had some relatives where I’ve had to say, hey, I can take that from you, but you have to give me

 

full autonomy to deal with it in the way I want. You’re never going to ask me, where is this? Do you display it? And those relatives couldn’t do it. They needed, it’s a control issue, right? And I struggle with control issues as well. And I’ve had to learn that if I’m going to give something away, I have to be okay with whatever happens to it. And that is a hard place for people to be.

 

Tonya Kubo (19:10.574)

Mm -hmm. That’s true.

 

Kathi (19:15.649)

But also I need to make sure that I am controlling my own environment and not letting things seep in that or not refusing to give things away because of this mindset. You know, I am very quick to say, hey, I’m not using this. I’m going to give it away. I now I am. But I used

 

Tonya Kubo (19:32.206)

Mm -hmm.

 

Yeah.

 

Tonya Kubo (19:42.318)

Mm -hmm.

 

Kathi (19:45.185)

I used to have this guilt of like, I have to get the value out of it. I have to get the money out of it. Like I have to hold onto that shirt because I haven’t worn it enough. Well, why haven’t I worn it enough? Because it actually, you know, maybe it was itchy. And if it’s, so I think that’s the next step when you’re like, why am I not using this item? Is it because I’ve

 

Tonya Kubo (19:50.286)

Mm -hmm.

 

Tonya Kubo (19:56.206)

Right.

 

Tonya Kubo (20:03.566)

Mmm.

 

Kathi (20:13.153)

outgrown it, either physically or emotionally or mentally, well then it’s okay to give to somebody else or if it’s not usable, it’s okay for it to go into the landfill. Every human gets a certain amount of landfill stuff and I would challenge you to look at your landfill consumption on the

 

acquiring end instead of the getting rid of it. That’s where you can do the most impact. So thinking about something before you purchase it, asking yourself, why am I no longer using this? You know, I had some, some pants that I was like, I’m just not wearing them. I’m just not wearing them. And so I’m like, okay, I’m going to pick them up. Why am I not wearing them? Well, when I picked them up, I realized, Tonya, what I kept doing.

 

Tonya Kubo (20:43.437)

Mm -hmm.

 

Mmm.

 

Kathi (21:10.209)

was I kept pulling them out of the closet, seeing they had this weird stain on them, and putting them back in the closet. This was not a good system for me, right?

 

Tonya Kubo (21:16.654)

Mm -hmm.

 

Tonya Kubo (21:21.582)

Can I just tell you I have lived that exact same system, Kathi? It is okay. I feel you right now.

 

Kathi (21:24.161)

Right? Right? Yes! And so, but these are good fitting pants and I like how they look on me. I just don’t like a giant stain. So what am I doing? I’m dyeing those pants tomorrow.

 

Tonya Kubo (21:32.27)

Mm -hmm.

 

Tonya Kubo (21:40.286)

I was just gonna ask if dying fixes that.

 

Kathi (21:42.849)

It does. It does. You have to go with darker color. So for me, it’s navy blue. For Tonya Kubo, it’s black. But you know, if you go that darker color.

 

Tonya Kubo (21:46.766)

Okay.

 

Tonya Kubo (21:52.238)

Mm -hmm.

 

Kathi (22:04.641)

I’ll just be honest, sometimes we’re trying too hard to save things that don’t need to be saved. Maybe the taco casserole that I made the other day that I was trying a new recipe on and Roger said, he’s very appreciative of my cooking, but he goes, it tastes like there’s a piece of Wonder Bread in the middle of it. And he was not down with that texture. And I tried to save it a couple of times. Yeah, sometimes you just need to give up and it’s okay to give up, try to fix something. But if you can’t,

 

Tonya Kubo (22:08.75)

Mm -hmm.

 

Tonya Kubo (22:19.214)

Mm -hmm.

 

Tonya Kubo (22:24.878)

Got it.

 

Tonya Kubo (22:29.262)

Yeah.

 

Kathi (22:33.729)

fix it, don’t keep it. I want you to hear me clearly. I’m not screaming at Tonya. I’m screaming at all of my friends who are like, well, at some point there’s magically going to need to be a use for that. You know, I don’t know why I have 300 solo cups, but there’s going to be a day where somebody is going to need those 300 solo cups or, you know, maybe it’s today. Maybe your kid’s school needs them. I don’t know what the

 

Tonya Kubo (22:39.758)

Mm -hmm.

 

Tonya Kubo (22:49.87)

and

 

Kathi (23:03.713)

The rules are about red solo cups like at a kids school. Is it too evocative of a college party? Okay.

 

Tonya Kubo (23:09.454)

No, nobody knows, they’re just disposable cups that everybody uses.

 

Kathi (23:12.353)

Okay, good, good, good, good. But if you cannot figure out a use for that item, if you can’t figure out somebody who would gleefully receive that item, and here’s the test, Tonya. If you put it up on a buy nothing group and you get no takers, it’s probably junk.

 

Tonya Kubo (23:31.118)

Yep, that makes sense.

 

Kathi (23:32.641)

It’s a really quick test. I want us to think about, it’s not about I’ve wasted the money. I’ve gotten my money’s worth, if I wore it one time or 100 times. And now it’s time for somebody else. Cluttery people are so generous. So it’s time for somebody else to get the use out of it. If you’ve only worn it one time,

 

Tonya Kubo (23:44.814)

Mm -hmm.

 

Tonya Kubo (23:56.75)

Mm -hmm.

 

Kathi (24:02.337)

then it probably still has a lot of life left in it and somebody else will use it. But if you’ve worn it a hundred times, it may be time for it to go into clothing recycling. It’s okay, I promise.

 

Tonya Kubo (24:13.102)

Yeah.

 

Tonya Kubo (24:16.782)

That makes sense. And I think, you know, part of me feels like, well, we say that all the time. And then the other part of me feels like, you know what? I know early in my journey, I couldn’t hear it enough. I needed the constant reminder that it is not my job to single -handedly save the environment by never putting another thing in a landfill. It is not my job to be the example of stewardship.

 

Kathi (24:29.281)

Mm -hmm. Right.

 

Kathi (24:40.737)

Right, right.

 

Tonya Kubo (24:46.83)

for the entire planet by retaining everything I ever bought or ever received. So thank you. Thank you for that because even now so many years later, it’s still a helpful reminder.

 

Kathi (24:53.057)

Yeah.

 

Kathi (25:01.281)

Well, and I really want to challenge us to think, for some reason, us Cluttery people think about the environment after the purchase. And so to think about before we purchase what, you know, you know my favorite motto from World War I, use it up, wear it out, make do, do without.

 

Tonya Kubo (25:14.157)

Yes.

 

Kathi (25:29.313)

That is so much about not bringing new things into our home. And it’s okay. We need to buy things sometimes. I bought a tank top yesterday because right now it is a 110 in Sacramento and I needed a tank top. I’m fine with that. I felt like that was a good purchase, something I’ll be able to use for years to come. But

 

Tonya Kubo (25:35.31)

Mm -hmm.

 

Tonya Kubo (25:51.438)

Yeah.

 

Kathi (25:58.657)

I thought about it before I bought it. This has been the biggest change I really do like in my clutter free journey after seriously decluttering my house is being so intentional and thoughtful about what I bring into the house. So if you’re feeling guilty about getting rid of things, I always think about it like this. It’s kind of a reset. So if you have a bunch of clothes in your closet that you’re not using,

 

Tonya Kubo (26:22.222)

Mm.

 

Kathi (26:26.785)

but you go to your closet every day and you’re like, there should be something here, but there’s nothing I want to wear. It is time to get rid of some of those things in your closet. So you actually have an accurate picture of what you have and can say, you know what? I don’t have a cream tank top. And that would actually go with a lot of things I have. Look at that. I don’t have a pair of jeans that I feel amazing in.

 

Everybody needs a pair of jeans that they just feel like is a banger. And so, but you’ll never know that when you have 75 things in there that you never wear. And that’s what I want for you. So get that accurate inventory of what you actually have. This could be for food. This could be for gardening equipment. This could be for your closet. This could be for your linens. Because otherwise what we end up doing, Tonya, is we go to the store and you’re like,

 

Tonya Kubo (26:57.55)

Mm -hmm. Yeah.

 

Tonya Kubo (27:06.414)

so true.

 

Tonya Kubo (27:21.678)

Mm -hmm.

 

Kathi (27:23.809)

Yeah, I remember that the last time I went to my closet, there was nothing to wear. So I think I just need to buy some new clothes, some new clothes, right? And then what we end up doing is buying things that we don’t need. And then we hold on to things because, well, I spent so much money on it’s this vicious cycle. And we’re going to break the cycle by being intentional about what we bring into our home.

 

Tonya Kubo (27:28.782)

Mm -hmm.

 

Tonya Kubo (27:32.558)

Yeah.

 

Tonya Kubo (27:37.806)

Mm -hmm.

 

Tonya Kubo (27:48.814)

I love that. I love that.

 

Kathi (27:50.209)

Yeah. Okay. Well, Tonya, I love these mailbag issues because I feel like we get to go deeper. We get to go to the heart of it. We get to go to our own histories and our own coming up and thinking about this. And guys, when we talked about that trauma, I want you to hear me that you…

 

Tonya Kubo (28:03.214)

Mm -hmm.

 

Kathi (28:13.537)

I love what you said, Tonya. It’s the lowercase t. It’s the things that make us act in ways that we wouldn’t want to act and make us use decisions. And guys, here’s the thing. I know that I have done this for my kids. If my kids have kids, they’ll do it for their kids. This is part of the cycle of life. But we also know that we can break those cycles.

 

Tonya Kubo (28:17.486)

Mm -hmm.

 

Tonya Kubo (28:24.814)

Right.

 

Tonya Kubo (28:41.966)

Mm -hmm.

 

Kathi (28:42.497)

And when I break a cycle, even as the adult parent of adults, it does trickle down. They can see changes in our lives and I think that’s beautiful. Tonya, thank you so much for being with me today.

 

Tonya Kubo (28:49.102)

Mm -hmm.

 

Tonya Kubo (28:56.462)

Thanks for having me, Kathi.

 

Kathi (28:58.337)

And guys, thank you for being with us. If you are struggling in this and you are not part of our Facebook group, can I really encourage you to go over there and check it out? And I’ve heard from a couple of people recently, well, I tried to join and I was not let in. Let me tell you, you probably didn’t answer some questions and that’s okay. But just know that there are questions to ask and answer, there are questions to answer. And if you’re not crazy,

 

Tonya Kubo (29:19.438)

Yes.

 

Tonya Kubo (29:24.718)

Mm -hmm.

 

Kathi (29:28.129)

We will let you in or if you’re all kind of crazy, we’ll let you in. It’s all good friends. Okay Yeah, so join us over at Kathi Lipp’s Clutter Free Academy where we talk about these kind of issues all the time and we can support each other because we love to hear what your answers to these questions are as well because we get more wisdom from everybody 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

More Posts 

#672 – From Pantry to Plate: The Secret to Smart Food Storage

#672 – From Pantry to Plate: The Secret to Smart Food Storage

Join Kathi Lipp and Tonya Kubo in this episode of Clutter-Free Academy as they tackle the often overwhelming world of food storage. Whether you’re struggling with long-term pantry organization, fridge chaos, containers for on the go or finding the right containers for...

#671 – Sentimental Clutter: Finding Freedom in Letting Go

#671 – Sentimental Clutter: Finding Freedom in Letting Go

Kathi Lipp returns with Tonya Kubo and Tenneil Register to address a common challenge faced by those on the clutter-free journey: sentimental items. In this insightful episode, the trio tackles the emotional weight of inherited belongings and the guilt that often...

#624 Decluttering Family Heirlooms: Navigating Emotional Attachments

#624 Decluttering Family Heirlooms: Navigating Emotional Attachments

by | Jul 2, 2024 | Clutter Free, Clutter Free Podcast, Home, Kitchen, Mental Load, Podcast | 0 comments

Listen Now

624 Decluttering Family Heirlooms: Navigating Emotional Attachments

Hey there, friend! Do you ever feel like your home has become a storage unit for everyone else’s stuff?

In this episode of Clutter Free Academy, hosts Kathi Lipp and Tonya Kubo address a common struggle for many listeners: what to do when family members, both parents and adult children, want to leave their belongings at your house. They discuss the challenges of being part of the sandwich generation, caught between aging parents trying to pass down heirlooms and adult children who may not have the space or desire for these items. Join Kathi and Tonya as they tackle the tough questions and offer practical advice for decluttering with compassion and clarity.

Listeners will discover:

  • The changing attitudes toward possessions among younger generations
  • How to navigate the disconnect between parents’ expectations and their children’s needs.
  • The importance of finding solutions that work for everyone

Whether you’re a parent looking to pass down treasured items or an adult child grappling with the influx of stuff, you’ll come away with a fresh perspective and actionable steps for creating a more peaceful, clutter-free home.

Click here to be notified when the next episode of Clutter Free Academy is released.

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

 

The Accidental Homesteader: What I’ve Learned About Chickens, Compost, and Creating Home

Homesteading [hohm-sted-ing]
noun
1. an act or instance of establishing a homestead.
2. the act of loving where you live so much that you actively ignore the fact that your house is trying to kill you on a regular basis.

For Kathi Lipp and her husband, Roger, buying a house in one of the most remote parts of Northern California was never part of the plan; many of life’s biggest, most rewarding adventures rarely are.

Kathi shares the hard-won wisdom she’s gained on her homestead journey to help you accomplish more at home, gain fresh perspective, and give yourself grace in the process. Here’s a handful of the lessons Kathi shares:

  • Prepare before the need arises
  • Everything is always in process, including us
  • Your best household solution is time and patience
  • You don’t have to do everything the hard way
  • Be open to new and better ways of doing things
  • A lot of small changes make a huge difference.
    Highly practical, humorous, and inspirational, The Accidental Homesteader will encourage you to live with more peace, joy, and contentment.

Order your copy of The Accidental Homesteader: What I’ve Learned About Chickens, Compost, and Creating Home here.

Links Mentioned:

www.Tonyakubo.com

Clutter Free Resources:

Learn more about Clutter Free for Life

Join our Clutter Free Academy Facebook Group

What are some creative ways to preserve memories and honor family history without holding onto physical clutter?

Share them in the comments!

Let’s stay connected

To share your thoughts:

  • Leave a note in the comment section below.
  • Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one.

Subscribe on iTunes or subscribe to our newsletter now.

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 (00:00)
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 I am here with Tonya Kubo, who is the leader over in our Clutter Free Academy Facebook group. And if you’re not a part of that, I don’t even know why not. It’s free, it’s amazing, she does such a great job there. But we are doing a new kind of episode here today. We’re calling it a mailbag episode. Tonya explain what we’re talking about here today.

Tonya Kubo (00:19)
Yeah.

Yeah, so what happens over in Clutter Free Academy, Clutter Free for Life, but it’s more pronounced over in Clutter Free Academy is, you know, folks join our community and they assume that they are the only person that struggles with clutter, or at least the only person who struggles with clutter like they do. And then they discover that there’s like, you know, we’ve got over 15 ,000 close friends in that group who have the exact same struggles as them, that they are not alone. At the same time, though, when they’re brand new, especially, they…

you know, they hesitate to ask certain questions because they don’t know what kind of response they’ll get. So oftentimes they will email me their question or they’ll send me a private message on Facebook with their question. And sometimes, you know, we’ll just have that private conversation. Other times I will generalize it and post it anonymously to the group and answer it that way. But what I realized is that our podcast listeners who aren’t in the Facebook group, they don’t get the benefit and they also don’t know.

that they can submit specific questions for us to answer here on the show. So what better way than to make all of that known is rather than is to have the mailbag episode.

Kathi (01:35)
Yes.

Okay, and I think we’re going to be doing this about once a month. So if you have a question, what’s the best way for them to ask it, Tonya?

Tonya Kubo (01:50)
Well, you know what I would love for them to do is if they are in the group, then they can just post it to the group and say, hey, Tonya, consider this for a mailbag episode and put their question there. The reason I would love that is it gives everybody in the community an opportunity to speak into it. And I think that will help us make an even better episode. So they don’t just get Tonya and Kathi’s perspective, but they get everybody’s perspective. However, if you’re not in the Facebook group and Facebook isn’t your thing, email me at Tonya at kathilipp.org.

Kathi (02:03)
Mmm, yeah.

Tonya Kubo (02:20)
and just put mailbag in the subject line and I will take care of you from there.

Kathi (02:25)
I love it. Okay, so what is today’s mailbag question?

Tonya Kubo (02:30)
Okay, so we’ve titled the this episode with you know what to do when everybody wants to leave their stuff at your house. That was not the specific question that was asked at the same time. I think that is most likely the most acute problem a lot of our listeners have. So I’m going to tell you the question and we’ll answer that specific question, but it also speaks to the title of the episode. So stick with us on this. So the question that came in,

Kathi (02:49)
Yes.

Okay.

Tonya Kubo (02:59)
was from a parent, right? So sandwich generation, right? So they’ve got, they have parents and then, you know, they’ve got adult children. And the issue that they were, well, actually it was the observation that they made was that kids these days, and I use the term kids lightly, because I think to them, I would be a kid, but live differently. Young adults live differently now than they did 30 years ago.

Kathi (03:03)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Yes.

Tonya Kubo (03:29)
And so what this member was acknowledging was that, you know, when they were 19, they were married and in their first home. And that home, that very first home was furnished with things that their parents had been saving for them for when they moved out of the house, right? They brought in their hope chest. They had, you know,

Kathi (03:47)
Right.

Tonya Kubo (03:51)
the hand -me -down dining room table, so on, so forth. And they were very appreciative of those things because it gave them a great start in life. And by the time they were 21, they already had kids and they were still, they have this history of welcoming items from either their parents or from their in -laws as they were building this house out. Fast forward to today, they’ve got kids in their late 20s, early 30s.

They don’t own a home. They maybe don’t even want to own a home. They don’t have kids. So here our member has been storing all this stuff, saving it up for their kids to take to help get them that strong start as they build their new home or they live with their family and their kids don’t have that need. And so their question is like, what do I do? Right? Because it feels it.

Kathi (04:25)
Right.

Right.

Yes.

Tonya Kubo (04:50)
It feels bad. It feels like being a bad parent to get rid of that stuff. Because what if the kids need So tell me your thoughts, Kathi.

Kathi (04:56)
Right. So I think it’s interesting and you know, we’re talking about that sandwich generation. I will tell you that also my mom wants to give me stuff and also my kids don’t want to take the stuff that they want. You know what I mean? Like we had, we had a

Tonya Kubo (05:11)
Mm -hmm.

Mmm.

Kathi (05:25)
a situation where all the kids had moved out of the house and they were expecting us to store all of their stuff. So there’s so many different situations to this. So I would say to our gentle listener or, you know, Clutter Free Academy member is to say, it’s time to have a heart to heart with your kids and say, do you want this stuff? Will it serve you? And if they’re saying,

Tonya Kubo (05:34)
Mm -hmm.

Kathi (05:54)
Yes, we want that stuff, but not now. You need to make the decision. Do you have the room and the desire to keep it until they’re ready for it? Or do you need to say that’s not really going to work for us now? Because here’s what I would gently say to our Clutter Free Academy member, that having that stuff for your kids could actually be costing them money.

You know, do they need an apartment that could handle that dining room table, that hope chest, that China, whatever that is. And like you said, a lot of people don’t live that way. You know, there’s also so many articles right now about how people who are in the baby boomer generation are living in these giant houses because it makes no financial sense for them to downsize.

Tonya Kubo (06:50)
Mm -hmm.

Kathi (06:54)
It would actually cost them money so a lot of people who are in who are Millennials who need the bigger houses can’t have the bigger houses because it doesn’t make sense for baby boomers to move out like there are so many factors here at work and It I Know this that we have some friends who are in their early 30s They don’t want the stuff they want

to be able to move their entire house in the two cars that they own. They want to be able to live in cheap apartments and live that way. So I think it’s worth having that conversation. But here’s the key, being okay with whatever your kids tell you. So if they say, we don’t want the China cabinet, we don’t want the formal dining room.

Tonya Kubo (07:32)
Hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (07:53)
We don’t want those things to be okay to say, be okay with them saying that and you getting, you finding a new home for it. Now here is where I will push back on your kids having a say. If they say, I want all my stuff from my childhood, but I don’t have room for it.

Tonya Kubo (08:03)
Mm -hmm.

Kathi (08:21)
then I think it’s up to the child to come back to the house and go through the stuff and say, you know, you can say, hey, I’m willing to keep two tubs of this or 10 tubs, whatever it is. You get to decide how much space you will allot to storing other people’s items. But it’s not, you have to keep it because I don’t want it. Does that make sense, Tonya?

Tonya Kubo (08:32)
Mm -hmm.

It does, it makes complete sense. Because what I’m hearing is, first of all, you as the parent have only so much responsibility in this situation. I think that’s the big thing is it’s hard for parents to realize that as children grow up, they…

eventually come to a place where they need to take responsibility for their stuff, right? It’s no longer on you to store things for me. It is on me to take possession of the things that are important to me or to find a solution to keeping those things if my lifestyle right now doesn’t fit them.

Kathi (09:12)
Mm -hmm.

Yes. Tonya, here’s what I, the other point I want to make, and then we’re going to take a break and we’ll come back and talk more about this. What I see as being a major point of contention is I, as the parent, feel you should want this stuff. And what do you do with those feelings? So we’re going to take a quick break and come right back. Okay, we’re back.

We’re talking about when everybody wants to leave their stuff at your house. So if your kids are saying, I don’t want that stuff, and you’re saying, but you will someday, can I tell you? For me, that was not true. I don’t need a thousand of my baby pictures. I don’t need my bronze shoes. I don’t need X, Y, and Z. Now,

There may be parents out there who say, but you’re going to want this and it’s not true. And we have to trust our adult children to say, no, that’s not important to me. And that’s okay. It’s okay to say, I think that we come from a long line of people who, you know, I spent so much money bronzing these shoes. And to say, well then as a…

Tonya Kubo (10:38)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (10:55)
as a parent, you can keep those, but as a child, I don’t have to receive those. So I think it’s okay, and we have to, as parents, say it’s okay for our kids to say, what is important to me as a parent is not necessarily important to my child, and I have to be okay with that. That the stuff does not always represent a life. And…

Tonya Kubo (11:00)
Mm -hmm.

Kathi (11:23)
You know, when my grandmother passed away, there were a thousand things I could have taken. I think I took four and that was enough to represent my relationship with my grandmother and my mom was okay with that. And so to be okay with the amount of stuff and not put a burden on our children to say, but you’re going to regret it someday. You’re going to regret. I think we instinctually know what will be important to us even 10 to 20 years from now.

Tonya Kubo (11:31)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (11:53)
And there are ways of preserving those things, taking pictures of them or incorporating them into our decor. But I don’t want storage boxes of my stuff that I then have to burden my children with. And I don’t want them to have storage boxes of stuff that then have to be a burden to them.

Tonya Kubo (12:06)
Mm -hmm.

Exactly. Well, and I think, you know…

What some parents worry about, and I’m, I think some adult kids, honestly, are not willing to have the hard conversation. You know, hard conversations don’t have to be conflict conversations. But a lot of times, you know, when, when mom says, well, but you want this, right? It’s just easier to say yes than to actually take a pause and say, you know, actually, mom,

Kathi (12:35)
Right.

Right.

Tonya Kubo (12:51)
No, I don’t. You know, I’m in my fourth apartment of my adult life and I’ve never seen a need to have my baby shoes or to have this or to have that. And, you know, I had a friend one time who her mom kept storing up stuff for grandbabies and my friend was having a very difficult time conceiving. And at one point,

we were cleaning out a closet and my friend was getting rid of all these things that had been stockpiled for her future children. And she says, you know, Tonya, I am just tired of holding space for babies that refuse to make an appearance. Right. And that was her thing. She was like, you know, I haven’t given up hope, but I need to stop like taking up all this space because the baby is just not here.

Kathi (13:32)
Right, wow.

Tonya Kubo (13:44)
And I was like, you know what, you’ve got a great point. And we did, we did a ton of decluttering. And the funny story was, is a year later, she ended up pregnant and we’re talking like 12 years of trying, right? She ends up pregnant and I asked her, I said, do you have any regrets? And she was like, no, I don’t actually. She goes, do you know how depressing it would have been to go through all those boxes and how overwhelming? She’s like, now I’m just going, okay, I know exactly how much space I have. I don’t have the, I don’t need a baby to fit the things that have been stored.

Kathi (13:44)
Right.

Of course. wow.

Yeah.

Tonya Kubo (14:12)
I can just buy what fits the lifestyle we have.

Kathi (14:12)
Yeah.

Hmm. You know what? It’s it’s so true. You know, everybody has to right size their life. And I think that there are some of us parents who are like, if I give this to my child, I’m not going to feel guilty for not wanting it.

Tonya Kubo (14:21)
Mm -hmm.

I think ultimately that’s really what it is, right? We all want to be good parents until the day we die. And I think sometimes what we, like our definition of a good parent isn’t always the same as our kids. And I think it’s a great idea to just have that conversation like you suggest.

Kathi (14:34)
and yeah right yes

Yeah, and it’s okay. I do not feel less loved because my kids do not want my stuff. And that we have a good relationship is the ultimate legacy I want to pass down, not my things. I also think that there is a space that we have to get into where my kids are not China people or quilt people.

Tonya Kubo (15:02)
Right.

Kathi (15:23)
or whatever it is, but there are those people out there who would love and appreciate those things. And so to find those people, it doesn’t have to be my child, but there are people who appreciate those quilts. There are people who appreciate milk glass. So find the people who will actually appreciate the things and…

Tonya Kubo (15:23)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (15:51)
You know, for the children who are out there who are like, I don’t want to keep the stuff. I don’t want to keep this stuff. May I gently suggest take some of the photographs, you know, take the photographs of you as a child, take the photographs of you with your parents and display a couple of those things that will be a signal to your parents about how much you appreciate them without having to have all the stuff in your household.

Tonya, for the kids who are listening, I would gently suggest having those conversations in small doses early and often and to let your parents know how much you love them without having to have this stuff. Did your mom try to put a lot of stuff on you, Tonya?

Tonya Kubo (16:47)
My mother was a hoarder. Of course she did.

Kathi (16:49)
Of course she did. How did you, in a hoarding situation, this will be my last question for you, in a hoarding situation, how do you have that conversation? And I know hoarders don’t receive those things well, but what was, yeah.

Tonya Kubo (17:05)
I was like, you can’t have that conversation. You just can’t. So it’s the same advice I give members of our community all the time. It’s like, you have to make a decision. You can say yes to everything to keep the peace and get rid of it on your end, however you choose to. Knowing full well they’re going to ask where it is every time they come to visit you all the time. They’re going to expect to see it, to visit it, just like it’s a museum. So that’s one choice. The other choice is to say no.

and have that conflict over and over and over again because it very rarely will not let like will not end in a conflicted conversation. Or you can go to your parents’ house and say I will go through it here and throw those items, donate those items in front of them, which you have to recognize will cause them extreme grief and extreme anxiety.

Kathi (17:58)
You had to make a rule with your mom that she couldn’t leave stuff at your house, right?

Tonya Kubo (18:02)
Exactly. Everything that she came with, she had to leave with. And that was hard because from her perspective, we had all of this space. Why were we so selfish with our space? We had a garage. We didn’t need to park our cars in the garage. We could store stuff that she wanted to leave there. We had closets. I had a car trunk. Why couldn’t my stuff, why couldn’t her stuff stay in my car trunk?

Kathi (18:12)
Yeah.

It’s a heartbreak, it really is. Fortunately, most of us don’t have to deal with a true hoarder. Most of us just have to have an awkward conversation and you can do it. But if you’re a parent, know that them taking or not taking your stuff is not a sign of how much they love you. It’s a sign of how well you’ve raised them to live with less and that’s a good thing.

Tonya Kubo (18:36)
Mm -hmm.

Kathi (18:55)
Friends, 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 

#672 – From Pantry to Plate: The Secret to Smart Food Storage

#672 – From Pantry to Plate: The Secret to Smart Food Storage

Join Kathi Lipp and Tonya Kubo in this episode of Clutter-Free Academy as they tackle the often overwhelming world of food storage. Whether you’re struggling with long-term pantry organization, fridge chaos, containers for on the go or finding the right containers for...

#671 – Sentimental Clutter: Finding Freedom in Letting Go

#671 – Sentimental Clutter: Finding Freedom in Letting Go

Kathi Lipp returns with Tonya Kubo and Tenneil Register to address a common challenge faced by those on the clutter-free journey: sentimental items. In this insightful episode, the trio tackles the emotional weight of inherited belongings and the guilt that often...