Confronting Your Online Order History is the New SelfCare

it’s been said

that if you stand in the middle of your

home and take a look around

everything you see used to be money

i learned this the hard way as an

engineer in washington dc

with a six-figure salary and a credit

score in the 700s

on paper i was a success but inside

i was a mess uncertain and underwhelmed

at 35 i decided to move into my parents

basement

and take an adulting break i plan to use

this year-long

intermission as a way to save some money

find my purpose maybe even find a new

job that allowed me to make more of a

difference

as the end of my adulting break

approached

my favorite design blog featured marie

condo’s best seller

the life-changing magic of tidying up

i fell in love with marie’s konmari

method and its radical

self-carriness it’s the anti-baby step

approach

to a clutter-free home so it’s as

charming

as it is progressively uncomfortable

i’ve always loved interior design

planning things

and putting things in order so as soon

as i finished that book

i ran to my closet and started to ask

myself

what did and did not spark joy

what was left was six bags ready to go

to donation

and three hundred dollars worth of

clothes that were brand new

with tags that did not spark joy

now i’m no stranger to an annual purge

but this time around

i asked myself why why did i have

so many extra things what was really

going on here

what was the lesson my clutter had to

teach me

i continued to tidy well beyond clothing

making thousands of decisions about

everything in my home through a lens of

joy

i let go of old notes from grad school

home goods that never quite worked even

sentimental items

everything from photos to furniture that

represented

past seasons of my life i was determined

to be an

extension of a home that i honored

the beautiful thing about the konmari

method is it gives you permission to

keep

whatever you want to as long as it

sparks joy

the challenging thing about the konmari

method is it gives you permission to

keep

whatever you want to as long as it

sparks joy

i let go of a lot of things but i

confidently kept

58 pairs of shoes and every last one of

them

sparks joy now i didn’t understand why i

love these shoes so much

until i found a note that i wrote my mom

in elementary school

describing a favorite experience

everything about this experience

revolved around shopping

and the mall three different stores the

quest to find the perfect shoes

in that moment my clutter spoke up

i was emotionally stuck and no amount of

cyclical purging

was going to get me out i was stuck

under

mindless purchases unhealthy habits

unfinished business and unfulfilled

career aspirations recycled

year after year i use the act of

acquiring more

as a way to bury the guilt anxiety and

shame

associated with my inability to achieve

true joy and happiness in major areas of

my life

all that from looking at my closets

retail played a significant role in my

childhood

but as an adult i use the comfort and

ease of online shopping

as a way to check out and ignore deeper

issues

which is probably why when i reached the

end of my tithing event

i still felt like there was work to be

done

i had found a place for absolutely

everything in my home

but i realized that

i don’t know i needed to shift my time

energy and resources

that i used to organize my home to other

areas of my life

that needed some attention i made it a

game

how many aspects of my life could i

declutter

i started to let go again i let go

of my life in the dc metro area and my

parents basement

to move to chicago and explore a new

city

i let go of 14 years in corporate

america

so that i could start my own small

business as a professional home

organizer

and certified kunmari consultant helping

others

to let go of stuff to live a truly

abundant life

i even let go of 30 pounds which i kind

of gained back during quarantine

but i’m in the process of losing again

i carefully examined my relationship

with how i consumed

absolutely everything social media

junk mail even the amount of water that

i drank

every day but there was more

30 000 more

consumer debt that had accumulated over

more than 10 years

of mindless purchases and living beyond

my means

it was the dark cloud that shaded every

milestone i’d had

since the very first day i chose to pay

over time

versus pay balance in full

which is what led me to go to a place

where no one has ever willingly gone

before

my amazon order history

after decluttering with clients for more

than a thousand hours

i’d seen a lot of miscellaneous items

purchased online

i was leaving my client’s apartment one

day and i walked past her front desk

manager

she stopped me and mentioned that there

were some clients or

tenants who probably needed my help

she based this off of the fact that they

received a large number of amazon boxes

through the mail room each and every day

which is why i renamed miscellaneous

clutter

amazon.com amazon.com clutter

is an ever expanding catalog of readily

accessible

retail therapy the good news is when you

declutter

you uncover sticky habits and

opportunities for improvement

through self-awareness so i could

confront

my financial clutter just like i

confronted the clothes in my closet

really feeling the weight of those

purchases in my life

so i could redefine what enough meant

for me

the engineer in me was geeking out about

this idea of looking through

spreadsheets of amazon data

so i isolated my purchases from 2010 to

2020

and i excluded things like gifts that i

purchased for others

groceries business expenses and returns

what was left was 721

items totaling eighteen thousand

one hundred and seventy one dollars

so that’s about eighteen hundred dollars

in spending

per year on amazon the average amazon

prime member

spends about 1400 a year on the platform

so not a great time to be above average

but i continued to check out those

individual purchases

and i noticed that most of them were

under 20 dollars

and represented promises i had made

myself and

never kept the true cost of trial and

error

and phases of my life that define who i

am

today there was my mini trampoline

moment

i bought that thing brand new used it

once

and then sold it in a yard sale i guess

bouncer sizing really wasn’t my thing

then there was the quest to find the

perfect headphones

the revolving door products that

represented my five-year natural hair

care journey

and my budding cross stitch hobby

i continued to look at those frequent

purchases

and i noticed that over the past 10

years most of my spending was in

home goods shoe care skin care

and my dog carbon i was actually pretty

surprised by

how accurately my order history

reflected my

interests and values but there was

definitely some room to tighten up my

savings

so that my spending could more

comfortably fit into my vision

of financial independence i was also

super curious about how many of those

721 items still remained in my home

till this day after 10 years of shopping

four of which were spent adopting this

clutter-free lifestyle

there were 337 items left

that still sparked joy which meant that

i had let go

of a little over 50 percent of

everything that i purchased on amazon

over the past 10 years with a thank you

to end the season of those items in my

life

it took me 18 hours to complete this

analysis

but it will influence every purchase i

make moving forward

and that’s the power of radical

self-care looking at your order history

isn’t as exciting as maybe taking a

bubble bath

or buying yourself some flowers but

there are

rewards on the other side if you just

get a little messy learn and then

let go ultimately the money is spent

i can’t go back in time and change that

i made what i thought was the best

decision for those items

based on the knowledge and the resources

that i had

on at that time i let go of everything

that didn’t serve me

and i held on to the lesson that my

clutter taught me

because looking at my purchases allows

me to make more mindful choices

and not dwell in the past or try to

predict

the future use of something someday

the clutter in your order history has

something to tell you

are you listening i challenge you to

get a little uncomfortable in order to

take care of yourself

and your budget by looking at your

shopping behaviors on your favorite

platform

we all have the opportunity to shop

mindful

making values-driven decisions based on

what we need what we can afford and what

can fit

in our beautiful homes and lives each

and every time we click

place your order thank you