Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - Why Your Clutter is Keeping You Broke (And How to Fix It) | Clutterbug Podcast #330

Episode Date: June 15, 2026

MasterClass always has great offers for an annual subscription. If you use my link, you’ll get at least 15% off! Head over https://masterclass.yt.link/cFxOSGk for the current offer! Want to know how to save money by decluttering your home? The connection between clutter and finances is real, and your messy house is draining your bank account. Today, I'm breaking down why overspending and clutter go hand-in-hand, plus giving you four challenges to stop the cycle right now. Okay, real talk. When I finally got my clutter under control, I’m not being dramatic here, the financial shift was insane. And for the longest time, I didn't understand why decluttering my home also fixed my money problems. But now I get it, and I'm sharing all of it with you. This episode is different, friends. We're not just tidying up—we're tackling the uncomfortable stuff. The scarcity mindset that makes you panic-buy things "just in case." The emotional spending that leads to more clutter, which leads to more shame, which leads you right back to the store. And yeah, I'm gonna say the thing that might make you uncomfortable: if you have too much clutter in your home, you have an overconsumption problem. You're buying too much. Sorry, not sorry. Here's what we're covering: Why my messy house was keeping me broke (and how yours might be too) The "spending to save" trap that retailers use to exploit your fear How disorganization costs you money in duplicates, late fees, and wasted purchases Why the more clothes you have, the less you have to wear (it's bonkers but it's true) But here's the best part: we're body-doubling today, and I'm giving you FOUR challenges to do while you listen. Because here's the truth: clutter isn't just stuff. It's wasted money, wasted time, and wasted mental energy. And when you finally deal with it? You get all of that back. Let's break the wheel together, Clutterbugs. Your future self (and your bank account) will thank you. Want to get organized? Learn 6-Step The Clutterbug Method: https://clutterbug.thinkific.com/courses/Clutterbug-Method You can find more Clutterbug content here: Main YouTube Channel: @Clutterbug Website: http://www.clutterbug.me TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clutterbug_me Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clutterbug_me/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Clutterbug.Me/ #clutterbug #decluttering #organizingtips #moneytips #savemoney #overspending #clutterfreehome #financialfreedom #budgeting #emotionalspending #scarcitymindset #overconsumption #moneymanagement #moneymindset #organizeyourlife Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Just like clutter is embarrassing and is something we never talk about, right? Our messy home, we never talk about our messy finances either because that stuff is private. You know what I mean? We pretend everything is fine even when it isn't. But it's okay today to just acknowledge that this is hard. And other people find it hard too. When my house got under control, I was shocked that it affected my finances the way that it did. I know you could say, yeah, clutter and money goes hand in hand, but it was so dramatic that when I started decluttering, I also saw this insane increase in my bank account. We're talking about that today, like why this is. And throughout this entire podcast, I want you to do some of these mini challenges with me. I'm all about motivating you. And usually I'm like, get up and do your dishes. But today, instead, we are going to body. double, and I'm going to give you tangible, actionable steps that you can take right now. I've been talking a lot lately in this podcast about procrastination and trying to find motivation. And money is something that I think a lot of us procrastinate.

It's uncomfortable. Let's get real. Talking about it as uncomfortable, dealing with it can be not so pleasant. And the avoidance of money can also lead to clutter. It's the bills you don't want to open, so it ends up being clutter paper piles everywhere and on your counter. It's just, maybe it's the piles of receipts you have to deal with or things you probably should return. It all just becomes not just physical clutter in your home, but mental clutter. It is weighing you down.

But finances don't have to be scary. Money doesn't have to be uncomfortable. And dealing with it is something we can tackle today. And the byproduct of that is we'll have a less cluttered home too. So right now, while you're listening, I want you to gather. Maybe it's paper clutter, unopened bills. Perhaps it is those receipts. Look in the bottom of your purse. I know you've got some financial cluttery stuff that you've been avoiding in there. Maybe it is your action file. The bills you know you're supposed to pay, but you've been avoiding. I just want you to gather those together. What if right now you'd, you'd did a quick on a piece of paper snapshot of your finances. I want you to grab a piece of paper and I just, this is not about perfection. I want you to guess how much money's coming in every month. I just want you to write that down. And then I want you to guess how much your bills are going out. Like just again, we're not doing a full budget because sometimes budgets can feel, oh,

oppressive and scary. I just want you to like guess to me and write that down as well. So like guessing in, guessing out. And then right off the top of your head, what are things you think you could be wasting money on? Like what are things going out that perhaps are unnecessary? And the first thing that comes to mind for me are subscriptions. I want you to just write down if you think perhaps you don't need to be paying for Netflix or Paramount Plus or Amazon Prime. Just write those down.

And are there other subscriptions? that you're paying for. Do you have a gym membership that you're paying for every month and you never go to the gym? Or maybe it's your iCloud storage. I know for me it's those stupid apps on my phone where I'm like, I'm just going to try the free trial. And then I forget all about it and I continue to pay it till the end of time. What if we just take a snapshot just for a moment of wasted or potential wasted money going out? And this also can be buying in bulk. This can also be interest payments on things, like your student loan, that man, you've been paying for 40 freaking years. Why is it not paid off yet? We are just taking a second and brain dumping.

That's what this is. Brain dumping financial clutter that's been rattling around in your noggin. Let's get it on paper. And it might surprise you. Honestly, this exercise, you might have nothing. You're like, my finances are under control, cast. Awesome. But do the exercise anyways, because it might surprise you the things that are stressing you out financially when you put them on paper, it brings clarity. I think sometimes we avoid thinking about finances because it's so big. It's so scary. I know when I was living in chronic debt, I didn't want to think about it because immediately I felt shame. I felt shame that I was in this situation in the first place, but I also felt overwhelmed because I didn't see a fast way out. And if we don't have a clear

path out. I think our brain tries to protect us from the stress and the anxiety and we just avoid it. And we stack those bills in the corner or we throw things in a filing cabinet and we move on to other parts of our life. Because what is the easy way out? What is the fast way to just deal with it? There isn't one. There isn't a band-aid we can slap on this. So instead, we just let our artery bleed in the corner while we ignore it and do something else. But today, what if we just put pressure on it? And I don't mean pressure, like pressure ourselves. I mean, what if we just say, I'm at least going to look and assess the situation instead of continually avoiding looking? I think sometimes we just have to realize that we're not alone. And that's where body doubling comes in.

There are other people listening to this podcast that are in the same position you are, that are also feeling overwhelmed and anxious and stressed, and they're stuck in the scarcity cycle. And they're home is cluttered and their finances are cluttered too. And just knowing that we're not in this by ourselves can really be freeing. It really can. I remember the first time listening to a financial audiobook and listening to a financial podcast and just feeling this weight off my shoulders because I'm like, oh, other people are struggling to. Just like clutter is embarrassing and is something we never talk about, right? Our messy home. We never talk. talk about our messy finances either because that stuff is private. You know what I mean? We

pretend everything is fine even when it isn't. But it's okay today to just acknowledge that this is hard and other people find it hard too. So while you make your mental brain dumping list of all the things that are kind of stressing you out when it comes to your finances or ways that you might have a leaky ship, ways that you potentially could be wasting money, write this all down. we are going to talk about the correlation, the connection between our clutter and our money. Because it's surprising. It's also not surprising. You know what I mean? It's both. So when I was really living my most cluttered messiest life, I was also broke as shit. Okay. I had no money. And I think a big part of that was because I was stuck in the scarcity cycle where I didn't trust my money.

and I talk about this all the time, but it needs to be said again. I did not trust that next week I would still have $100 in my bank account, right? So I compulsively, like, quickly spent it on things I might need before it was gone. So I would go to the store and I would buy things in bulk or I would like, oh my gosh, those jeans are only $20. I better buy them. I might not have $20 next week. They're not even my size.

That was not coming into my brain. It was the panic that was coming into my brain. I better spend it before it's gone. Also, I had this weird rewiring that had happened where I thought that stuff equaled safety. And so I better buy extra food. I better stock up on the mac and cheese. I better stock up on the frozen meat now that it's on sale because I might not be able to afford it next week. And also, because I was ignoring my finances, I was self-soothing my shame about my house and my clutter by shopping, because it feels good to buy new things. And I wasn't addressing the situation. So I wasn't like living the severity of it. I was just making myself feel better by trips to the dollar

store and yardstale shopping and going to the thrift store, which was just making the entire situation worse. It really was the emotions that I wasn't dealing with, you know, the stress, the sadness, the overwhelm, which was leading to me self-soothing by buying stuff, which was then leading to more clutter and more shame and more guilt, which then led to me self-soothing back at the store. What? Like, it's crazy to say it loud, and it might be something that you say, oh, I can't relate to that. I'm super thrifty. I'm really frugal. Are you? Are you? Or are you so desperate to save that you're spending to save? And this is something that is such a relatable issue. Spending to save means that you are buying things on sale because it's saving you money. Or you're stocking up on things or you're like,

I'm going to collect all these coupons and then go buy this random stuff. But we're not actually saving or it's like buy two, get one free. We're spending to save. And the crazy thing is retailers know this. They know that we're feeling insecure about our finances. They know we feel like we don't have enough. They know everything is so freaking expensive and we're stressed about it that when we do go to the store because we need milk and bread and actual food.

they're they're sort of like leaning into our fear with these buy two, these bogo sales, with these extreme discount, buy now kind of mentality, which is feeding into our fear, but it just ends up at the end of the day costing us more money that we weren't intending to spend. The emotional spending leads to clutter and it leads to financial struggles. If you're a regular listener to the podcast, hopefully you'll know what I'm talking about. But what I find so fascinating is we've had two guests recently talking about procrastination. We had Christine, Dr. Christine Lee, and we had Dr. Guy Wynch talking about those ruminating thoughts, right? Which are leading to us like just thinking and stressing and anxiety.

And what was really fascinating to me is both of these experts talked about The way out, the way to really not only stop our brain from overthinking and stressing but also stop us from procrastinating is taking action. A small, tiny, actionable step. And that's what you're doing right now by writing your list. You're taking action. You are brain dumping all the potential ways that you are wasting money, but also just kind of like your money coming in versus your money going,

versus your money going out. And also, can we highlight some of the ways that we're wasting when it comes to our clutter with duplicates? How many times have you bought ketchup on sale just to come home and realize you had six unopened ones in your pantry? How many times are we wasting money because we don't know what we have or we can't find it? So as you're writing a list, how is it going? But is there room on that list for how clutter? contributes to wasted money too in the fact that you just don't know what you have. And speaking of taking action, just look at your list right now. And what is one small thing you can do to just give you a little piece? Maybe you're looking at all your subscriptions. You're like, I know I'm

wasting money on the streaming services. Can we cancel one right now? Can we take a look at that list and can we think of one thing that we can return to get some money back because you have all these receipts of things you probably shouldn't buy. Can we return one item? Can we look at our emails and just cancel, like unsubscribe to one email that's causing us to buy when we don't want to? Can we just make a sign that says no flyers, please? Because you are a person who is like, oh, this is on sale. I better go to the store and buy it. What if you don't know what's on sale? Because if that's your trigger to over buy, we're going to make our handwritten sign right now and tape it to the mailbox that says no flyers, please.

These are tiny actionable steps that you can take that can bring you some peace, but also bring you some real results. Less clutter coming in and less wasted money going out. Because overconsumption is real. Okay, the struggle is real. We every day are just bombarded by advertising. to buy more stuff. And what's happening is we are buying more stuff because it's easier than ever. And it's leading to a full cluttered home, which is reinforcing the cycle that stuff equals safety

and security and money, even though it doesn't. And then we're continually to overconsume. So let's break the wheel a little bit today. Let's honestly think about ways that we are overconsuming. What are you buying too much of and why? and hopefully this list can highlight that for you and help you. And I'm going to give you quick examples of something I know I overconsume and why I overconsume. The one thing I overconsume the most, right now in my life, is probably beauty products. I know this. I'm always like, oh, I should get that face cream that's going to make me less wrinkled. Maybe I need some hair serum to deal with my homeless looking dew. And I fall into these traps of ordering things online, why? Why? Because I scroll TikTok late at night. And the algorithm knows that I'm feeling insecure. And all I have are beauty influencers peddling their crap. I know none of this makes me feel better or look better. It just makes me have less money and more clutter in my bathroom. So what if I right now delete TikTok from my phone? Is that dramatic? Okay, maybe that's a little too dramatic. What if right now, On my phone, I put screen time that I can't watch TikTok past 8 p.m. until 7 the next morning because I know I overconsume at night. This is my trigger. So what if I can hack the system

and adjust my phone if you're not feeling brave enough to delete the app that's causing you to buy if that's what's happening? What if you just turn on your screen time and make it so that you can't access these certain hours of the day that you tend to overconsume? There's little hacks like this that we can do when we have the self-awareness of where we're spending too much and what we're spending too much on. The thing about overconsumption is the clutter costs us more than just the money we've spent on it in our bank account. It costs us the mental stress of everywhere we look there's things to do because we have to, everything you buy is work. That's all there is to it. It's something you need to remember you own. It's something you need to maintain. You have to clean it.

You have to stuff shuffle it. And that, my friends, is so stressful. But also, when we have all these duplicates, you have no idea what you actually have. Like, it's harder to find the thing. Every morning I get ready, I'm like, which of the cream again do I actually like? And that's costing me the most precious thing at all, of all, which is time. We spend so much of our time managing the mess, managing the excess. that was totally caused by overconsumption. Let's be honest. And even if you're a person that says to me,

I hardly buy. I don't spend too much. That isn't, if you have clutter in your home, you have an overconsumption problem, period. Like, let's just get real with each other right now. And that doesn't mean that you're way out there spending ballers of cash, okay? I'm not saying that at all, but what I'm saying is you're buying too much because your home can't sustain. Period. I feel bad saying it. Oh, we're just laying truth bombs. Does this make you uncomfortable?

I'm going to repeat it. And I want you to really tell me in the comments how this makes you feel. If you have too much clutter in your home, you have a problem with overconsumption. You are buying too much. Sorry. Let's just take a second and talk about some of the ways I see this. I see this with clothing. I see this with laundry.

People who are drowning in clothes. There's just like piles everywhere. You buy too much and you haven't let go of the old. And what's so crazy ironic, I'm going to call out my sister-in-law right now for a second. I was just playing Fortnite with her last night on the phone. And my brother was like, did you switch over the laundry? She's like, I don't want to. We were all playing games together.

and he's like, God, we have so much laundry to do. And she said, and I quote, it's easier to just go buy new underwear, you know? Because when we have too many clothes, we can't even find the clothes we like, the laundry becomes insanely overwhelming. It doesn't all fit in our closets. Our drawers are jammed. And what do we do? We feel like we have nothing to wear. And it drives us to the store or to Amazon to buy new clothes. I've been in homes where the clothing is literally piled to my eyeballs. Like there are paths. And I was also there. I remember my apartment, especially when I first met my husband and he was coming over. And I was so mortified because the clothing was waist high. How do we get there? It wasn't that I had a ton of money. And I was like, and people who have this amount of clothing, it isn't that they're,

buying Gucci, okay? They're not out there. How do we get here? It's one tiny budget purchase at a time. And before we know it, because we haven't decluttered the old clothing, especially if you have children, they outgrow clothing quickly, we get to a point where we have no idea what we have. And we can't find anything to wear. And we have to go buy more because it's crazy. The overconsumption of the clothing has now made the clothing useless. The more we buy, the less we can wear. It sounds bonkers, but it is the reality of the situation. We can't see it.

We can't find it. We can't wash it. We can't put it away. And therefore, we have nothing to wear. And I see this, not just with clothing, but with kids' toys. This is such an example, right? The more toys your children have, the less they want to play with them. and the more bored they are. And that is just the bonkers ironic truth. And so you've bought your kids

and people have given them toys for Christmas and holidays and they're piled and stacked everywhere. And your kid is like, I have nothing to do. They're bored. They're annoying you. They're not being creative. Why? Because they're overwhelmed too. There's so much they don't know what they have and they don't even want to deal with it. And here's the beautiful thing, though. Not only does the excess make us feel like we need more because we're stuck in this scarcity cycle, but also we can't find anything and nothing feels useful. So we have to go by duplicates. But the beautiful thing is when we find the courage to actually deal with it, to say, enough is enough. I'm sick of the piles of laundry. I'm going to declutter my clothes. We actually feel like gross.

at the idea of going to buy more because it's been so uncomfortable to declutter. And here's a, here's a nice thing that happens, though. We also discover all the clothing that we already own that we love that we forgot about. It's like shopping. Decluttering can feel like Christmas morning. Honestly, with your kids, with your kids' toys, with your clothing, with things in your kitchen, because you will find things that actually matter, things you actually love as you're doing the work and going through and decluttering, you're going to be like, oh yeah, this is awesome. Why did I forget about this shirt? Or I love these cookies in my pantry.

I forgot I had them because they were buried under the dad's cookies from Costco that everyone hates because they're disgusting. When we declutter, we find new, but we also find this empowerment to stop buying. So you see how the clutter and the money are directly connected. All right, so it's time for a second challenge. This is going to be so fun. Hopefully you've brain dumped. You've got some ideas of where the money's wasted. That was the first challenge and you've getting kind of mad. I hope you're feeling a little ragy at the money going out and the stuff coming in. I hope you're feeling a little motivated to break the wheel. Okay? The first challenge,

you were brain dumping. You were just kind of getting a rough idea of what's, you're going to be stressing you out when it comes to your finances. The second challenge, you were just going to pick one small, actionable step that you could take, whether it's unsubscribing to an email or canceling a subscription or making one return. You are going to think about one small actionable step. This third challenge is going to be so fun. Are you ready? It's the Use It Up challenge. Now, you can turn this into a weekly challenge where you think about your pantry and you're going to use up all the extra sauces or actually eat those cookies that you like or make dinners only out of what you have in the freezer or you can take this a step further and think about one thing that you've over

consumed and you are not allowed to buy anything within that category until you've used up the things you have. I'm going to do this with my face cream. I am not allowed to buy face cream until I've used up all the stuff in my drawer. Some of those face creams I hate, but I can use them as body cream until they're used up. I can slather my scaly feet, you know, with that cream till it's gone. It's going to be gone. This could be the meat in your freezer, which is, that's traumatic, but it's okay. This could be the extra food in your pantry. It's, It's those candles you've been waiting to burn. By the time you light them, my friend, they aren't even going to have a scent anymore. Maybe it's the lotion. What if it's your cleaning

supplies? If you're a person who chronically overbys cleaning supplies, I feel you. The messiest homes I've ever been in, hands down, have the most cleaning supplies. The irony. What if you're using it up? You're not allowed to buy another cleaner until you've used up what you have. Don't love that cleaner, dump it in the toilet. Use it like that. We're using stuff up because that is a form of decluttering. So right now, think about something you're going to use up. I want you to write it down and circle it. And while you're listening, you can even go and like gather that thing. Like actually take action. What's the thing you're going to use up? Make a plan to use it up. Make sure you gather all those supplies together. Some of these things you might not even know that you have. This could be like

find, hide and seek thing where you're like running around your house and actually looking and gathering these things that you can use up, whether it's all the lotions, all the cleaning supplies, all the cookies, the snacks, the food, the ingredients, the baking. Maybe you're like, I know I have old dried cranberries. Maybe you could make some sort of cranberry cookie. I don't know. You do you, boo, but while you're listening, we're going to talk about the connection between disorganization and your finances. This is something I really, really struggled with because my home was so chaotic and I ladybugged all my bills. I ladybugged all my paperwork. I ladybuged everything. So I didn't know where anything was, how to access it. And when I was looking, I was just so,

like, oh, there was just so much chaos and so much clutter, I had chronic decision fatigue. I was so overwhelmed just at the pile of bills and paper. I couldn't even think about opening them and actually paying it. I was so stressed because I could never remember where anything was. I could never remember to actually pay the bills. And then when it was time to go deal with it, I was so anxious about what to do with the papers once they were paid. Like, just everything was harder than it needed to be. Because I didn't have physical systems in place. I didn't have real organization. I didn't have a place for the bills to go or the mail or the things that needed to be signed. They just got piled. And when the pile got so big and I was so overwhelmed, I just shoved it in a drawer or a closet or under the bed. And I'm

embarrassed to say that, but that is the reality. And then when we got the final notice, when our gas was shut off, when we got to the point where they were threatening to, like, cancel our insurance, Joe stepped in and was like, what is wrong with you? What is wrong with you? And I was like, I don't know. I'm not organized. And in my brain, I was overcomplicating what that even looked like. did I need to color coordinate my files like Joe did? Listen, listen to my face right now. We had a filing cabinet that all the money was in green folders and all the home stuff was in blue.

And then all like the importity taxi stuff was in red. And then on top of that, everything was in alphabetical order. So even if I paid the visa bill, now I got to look inside this maze of color and think about and then do A, B, C, D, F, G, H, A, when does V come? Where does V come? And I'm singing songs so I can put the paper where it's supposed to go. And I'm stressed, okay? What?

Listen to my face. Here's what I did. I created a system. I came in, an action super important, was not allowed to go with anything else. Period. Not the flyers, not the coupons, not the invitation to the birthday party. only bills that had to be paid and things that had to be dealt with within the next seven days went in a basket called action. And now I wasn't stressed because I wasn't forgetting and things

weren't mixed in. And then I set myself a timer that every Sunday I was just going to deal with the papers and it had to be empty. That basket had to be empty. And then I was like, Screw Joe's filing cabinet color coordinating. What the heck is that? I'm just going to have another bigger basket that's paid bills for the year. Didn't matter if it was a statement, didn't matter if it was whatever. If it's dealt with, that's where it goes. And one day a year at tax time, I dump that baby on the floor and I sort it. Do I need to keep this for taxes? No, should I keep this forever? Probably not. It gets shredded. But I only had to file paper one day a year. So suddenly I'm not overwhelmed, you know? I'm not feeling like this anxiety about what to do with the papers and where

they should go and where are they and all that stress that stopped me from actually taking action on my finances. Seriously, two baskets. I want you to think about your own systems. Where does it go? How do you find it? Are you over-complicating it? Are you making a literal mountain out of a mole hill? And is that contributing to your financial struggles? And this leads me to our final challenge, okay? Because big part of organization is knowing what we have. And so, okay, don't be mad. But here's the thing I want you to do.

For seven days, don't worry, it's not a no spend challenge because we've already done that before. And theirs are awesome. But no, for seven days, we are tracking our spending. and listen to me, this sucks so hard. And I have an app that tracks my spending for me, but it's different. Why? Because when I open that app and I look at all the ways I've spent, I'm just like, girl, no, you're ridiculous. But it's not training me because it's not in the moment. So I want you to grab a notebook, a piece of paper, whatever it is. And I want you to keep it with your debit,

your credit card, your cash. And every time you make a purchase, I want you to write it. And I want you to write it down like it's 1956 and where your granny. Okay. They carried that little pocketbook for a reason because, yeah, they had to balance their checkbook, which is something I don't think we have to do anymore, but it's more than that. It's the self-awareness in the moment. It's understanding, and this is why it's different than just having an app. So if I'm finding I'm ordering something on Amazon, I'm going to write that down. I spent $56 on new jeans on Amazon. It's 11.000. p.m. at night. I can also think why? Where is this coming? What was the trigger? Did I buy this because of TikTok? Did I buy this because I'm feeling insecure? Did I buy this because I'm sad? Did I buy this

because X, Y, Z? Did I buy this because I saw it in a flyer? What are the triggers? And we have no way of knowing what our triggers are if we're not tracking and having that self-awareness. So this is big. This isn't something you can do right now, but you can make a plan to do this right now. This is so powerful. And I'm going to do this with you. For the next seven days, every time we buy something, we're not going to try to talk ourselves out of it. We're just going to have awareness. We're going to write down what we bought, how much it costs, and then really think about why.

What was the trigger here? And this is how we can start having an actual life-changing transformation because everything starts. Every new good habit, every new change, every amazing thing in our life starts with self-awareness. Now it's time for a talk to Cass and we're going to start with Destry. Hey Cass, my name is Destry and I am a plant lover. I have a big garden. I have a big garden. I have a little roadside flower stand where I share my cut flower bouquets with my friends and neighbors, and I even have a gardening YouTube channel. But here's the deal. I have a lot of house plants. By a lot, I mean like a lot. I think I have about 300 house plants the last time I counted

in my home that I share with my two kids and my husband. They make fun of me a little bit, and honestly, I'm starting to get a little overwhelmed. I have to water them, care for them, and I'm running out of space for them. So here's my question. How do you know if a house house plant collection has gotten a little bit too big, or any collection for that matter. Should I try to carve out more room and make sort of a dedicated space for all these houseplants, sort of a jungle room? Should I, you know, kind of par down my collection? Some of them are really special and rare. How do you know if a collection has just gone overboard? I really need some advice with this. I'm really struggling with it because as you guys can, or as you can probably imagine,

all my plants and I hate to see them go. But what would be a good solution to my problem? Thanks so much. I appreciate your help. Listen, Fred, the fact that you're asking means you already know the answer. 300 houseplants is too many. And when you said, should I have a jungle room, something inside of me broke? Because the answer is absolutely freaking not. Don't you dare. So are your plants taking away your living space? If the answer is yes, then it's absolutely a problem. The fact that you're asking means that you already think it's a problem. So here's what I'm going to say. This, my friend, is identity clutter. Because you're a plant lover. So every single plant feels like your baby. It feels like a part of you. It feels like part of your identity and the thing you love and that you pride yourself the most on. But I know for a fact that you have some that are your least favorites. So step one is having a boundary of where the plants go. Look at your, you're not giving them a jungle room. No, you are not. Look at the space you already have. It's like, okay, this is the shelf in front of this window right here. Give yourself

key. I'm only going to have them here and they're not going to spread out. And then you're going to shop your favorites. So take all the plants off where they are right now. I know, Destri, this is a huge job. You have 300. It's going to take you a while, but it's okay. pull them all out, put them on the floor, all in the middle, and then shop your favorites first. And then when that space, you like the way it looks, stop. Move to another space, shop your favorites, stop. Whatever is left on the floor, this is called like hushing your space. So starting with nothing, then shopping your favorites until you get it to a place where you actually like it,

then you're going to gift all the ones that are left. To your friends and family, you've already got the stand. Put the plants out there. Share, my friends. Share your love of plants with other people. It doesn't mean you're not a plant lover. It means you're having boundaries because boundaries are important. Now let's hear from Emma. Hi, Cass. Oh my gosh. I'm so nervous. Okay. First of all really quick, I love you. You have changed my life. Thank you so much for what you do and who you are. I grew up in a super messy hoarder house and now I'm like decluttered. Everyone I know thinks I'm like the cleavest. and most organized person. And you just have given me so much. You're the only, like, influencer like this who has made it make sense to me, who has made it click for my brain. I just love you. And also, I want to say, I get emotional. There was like an episode or two where you've

talked about feeling like you grew up, like you wanted to be normal and you were too much and you were annoying. I just want to say, you are perfect. You are a superstar. You're spectacular. ADHD is a superpower. I always say, imagine how boring the normal people are. Like, having to stay one track at a time. It sounds terrible. So, like, because of who you are, you have changed so many lives. You've built such an amazing thing. Like, don't ever feel like that because I think you're perfect. Okay. Now, here's to my things. I have a do-it crappy and a question. So, um, for my do-it-s-h-e, I'm trying to filter it in case you don't want the word in here, but I hope you do use the real word for the book. Um, so I have my, my-bath, so, hey, okay, I have, like, my bedroom and then my

closet, they're all, like, connected. When I'm doing laundry and I hang one of my, like, nicer blouses or dresses, and it's kind of wrinkly, I just put the hanger on the towel hook in the bathroom, and after one or two showers, like the steam just, like, naturally derinkles it. And then I put it back in the closet now that it's all wrinkle-free. So I don't have to do nothing. The shower does it. And then for my question, so, um, what is your advice for? I spend too much time cleaning. And it's not the decluttering. I'm very decluttered. I only have, like, a little bit of more to go on that front. It's that I get like too into it. I'm like hyper fixated. Like, you know how some people have that problem where they think like, oh, this is going to take

me hours and then they procrastinate it? I have the opposite problem. I think everyone's, everything's going to take me 10 minutes and then I get way too deep into it. Like I think, oh yeah, I can just clean my fridge with a quick in 10 minutes. And then all of a sudden I'm like pulling things back and I'm prepping veggies and I'm reorganizing. I'm like, why has this take? Like I get too into things. You know what I mean? I struggle. I struggle. I struggle. I struggle. with like just stopping at good enough. Like I want to genuinely deep clean. I enjoy it. I want to have everything deep cleaned at all time. So what is your advice for like setting limits and stopping there and just not wasting too much time cleaning? Because I actually do kind of enjoy it. But then at the

end of the day, I'm like, dang, I wish I had spent more time relaxing or doing my crafts or whatever. So yeah, let me know what you think. Have a great day. Bye. Emma, I love this so much. Okay, listen, When I started my journey too, I got a little addicted to cleaning and decluttering and organizing. No, it was a problem because it feels good, right? But then at the end, and you just get in it and then you start hyper-focusing, I bet you have ADHD, Emma. And then before you know it, you're like, why did I spend six hours on this when I could have done something way cooler? Okay. So what I had to do was give myself limits, which I feel like the do it shitty and we're saying the S word here was helpful because it was like, okay, I'm going to do it as crappy.

as possible on purpose, which meant I could do it really fast. And that kind of stopped me, like, I'm not allowed to do it well. I have to do it bad. So that was helpful. But also giving myself, I can only do this for 10 minutes, 15 minutes, boundary. And when the timer goes off, I have to be done. And I had to do this because I was getting, like, I like, I enjoy cleaning and decluttering and organizing, but I was getting obsessive. And then I was resentful. It was like when you have a lovely hobby, but then you're like, I'm mad at the hobby because it's so cool. I don't want to stop doing it, but also I need a life. So boundaries, my friends. Get yourself a timer, set it, and don't let yourself go over even if it's not done. It's okay. And last, let's hear from Devin. I wanted to share a

piece of advice that I think would help a lot of people, you included, because I just watched you go through socks for like five minutes. And that is crazy. Tass net is crazy. I recently made the switch. I was so tired of going through all my stocks that I threw every single sock away, every single one. And I invested, you don't have to do this, but I invested in bambas. It's a very, very nice brand, very soft side. But basically, I have all black. My daughter has all pink, and my son has all black too.

And now the laundry goes so fast. And everything matches everything. I don't have to pair anything. It's like, oh, is this a black sock? Well, here's another black sock. It's so much easier. So I just wanted to highly recommend that for you and maybe anyone else that may help. I need to do this.

You're right. And I think I've been struggling because I like black ankle socks. My husband likes white ankle socks. My son likes white tube socks. My daughter, everybody has like a preference. You know what I mean? So then I have all these and then it's, but what if I get rid of all of them? And then we just have every family member has their preference.

And then I know all the white tube socks. This is genius. I might just do this. It feels like a waste. Here's why. Because I'm like, oh, I put money on this socks and I'm just to buy more socks. But you know what's more important? My time.

My time. Our time. If you're listening to this, our time is priority number one. If you want to be featured on the Talk to Cass segment of this podcast, if you have a question, I would love to answer it. By the way, there's no dumb questions. anything that's bothering in you in your home, if you think maybe you have too many plants, you do. But that's okay. Call in and ask anyways, and I'll tell you, straight to your face,

you have too many plants. Go to clutterbuck.com slash talk to Cass and record a question today. Thank you so much for being a part of today's podcast. I hope you're feeling motivated to tackle the clutter and the financial clutter too. It's all about these tiny, little baby steps. I'm proud of you. We are doing the seven tracking challenge together. It's going to suck. Okay. It's going to suck. We are going to have to set reminders to remind ourselves. Let's put a sticky note on our credit card right now. Track your spending. So every time we pull it out, we actually are reminding ourselves to actually do it. This is going to change our lives. Hope you're feeling inspired. Love you guys so much. And I'll see you next time.