New stuff has a way of sneaking into my house. Some stuff, I pretend I don’t know where it came from. Some stuff was a gift. Some stuff, I just felt sure I needed to own.

I just read Andrea Lee’s blog on Shopping | Rethunk She makes the point: Go to the mall and pretend you are at a really cool museum.

Back in my previous life as an artist, I went to trade shows regularly. And everybody had the coolest stuff. In the beginning, I probably spent more money than I made, until I came up with my personal dedication to the notion of “appreciating without having to own.”

You go to a museum and don’t feel compelled to bring home the pictures from the wall. (And if you do, those guys with guns at the entrance do a pretty good job of dissuading you from the act.)

Sometimes, armed with my mantra, I shop at places like Pier 1 and other specialty stores. But I specifically look for the cool thing I might just know I need to buy. And then work back thru my mental inventory of what I already have and decide what might do that same thing — if it were just moved to someplace else.

Couple the appreciating without having to own with re-purposing what I already have is a great way to, at least, keep from adding to my personal pile of too much stuff.