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Apr. 2nd, 2025

The Mess is an exclusive column for one5c's top readers. By opening, clicking, and reading more than anyone else, you've unlocked an exclusive window into the not-quite-figure-out-able issues that occupy our editors’ brains.

Last week, I did what was arguably the most grown-up thing I’ve ever done: I moved from the apartment I’d been renting for two years into a house I own. While my husband and I only had to haul our lives less than a mile down the road, the experience was still incredibly anxiety-riddled. The reason? Holy crap, we have a lot of stuff.

I’m pretty open about my history as a shopaholic. For years, I was the person who’d see their paycheck fly out the window the second a sample sale popped up in town or a favorite store dropped a new line (Reformation, the grip you have on me!) I’ve been trying to hold my finger back from the add-to-cart button, and I have been doing much better—being climate conscious and saving up for a major life event can have that effect on you.

But this past month, the ghosts of my overconsuming past have come back to haunt me. As we packed up the apartment, I kept finding mystery junk in untouched drawers, hidden deep under the bed, and in crevices only reachable by our adorable little canine hoarder named Biscuit.

The princess Biscuit, protesting all the hubbub.

My own junk aside, the trash that comes from moving piles up. Packing uses what feels like an endless stream of cardboard, the production of which is tied to deforestation, and packing peanuts, which are often made from unrecyclable Styrofoam.

But getting things boxed up to go from Point A to Point B still easily dwarfed coming to terms with my own mess. In the lead-up to our move, we dug, packed, hauled, and repeated. And during that time, I worked hard to be honest with myself about what I do and don’t use: The pup-sized blow-up pool I forgot we bought can stay, but the leaky, flimsy “apartment-friendly” water hose can go.

This rapid-fire sorting created one tight situation. I was trapped between the stuff we have, the stuff that needs to go, and the stuff we need to make the new home livable, all while being hyperaware of the waste this whole process produces.

Lucky for me, I can feel at least a little confident that a good chunk of my cast-offs aren’t gonna wind up at the dump. Our local secondhand shop (or kringloop where we live in the Netherlands) doesn’t seem to funnel our excess straight to the developing world the way some mass donation centers might. I’ve even walked by to see a jumpsuit I dropped off dolled up in the window for sale. But even with a trustworthy reseller on my side, I’m sure they still found some useless clutter in the two giant boxes of unmatched plates, too-funky-to-function tablecloths, and wrong-sized shoes they got from us.

And even post-move, we still have plenty to sort through—I say side-eyeing my husband’s half-used Ordinary serums commandeering a whole shelf in the bathroom. But I’ve also got to remember that overconsumption, while a very real thorn in my side the past few weeks, is far from just a me problem. We’ve all caught the buy-it-now bug: If everyone on the planet shopped like people in the world’s largest economies, we’d need 3.3 Earths’ worth of resources to keep up with the habit.

Despite the Instagram ads and influencers tearing open their Amazon hauls that not-so-subtly hint otherwise, the answer to every problem is not more stuff. When we need to get a job done the first solution we jump for shouldn’t be something we buy, but rather to use what we already have that can do the same job. A couple moving-related examples: using suitcases instead of boxes, and wrapping fragile vases and wine glasses in PJs and clean sweaters instead of packing peanuts. The real challenge, of course, is to resist the temptation to fill this new home with random cuteness as we decorate.

It’s tough out here, but don’t give up—and remember we’ve got your back.
—Sara Kiley

Have something you want us to get into in a future edition of The Mess? Drop us a line at editors@one5c.com.

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