Editor’s Note: This is a guest post from Rose Lounsbury.
How many towels do you need? This was the surprisingly life-changing question I faced on a Saturday afternoon in early 2012, as I scrutinized my linen cupboard.
I had just started on a minimalist journey, inspired by my 1,500 square foot house that could no longer comfortably contain the possessions of me, my husband, and our three 2-year-olds (yes, you read that right… triplets).
A few weeks earlier, we’d returned from visiting out-of-state relatives for Christmas with a van absolutely packed full of presents. As I walked into my house and assessed our already stuffed surroundings, a slow, frightening realization came upon me:
We didn’t have room for the things we already owned. Where was I going to put this new stuff?
I felt defeated and overwhelmed. I knew the gifts had been given in love. I knew they were supposed to make me and my children happy. But more than anything, they added stress to my already stressful full-time-working-mom-of-triplets life.
Luckily, though, a change was coming.
About a week after Christmas I had lunch with a good friend, and I explained my problem. I thought the solution was to either buy a bigger house or allow no one to buy my kids Christmas presents again, ever.
But my friend looked at me between bites of soup and casually suggested another idea, “Or… you could just become a minimalist.”
I immediately thought of monks living in a cave or college students traversing Europe with all their possessions on their backs or black-clad hipsters lounging on white couches in apartments that doubled as art galleries. None of that sounded like my real life in the Ohio suburbs with three kids, two cars, and a mortgage.
But my friend reassured me that minimalism was just a philosophy, a less-is-more approach to living, and that any modern American could adopt it. Skeptical but intrigued, I went home and started reading. I was hooked.
Which brought me, a few weeks later, to January of 2012, when I went to put away some towels in my linen cupboard and asked myself the aforementioned life-changing question:
How many towels do you need?
Now I want you to realize, this wasn’t the first time I’d asked myself questions about my stuff. Unbeknownst to me, I’d been asking myself questions about my stuff my entire life (and you probably have, too).
But those questions sounded different. They sounded more like this…
“Rose, how much stuff could you AFFORD to buy?” I was a dedicated closeout, clearance, and coupon shopper, always scouring the racks for the best “deal” I could find.
Another favorite: “Rose, how much stuff could you FIT in here?” I used every spare inch in my snug home to cram in as much as possible, often resorting to space saver bags and bins stacked precariously high in my attic.
And, finally, the Big Daddy of them all, the question I continually asked every night as I spent hours putting away toys, shoes, sippy cups, and errant paper: “Rose, how could you better ORGANIZE this stuff?”
I thought organizing was the answer, the Holy Grail, the thing that—if I could just master it and buy the right bins with the right labels—would solve my problem. I’d finally have the home in the magazines. I’d finally stop feeling like every day was a continual battle between me and the chaos.
But that Saturday afternoon, I wasn’t asking myself any of those questions. That day, fresh in my nascent minimalist awakening, I was asking myself a very different question:
Rose, how many towels do you NEED?
That’s the kind of question that just might change your life.
The answer was surprisingly clear: two per person.
Which immediately felt wrong. Because if you passed third grade math you know that’s only 10 towels for a family of five, which certainly wasn’t the number of towels I’d registered for on my Bed, Bath, and Beyond wedding gift registry. It wasn’t the number of towels in my friend’s homes. And it certainly wasn’t the towel message I received from Better Homes and Gardens magazine. They were telling me I needed pink towels for spring and yellow towels for summer and towels with festive reindeer prancing across them for Christmas! Ten towels just didn’t feel right.
So, I did something I rarely do. I entered the sanctum of my husband’s man cave on a Saturday afternoon (aka prime sports-watching time) to ask him a very serious question, “Honey, is it okay if we have just 10 towels?”
Josh paused. He looked at me for a long time. I’m certain that during this time he was deeply pondering the critical issue of the towel supply. He eventually responded with a somewhat confused, “Yeah, I guess. I mean, that sounds about right.”
That settled it. Ten towels.
Now remember… that was EIGHT YEARS ago. In that time, I have not increased our number of towels and everyone in our family has been dry when they needed to be dry.
This early venture into minimalism taught me two very clear things:
- I can live with a lot less than I think I can.
- I can definitely live with a lot less than society tells me I should.
In my closet right now, you would see five bath towels—because the other five are in use. You would also find 5 pool towels on the bottom shelf. So yes, technically we have three towels per person: 2 bath towels + 1 pool towel. The surprising thing about this is that my kids are on a swim team every summer and we’ve gotten by on this number of towels.
The most interesting thing about minimalism is how it changes my mindset.
Every June when I see the pool towels on sale at big box stores, I think, “Maybe I should just buy a couple more.” But then we get through the swim season just fine and I’m reminded again of lessons #1 and #2.
My towels are just one example of minimalist thinking. After I decluttered my towel cupboard, I went through the rest of my house, asking myself different variations of that original question:
Rose, how many coffee cups do you need?
Rose, how many pairs of shoes do you need?
Rose, how many boxes of holiday decorations do you really need?
And slowly, over a period of almost one year, my home physically transformed. My cluttered corners turned into open spaces. My formerly crammed cupboards had room to breathe. My now unstuffed drawers opened and closed easily.
So yes, my home looked neat and tidy, but that wasn’t the point. That wasn’t why I kept doing what I was doing. The reason I kept doing it was because of how I felt. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, I felt free. I felt at peace. I started to find myself, at the ends of my long working + parenting days, relaxing on my couch instead of frantically picking up my stuff.
So today I want to encourage you: ask yourself a life-changing question.
Insert any word you like (towels, sweaters, hammers, wine glasses, email subscriptions, volunteer commitments, etc.) into the blank space:
How many _______________ do you need?
My wish is that this simple question starts you on a journey toward a more peaceful life, full of the possibilities of open spaces.
Cheers to less stuff and more you!
***
Rose Lounsbury is a minimalism and simplicity coach, speaker, and author of the Amazon bestselling Less: Minimalism for Real. Rose spends her days speaking, writing, coaching her clients and online students to stuff-free freedom. Rose’s advice has been featured in USA Today, and she’s been a guest on Good Day Columbus, NPR, Good Morning Cincinnati, and Living Dayton. You can find her online at RoseLounsbury.com.
Anna says
Dont fall for the marketing that tells you happiness comes with purchasing X.
Lauren says
I had surgery this morning and will be home from work for the next two months. It is my sincere plan to take this opportunity to go through some of the boxes and bins and closets etc. while I’m home and eliminate some of the stuff in my house! (Please donate towels to your local animal shelter!)
Donna Butz says
I took a ‘class’ years ago on downsizing and was introduced to the concept of a ‘magic’ number – essentially, how many of whatever do you need or are not willing to accept less than. The 2nd part may be due to frequency of house guests, etc. Mugs were the first example, followed by towels, shoes, winter coats, and on and on. Let’s include socks. I have lots – more than I can wear out in a life-time. But I got them because I liked them. I still like them. They’re small and don’t take up much room. I packed more than half away. When some of my socks wear out I will have a supply of almost new socks to replace them with and not worry about the entire supply being mostly worn out.
Chelsea Gentry says
We have 1 really nice bath towel per person in our house, we each picked a different color. We hang dry them after each use and then wash after 2 or 3 uses. This has worked for years, and I will never go back to having a full closet full of towels.
Paul says
That’s a good (and well-written!) reminder for me to think a little before I just go and buy more “stuff.” Thank you, Rose!
Pat says
I am all on board with this idea question is, what do you do with the things that you owe that are still good the cows are-year-old the parts are still fine but show a little wear same with the silverware. I can’t just throw it away .I’ve tried organizations like women shelters Salvation Army ,Goodwill etc. They will take some items, Silverware small appliances etc. I have a lot of female paraphernalia. ,make up where the color didn’t work, nail polish ,uses 3-4 times , shampoos just don’t work .Alot of things are 90% full -is there any organization that will take any of these items?
Mrs. Em says
Something to keep in mind going forward is that most places accept used makeup or other beauty products within a certain return period. It’s really helpful for when the color is wrong or you just don’t like it. I know it’s hard to throw away something barely used!
At the same time, if it can’t be returned and you know you’ll never use it because you don’t like it, no point in holding onto it. It’ll go bad anyway and likely can’t be donated. Better to toss it (you’ll probably never think of it again once it’s gone) and clear out the space. Just look up return policies the next time you try out something new. :)
Laura says
I don’t know if you will see this, but the last time I had a garage sale, I left all my extra shoelaces, unused but opened makeup, and other good but not salable things in a free pile, and it was all gone by the end of the morning!
Joan says
Shelters for women
Lana says
I have one basic rule about getting new stuff. Nothing new comes in without something going out.
The towel number isn’t the point… And I do need more than 2 per person since I don’t have time to do laundry more than once a week. My issue was keeping things in an effort to Not be wasteful. Nightgowns are cut up for rags for example. All these flower vases that people give me with flowers! And old electronics and broken appliances no one wants! That’s the junk that fills my space. I would love to be able to rent a dumpster and shove it all in. But that is part of a larger problem isn’t it?
Sabine Caldwell says
Definitely part of a larger problem. I completely understand – I’m a big re-user cause I don’t like to discard. But you can drive yourself crazy over-thinking it, too….
Shawn Correll says
My husband is a bit of a hoarder.. so I have started getting rid of stuff, all the time while he is at work. He is always well we might need that…and guess what ??♀️??♀️??♀️ we very, very rarely ever do…
Annika says
Hi Lana,
I can feel you. I am also agreat reuser and to some extent a hoarder of things that are broken because I use them as crafts supply. But I have come to the Realisation that every item I accept is also work that waits to be done and ths work arround you can feel intensly stressful. Same goes for broken things you want to discard responsibly and not just trash them or dumb them at your closest donation center. my personal downfall is old clothing. I like sewing things from old Jeans and the results are nice, but friends and Family kept giving me more and more so that by now I have eight times more broken Jeans in my sewing stash than I have in my own wardobe. I had to stop accepting things people offered to me because I simply cannot cope with the responsibility that I have to deal with all of this. Every time I took a pair of broken Jeans the Person who gave it to me was going home with the good Feeling that I would recycle them, NOw I let them deal with their trash temselves. It is not my resposibility to deal with waste I did not crreate because my time is also limited.
Kathy Vesely says
All this talk about towels is just a personal thing. The bigger question, like Rose said, is “How many _______ do I need?” The questions for ME are: how many RAGS do I need…or how many VASES do I need? Do I need 2 bins of rags? Really? 10 vases? Only if I fill them with garden flowers and GIVE THEM to someone!!!
Beth says
Re: vases – I completely understand! If you can’t use them (mason jars, too), consider passing them on to your church – the “sunshine guild” would probably be happy to use them when they take some of the Sunday flowers to shut ins!
Didi says
I love this sentiment but I am shocked by those who think this is about towels. I am going to apply this concept to bottles of fingernail polish this afternoon. Not sure why I have 20 bottles when I really only use two colors.
Caroline says
I used old colourful nail polish to colour code keys. Easy to tell at a glance which keys for house, garage, etc.
Dorothy says
I totally feel you! A lot of them ended as donation to a thrift store I love. ?
Shawn Correll says
Lol! Me too!!!
MA says
Works for many things but not for towels in this home. Drippy plumbing needing replacing has me scrambelling to grab mop up towels. 2 grandkids live with me and a bath playtime has more towels on floor to mop up catch their splashing over tub edge. Health issues also dictate one use of bath towel then into wash it has to go. I use face /hair towel for each shower. 2 would mean lots extra laundry. I inherited moms old towels now used for cleaning up. I never need to buy another towel in my lifetime!!
I am constantly paring down excess kitchen stuff since moving into mother’s home after she passed. . Eying formal drinks glasses mom had, taking up much needed space in china cabinet.