As my husband and I count down our journey’s moments to add another kiddo and more memories into our fold, we’ve recently become inspired to declutter and rid ourselves of ‘stuff’: to unload the deluge of quietly accumulated items we’ve either not tossed or kept close for sentimental reasons.

But my husband and I recently came upon a quote that read, “Our memories aren’t in our things but inside ourselves.”

We’re by no means touting ourselves legitimately minimalist – we’re just becoming inspired by those who are.

It’s true that we’ve found getting rid of unused things frees us. It unburdens ourselves and our home.

We no longer try to clean by ‘organizing’ alone, but also by kicking untouched consumer goods to the curb – or to our nearest donation center.

The early seeds of this mentality were first planted in our minds a few years ago.

My husband and I witnessed how very generous our extended families are with our children around birthdays and holidays, and so we decided that our own gifts to them would be of the intangible variety. Rather than purchase toys, we started buying our kiddos ‘experiences’, such as sports summer camps, lessons in gymnastics and swimming, etc.

All of these sessions for which parents sign up children are costly in themselves. By offering them as gifts in lieu of material items, our kids appreciate them just as much and hold the memories made dear.

For my husband and I, it was a cautious step in the right direction.

Late last fall, as we anticipated an upcoming home renovation, as well as a Christmas gift influx, we went through our kids’ entire playroom and purged many old toys in disrepair, and donated items of which we’d had doubles or no longer needed.

Board books that had been half-chewed when our kiddos were little babes, Hot Wheels car ramps with pieces missing.

Surprisingly, a significant amount of these playroom items were tossed, and we were elated to see how freeing and happy we’d become to have a much cleaner room – not because of any better organization (though it helped), but because there was simply less stuff.

Another step toward minimalism for the books. And not chewed up books, either.

Most recently, as I wrote about a few weeks ago, we hunkered down to decluttering our basement storage contents as part of nesting in anticipation of our third pending addition. We could not believe how many boxed up items had creeped up on us, disguised as neatly stacked totes but filled with things we’ll never again use.

I brought out totes I’d saved from my older children’s baby days, filled with baby necessities to unpack for our upcoming little guy’s arrival, and was surprised to see how many items we’d no longer need. I may have even counted 20 hooded towels.

We boxed most of these items for donation, trashed the things in too much disrepair to give away, and breathed another sigh of relief, deshackled from more clutter constraints.

Sounds silly, I know.

How can the absence of hodgepodge things fill us with such satisfaction?

It’s hard to put into words.

Because we have young children, my husband and I will hardly become true minimalists any time soon. We’ve watched the documentaries that showcase young folks, singles living ‘minimally’ out of a single suitcase, or within impeccable tiny houses.

That’s not realistic for a family of soon-to-be-five plus a dog.

But by making small steps and focusing on truly important things – which are not material – we feel we’re living more closely to that mentality.

Advertising inadvertently teaches us we need more stuff to fill us with happiness.

I tread carefully as I say this, as advertising is my bread and butter, and I’ve worked in this industry on a local level for more than a third of my life.

Full disclosure: I truly do believe in the importance, the value, of helping local merchants promote their businesses – it’s the stuff our local commerce and economy is made of.

But in the larger picture, when it comes to massive businesses with massive advertising budgets, we are taught that there is always something newer, better, infinitely more valuable out there that we need to buy, thus rendering the ‘older’ version of our product in hand to a much lower materially important degree.

We’re taught that by buying more, we’re ‘saving’.

But if you purchase something you don’t need, it’s actually not a good deal after all.

Thus we fill our homes with stuff, more stuff, enough linens and fancy dishes to provision an entire hotel atop our immediate family at hand.

Not frightened enough by clutter’s scary stats?

According to BecomingMinimalist.com, the average American home has nearly tripled in size for the past 50 years, and yet 1 out of every 10 Americans rent offsite storage – the fastest growing element in commercial real estate these past four decades.

And here are more frightening facts:

• A quarter of all Americans with two-car garages don’t have room to park their cars inside them, and a third only have room for one vehicle.

• Our nation has about 50,000 storage facilities – more than five times our number of Starbucks.

• America’s home to only three percent of the world’s children, yet they consume 40% of toys globally.

And it’s not just our own country that’s become excessive consumers.

• According to Becoming Minimalist, British studies show that ten-year-olds each own an average of 238 toys but only play with 12 daily. Yikes!

The statistics only get more terrifying: Americans spend more only shoes, jewelry and watches than on higher education. Studies also show that a woman spends more than eight years of her life shopping.

I could continue, but it’s clear the point is this:

Everything points to unnecessary accumulation of things.

Luckily, decluttering’s a very easy solution.

With less ‘stuff’, we’ll find room for more freedom, passion, time to live simply and make great memories.

All it takes is a trip or two to your nearest donation center.

My family’s not perfectly minimalist – not even close.

But we’re trying to make efforts daily to get rid of things we know we don’t need. We remind ourselves that our memories are inside us, not our things. We get out and go on adventures, the best of which don’t cost us a thing, such as exploring trails and nearby parks and beaches.

And so we imperfectly try, daily, to work on collecting memories – not stuff.

Makes you wonder whether consumer ‘goods’ really are all that good.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got another Goodwill run to make.