Coping with the rise of materialism

In our efforts to de-clutter, it can help us to recognize how the rise of materialism occurred in the first place.   If we can learn the causes of materialism and the forces that set it in motion, we will be better equipped to resist it.  If we can resist it, instead of purchasing impulsively and finding ourselves dissatisfied, we will be able to purchase more rationally and enjoy more satisfaction.

Our society is structured around free enterprise.  That means there is a lot of competition for dollars, for resources, and for competitive advantage of any kind.  When factory production first began, it was found that goods could be created faster, cheaper, and better on an assembly line (or with machine labor) than by individuals.  But when a factory can create lots of goods very quickly, that means they also have to find more buyers, otherwise the factory must be closed and workers have no job for a while.  (Can’t have that, can we?)

To solve the “problem” of factory oversupply, it became necessary to create demand.  How do you create demand?  With all kinds of marketing.  In short, the object of marketing became to find all kinds of ways to get the potential buyer to feel that they needed and wanted and could not exist another moment without buying the product, whether it was a new washer, a new car, a new bobble-head doll, or a new pencil.

Thus, to avoid materialism, we must become savvy to as many marketing tricks as we can.  It is those marketing tricks that we fall for.

Today marketing is so pervasive we sometimes have a hard time recognizing it for what it is. 

TV commercials do much these days to make their marketing not so obvious, by making it seem cool with humor or an appeal to our values.  They use emotion to persuade, going to the root of our deepest hopes and fears.  Here’s a list of common emotional triggers they will try to hit:  

• fear --- “you will be unsafe until you buy our product”; “our product can prevent loss”; “without our product you might lose_____”
• lust --- “you will get lots of attention from the opposite sex if you buy our product”
• desire for respect --- “you will impress people if you buy our luxury product”
• desire for belonging ---“you will not be cool or liked unless you use our product”;  “you will be able to communicate and connect with people and make friends better if you buy our product”
• desire for fun --- “you will have the time of your life if you buy our product”
• dislike of difficulty --- “you will have an easier life if you buy our product”
• self-interest --- “buy one and get two!”

I remember watching TV as a kid and seeing all those toy commercials.  The commercials always made the toys look really fun.  I noticed the toy packaging always made the toys look really fun too.  But when the toy came out of the package, fun didn’t magically appear; I had to create it myself with my imagination.  I also began to notice my actual fun never looked like the fun shown on the commercials.  I started to notice the techniques commercials used to make the toy seem extra fun--lots of close-ups and titled camera shots and motion and kids giggling and happy music, but none of that was anywhere to be found when I actually was playing with the toy itself.  I tried to increase my fun by imagining I was in a toy commercial as I was playing, but after a while I started to feel like I was tying my play to a commercial.  That seemed lame to me, so I stopped, and started looking for toys that were inherently fun.

Catalogue pictures show us a picture of a person using a new product and smiling happily.  We are to conclude that all their problems are over.  The text underneath those pictures is artfully written to describe just how wonderfully the product works and how well it is made (of the finest materials) and how much fun you will have using it.   There is no one around to critique the product you and point out just how unnecessary it really is, how rarely you will ever use it, how expensive it really is, and how little room you have to store it.  (Ramps for your dog to get into your car?  Long-armed extension pole for changing light bulbs in a vaulted ceiling?  Seriously?!)

If you ever find yourself thinking that your problems will be over if you buy something, that’s when you’ve been snookered by marketing.  You have fallen in love with an image.  Image is not substance and reality.  We want it to be reality (and marketers want us to think it is reality), but it is not.

Not only do marketers use emotion, they use lighting, packaging, pricing, location in the store, sales promotions, coupons, affiliate offers, and more to try to get you to buy.

But let’s talk about strategies that can help you see through marketing ploys. 

Don’t go to a store unless you have a list of things to buy that you know you need.  This is supposed to help you keep from buying impulsively.  If you do not find what you want, don’t buy something else; keep looking elsewhere.

Once you have found what you need and have bought it, stop looking.  Allow yourself to feel satisfied with filling your need.

Do not look at catalogs that come in the mail.  Do not look at ads that come in the mail.  Try to avoid watching commercials on TV.  Avoid window shopping.  Use great caution on Pinterest.  This works because often merely seeing something new and fancy makes us start wanting it.  Not seeing stuff that we might want will help us be content with what we have.

If you are an avid couponer, do not save coupons for things you don’t use, and don’t buy things you don’t use with your coupons.  Coupons are designed to encourage more buying. 

Sellers really like to price their products ending with 99.   Like $5.99  or 12.99.  Your mind tends to tune out the end number and only read the first number.  To overcome this marketing trick, you have to consciously remind yourself that the $5.99 is actually $6 + (because of tax).  Tell yourself the truth about the price.

The racks of candy and magazines and little toys and tools in the checkout aisle are there because they are IMPULSE items.  When you are standing in line at the store you are a captive audience and sellers take advantage of this by placing small, inexpensive items nearby that you can look at and think about and then (hopefully) decide you want.  And if you manage to resist, then your kids will still usually get entranced and want something, whine for it, and you’ll be more likely to get it for them to get them to be quiet.   Those impulse items are cheap so that you’ll be more likely to think to yourself, “Oh, it won’t add too much to my total.”  And when you are standing in line, you don’t know your total yet, so you are more likely to underestimate it and decide that you can afford a little extra something.  The strategy to get around this is to make the decision that you will never buy anything that is in the checkout aisle.   Stick to your list like a champ and you’ll beat the marketers.

Be aware of the packaging.  Or perhaps I should say “Beware of the packaging.”  Packaging doesn’t just protect the product, it also markets it.   The graphics on the box, the printing, even the shape and colors all is part of the marketing.  The graphics may show you pictures of happy people using the product.  The text may tell you all the neat things you can do with the product and all the things you get as a package deal.  The people who designed the packaging hope to generate excitement with lush language that gets you imagining the benefits. 

How do you keep your feet firmly on the ground when you find yourself getting excited about something?   You have to think about

·      whether you need it,

·      how often you’d really use it,

·      where you’ll store it

and you have to imagine yourself in a realistic scenario as you use the product.  Don’t imagine yourself in the ideal environment pictured on the box or in the marketing literature; imagine yourself in the midst of your usual crazy life.   Try to articulate to yourself exactly why you are attracted to it and why you find it appealing.   And then try this one: imagine what it will look like when it is dirty and old and think about whether you would still want it then or whether you’d find yourself just getting a new one. 

Remember that just because a new model has been released doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with the older models.  Changing a product’s look every few years is a strategy marketers use to try to make us think that what we have is too old to use anymore.  Buying a new one just because of the new look is the equivalent of saying, “Style matters more than function.” 

Hopefully you will be more aware of the subtle marketing tricks used on you to try to make you spend your money on what you don’t need. 

Do you need extra help with organizing and de-cluttering? Hire me! Go to www.phoenixhomeorganizing.com for more information about my services! Did this article help you? Be sure to share it with your friends!

Organization is not always pretty

I recently blogged about creating Master Meal List, creating a Weekly Meal Plan, and using that to create the grocery list in my post What should I make for dinner tonight?

I just wanted to make the point that these lists don’t have to be pretty.  They just have to work.  (Plus, they are small and simple enough that visitors probably won’t notice them.)

If the main way you learn about getting organized comes from home magazines, it is easy to get the impression that organization will always be (and should always be) pretty to look at.  Thankfully, that is not true, and understanding this will help you jettison unnecessary guilt.  (Keep in mind that if magazines did not have pretty pictures, we wouldn’t be so drawn to them, so these magazine editors know a pretty picture of rows of color-coordinated ribbon in a white shelf is going to please the reader more than a system that is functional but slightly messy.   However, magazines can’t capture some very useful aspects of organization visually, like routines and systems.)

Yes, pretty is a bonus, but if pretty conflicts with function and efficiency, living will not be as easy and streamlined as it could be.  As an example, do you want to see what our meal planning system looks like?

This stack of papers represents our Weekly Meal Plans and grocery lists, probably for the last 37 weeks.  We keep it clipped together hanging on our refrigerator.  No way are a bunch of squealing homemakers going to share this on Pinterest.  ;-)

We only cook for two people, so our grocery lists aren’t going to be very big.  It saves paper to have our grocery list on the same page as our weekly menu.  Also it means there is only one piece of paper to keep track of, instead of two.  Yes, the paper looks dog-eared.  That happens when you keep putting it in your pocket and taking it out over and over at the grocery store.  Yes, I could copy the menu onto a nicer sheet of paper after grocery shopping, but that would add an unnecessary step.

Next, here’s our Master Meal List.

Obviously this is also not something likely to show up on Pinterest.  The major advantage is that it is really easy to add to it.  I can do it with a pencil if I want to!  (As opposed to printing something out with just the right font, or making a bunch of mini tags with scrapbooking doodads and bows on them..)

For a while I used a chart on which I listed our meal plans for a whole month, but that turned out to be not so helpful. 

Notice how usage trails off after a while..

For one thing, we could see we had eaten quesadillas at least once every week, and seeing that over a month made us feel pathetic.  (Who wants to be shamed by their own organizational methods?  Not I, said the duck.)  So we decided we only needed to look at a week at a time.  We’re okay with eating quesadillas once every week as long as we don’t have that frequency blatantly called to our attention. 

What systems do you use that work really well but wouldn’t get featured in a home magazine?

Do you need extra help with organizing and de-cluttering? Hire me! Go to www.phoenixhomeorganizing.com for more information about my services! Did this article help you? Be sure to share it with your friends!

What the gathering of Israel can teach us about home organization

Behold, it is my will, that all they who call on my name, and worship me according to mine everlasting gospel, should gather together, and stand in holy places. (D&C 101:22)

One of the great teachings of the restored gospel is that of the gathering of Israel.  We Israel are gathered to keep us safe and to support us among a world of temptation.

Gathering is also an important principle of home organization and aids in the process of de-cluttering.  Gathering (or consolidation, as I like to call it) brings together all the tools for certain activities together.  

The advantages of consolidation are:

--Time is saved finding and inventorying needed supplies,

--Time saved when putting supplies away.  Put them in one place and you’re done!

--Money saved.  (You won’t waste money buying duplicates.)

--Memory saved.  (You won’t need to wrack your brain trying to think of where else you put cleaning supplies.)

--Space saved.  (You’ll only need space for one location of supplies.)

Here are some types of tools and supplies that can be gathered or consolidated and places they are best gathered to:

• Food (kitchen cupboards, pantry)
• Clothing (closet and/or clothes dresser in bedroom)
• Laundry supplies (put near the washer and dryer)
• Hair care supplies (put where hair is coiffed, which is usually the bathroom)
• Makeup supplies (put where makeup is done, usually the bathroom)
• Toiletries (put in or near the bathroom)
• Jewelry (put in bathroom or near where you get dressed)
• Office supplies (put in or near desk)
• Electronic and computer supplies (put near computer)
• Videos and music (put near TV or sound system)
• Outdoor play equipment (put in garage or on back porch)
• Car tools (in garage)
• Coats, hats, gloves, boots, and other outerwear (put in front hall closet)
• Cleaning supplies  (commonly under kitchen sink or on a shelf over washer and dryer)
• Craft supplies (near dining table)
• Board games (near dining table or living room)
• Camping equipment (garage or storage shed)

When I help people get organized, one of the first things I try to do is consolidate all their supplies together.  This can be a very big job because frequently just about everything on the above list needs consolidation. One of my clients couldn’t believe how many hotel shampoos and bars of soap she had saved up.  She kept putting them away in different places so she had no idea how much she really had.  By consolidating, she could see how much she had and then make a decision about how much she wanted to keep.   She also learned how much sewing notions she had when it was all gathered together. 

Why might supplies become scattered?:

--There isn’t enough room for them all in one place.  (Either the place is too small or we are unwilling to buy appropriate-sized boxes and so we make do with what we have.)

--We use the supplies so rarely that we forget where we keep them, so we get more and then we make up a new place to keep them.

--We neglect to put things away where they should go. (Or someone else neglects to put them away.)

Some might think that you should wait until all your supplies of a particular type are consolidated before you start de-cluttering them.  This is not so.  You can begin de-cluttering as soon as it becomes evident that you have more than enough.  For instance, as soon as you see that you have more than enough first aid supplies, you can start making another kit to give to someone else.   As soon as you see you have more than enough art supplies, you can start picking out what’s still good and your favorites to keep and let go of the rest.  Then, when you find more, you can evaluate it according to the standards you have previously set and you will know pretty quickly whether it is something to keep or get rid of.  

 


Do you need extra help with organizing and de-cluttering? Hire me! Go to www.phoenixhomeorganizing.com for more information about my services! Did this article help you? Be sure to share it with your friends!

Strategy to avoid materialism: Stop shopping for excitement and fun

http://www.everydayminimalist.com/?p=1811

I can remember a time when I was in college and I noticed that every Saturday I went to stores to shop.  (I didn’t necessarily buy; I just liked to look.)  I asked myself why I always went shopping like this.  I admitted to myself that I was doing it because I thought shopping was fun.  I asked myself, “Self, what would you do for fun if you could not go shopping?”  

I had a really hard time thinking of a good answer to that question.  My sheer poverty of recreational ideas was enough to demonstrate to me that I needed to find additional hobbies and resurrect old ones.

So.  If you are feeling blah, what do you do to give yourself a pick-me-up if you couldn’t indulge in “retail therapy”?   If you want some fun, what would do you do without shopping’s thrill of the hunt?   If you can’t give a good answer, you should probably put the kibosh on shopping for a good while.  (Instead, you could have a de-cluttering party!!  Woo-hoo!)

 

Do you need extra help with organizing and de-cluttering? Hire me! Go to www.phoenixhomeorganizing.com for more information about my services! Did this article help you? Be sure to share it with your friends!

De-cluttering and the parable of the duplicate employees

A certain CEO was visiting his employees and chatting with them and happened to ask three of them what they did. 

The first employee, Alex, said, “I am in charge of creating our sales campaigns.”

“Good, you are very important to our business,” said the CEO.  He then turned to the second employee, Bob.

“What do you do?”

“I do nothing.  But I create our sales campaigns in case Alex is gone, ” said Bob.

“Hmm,” said the CEO, his eyebrows narrowing a bit.  He turned to the third employee, Casper.  “What do you do?”

“I do nothing too.  But I create our sales campaigns in case Bob and Alex are both gone,” said Casper, cheerily.

“Hmmmm,” said the CEO.  He turned back to Alex. 

“How often are you gone, Alex?” he asked.

“I have perfect attendance!” said Alex proudly.

What should the CEO do?  Should he keep Bob and Casper "just in case" or should he do some downsizing? 

If we think of duplicate things that we have "just in case" as if they were duplicate employees, it seems like a no-brainer to let them go, especially if our favorite is tried and true and always there.

Now, I know there are people who advocate having duplicates of small cheap things like scissors or reading glasses or tape just in case one gets misplaced or broken.   Sure, the smaller and cheaper the object, the less it seems to matter, but if so, it makes me wonder to myself, where is the line that separates the cheap and duplicable from the things that I consider expensive enough that I will put effort into not losing it?  Is it $3?  Or $5?  Or $20?  

When I got interested in rollerblading, I was able to find a second-hand pair of rollerblades.  All I had to do was replace the wheels that were worn down.  When I replaced the wheels, I considered keeping the old ones around "just in case the new ones had a problem," but I realized after a day or so that the new wheels were so much better than the old ones, that there was no way I'd want to reuse the old ones in any circumstance!   So I got rid of those old wheels.

How about you?  What items do you have duplicates of and why?  Was there something you decided to cut down to just one of?  Why?  Please share your reasons, since others will benefit from it.

Do you need extra help with organizing and de-cluttering? Hire me! Go to www.phoenixhomeorganizing.com for more information about my services! Did this article help you? Be sure to share it with your friends!

8 Perils of home decorating magazines

I like looking at home decorating magazines as much as anyone, but over time I've noticed that they can be dangerous.  Not dangerous in the sense of bodily harm, but dangerous in the sense of insidious materialism.. 

1 The most important thing to remember--decorating magazines deal in fantasy and they exist to market products for their advertisers.  (Remember, they have to make a living like everybody else, so they have to keep finding things to publish.)  Much of what they sell is cute but is also clutter, and each month they will show you something different.  They may keep you in a perpetual state of discontent with your own home. If your goal is to be happy, then you want to avoid anything that makes you discontented with what you have.

2 They show pretty pictures of STUFF that people can’t afford to buy, nor have time and energy to make or assemble themselves, nor have a need for.

Example #1 – I’ll never forget a picture I saw in Better Homes and Gardens of a series of shelves (big shelves too) entirely devoted to just ribbon.  Very pretty, but who are the people who regularly use shelves and shelves of ribbon?  Not me! 

Example #2  – I also remember a picture of a gift-wrapping corner, complete with desk and ribbon and paper and gift bags and tissue paper and scissors and tape.  But who wraps gifts so often that they need an entire corner devoted to it?  There’s Christmas, birthdays, and the occasional wedding and graduation gifts.  Unless your business is wrapping other peoples’ gifts, there’s no need for a gift-wrapping corner!

3 These magazines are so hypnotizing that frequently women feel like they have to keep them around in case they might need to do a craft in them.  Need?  For when?  If the need hasn’t appeared yet, it is not very likely to appear in the future!   Not only that, but if the need suddenly appeared, it is almost certain that particular magazine would not be found except by a long, arduous search through every single magazine.  Which issue was it in?  (scratching head) What page?  (At the very least, tear out the ads so that you don’t take all your time paging past them!)  Did you know that these magazines repeat content every few months?  You really don’t need to save that magazine.

4 I’ve also noticed in those decorating pictures there is a tendency to overdo it with the knickknacks and the coffee table books.  Try covering up those piles of books or those clusters of knickknacks with your finger and then see what the room looks like.  Does it seem “blah”?  Then the room is only “fake” pretty and not “real life” pretty.  “Real life” pretty is when the things you use all the time contribute beauty.   I recently looked at some pictures of decorated fireplace mantels and I noticed that although the general arrangement of objects on or around the mantel was artistic, when I looked at each individual object, I would never have found it interesting enough to buy for its own sake. 

5 Advertising in magazines (and catalogues) are cunning about showing what I call “add-ons” in the product pictures.  You know what I mean if you’ve ever seen a picture that is supposed to be selling a bookshelf and you get excited about the rug in the picture instead.  You pretty much have to mentally block out all the other stuff in the picture except for the product for sale in order to get an accurate idea of what you would actually buy.  Have you ever seen the wall-desks sold on the Container Store’s website?  If you believe in their pictures, you are buying into this vision that includes color-coordinated boxes for paper, little artsy knick-knacks, a wall painted and patterned in that hip lime green or robin’s egg blue, and a Macbook laptop.  To keep from getting sucked up in that, you have to imagine the object stripped of its add-ons and consider whether it is still interesting by itself.

6 If a real family lives in those houses, you know that the photographed rooms were most likely staged (i.e. the “real life stuff” was moved somewhere else so that it didn’t clutter up the picture).  And afterwards, if the kids were home, things probably got messy again in about 5 minutes.  Where do the cell phones charge?  Where is the homework done?  Where are the art supplies for kids coloring?  Where are the backpacks and coats?  Where are the library books, the musical instruments, the piano music, mom’s purse and dad’s wallet?  Where is the dog’s water and food dish or the pet grooming supplies?  Where are the remote controls, the videos, the video game equipment?  Where are the tissues for blowing your nose?  Decorating magazines do not take into account real life.

7 At some point the decorating magazines started advocating changing décor on a seasonal basis, creating this expectation that we have to have our homes decorated in perfect correspondence to every season or holiday.  Say what?  This creates a burden in one of two ways—either your storage space gets wasted by all the decorations for the seasons, or your money gets wasted buying decorations every season and getting rid of them afterwards.  And furthermore, getting out and putting away all those decorations throughout the year takes time that could be spent on better things.  Whatever happened to just decorating for Christmas? 

8 Decorating magazines always talk about “makeovers,” which are essentially spending lots of money to completely redo everything in a particular room (or house).  What is more practical is “evolution,” which consists of thoughtful purchases made over a period of years in such a way as to create the desired look.  This is the financially sound way to do it, and it allows you to cultivate patience.  Also, the pleasant anticipation of achieving the vision is drawn out over a much longer period.

So next time you look at a decorating magazine, if you must look, look with a critical eye for the reality behind the marketing.  Seeing the reality can help you be content with what you have.  If you are content with what you have, you won’t feel the need to buy more.  You might even find you can purge from your space the décor that means less to you.  Don’t let it stay a minute longer if you don’t absolutely love it.  Decorating magazines can inspire you through their pictures to work toward an uncluttered home, but you just have remember that they don't show the reality of where to store the little things you use in real life.

Do you need extra help with organizing and de-cluttering? Hire me! Go to www.phoenixhomeorganizing.com for more information about my services!

Why are you saving your old bill statements?

There are those of us who save our old monthly statements for all our bills that we have paid. We’re not sure why we do it, but we do it anyway. We have a vague feeling that somehow that information is important and that we may need it someday.

That fuzzy feeling of “I might need it someday” is your ENEMY. The vague feeling of discomfort and uncertainty needs to be confronted and banished, and the best way to do that is with hard facts about what information on the statement is useful and what is not.

I’ll tell you what I have found through experience about what info is useful and what is not.

I used to save all our bills that came in. When I finally got to the point that I and my husband were ready to make and live by a budget, those bills came in handy for determining average amounts that we should put in each of our bill categories each month. Because I had saved our bill statements, I had a history of bill charges that I could use to make a realistic budget. In fact, I went so far as to put all those charges for each month into a spreadsheet which added them all up and found the average for me. Once I put the amounts in the spreadsheet, I could shred my bills.

One other bit of information I put in a spreadsheet was usage information. For water, I put the amount of gallons we used. For electricity I put in the number of kilowatt hours we used. For telephone, I put the number of long-distance minutes we talked. This made it so that I could tell at a glance if there was anything strange in our patterns of usage. When we developed a bad water leak in the sprinkler system of the house that we were renting, I was alerted not just because the charges were higher, but because the water usage amount was three times higher than our usual water usage. (Disclosure: There was comparison information on my bill statement too about usage from a year ago, so I didn’t really get this info from my spreadsheet. But I could have.)

After I collected the dollar amounts and usage info from my bills, I shredded all our old bill statements. YES. I SHREDDED THEM! SHREDDED. Into little. Pieces. Of. Paper. I shredded them. (Insert triumphant cackle of laughter here) It was very satisfying to free all that space up in our files.

In short, the only reason a file full of old bills is important is if you are going to collect dollar amounts and usage amounts out of them for building a budget. But even if you DON’T record that info somewhere, ultimately, there will be no negative consequences to you if you decide to get rid of them anyway. The phone company will not break down your door and haul you off to a little chain-link fenced compound out in the desert if you get rid of your phone statements. Your power company will not charge you extra if it discovers you have discarded your old electrical bill statements. Believe me, it won’t. No consequences!

If you want to know, you only need to keep your most recent bill statement which has your account number information on it and any phone numbers you would call if you have a problem. And heck, if you were to record that information on a spreadsheet with the charges, you wouldn’t even need to keep that statement.

Oh wait, I forgot. Sometimes your city landfill will require you to show a most recent utility bill in order to drop off a load of stuff there, so maybe you should just keep ONE statement, if you take loads to the dump. But if you don't, don't bother.

Now.. if you are thinking about making a spreadsheet and putting years of your bill information on it, but you are intimidated by the size of that project, let me give you a tip. Doing a spreadsheet like this is pretty close to “being too organized” because it adds an extra layer to a work flow that disorganized people find onerous to begin with.

If you have troubles getting through this series of tasks, then don’t bother making a spreadsheet:

· Bring in the mail

· Sort out the bills and discard unneeded mail

· Put bills in a place that they will not be lost.

· Pay bills when they are due.

· File bills.

If you tend to put the bills someplace and then have troubles finding them so you can pay them on time, then making a spreadsheet for your bills is NOT something you should do. In fact, if you have troubles losing your bills, I am telling you now, THROW AWAY ALL YOUR OLD BILL STATEMENTS WHENEVER YOU FIND THEM. They only confuse you. Your concern should be making a consistent home for your unpaid bills so that you will always find them when you need to pay them.

The goal is to be organized enough that you pay your obligations. Anything after that is just extra credit points.

Towels – How Much is Enough?

The number of towels you should have is dictated by several factors:

• The number of people in the household. (Each person should have their own bath towel.)
• The number of bathrooms in the household. (Each bathroom should have its own towel for drying washed hands. It could even be one person’s bath towel.)
• The number of times each person feels comfortable using their bath towel before laundering it. (If everyone can tolerate using one towel a week, then the amount of laundry will be decreased.)
• The frequency of laundering loads of towels.
  

If you can restrict everyone in the house to using one bath towel for the whole week, then that will save someone (probably you) from having to do so much laundry in the form of towels.

While all the towels are in the laundry, there must be clean towels to put in their place. That means the number of bath towels should be at least double the number of people in the household. Two people, four towels minimum.

How about towels for guests? If you take the maximum number of people you have ever had stay overnight as guests at your house, that is probably the number of extra towels you need beyond the minimum. If you’ve never had overnight guests, then you probably don’t really need to have extra towels. In a pinch, an unexpected crasher can use a secondary towel.

There may be additional factors to consider. Add an extra set of towels for everybody if your family often goes swimming, or dances in the rain, or periodically bathes your pets.

The number of towels your household should have doesn’t have to be guesswork. It should be calculated based upon your family’s needs. Doing this ensures that your precious space will not be wasted on what is unnecessary.