This might sound like something simple, but if you are a pack-rat living (you now who you are) in an apartment…your doomed. When my wife and I first moved into our first apartment, she had a lot of items that just not made sense to keep. Coming from our parent’s homes to our own place, we just were not use to being limited on space and this created a huge problem when we initially starting to furnish our apartment.

The first thing we did was have a long talk about letting go of the things we don’t need. I’m not talking about keepsakes and family heirlooms. I’m talking about your favorite dress from when you were twelve. Not only was this my wife’s problem, but I also had items that I had to part ways with. Trying to horde “Man Cave” items doesn’t really work out that well when your living in an apartment.

Being realistic with the current living situation will let you make those hard decisions. Letting go of the clutter and being able to really access what you need and what you think you need will help when living in a smaller footprint. Again this might sound simple, but it’s not!

Another benefit is this will free up space for that apartment furniture that you have been looking at. We wound up having a yard sale making us just under $200. We took that money and bought our very first apartment sized sofa. And you know what? To this day I don’t even remember what I threw away. What I do remember was us working together and buying our first piece of apartment furniture.