100 Thing Challenge: An Update

Nearly a year ago, I began trying to reduce my material possessions to 100 things. See the original post here: http://nancylewis.blogspot.com/2008/07/100-thing-challenge.html

I don't really think that I can actually accomplish this difficult task, but I thought it might be interesting to see how close I could get. A year ago I began scanning all of my old photos & journals into my computer to help reduce my stuff. I also had four different yard sales over the past year to get rid of the superfluous junk that I had accumulated. When I decided to move to Vietnam, it was a mad rush to fit all of my remaining possessions into four suitcases. However, I wasn't quite successful, & wound up having to leave several boxes with my brother & my friends Debra & Michael.

Since my days are pretty lazy here in Vietnam, I decided to count my possessions. (Insert histerical laughter from my readers here.)

The tallying rules are:

1. Things that work together are considered one thing. For example, a pair of socks is one thing. My mp3 player & headphones is one thing. My bicycle with a basket is one thing.
2. Food is not included

With me here in Vietnam, I have a total of 340 things. Not bad.

Here's the breakdown:

250 permanent things (clothing, luggage, etc.)
15 books (I consider these semi-permanent since the collection is constantly changing)
52 consumable things (shampoo, soap, etc.)
23 things that I will leave behind when I leave Vietnam (mostly furniture & my bike)

=340 Total Things

A breakdown of the boxes I left behind in the US:

5 boxes of memorabilia (photos, journals, etc. that I didn't have time to scan)
1 box of winter clothing
3 boxes of household items
1 box of camping gear
1 box of legal files
5 boxes of family history information (which is not really mine anyway - it belongs to the family)