Decluttering Magazines

My mother thinks I'm odd because I'm always either decluttering or going on about decluttering. I have inherited her inability to get rid of magazines. Since I was a young'un I have always loved magazines. I love books too (more so) but don't seem to have the same problem. I do have a number of books but have regular decent cleanouts and are happy to pass them on.

But back to magazines.

At intermediate school I used to have my favourites on order at the local bookstore - English 'Girl' magazine was one of them. It had photo stories with speech bubbles like cartoons. Then at high school I loved English music magazines (Culture Club and Boy George, Paul Young, and all manner of pop and new romantic bands).

Then in my 20s I bought all the Vogues and remember subscribing to US Elle by writing to them from my job at the city council (actually I wouldn't even have been 20 then) with my credit card number. Pre-internet you had to make much more of an effort to subscribe to international magazines.

From my late 20s I started on home interiors magazines like Vogue Living Australia, US Elle Decor and many, many others. The American one with Dominique Browning with the incredible eyes as the editor. And also Oprah. I subscribed to her magazine almost from the beginning but eventually stopped as I couldn't keep up with all the reading.

Are you stressed right now? I am!

I still have most of those Oprahs and I think (I know, humour me) I will read them cover to cover one day.

If my fairy decluttering godmother could wave a wand and make every single magazine in my house disappear I would be happy.

The reason why I still have a lot of magazines despite rigorous decluttering episodes is because they have cost me money. And on some level I believe they have important information for me, if only I had the time to read them.

If I added up how much money I spent over the past thirty years I would be shocked. I think my biggest problem is that I think of magazines as permanent possessions, when actually they should be thought of as disposable.

I would never use disposable plates, dinner napkins or cutlery, because that would be wasteful (and unchic). But I waste way more money on disposable reading and then get stressed out because the disposable reading is piling up because I haven't disposed of it.

And, the Universe is playing tricks on me. Since I stopped purchasing magazines (ages ago, at least a few years) I am given them from everyone I know, and I seem to regularly be gifted subscriptions as well as offered ridiculously cheap deals from the companies.

I feel quite trapped and I swear I am not being melodramatic!

Then I got to thinking, what's the worst that could happen if I got rid of all the hundreds of magazines I have stored in the house, right now, without opening a single one?