Wisewoman, I am RIGHT WITH YOU there! I've been going through this over the past few years. Not as successfully as I've wanted to, but I have definitely scaled back quite a bit. I've never been a packrat, but I've moved a few times in the last few years, and realized how ridiculous it was to keep lugging stuff around.

The first thing that went were clothes. I got rid of about 75% of my clothes during the first clean-out, then another round got rid of the remaining. My closet looks great! But now, I have a whole lot of stuff I can't fit into because I was going through a divorce when I scaled back, and I had lost a ton of weight and was really skinny then! But, I'm working on that...

Same with kitchen gadgets. Toast can tell you about my hemming and hawing about buying new kitchen gadgets these days. But I'm doing well.

Cleaning out the junk drawers was absolutely liberating! And the garage!

And while most of the stuff I got rid of went to Goodwill, Habitat for Humanity, the Humane Society or other places like that, I have had a LOT of fun selling and bartering on Craigslist. Not only have I gotten rid of stuff and made some money, but I have made some great friends that way. My best friend, in fact, is a woman I sold a gas-powered lawn mower to (in favor of a reel mower, since our lawn is tiny). We ended up talking for such a long time that we decided to meet for drinks, and a year later we went to Peru together. We have been best friends for 3 years now and it's all due to simplifying and Craigslist!