Abundance is the new Austerity

Or, maybe, Austerity is the new Abundance?

Reduce
I have been reading, and trying to put into practice, clutter clearing, such as getting rid of clothes I don't wear. It turns out once you get rid of stuff, maybe giving it to someone else who can use it, you are actually more able to use the stuff you do have. E.g., after clearing out your closet, you can see what's in your closet and actually wear it. You know everything fits you and is something you actually will wear, not something: you hope to fit into someday/someone gave you and you feel guilty about not liking/you wish you were the kind of person who would wear/etc. I have done this, and I actually do feel like I have more.

"Spend out"
Another prong of this Austerity/Abundance thing is using the things you have, not saving your good stuff for some "right" time to use it. Don't save the cloth napkins for a suitably fancy dinner party, or save the Le Creuset dutch oven until you are a better cook, or save the scented candles for the time when you finally have nothing on your To-Do list other than "take a leisurely bath" (haha!). Those times may never come.

Both of those things, reducing and "spending out" seem to me to be related to both Abundance and Austerity.

• You use what you have(letting it sit in your closet, unused, is wasting it).
• give away to someone else what you don't use (sharing abundance with other people), and then,
• having less, you actually have more (because you're actually using it all and can find it all).

This feels very incomplete. I'll try again another day. The first link above is to the Fly Lady, who I have found very helpful in getting ideas for approaching housework and clutter-clearing. The second is to Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project website. I just finished reading this book, and I got so much out of it. It is the most practical and interdisciplinary book I've found on the subject of happiness. GR and the FlyLady seem to be of the same mind re: clutter clearing and using what you have.