About Us

Own Your Stuff started four years ago when Hulda and Josh were prepairing to move abroad to Iceland. They'd lived in the same place for three years, and although they considered themselves minimalists, they still felt like they had too much stuff.

So they did what any sensible, forward-thinking folks did: they catalogued all their stuff and wrote down how they felt about it so they could see what they had and why. What they found was pretty powerful:

• A huge amount of their stuff was unimportant, or broken, or seldom used.

• That each of them thought the other had more than they did, but together they had more than they thought.

• The things that lasted weren't necessarily the expensive things - sometimes the inexpensive stuff worked great, or well enough to satisfy them both because it wasn't something that mattered to them.

• The things that really mattered were often a suprise. That old vase that makes you smile every time you use it, or a particular paring knife that just seems to get the job done. Finding out what worked meant they could get more of it - and that improved their quality of life.

That's what this site is about. Seeing what you have, why you have it, and - over time - what stays around and why.*

Give it a try. Enter in as much - or as little - of your stuff as you like. Note when you buy something new and when you get rid of something old, or track your stuff every time you take it out or a closet or cupboard. Whatever you use it for you should come away knowing more about what you own and why.

- Josh & Hulda

* This idea was explained by Bruce Sterling as objects that are tracked through space and time - spimes - and helped us define the goals of this system. Thanks, Bruce!