856 Kristy Edwards:

Because we are so intentional about the whole process, it sort of opens up their willingness to be more vulnerable. And it turns into a therapy session where they may choose to let go of a memento that for a long time they hold onto, and then they realize “You know what? I was holding onto this because I would love to be able to shift the memories I have around a member of my family or things like that.

I like to encourage people to let go of things, to go back to clearing your mind. And to bring more peace and more clarity. We intentionally take everything that no longer serves them, and we remove it from the home with a focus on getting those things into the hands of someone that it is going to serve.

How much stuff do you have stuffed in closets and cupboards around the house that in all likelihood you rarely use or may not even remember that you own? If you’re like most people, you need a good decluttering of your home, days organizational expert Kristy Edwards. Kristy is on a mission to help everyone from working moms, single dads and college students gain a newfound sense of freedom and productivity by decluttering their homes and lives.

MELINDA

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock and welcome to Wings of Inspired Business, where we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. I’m a 5-time serial entrepreneur and the CEO and founder of Podopolo, the AI-powered interactive app revolutionizing podcast discovery and discussion and making podcasting profitable for creators. I’d like to invite you to take a minute, download Podopolo from either app store, listen to the rest of this episode there, create and share your favorite moment with our viral clip sharing tool across social media, by text, or any messaging app, and join the conversation with your questions, perspectives, experiences, and advice … Because together we’re stronger, and we all soar higher when we fly together.

Today we meet an inspiring entrepreneur who transforms lives with her low maintenance and minimalist method of decluttering while helping the homeless and others in need.

Kristy Edwards is the founder of Neatly Balanced, and today we talk about the benefits of decluttering, why the benefits are far greater than just having a tidy house, and how her minimalist credo helps people in need and the environment.

Kristy will be here in a moment, and first,

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Find it hard to discard that old T-shirt from 20 years ago even though you never wear it? Hanging on to old files and paperwork you’ll never look at again? Got a garage or storage unit stuffed with so many boxes that you don’t even remember what’s in them?

You’re not alone. Most people spend their lives as good consumers, accumulating more and more stuff. Do we really need it all?

Kristy Edwards says no, we don’t, and we should dedicate ourselves of getting rid of all that extraneous stuff we don’t use.

Kristy is the founder of Neatly Balanced, where she helps people declutter their homes and their lives, and in so doing, also helps those in need … all with sustainable impacts for the environment.

Let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Kristy Edwards

and be sure to download the podcast app Podopolo so we can keep the conversation going after the episode.

Melinda Wittstock:

Kristy, welcome to Wings.

Kristy Edwards:

Hi. Thank you so much for having me.

Melinda Wittstock:

I always want to know the foundational elements of why people start the businesses they start. What was it about minimalism and decluttering that kind of made you obsessed enough to be an entrepreneur around it?

Kristy Edwards:

It actually started from a missions trip I took in 2011 to a very remote village in Honduras. My father passed away in 2010 from cancer. And to say it had a profound effect on me would be a very understatement.

And the following summer, the church that he and my mom attended and my mom still attends to this day, did a missions trip to Honduras. And we initially had not planned to go, and found out that one of my dad’s good friends in the congregation had sent along a special request that this chapel that was being built be named in my dad’s memory. And when we found that out, we said, “Well, we have to be there in the building of this chapel.”

So we went and we were there for a week. And what I witnessed completely changed every aspect of my life to this day, because it was just extreme poverty, and I had never experienced that before or seen anything like that before. And I just came back a changed person. And to put it in a brief explanation, that was literally the catalyst for starting my business.

Melinda Wittstock:

So often, it’s a challenge, or it’s a loss, or it’s something negative that becomes the catalyst to launch our business. And you mentioned your father and you mentioned this transformational journey, and how that impacted you. As you got going and you said, “Okay, right, so my mission is going to be now to kind of declutter the world or get people back to what really matters,” in a lot of ways, with that sort of more minimalist approach. What have been some of the hardest things about from the early days, getting the business off the ground? Was it harder than you expected, or did you just easily kind of, “Yeah, I’m doing this,” and it fell into place?

Kristy Edwards:

Well, to answer the first part of your question, because I feel like it kind of is like a two-parter. I wanted to start it because I was a nanny for almost 30 years. I started out as a mother’s helper when I was 10, I was also homeschooled. And so I started out as a mother’s helper when I was 10, babysitting for other kids where the older children were homeschooled and there was a baby or a toddler, and the mom just needed to keep eyes on the younger kid while she was teaching the older ones.

So I had 30 years of babysitting and nannying in my back pocket when I took this trip. And through the poverty I experienced, it really caused me to go back to my childhood, which we were not poor by any means, but we were also not rich by any means. I grew up in the ’80s, and it was just a very simple life. And none of my friends were rich or poor. It was just very blue collar. We all had two parent households. I literally did not have any friends whose parents were divorced. It was just this very truthfully idealistic childhood. My parents, my sister, and I were always together. We did everything as a family.

And I just witnessed being a nanny. Obviously, I was helping raise kids because the parents both worked or they needed an extra set of hands or whatever. And I just was like, if we could get back to a simpler mindset, I think that trickles down to every part of your life. If you live more simply, parents will have more time to spend with their kids. Kids will not be involved in so many activities that they don’t have any time with their parents. You will also accumulate less, you will have less clutter. I mean, it’s just every single part of your life is affected by living more minimally.

So to answer the second part of your question, I feel like that’s always the hardest challenge is getting people in today’s world to shift their mindset to instead of consume more, get more, buy more, it’s like actually consume less, keep less, have less. Because by having less, you actually have more.

Melinda Wittstock:

This is so true. And yet, we live in this society that’s so consumption focused, where people can be hoodwinked into thinking that their value as a person is somehow tied to the material items they possess.

Kristy Edwards:

Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:

And it’s an empty journey because you go about your life, and make career choices and life choices. And then you get to a certain point usually somewhere in middle age where you’re like, “Well why am I not happy?”

So do you see that often with your clients? At what point do people kind of wake up to that and say, “Oh my goodness, I really have to hire Kristy here to help me work this out. Because I’ve been on this journey and it’s not helping me.”

Kristy Edwards:

Yeah, I hear that from pretty much almost every client that we come in contact with. And I don’t want to go too deep down a different rabbit hole, but I am a Christian. I was raised in a Christian household. So for me, to find your completion in life, it’s for me all centered around Christ. I’m like, “If you know your identity in Christ, then you will live a more complete life.”

But just speaking in terms of materialism, nothing is going to make you happy. Because if you get a car, next year, you’re going to want a newer car. If you get a new house, next year, your friend’s going to buy a house and you’re going to want to get a bigger house. I mean, you’re right. We do live in this consumer focused world where it is always about more and more and bigger and bigger. And again, going back to my last answer, that is the hardest part of this business is explaining to people, “No, I promise you. Take my word for it. If you clean out an entire closet and you have four empty drawers in your dresser, you are not going to feel like you’re losing anything or you’re missing anything. You’re going to feel more relaxed and happy, and have a better mental health outlook because you’re not going to be so consumed with cleaning, and laundry, and finding the lost toy and finding the lost sock.” Because if you only have five pairs of socks, well the chances of you losing one of those pairs is a lot less slim, or a lot slimmer than having 30 pairs of socks. You know what I mean? So that’s definitely the most challenging. And what I constantly go back to is less is actually more.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. Well, I forget who said this, but a cluttered closet leads to a cluttered mind.

Kristy Edwards:

For sure.

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s just more things to think about, and they’re not really the things that really provide you happiness. Another way to look at it is really, that your happiness comes from within you, not on external things. And so in this whole race, a lot of entrepreneurs want to make a lot of money, not that there’s anything wrong with making a lot of money.

But if that’s your only motivation, is money sort of almost the same thing? I mean, you have all this money so you can buy things ostensibly, although it could also be a sense of freedom to allow you to have more experiences, sense of safety, all these sorts of things. But it’s still external to us.

Kristy Edwards:

Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:

How does money factor in this conversation around the cluttering or decluttering? Is there a link?

Kristy Edwards:

Well, the million-dollar question, no pun intended, is exactly what you said. How much money is enough money? And I agree with everything you just said. I mean, the more money you have, the more problems you have. Because-

Melinda Wittstock:

The more complex it gets because it potentially gets complex around, okay, so are your friends really your friends because you have money or because of you? Right? Or you get all obsessed of, is your money making you money? And I’m not anti-money, But it’s being clear about why. What’s it going to do for you? Are you going to use the money to actually make the world better? Are you going to have experiences with it? What are you going to do? Or are you just going to clutter up your house, and buy a bigger house? Because you’ve got so much stuff you can’t fit in your existing house.

Kristy Edwards:

Totally. And that’s exactly the outlook my husband and I have. We got married later in life, and it was the first marriage for both of us. And we made the decision while we were still dating that we were not going to have kids. And we get asked very frequently from people with well-meaning intentions, “When are you going to have kids? Or why aren’t you going to have kids?” And we always say, “Kids are great.” Between the two of us, we have seven nieces and nephews, so we stay quite busy with kids in our families.

But we choose to take the money that we have and we intentionally have experiences with our families. We take trips with my family more. But we take trips with our families. We go visit our families, we take trips the two of us, we take trips with friends. That’s how we choose to spend the money we make.

We both have a little bit of a minimalistic mindset. And coming from a family that didn’t have tons of extra anything, I just saw how happy we were, and the fact that we were constantly having experiences as a family. Even now as an adult, when people ask me, “What are some of the best memories you have?” It always involves my family having some sort of an experience, or a vacation, or trip together. I never go back to, “Well, this one toy that I had or this playroom that I had was full of a million toys.” No, it always revolves around time with my family.

And that would be, I guess, my biggest hope with my company and also just in general in life. I would love to get back to the place where you’re focused on having experiences with your family, and with those you love and those you care about more than things.

Melinda Wittstock:

So it can be difficult, I guess. I think for a lot of people, it can be difficult to look within. It’s maybe a bit scary. Maybe you find some stuff in there that you don’t like. We all have these deep subconscious beliefs of things that we’ve grown up with. It’s very, very difficult for people to even separate from their phones, or just this sort of grind to quiet their mind enough to really have that sense of internal happiness. Is there a correlation between decluttering your house, your life, and becoming more consciously aware or present as a person?

Kristy Edwards:

I think so, yes. And going back to my earlier comment about mental health, I think everything that you just said, yes. If you have less clutter, it hopefully encourages you to continue having less clutter. And I would like to think it helps you have a more calm mind, and encourages you to be more intentional both with your time, your habits, your money, all of that. So I personally would like to think that yes, there is a correlation. But I am quickly learning that everyone has a different, I guess, outlook on that.

Melinda Wittstock:

100%. So talk to me about the process with your clients. Take me through a couple of different client avatars. What’s actually going on, and your process, and how you help them walk through this? How hard is it to get them to part with stuff? I imagine you must encounter some resistance.

Kristy Edwards:

For sure. For sure. And that kind of goes back to what I was just saying. I think a lot of time with our clients, because we are so intentional about the whole process, it sort of opens up their willingness to be more vulnerable. And it turns into a therapy session where they may choose to let go of a memento that for a long time they hold onto, and then they realize through talking and kind of opening up that, “You know what? I was holding onto this because I would love to be able to shift the memories I have around a member of my family to be a happier memory or a more positive memory. And actually, holding onto this is just reminding me of all the times this person was not there for me,” or things like that.

And so again, I like to encourage people to let go of things, to again, go back to clearing your mind. And to bring more peace and more clarity.

But yes, I mean, it’s a struggle for all of us. Even those of us like you and me who like to think that we are a little bit more of a minimalist. It’s still hard to get rid of your favorite pair of shoes or your favorite pair of jeans, but we like to encourage people to get rid of more by explaining to them the second part of what our company does that I think sets us apart from a lot of other organizing companies.

And that is that we intentionally take everything that no longer serves them, and we remove it from the home with a focus on getting those things into the hands of someone that it is going to serve.

So whereas I think a lot of organizing companies come in and just try to make your home look very tidy, and organized, and pretty, we definitely would like you to feel that your spaces look tidy and pretty. But our focus is more on purging, and cleaning out, and getting rid of things that are then donated to about a dozen different organizations that are here local in Nashville, that tangibly help those less fortunate. And how that looks with a lot of the organizations we have intentionally partnered with is it’s not so much a store or a purchase setting. It is, “We take this to this organization, and that organization turns it around and hands it to someone in need to fulfill an immediate need.” So I hope that that encourages our clients to grow-

Melinda Wittstock:

That feels good. I mean, here’s the thing. Giving feels actually better than a random, I don’t know, what do they call it? The therapy shopping or I forget the word for it.

Kristy Edwards:

Retail therapy?

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, that’s right. Where people go out and they buy something, they feel good maybe for a nanosecond, but then it dissipates super-fast, right?

Kristy Edwards:

Sure.

Melinda Wittstock:

And what they’re buying is actually an emotional feeling or a, “I buy this dress, why? This dress, what does it symbolize for me? Does it symbolize that I am actually doing something or I’m with people that I care about?” I don’t know, what is that the psychological, underlying thing? Because then just go do that. You don’t necessarily need the dress, right? But I don’t think a lot of people are necessarily conscious enough to break that down. On the other hand, when you’re giving, that just feels so much better. I’ve found in my life that that is a sustaining feeling of actually doing good for other people, helping other people.

Kristy Edwards:

Yes, I completely agree.

Melinda Wittstock:

Do you get a sense of the clients that you’re working with, that there’s a transition happening in our society that’s always been so consumption focused, our whole economy? Is there a groundswell? Is there a tipping point at some point, where more and more people are thinking like this?

Kristy Edwards:

I mean, I would like to think so.

Melinda Wittstock:

One closet at a time.

Kristy Edwards:

Yeah. Well, actually, that’s kind of our motto. That’s what we always say is, “Changing the world one closet at a time.” I’m definitely not naive enough to think that my little business is changing the world, but I do hope that it’s starting conversations and encouraging people to look at all that they already have, instead of on maybe the few things they don’t have.

And I do also encourage people… It’s very important to me, and I admittedly say that what matters to me may not matter to somebody else, and I fully understand that. But it’s important to me to put my money where my mouth is. So I tell people the way minimalism looks for me is I could not tell you the last time I went into a mall or a shopping center and purchased something new. I genuinely cannot even give you a date, other than grocery shopping. It’s probably been, I would estimate the better part of three years.

When I do shop, I go to consignment stores, I shop on Poshmark, I go to friends’ events. There are some local companies in Nashville that have warehouse sales and high-end consignment sales from influencers or celebrities. And I choose to spend my money on places and things like that. Number one, I’m putting money into someone else’s pocket who is living like I am, and is not a CEO of some multi-billion dollar company.

And it feels very tangibly helpful when I know I’m purchasing something from someone else straight from their closet, and they’re mailing it to me from their house to my house, or I’m going to… Again, one of these consignment sales where other people are cleaning out their closets and selling the items that are a fraction of what you would pay if they were brand new on a website or in a store.

So that’s the way I choose to do my “shopping.” And even down to when my husband and I go out to eat, we very rarely eat at chain restaurants. We always seek out the local mom and pop restaurants. Or if I need a quick gift for someone, I go to a quick little boutique store that’s local in my hometown where I live, versus ordering off Amazon. It definitely takes more time. But I think with more intentionality comes better and stronger connections. Because especially if you’re shopping at the same store, or the same Poshmark account, or the same sale, you’re seeing these same people every day. And sooner or later they’re going to start talking to you, and asking where you’re from, and asking your story. And then you can share your story. They can share their story, and hopefully a stronger and real authentic connection is made.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s very profound. And the other impact, of course, is environmental, just the sustainability. Fashion and fabrics. Actually, I realized not so long ago that fabrics are the second-biggest polluter after oil.

Kristy Edwards:

Yeah. I’m probably going to get this number wrong, but I read something recently. It’s like over 30 billion pounds of clothes are thrown into landfills every single year. And I’m like, that is just staggering. That is astounding to me that many people are throwing away clothes.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right. There’s so much opportunity, I think with technology too, to be able to match people at scale. So my entrepreneurial brain, because I’m a tech founder, always goes to that. How can such a thing that you’re doing be more scalable? So it just becomes something that people do, just even barter kind of economy in that sense, to make that more efficient.

Is that something that you’ve thought of doing or enabling? I know your business has expanded beyond Nashville, and it’s very high touch because you go into people’s homes and such. But what’s the ecosystem in your field for being able to scale some of these ideas?

Kristy Edwards:

Yeah. Well, talking about a barter system, that is a hundred thousand percent literally how I started my business. And I love talking to people like yourself who are trying to help other people become entrepreneurs and build their businesses. I don’t know if it’s what anyone else would maybe tell their daughter to do.

But I started my business in March of 2020, so it was literally two weeks before Covid hit the Nashville area, and everything changed in our entire world. And obviously, I had no idea that was going to happen, or I probably would not have chosen to start a company at that point in time.

But for me, it was a blessing because so many people found themselves at home. Everybody started cleaning out their attics, and basements, and closets, and playrooms.

And so when I sort of pitched my business, I found myself with a three-week waiting list immediately, because I was posting on Facebook groups I was a part of and Nextdoor and just sort of was like, “Hey, I’m starting a business. I have no idea how this will look and these Covid times, but if you’re okay with me coming into your home, it’s just me. I don’t have a team. It’s only one person. I can keep my six feet of distance. Just point out things in your closet. I’ll pull stuff out or whatever, and donate on your behalf.” There are still people with needs, even though so much in our world has changed.

And I started reaching out to influencers, and local celebrities, and wives of country music stars, and all kinds of people said, “I will come and do one space in your home for free if you will post on your social media outlets and tag me. And that’s all I’m asking. Just do a story or a post and tag me, and talk about what I do, and I’ll do it for free.” I did that for probably almost six months.

I definitely had clients who just heard about me who were paying me, but the biggest bulk of the followers I got in that timeframe was from these influencers, and celebrities, and stars who were posting to their hundred thousand million followers about me. And then people would reach out and say, “I saw you on so-and-so’s page.” So yeah, talking about bartering, that was literally how I launched my business was bartering.

Melinda Wittstock:

So where do you see this ultimately going, and how are you building your business? Where do you think you’ll be? It’s hard to predict, of course, but where do you want to be five years from now?

Kristy Edwards:

I tell everybody my five-year goal is to be nationwide. We already have clients in five states and we do travel nationwide. But yeah, within five years, we’re already coming up on our… We just finished our third year, so we’re coming up on year number four. And I would love in the next year and a half, two years, to be well on our way to being nationwide, and have a whole team in different regions of the country where we can make it a little bit more affordable and feasible for people.

Because that’s my biggest thing. I don’t ever want a money issue to be the reason people don’t choose to have us come in and help them minimize their closet, or their playroom, or whatever. It’s really important to me that this be attainable for anybody to do.

So we still to this day work with people and we’ll have people call us who have no budget at all, and we’ll have people who call us who say, “I can literally spend no more than X amount. What can I do with that?”

And we work with everybody and anybody, and we tell people we can literally take anything and everything. As long as it’s not broken and it’s in working condition, we can pretty much find a place for anything you’d want to clean out of your home. We even take old magazines and old DVDs to nursing home and assisted living facilities, because so many of those people are completely forgotten. And it’s important to me that everyone knows their worth, and their value, and their importance in this world.

Melinda Wittstock:

100%. So when you work with people, from day one when they hire you and you go into their house, how long does that process usually take? Is it kind of like an ongoing thing or is it a couple visits? Talk me through that process.

Kristy Edwards:

Yeah, it’s kind of up to the client. We offer multiple packages based on their needs. If they are located within the greater Nashville area, we’ll do an in-person free consultation. If it’s somewhere outside of Nashville, we do a Zoom or a FaceTime consultation.

Yeah, I mean it’s depending on what they want to do. If they are located in greater Nashville, they can book a package of us doing one space, or a package doing two spaces, or an entire home organization. We also have memberships for people who want us to come on a more regular basis. And we offer those weekly, biweekly, monthly, and quarterly.

So we literally have, again, going back to what I said a minute ago, every sort of budget available to where anybody that wants to live a more minimal life can get us into their home. And I would say a minimum is three hours from start to finish. And that’s just if we’re doing one space. If we’re doing an entire home, it’s usually over the course of two to three days.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right. Okay. So let me see. I’m just going to formulate another question. All right, that’s awesome. And then I wonder, maybe this is an element of your business or not, but do people need support groups for this kind of thing? You go on social and compare notes, or how does that work?

Kristy Edwards:

Yeah. I mean honestly, a lot of people reach out to me before, during, and after organizing is taking place with questions, or wanting encouragement or support on how to maintain it. And that is one thing I always tell all of our clients. I said, “Look, if you think we’re going to come in here and rainbow color coordinate every item in your closet.” Although we can do that, that’s not normally our method. Because we want to set up our clients for success to where when we leave, they’re able to maintain what we have started.

And so we have a few simple life hacks and tips and tricks that we suggest our clients do to help stay on track. But we also are not trying to make it picture perfect. We’re like, “Hey, if you have a five-year-old, the chances of you telling them put the books on the shelf, and the trucks on the shelf, and the baby dolls on the shelf, they’re probably not going to do that because they’re five.”

So I say, “Just start somewhere. Have a big huge basket or box, and encourage your five-year-old to just put all the toys in that one place. And then as they get older, you can get a little bit more meticulous and say, ‘Okay, now we’re going to separate the teddy bears from the Barbie dolls. And you can do that as they get older.'”

But same for adults. If you’re sort of a mess and you’ve never lived in an organized fashion, to come in and color coordinate your closet, that’s probably going to stress you out more than just leaving it in a mess, because that’s what you’re used to. Right?

So we say, “Okay, what would help you the most? Do you want your tank tops and t-shirts all hung together? Do you want everything color coordinated? Do you want your sweatshirts folded?” We try to just get into the minds of each client and find out, how do you envision this space looking? How will it make you feel more calm and centered? And then we do it. There is no right way of doing something. The only right way of doing it is how the clients want it done. So I always tell people that. I’m like, “Every single client is a whole different process and a whole different situation because there is no one size fits all.”

Melinda Wittstock:

So Kristy, I want to make sure that people know where they can find you. So you’re in Nashville. What are the other cities?

Kristy Edwards:

Well, we have clients currently in five states. So we have clients in Tennessee, in Kentucky, in California, in North and South Carolina.

Melinda Wittstock:

Wonderful. So what’s the best way, if you’re in those states for now, and you’re of course you’re going to expand out, what’s the best way to find you and work with you?

Kristy Edwards:

So we are on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, and LinkedIn, all of them. Our handle is @neatlybalanced. And then we also have a website. It’s neatly-balanced. And you can also email me, it’s kristy@neatly-balanced.com, and we would love to work with you. And yeah, like I said, we do travel nationwide. So even if we’re not currently in your state, we’d love to come. And we always say, if you can get a couple of your friends to go in and book us as well, it definitely is more cost-effective and keeps the cost down for everyone. So have an organizing party.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s fun. Well, fantastic. Well, thank you so much for putting on your wings and flying with us today.

Kristy Edwards:

Thank you. I’ve enjoyed talking with you.