People keep offering to help me pack. I keep politely declining, stating that I need to sort through and clean out the detritus accumulated over 22 years of living in the same rooms, and that the process will not be helped by people holding up every second object and saying "do you want to keep this?"

To be more truthful, it's more that I've always been a very private person who positively loathes the idea of someone looking through my stuff. No matter who was doing the looking, or what it was. Even an old notebook from primary school or a folder of finance articles, keep your mitts off it, it's mine.

This means my packing is taking some time. But there's some truth in the "I need to clean things out" line. I have so much... well, crap. Stuff that I don't really need to have that I'm taking anyway because of really-quite-sensible-reason-number-47. Too much makeup, too many clothes, too many boxes of craft supplies, too many small bags of what-on-earth-is-this-it'll-probably-be-useful-someday.

I'd like a simpler life. My partner has moved so many times that all that he owns (sans a sprinkling of furniture and his computer) could fit in two suitcases. I like that idea, of a "clean" existence, where I don't have to worry about storing so much "stuff". But when I'm packing, it's so easy to see why I should keep something.

What do you hang on to that you shouldn't? Or, if you're more like my partner and have already pared your existence down to the minimum necessary, what on earth is your secret, and how much will it cost me?