This is great.

My wife and I go through feast and famine periods. We have found it to be really difficult to keep the stuff down as we continue to have more kids (just had our fifth). Kids do need some stuff, but so much of the stuff marketed to new parents is absolute twaddle. There is also this constant stream of stuff that seems to flow in with every grandparent visit (why do my kids each need a basket of knick-knack for Easter?!).

The real problem is that as my kids get more things, it triggers something in my wife and I to want to accumulate more stuff. That's the feast. We've try to reevaluate every 6 months or so, but controlling the inflow is really the end-game.

Thanks for detailing your journey with this. Also, I love the word "minimalish." True minimalism has never really appealed to me, but I can dig minimalish.

Cheers,
Sam