It seems like we spend our whole lives upsizing – bigger houses, bigger cars and bigger responsibilities – until one day we realise it’s time to downsize. Perhaps because the kids are gone, or we realise we no longer need, want or can manage that big house and all of the stuff that goes with it. But what about choosing not to upsize in the first place? There’s no denying our houses are getting bigger. The average size of a NZ house in the 1970s was just 107m2. Kids shared bedrooms and everyone shared one bathroom and one living space. Today it’s not uncommon for new houses in this part of the world to be 200-250m2 – that’s a whopping 90m2 per person. Buy stuff. Keep it. Buy more stuff. Keep that, too. Buy more space. If the size of our houses is increasing, then it follows that the amount of stuff we own is also increasing. A study in the US of 32 dual-income, middle class families highlights just how much we clutter our …