Why do I have so much stuff

[Ideasplease322]

How do people love minimalist lifestyles.

I am clearing out because I hope to move in the new year. There is just so much bloody stuff.

I am not a hoarder, or a big shopper, I live alone in the three bedroom house, but there just seems to be so much stuff - junk drawer stuff, papers that I probably should keep, clothes, cleaning stuff, toiletries, shoes, books.

I have done three dump runs. I have cleared away all my summer clothes into the loft. But I am still stuck with boxes of crap. My forelegs love in these slick, tidy houses.

Is it just that I am not organised enough? How does everyone else keep control of the stuff? Should I just dump everything?

Bed sheets are also a problem - so many white pillow cases😂.

I need a place to store them. They are constantly in the ironing pile - getting musty

@Ideasplease322 I am also an absolute convert to Marie Kondo's folding techniques 🙈🙈

@TheSandman

I have LOTS of stuff. I am incapable of saying 'no' if anyone is throwing something out and asks me if I want it. Last month someone gave us a piano. No one in the family plays. I''ve got an upright piano in my kitchen because....

You win the thread

I've tried to declutter as much as possible this year for myself and my teenagers (DH is still very much a work in progress!)

We have 3 categories:

Keep and display (e.g. favourite books/nick nacks/ framed photos)

Keep but not display (a few favourite childhood momentoes or artwork) and these go into a storage box in the attic

Charity shop/tip

Having these categories means we can whizz through the decluttering before anyone gets too bored.

Good luck. It is an ongoing job though!

One drawer at a time. Just keep doing this and you'll get through it.

‘’Bed sheets are also a problem - so many white pillow cases😂. ‘’

I would get rid of all the excess. Max 2 sets per bed. If you have 3 bedroom and live alone, you probably only need 2 sets for your bed, and one set for any spare bed as they can be washed and dried and same ones back on. Only need storage for a few then.

It’s ongoing though. We had a baby this year, and in the months leading up donated loads and house was ‘emptier’. Now we have accumulated again from god knows where

I'm at the start of the clutter journey.

I live in a 2 bed flat and it very quickly runs out of space so I have to keep on top of it.

I think in some cases the solution is better storage solutions.

Also keeping on top of it.

Definitely stop buying so much stuff.

My biggest problem is digital. I think I have 50,000 emails. One day I might just press delete.

@helloxhristmas

Honestly *@Ideasplease322* what is in the tonnes of paperwork and bank statements that you need to keep? I have noting on paper. Nothing apart from a passport and birth / marriage certificates.

I don't believe here will be anything in there that you need to keep.

Get one one of those burners from homebase and torch the lot. Over in minutes.

I recently found a use for a letter from my employer about a pension scheme I joined. The letter is dated 1985 and I left the company soon afterwards. I'm soon to retire and the pension company was refusing to believe I had ever joined the scheme. Having that letter to send them was very useful.

So I'd say you do need to thin stuff out, but if a piece of paper could prove entitlement to something in years to come, then keep it.

A couple of years ago, sorting a bookshelf, I found I had three identical copies of the same book. A 1960s science fiction paperback. Same edition. I'm pretty sure I'd never read it. (Still haven't - groovy cover though.) I sold two copies on eBay. Next to that bookshelf, a year or so later, I found that the cardboard box I had been not noticing for years contained 50 pulp magazines from the 1940s and 50s which I had no memory of ever seeing before. Some of them made me a few quid on eBay too. neighbour

I have realised that I must have rinse aid And bleach automatically on my click and collect.

Seven bottles of rinse aid and 12 bottles of bleach! Have to stop that.

And dozens and dozens of different types of moisturisers - all a little used🙄.

You are probably just a careful person who hangs onto things that might be useful and have had the chance to upgrade/ replace things without throwing the old ones out. After a few years of being a household, multiples of things, rarely used things or time limited things like the year's school work, outgrown toys, slightly useless gifts etc just build up.

Downsizing to a smaller house did wonders.

I grouped things and then sorted out the minimum I thought we could live with - 3 sets each bedding, towels, 1 box decorating stuff etc, only decent books. Everything else, no matter how nice, was SURPLUS. Very limited few boxes of sentimental stuff permitted to be kept.

Masses went on Facebook/charity shop/ garage sale. Don't miss a thing.

My problem is I am hoping to upsize😩. Want a bigger study and a garage. But can’t fill up all that space with even more crap!

I have a fantasy about an organised, stylish home. But I am lazy. I cram stuff into cupboards to tidy. Bottom of wardrobes, bedside drawers are full of stuff. Travel plugs and bed socks and loads and loads of foreign currency mused with sterling.

And pjs - so many pairs of pjs.

Chuck the moisturisers, OP. They have shelf lives too and unless you've bought them all within the past year , then they're no probably longer useable. Quick win right there.

With bedsheets I put a set inside one of the pillowcases so that they're all neatly folded together rather than languishing separately. I've also binned all the rubbish sheets and kept two decent sets of white Egyptian cotton sheets for each bed.

Decluttering is an ongoing work in progress in this house. My husband has a few low level hoarder tendancies. Things that have worked for me are

• Only buying decent quality things, which has reduced the level of tat coming into the house
• Sorting out good storage in all rooms and reviewing what's in it regularly.
• Clearing out the baby's clothes as soon as he's grown out of them
• Trying to put laundry away as soon as it's done

This last one is really specific, but we have a shared shopping list on Amazon and instead of buying things we "need" we put them on the list and review it on a Friday evening. It's really reduced the number of deliveries/tat in the house.

However the house is a tip at the moment. I'm redecorating one of the bedrooms so everything normally in there is in another bedroom.

Just cleared out the downside drawers! More moisturisers, lip sticks, mascaras, contact lenses, clothes pegs, curtain nooks, pens, pain killers, socks, it goes on and in.

I binned most of it

Exactly the same here. Hoping to move after Christmas and knee deep in crap. I don't know where to start.

You’re inspiring me OP! I’ve got some stuff here waiting to go to the charity shop (they’re still accepting donations where I live), but I know I’ve also got tat and rubbish lying around that can go. Going to go and take a look.....

Every bin bag makes me feel lighter- and I’m trying not to think about how much money I have spent on this tat😩.

I have come across loads of keys - no idea what they are do - so binned.

I clearly went through a hair band phase! Oh and four pairs of goggles. And the place is coming down with individually wrapped pant liners😊

I have promised myself that no more cheap tat. I will slowly replace necessary items with good quality stuff that will last.

15 tubes of l’occtaine hand cream. 15!!!

All presents - I never really use hand cream.

You need to put like with like. Then you will see how much you have of each thing and you can condense and store it properly. Don't buy anything else till you've done this. Go paperless for bills etc. Use library for books. Donate excess bedding to animal shelters. Bin any makeup or skincare that's gone gross.

Oh and read Marie Kondo for a great start.

I did our desk yesterday. I threw away a binbag full of stuff. We only put the desk up at the start of the last lockdown.

Put the hand cream on your local fb selling site. It will sell in minutes.

My problem is being married to Amazon man. He buys and buys. If I clear a space he takes over. My clothes are crammed in my side of the wardrobe as he has basically taken
It over.

@Ideasplease322 - there are companies that will collect bags of sensitive documents and shred them. That may be worth looking into.

If you have half decent unopened toiletries, see if you can donate them to a local women’s refuge.

Also don’t forget FB marketplace and EBay.

I moved out of the family home due to DV and I’m amazed at how little I needed. Now the house is on the market, H wants stuff cleared out and I’m trying to absorb it and really don’t want to.
There are charity bags already lined up in the hall.

Same here and I buy very little so that is not the problem. I live on my own now with to grown up sons who live away and still have a lot of stuff here. They do not have their own homes so cannot take everything.
Every drawer in my house is full of stuff, I do sometimes go through them with the intentions of clearing them. However very little gets discarded as they are full of bits of this and that that cannot be thrown away.
Coats, jackets and shoes... where on earth do some people store them? I visit some people and there is no evidence of them in their halls. Likewise no evidence of anything such as post or keys.
My attic is full of things I cannot throw out, as is my garage.
I downsized a few years ago and my son's said I was throwing their life away. I cannot begin to describe how much I had to get rid of, yet still I cannot fathom how there is still so much stuff.