Decluttering questions!

[TheExtraGuineaPig]

I’m determined to really, properly declutter our house. I have space at the moment and it isn’t untidy but the cupboards are all full and I know so much isn’t used. I’ll be moving house in 6months - 2years and want it to be as easy as possible.

My questions are about where to get rid of things! I’m talking about the sort of things that can be used but aren’t really sellable. Would charity shops really want mugs (just supermarket ones), baking equipment, other pieces of crockery and dinnerware that aren’t in sets? Or is there a way to recycle them? Also soft toys, what should I do to with them?

I keep coming across unused things that were cheap to start with and not sure if charity shops would want them (an example is some picture frames in a bundle that were £2 from ikea and not used).

I’m sure there are other categories I can’t think of right now so love to hear thoughts on donating/recycling things that are low value

Although looking at the London weather not sure how much I’ll get done today!!

Charity shops are happy to take most things long as it’s not rubbish. I recently did my house, most went to charity shops that I didn’t sell online and whatever left went to the tip. Soft toys I gave a wash and gave to charity shops too.

I’ve just been through a huge declutter. Anything worth over about £10 that was easy to post I sold on Vinted and ebay. Anything difficult to post I put on a local Facebook group for free or up to £30. Anything worth less than £10 but good condition I took to a charity shop, it’s up to them to decide it they want to sell it. Clothes not in good condition went to recycling. Odds and ends that could have gone to charity but I got sick of carrying stuff (no car) I put on my garden wall for people to take (very accepted practice where I live). Old electronics got recycled.

I do have some stuff left that I couldn’t get rid of - heavy chipboard panels, concrete garden statues. I’ll pay for a rubbish taxi to take them away.

I’d check Facebook as well, we have a local “buy nothing” fb group for our town, where people give things away for free.

Someone with a child heading off into self catered uni accommodation in September might happily take a few plates and mugs.

Freecycle. Or just stick a photo of loads of stuff for Free on your front lawn and put it on your local Facebook page. Car boot sales.

Ask the charity shops what they want / don’t want - some are picky, some very specific

eg. we have one near us for an animal sanctuary and they want as many old towels as you can send their way. That was a huge help in a recent clear out.

It sounds OP as though you never go in a charity shop yourself!
I would suggest that items such as ordinary mugs and individual pieces of crockery will sell much more easily than full dinner sets!
I'm sure most charity shops would welcome all the items you mention.

Good fir you for decluttering though. I know i would feel better if I had a proper systemic clear out

Giving away for free, I use Olio, Freecycle, Facebook Marketplace. (No posting, collection only.) Olio is good for household bits & bobs. Freecycle good for furniture, bigger items, DIY and gardening. Those aren't 'rules', just the way it seems to turn out.

Selling, i use Olio or Facebook Marketplace (stating collection only) or eBay (collection or posting)

We have been going through everything before a housemove in the next 6-9 months and sorting things into categories

Recycle centre - decorating pots and paint brushes, fabrics, general household waste
Charity shop - clothes and kitchen ware
Gumtree - good quality garden tools and intact paint pots and varnish, garden furniture.
carboot sale in a few weeks - overage of kitchen ware, tools, things of low value that won't attract interest on Gumtree, plus we will give things away if necessary.

Freecycle type groups can be great for this. I have got rid of all sorts on mine. I do mostly take to charity shops. A house near me used to put a box in their front garden with 'free to take' on it. They live next to a busyish path though.

For me decluttering is a process and I moved 3 times in 4 years! It's such a good idea and it saves a fortune in moving costs.

I had great success getting rid of things on our local FB free/recycling page. I've given away all sorts of things! I met some lovely people. For my friend clearing his mother's house we had so much success by putting things on the drive and then a FB marketplace post so people could pop over, so much went both from the skip and stuff left outside it. Doing this today quite early would be great as the weather is good and people might be looking for something to do. I bet it goes! Someone starting out or is into recycling would be glad of those things!

I gave a lot to charity, mainly clothing. But I'm often in charity shops looking for small plates for my cats (they eat better off plates).

I'm still decluttering a bit. It can be overwhelming but I enjoyed it and I remember the relief of things going. The real key is not bringing things in I absolutely do not need.

Charity shops will take all of that sort of stuff.

Older kids going to uni often dont want whole sets of crockery, so charity shops are an excellent way to kit out halls. Mine took a LOT of charity shop bought stuff with him. Just to give you a reason why they take that sort of stuff!

The new stuff... look to see if nearby schools are collecting tombola donations

Freecycle, Olio and local area groups are my go to for stuff that’s not suitable for charity shops or selling on EBay or Vinted.

I am looking into Swedish death cleaning now, I don’t want my DCs having to go through my stuff wondering what on earth I was keeping things for!

getting on with decluttering is much easier when anything you don’t want just disappears from your doorstep

I’ve found these people really helpful https://anglodoorstepcollections.co.uk/what-we-collect/

Thanks everyone!! I do go in charity shops 🤣 But maybe I’m not describing my kitchen odds and ends well enough .. great idea about putting things outside - will do that too. I feel like I’ve got to that point where the cupboards are quite full and no one ever looks in the back anymore!

I put everything (that wasn’t worth selling on Vinted) on our local facebook freebies group. I’ve scored some excellent freebies myself as well, including a kids bike! People are (nearly always) so grateful and it’s good to know it will be used again.

I also often do a doorstep collection if I have a lot of stuff to get rid of at once, things that no one wants from the Facebook group or a lot of clothes. Anglo Doorstep Collections are great.

I’m in the same boat even down to moving in 18 months to 2 years time if the stars align.

We are 6 months in and it was cupboards bursting at the seams and the loft was heaving. So all out of sight out of mind.

We sold 2 boxes of books to World of books, we only made £50, then 6 boxes went to the charity shop. DH ripped 500 CD’s, a few were sold they didn’t make much at all and the vast majority taken to the charity shop. We have kept a few of our favourite ones to mount in a frame. A lot was paper based information, DH had hoarded that in the loft. Bank and financial stuff and lots of work paperwork. That all got shredded, around 16 boxes, I broke the shredder! That went to recycling by just getting put in our recycling bin. Clothes were charity shop or the fabric recycling bit at the tip. Metal stuff was put out to the scrap man. Two chairs were put on the kerb and someone took within a couple of hours. DS and I took lots of scrap wood to the tip yesterday, it’s sorted by type of material. I sold a gaming wheel to CEX, I have two other bits of gaming kit I want to trade to them but both have one item missing which is infuriating, hoping they turn up. The effort of selling is huge so unless you need the money don’t bother, the books and CD are just a scan of a barcode on a website. We also catalogued my Ladybird book collection 1,700 of them. I am selling around 1,000 of them but that’s a winter job. DH did most of that. He retired last year so he had the time.

DS keeps saying the house doesn’t look any different, it doesn’t but the cupboards, lovely inside, I now have a loft that has had half its contents got rid of. The loft is still ongoing. I also have the equivalent of about 6 kitchen cupboards completely empty. Glorious, good luck.

Definitely Freecycle anything you just want rid of that charity shops won’t take (they often don’t have the space to take larger items like bits of furniture). Depending on how active your local group is, most decent things get snapped up and collected from your doorstep which is a really convenient way of shifting stuff, although you have to put a bit of time into replying to messages etc.

And charity shops will definitely take things like the IKEA frames - new and unused items always sell. Check whether Oxfam has a bookstore near you. They have some shops that only do books and will take anything you want to donate.

Ive been gently decluttering for several months now. I have plenty of space but there's a lot just sitting around in cupboards that doesn't actually get used and hasn't for years. Im easing it out of my house into new homes where hopefully it will have a purpose (and if not that's not my problem anymore!)

I would give everything you mention to a charity shop. They are all quite ordinary items, nothing unusual and you see those in charity shops all the time

For my latest round of decluttering I posted stuff on the local Facebook giveaway page. Sold some bits on ebay.
Everything else went to Anglo doorstep collections.
For my next round I'll probably just use Anglo for everything, no faffing about then!