Advice for decluttering before a move & overcoming hoarding tendancies

[MyFluentOliveGoose]

I'm posting hoping to hear from people who have successfully managed to do a major house clear out & declutter whilst overcoming their hoarding tenancies. I will soon be moving in with my partner, we're buying something together.

I'll be leaving my terraced house I've been in for 15 years where I've bought up a child as a single parent. I'm early 40s and have overcome poverty, homelessness and trauma in my life and have managed to build a good life and career for myself. I remember when my child was v. young me only having 3 pairs of footwear, 2 with holes in, my coat was ripped and my glasses actually held together with sellotape and I had to use a food bank. I'm now living in abundance, I have LK Bennett boots, cashmere and and fancy handbags spilling out of cupboards but I can't seem to get rid of anything.

I did a major clear out last year that resulted in 10 black sacks full of clothes. I was so pleased with my achievement it had taken me back to back weeks off work to achieve that. When DP came over and saw bags in living room ready to be taken to charity shop he (definate hoarding tenancies too and a great partner in general) got upset and begged me to just sell them on Vinted instead as its 'such a waste'. Bags are now in shed.

This month I've started decluttering kitchen and have boxes of food and tins ect from my covid era hoarding spike. All out of date. DP wanted me to keep those too saying they should be ok to eat. I've ignored that loaded it all into my car and taken to the tip. Tip had a massive queue and then closed it's gates so I now have to wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow I have 2 huge boxes of kitchenware eg jelly moulds, empty biscuit tins, plastic kitchenware I've replaced with pyrex ect. to work out what to do with.

I just find it so hard and wonder how others manage it? It's random things like my child dedided to take my yoga mat camping and it got a bit damaged so I got a new yoga mat but can't get rid of the old one as it seems useful for beach trips.

Also, selling all those clothes on Vinted is going take ages I'll need weeks to put it all up to sell. I've also got a loft and 2 sheds full of crap eg. broken bikes, tents, old furniture after decor changes ect.

I'm so overwhelmed and need to hear from people that have been through similar and managed to sort it. We will have a garage in the new house so plan to put things there and try to gradually sell / get rid of.

I just need to do the decluttering. I feel so much shame and I also feel guilty to myself and my loved ones for having to spend so much time (so much annual leave and weekends) and energy to deal with all this physical stuff that's somehow been accumulated. I don't want to spend yet more money on this.

When I moved I put loads of stuff on Freecycle, including an American style fridge freezer that was cluttering up my garage. The good part is that it is collect only so no packing or posting.

Not sure if it will help but there’s a great YouTube channel called ‘space maker method’, they also have a FB group. Sounds like other people have given you good advice.

My daughter (student) operates a small side line listing items on Vinted for friends. She takes an agreed percentage of the sales and they hang on to the clothes and send them out if they sell. Do you know anyone who could do similar for you? They would do all the work for you, you could leave them on Vinted for an agreed time time and then charity shop them. You'll probably make something and it would be a compromise option.

My mate owns a skip company. It costs them a LOT of money for every kg that goes to landfill. Therefore the main priority in their yard is sorting all the skips and making sure they recycle as much as possible as they can actually make money rather than being charged to dispose of it.

You could ask your local skip companies if they do the same then chuck everything in a skip and know that it won’t just go to landfill

Such helpful responses, I've got so many ideas now and feel really spurred on. Have done more sorting out and a little bit of throwing stuff away since starting this, thread.

I noticed there's definately an emotional element as last night I was spent an hour going through all my old costume jewellery I never wear anymore. I just couldn't chuck it. Ended up tidying it, organising it, cleaning it and putting it back. I don't want to keep it. Can't throw it because a) I see it as having monetary value and B) for some of it has sentimental value eg. my dad gave it to me or I wore it in a particular time in my life / it reminds me of being younger and prettier 😆

I tried going through my lipsticks, counted 41 of them. Only 5 I like & use currently. Ridiculous. I couldn't throw them out some I'd never used as realised it's the wrong colour. Feels like literally throwing money away and I get upset and have to stop decluttering. I watched Stacey Solomon that gave me the idea of counting them. I wish Stacey was there for the support.

It feels so morally wrong to throw out a perfectly good item, it makes my stomach turn.

Who is even going to want a second hand lipstick 🤷🏼‍♀️ there's no market for it is there, it's delusional.

Have you heard of the theory of sunk costs? This helps me with things like the lipsticks that you’ll never use. Google it, there are simple explanations. You’ve already spent the money on those lipsticks - it’s gone and just leaving them in your house instead of binning them won’t make any difference to that. You’re not saving any money in the future by keeping them, because as you’ve said, they’re the wrong colour.

I did the whole downsizing some years ago now. I was forced into it by circumstances but in the end I realised just how much stuff I had that I didn’t need or want. I hired a skip, gave stuff to charity, and used freecycle-type sites. I’ve not looked back.

Yes I've heard of the fallacy of sunk costs but I'll read up on it again to try and give myself a boost.

Take the shed bags of bags to charity. I sell on vinted but stuff that’s been sitting there for ages can start to deteriorate. They’ll go mouldy in a shed. Get rid of them before they’re worth nothing :)

In feel your pain op, currently trying to sort stuff at home, I took 3 bags to the charity on Saturday and then went back to get a book back. FFS why did I do that, it will probably just sit in the car now!

My small house is bulging but it will improve, I keep thinking I don't want to leave the chore of clearing to my children to do :(

Listen to Clutterbug podcast.

"tatalanche"! I have one of those.

One rule I go by is if it will cost me less than 20 quid to replace (if I need to), then it's gone. Vinted is great for replacing stuff also.

Boot sale?

You'd be surprised! I bet if you posted in a local freecycle/donate group, someone would take them off your hands. Lipsticks can be sanitised.

Or post in a subreddit, as you can see here there were plenty of people offering to take it off the OP's hands: https://www.reddit.com/r/MakeUpAddictionUK/comments/1nimhoy/where_to_donate_lightly_used_make_up/

I do about an hour a week on Vinted (also a hoarder). I’ve made enough this year to pay my council tax.
It’s really not a faff , my INPOST locker is nearby the Evri is in the same shop and the post office is over the road.
How old are your kids ? You could ask them to list stuff and pay commission.

Please don't take dried & tinned food that's "out of date" to the tip. It will all be completely usable! Tinned food doesn't go off - it's just a legal requirement to stick a date on it. Nor will rice, pasta etc.

Just keep them separate from other things still in the cupboards, or put them all in one cupboard, & make a plan to cook through them every week. I've done that when clearing out my freezer before. It's easy & satisfying.

It's so wasteful to chuck perfectly good food away - it feels morally wrong to me ...

But thing is the money has already gone. Throwing it in the bin isn’t when the money goes, it’s when you bought the wrong colour.

Is there a realistic market for partly used or even unused lipsticks on ebay/vinted/marketplace?? Is that something ebay will even let you list?

Why not have a look and search how much money on average lipstick resells for. Would it be worth your time and effort to even list them. Comes back to the hourly pay rate thing again.

It's surprisingly easy for stuff to build up. Ni liked with a parent who has hoarding tendencies and it's very common to develop these issues after a trauma.

Initially you will just need to keep being ruthless and donating, dumping or throwing away items. Once you are clear set yourself some rules. Broken items get chucked. Things which don't fit are donated or sold. When you do a food shop look at what's left first. If you have a stock of tins consider a system of restocking and using the older tins.

Spend some time thinking about outfits / bags etc and remove superfluous items. How many evening bags do you need for example. When shopping always consider what will this go with, can I wear it in multiple outfits. I have one metallic evening bag which goes with anything I wear usually. One brown / black / tan handbag, a small Roka bag and a walking packpack. So 6 bags in total to meet all possible requirements.

Exactly! I’d rather spend my time doing my actual job than doing Vinted which I’d loathe. Someone told me to do a car boot - they’d done one and made about £100 - that’s for around six hours work by the time you get up early to get a good spot and spend the day haggling for a couple of quid per item.

I’d consider it a contribution to charity to let Anglo take it. They’d get much more for it than I would and I’d be happy to make that kind of donation every year anyway.

It’s different if you’re struggling financially and use it as a sideline but it doesn’t sound like you’re in that position. And never let anyone persuade you to not donate/declutter an item. You never regret it once it’s gone. BTW does your DP use Vinted? Perhaps he could do it for you given that it’s so easy….

Sounds counter intuitive but get a skip . Clothes to charity shop and skip the rest