Out with the old and in with - NOTHING! Further adventures in minimalism.

[MrsPennyapple]

Following on from the Minimalist Journey and Minimalist Quiche threads. The journey continues...

Nishi, I'm in France so it may be different but we've always asked landlords and ladies if they mind if we make minor improvements (like shelves in obvious places) and then leave them and they've always been fine with it.

Morning fellow clutter clearers!

BeCool you are so great at encouraging and keeping others on track (your post to Nishi yesterday!)

Trazzle that is a good tip for old toys. Wonder if they need DVDs too.

I've not managed to do much in the last few days. Had a very busy weekend.

Does anyone else find it hard to physically take stuff to the charity shop? It is near impossible to park in our high street. There is a car park nearby but then I'd have to walk carrying all the stuff and with a newborn and a toddler in tow it isn't easy.

I wonder if charities could look at having a drop off venue on a supermarket or retail site... a warehouse would be a better site to sort and re-distribute donations too.

MM what is your JoJo dress like? I,e. summer / winter, size, colour etc.

Lizard I'm pretty sure they would take DVDs off your hands!

Lime I can park quite close and do it in my lunch hour so no DC in tow.

Our Cancer Research shop on the High Street always has lots of volunteers out the back (whereas other charity shops I donate to are quieter with smaller staff) . I just know they would come to my car and help me if I asked. Do you have somewhere like that you could get volunteers to come to the car park and help you?

I'm now collecting for the school fair in one month. So I'm living with a box in the hall for JUST one month. Got some good bits for them so worth it. Though I am hoping it can go earlier ..........

Not brave enough to join the decluttering posse (but am an avid reader of the thread). However, I might be able to help at least on the problem of accessing charity shops. I've recently come across a Barnados donation station next to a small branch of Tesco and it looks like the plan is to open more.

There is a drop off collection centre in Wandsworth if that is of any use.

BeCool thats a good idea, I'll look at how many staff there are next time. Most of the charity shops round here seemed to be staffed by elderly ladies though, who'd probably find it even harder than I would!

Thanks Trazzle.

x post. Thanks for the additional tips = none of those donation centres are near me but I'll certainly be looking out for more opening! Looks like someone else has already thought the same thing!

The have charity collection boxes for lots of things in our local big supermarket too - clothes, shoes, broken electrical items etc. You can park right next to them - they are always at the far end of the car park well away from the P&C parking

Have decided to ditch some unwanted gifts. Also, a beautiful bread in someone gave me after I admired it has been sitting unused full of mouldy bread for a month so I'm going to give it back to her.

Accepting that we are visual processors is very helpful. In our house, out of sight =out of mind. So don't put things you want to use in cupboards.

Well my two excess doors have been picked up after a successful freecycle. Fingers crossed someone wants the pallets for fire wood as they don't fit in the back of our cars and we'll have to pay the council to come collect them.

I have been making small slow progress on the library. It is time consuming as I'm trying to action all the paper work before I file it. Once it is all actioned / cleared then I can get to the easier bit of organising the shelves in a better manner. DCs are very uncooperative with the often long phone calls / filling in forms required (which is why it has built up to this level!).

Do check your local large supermarket for donation bins - they are often there. Also, our local recycling centre has donation bins as well which the charities collect from.

Had a lesson cancellation today so was able to walk into local "small town" and do errands. I managed to take a small amount of worn clothing into chazzer as rag, drop off old pairs of glasses at opticians where they collect them for donation in developing countries and drop off out of date medications at chemist for disposal!

Trouble is I'm now just really exhausted and still have lesson prep to do plus a lesson to teach!

Ah well!

Loads of encouraging stuff going on here though!

So now - does donating 5 pairs of old glasses count as 5 things on my "lose 365 items" list or only 1.?

Five I reckon.

Looking forward to tomorrow as I have a day with no work and no DCs.

Lime it's a navy blue cord dress with back button fastening age 3-4 yrs.

We have recycling bins on our local co-op car park and our local Waitrose car park. Books, clothes etc

Just marking my place so that I don't lose you all. 20 items out and 6 items in for me this month, which is fairly crap.....

Thanks MinimalistMommi. I am tempted by the dress as I love JoJo clothes BUT that age is a bit too far ahead for me to store (DD is only 3 months old). Hope you don't mind me asking!

There is a clothes and shoes recycling point at the supermarket here, but now it is my kitchen gadgets that I need to donate! I'll see if we get time next weekend.

Keep meaning to say (for the believers on the thread / anyone interested!), I was in church and one of the hymns was, 'God's spirit is in my heart'. These lines made me smile:

'Don?t carry a load in your pack
You don?t need two shirts on your back'

How minimalist is that?!

Shortly to put out my 2nd charity bag of the week for collection this morning I've not even dented the surface yet though!

Arti - def 5. It's not like they take up less space if you put them together. I put all my glasses in a vision aid bin last time I was at the opticians. Including the pair I was wearing when I got my new ones. Even the dc's teeny glasses went in. I was holding on to their first pairs for purely sentimental reasons. But I have photos and although I had a pang when I put them in the vision aid bin, it was lovely to be able to explain to Emily that the glasses she and Jennifer had outgrown would go to help other children who needed them and perhaps were not so lucky as she was.

guys I need some moral support! Selling some stuff on eBay and as it begins to shift I have started to feel very guilty about the mountains of stuff I donated without trying to sell it (we are talking unworn shoes, clothes with tags on, DVDs, CDs etc). We are trying to save up for our house move in the summer and we need every penny.

At the time I just wanted to clear the space and get rid of things before I changed my mind

Good thinking Lime about not storing stuff

Artemis are customers still buying on eBay with huge postage costs now?

Artemisa it's done now! And the charity is earning good ££ from your great donations. You didn't ebay them and they are gone. As MM says the postage cost is causing big issues for any £ raised on ebay now. You need to let them go. You've got rid of mountains of stuff in prep for your house move - and you can't put a price on that.

Indulging in guilt for what could have happened to items you no longer possess is pointless and demoralising.

Focus on the positive - you've GOT RID!!! And hopefully you have/are addressing the spending habits that led you to have unworn shoes and clothes with tags on causing clutter in your home. So you ARE saving money for the future via the change in yourself and your spending. That is brilliant and a huge cause for self back slapping and celebration.

Allow yourself to move on from this - it's OK!

Honestly, Artemisia how long might it all have sat around if you'd tried to sell it?

Guilt is one of the first things to declutter. .