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...

Lark - presents which don't take up room (and I wish I'd thought of sooner!)
Swimming lessons - 3 people pay a term/6 a half term each.
Season ticket to a favourite park/farm/zoo (usually for over 3's)
Money towards other bigger/more useful purchases.
vouchers towards shoes/clothes (can be saved until needed).
I'm still trying to convince my mother that the dc don't need lots of toys. But I'm now convinced this goes back to her raf childhood where things were put in storage when they went abroad and often went missing. Her sister's are all the same and one is particularly bad at hording - think those tv shows, but apply it to three separate homes at once.

@ Mrs Pennyapple. I am with you on that one.

I watched the hoarders programme last Thursday and the elderly gent recalled how his beloved nice toys were often taken away if they got dented or scratched, and this was proposed as one of the reasons behind his hoarding (or so it seemed). I suddenly felt awful at my stealth withdrawal of toys, and hope that I am not contributing to any kind if hoarding instinct in my kids (no-one has complained yet). Dd1 in particular is showing tendencies -"mum can I keep that egg box?" "Why?, what will you use it for?" "Um, I don't know but I want to keep it in case I can use it. Like for keeping my special things in" "Not the safest or prettiest place for your nice things" "please mum don't throw it out". Sigh.

This thread moves so fast!

RE Ebay, have there been some changes to postage costs then? Is this just part of the general postage price increases or is it specifically in relation to Ebay?

Nagoo I also took great pleasure in 'decluttering' a few of my least favourite kids books! Mostly the kids and I like the same ones, but the Thomas one with an engine noise was really annoying.
Hope you've had a good time at Bill Bailey!

MinimalistMommi Method wood cleaner is fab - worth the extra £ I think. So easy to use.

Arti glad you liked the hymn lines!

Lark that is impressive selling! Well done. Not sure it is worth keeping too many toys for grandchildren you may never have. My MIL did the same thing and my kids do enjoy playing with their Dad's old toys. However, looking back some of the plastic toys seem to have been much better quality / more durable then. I can't imagine some of my kids' stuff lasting another 30 years, even in a loft.

MrsPA I made the mistake of singing the song in Tabby McTat and now I have to sing it all the time to the same tune. It involves doing the cat's miaow and purr noises so a right PITA. Wish I'd never started. It is a good story though!

Thanks alarkthatcouldpray, not fit for purpose, that does it.

Blasted our kids ' playroom ' today and got incensed about the amount of pointless ' retro ' electrical av ( that's audio / video ) shite my other half has polluted the room with. However, he is going away for a week soon bwahahaha.....

Alark for the two year old, you could open a savings account and just buy a couple of small things for the fun of opening the presents. Because our DCs have always been given plenty of wrapped up gifts by family we did this until they were old enough to be asking us for expensive things. I'm sure when they are older they will appreciate having the money to put towards a car or whatever.

Re keeping kids toys. It is nice to go to grandparents and see kids play with 1970s/80s toys and not to have to take stuff with us. So because we have a basement and the storage isn't an issue, we have kept the wooden train set and the Duplo for grandchildren (+ some favourite baby books).

Hobnob, most kids nowadays have so much stuff that they don't usually notice a bit of stealth decluttering and they can't be as attached to all their toys as someone who has only a few. I'm pretty sure that old man didn't have that many. To be on the safe side, I only do it with toys that are far too young for them and I keep things in a box and see if they are asked for in the next few months before removing from the house.

DS also likes to keep everything. I feel like rejoicing when he agrees to put a piece of paper in the bin when we tidy his room! Although he did agree for me to get rid of a toy he was given by well meaning misinformed GPs which was a cheap version of a branded toy that just doesn't work as well and doesn't get played with. I just keep chatting him how much use/pleasure other people are getting out of my stuff I'm giving away and hoping it'll rub off. He's a preteen so I'm confident he's not going to want a room full of little kid toys in a few years time.

Hmmm. I have discovered dh has kept the disposable tin trays I bought for the dc's party. Ok now it seems wasteful to chuck them after one use as there's nothing wrong with them. But I bought disposable so I didn't have the keep the bloody things somewhere. I despair.

MrsPA The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin is the most bonkers book ever. I got rid of that - in fact I get rid of every childrens book that I find unreadable (BBC compendiums written by a 11yo, translate into Chinese, then Spanish then back to English - or so it feels. Straight out the door). But we have a huge home library so I don't feel bad about that at all.

Tiny victory re spending yesterday - I went to Boots to buy new tinted moisturiser (after waiting until previous one had all but run out - ) and of course they had an offer on. Buy one item get 2nd half price. Gets me every time - I've never passed up a "Bargain" offer like this. But I decided I didn't need anything else, so it wasn't a bargain at all. So I just brought what I needed & left feeling mildly confused, and a tiny bit like I'd passed over a great offer, but ultimately VICTORIOUS, as I had brought what I needed and nothing more.

BeCool the amount of times I have to say to OH ' it's not a bargain if we don't need it '.

I meant to say congrats too.

Slight glitch yesterday as the charity clothing bank near lire home was full and the supermarket I went to didn't have one; but luckily there was a doorstep collection today so I just put it out for them. Feel a bit bad as they want gkkd stuff for their shop and there was a lot of rag in there.
Also sorted out and filed the large piles of paperwork that have been dotted round the house. I just need to finish shredding the junk stuff now!!

OneLaundry Thanks. I have to repeat that 1000 times - "its not a bargain if I don't need it"!

Oh my word! I've been foraging in the loft again. Dragged down a load of empty boxes and several bags of stuff which can go to carboot. Think that might have to be it for this boot though. There's so much more stuff up there which I'd stuffed out of the way, and clearly we haven't needed of just replaced.

There is easily as many of not more toys up there as there is downstairs. Am going to cull downstairs anyway but might be an opportunity to pass a load on to grandparents for dc to play with at their houses, getting rid of baby baby toys and still some to pass on elsewhere.

I've found it really useful to remember the hidden costs of bargains - you have to store it, clean it, worry about it, make decisions about it, and eventually get rid of it. That is a lot of effort for something you didn't want that much in the first place.

Oh dear. Bargain hunting sounds like my dh. I don't mind a bargain but the loft forage has revealed a few boxes/bags of presents bought very cheaply. But without being allocated to a person. And one gift which was allocated has a box which has seen better days. Am still intending giving it as I know it will go down well. Bit has strengthened my resolve to empty the loft. I think depending on how well this carboot goes will depend on whether I do another one or just donate everything. I've seen on our free cycle a charity looking for a stairgate. I don't have one but I'm going to approach them and see if they have a need for any of my pushchairs.

Sok you are going to have the most Awesome carboot sale when it happens! In NZ 'garage sales' are very common - could you do one of those from your storage unit?

Someone help me!

In September I cleared out our rented storage with the intention of working through the boxes of mostly rubbish immediately.

DS immediately got ill and we've been in hospital most if the time since then.

Today I started on a box in the hall and there are loads of cassettes that people made for me over the years. Now, I don't even own a tape player anymore so I realise exactly how stupid it would be to hold on to them but... I'm finding it so hard to throw them out. Someone talk some sense in to me, please!!!

Have they got the titles on them? Any that you really like you could obtain in a format that you can listen to.

Then just write a list of the names of the people who cared enough about you to make you a tape and store it on your computer.

Put them on Freecycle? First person to come and get them gets them? I'm sure some people will still be using them. My last car had a tape player.

Or just allow your self to value the clutter free space in your home & give yourself permission to throw them away! It is OK to do this, they are largely an irrelevant format now and they are certainly irrelevant to you. You do not have to keep them. It's OK!

If you throw them away, they can BE GONE from your life in a matter of seconds. Isn't that an attractive option? :)

BeCool it's not the tapes themselves, it's the memories they bring back and the thought that went in to putting them together.

I think I'm going to see if I can put my favourite ones together as playlists on iTunes. In all fairness they've been locked away in a room for probably over 6 years so I'm not quite sure why I'm struggling to actually get them out!

It's pathetic. You can tell I'm new at this, can't you?!

BeCool that is great about Boots! Just shows how your thinking is changing. Shops always just want us to spend as much as possible at till point, to a customer it seems like a bargain, to the shop, they're just shifting a higher volume of stock.

Sok if some of your stuff doesn't sell at carboot will you go en-route to a charity shop on way home to off load it? That's what my sister does if she does a table top sale and some stuff doesn't sell.

Do any of you on this thread suddenly have really annoying flashing ads appearing at the sides of your pc screen? These seem to have appeared this week and I don't know how to 'opt out' of them.

The pictures change constantly so it makes concentrating on the thread really difficult.

And ironically it is trying to sell me 'stuff' that I don't need and am trying to get rid of!