Kondo thread 8

[Isisizzie]

New thread for Kondo addicts.

Sorry I can't do all the links that were on the top of thread 7.

Oh thank you Kind words as always. I've been buying things that make it easier to store stuff folded actually, so maybe I am still on track! Now feel I have a bit of a deadline as my DM is coming over in a few weeks and I'd love for the place to look better - she always says it's too small and we should move, but with less stuff it would actually be ok for another year or two.

Iqueen - what are you up to today?

Bluebell, I've heard guinea pigs are great at shredding, bit of a commitment though!

Tulip - I just rip identifying details like dates of birth and account numbers off all sheets (figuring out name and address is so easy I don't bother removing those), and all the rest goes in the recycling. The small bits then get shredded and go in the bottom of the food waste bin.

Time to try on dresses to see what I can wear to a forthcoming wedding and also lodger is off to a clothes swap event so can take any that don't fit.

BrandNewIggi

I'm really motoring today! There is a local Jumble Sale coming up next weekend and I already have a couple of bags of clothes sorted for it. Now I'm doing random komono upstairs. So far, only found a bumbag, plus recycling and trash! Also, rounded-up some wayward make-up, nail varnish and hair care stuff, to do when I get there. It will be much easier if it's all together.

Still have a drawer in my bedroom, and the Boxroom of Doom to explore - should find plenty in there! Really up for it today!

Tulip bluebell I would tear information into tiny pieces, paperwork that has nothing personal on I would just bin. I often put the name address part of bank statements in the fire but just tear the rest up. On a gas bill I would remove name and address and just pop the rest in the recycling.

DH and I tried to make room for DS's sleepover tonight. He got rid of 11 books! We shuffled furniture around too!

Just wondering if anybody could help with this?

I was going to ebay lots of things and have a type of ebay shop in our spare room, but it is so full of clutter that I need to sort out that by the time i have saved packaging to post items the room is so full.
The objective was to empty the room, remove our clutter etc.
Has anybody given up the idea of ebay in favour of charity shops, or stuck it out to gain cash from ebay.
Some of the things can't go to charity shop as are worth a bit.
What's the solution to save time, energy, etc.
Have also never done ebay before so as not sure of pricing p&p its taking everything to PO twice for weighing and then posting. Also, would have to set up pay pal, ebay account etc.

Looking very good, prettymess! My home's nowhere near ready for 'after' photos yet!

I thought our living room was pretty much done and the grime and dust I found

Potato prints - I have mostly given up on ebaying. Seeing any money I might have made as a charitable donation as well as the benefit to me of getting stuff out of the way asap and them taking if off my hands without question.

I have sold a few bits on a local FB group selling page thing. No final value fees or PayPal. Just cash on collection and it's much simpler. But stuff doesn't sell for loads. Or at least mine didn't.

And often friends of mine would say they'd like it so I just passed it on without asking them for money.

But once you get into the getting rid framed mind you don't care so much. Or at least I haven't. I'm happy just to pass it on and equally more comfortable with people passing stuff onto me without feeling weirdly obliged to them.

And if stuff is given to me I don't want I pass it on straight away.

morethanpotatoprints - I eBay, but it does take time. I am trying hard to only eBay (or sell otherwise) the best of the stuff I am getting rid of. I enjoy eBaying - I regard it as one of my hobbies. If you are decluttering there is no point in stockpiling a huge amount of stuff to eBay - just start listing, and get rid of things as you go along. Check selling prices of completed items before listing anything. Start with some relatively small, cheap items until you get the hang of it. Get a decent set of kitchen scales to weigh the items with packaging to work out the P&P - you don't need to go to the PO to do it. Just look it up on Royal Mail's web pages, but for bulkier items a courier can be cheaper. What sort of things do you have to sell?

Checking in. Glad to hear your good news pretty mess.

Morethan. I ebay, but only the best, large value stuff. I also gumtree and (sssh) nethuns some stuff - cash only no fees. Gumtree is better for bulky collection only items of lower value. For me gumtree/nethuns is a way of getting rid of things rather than to make money.

Yy to starting now or it will be overwhelming. Especially if it's new for you start with a few bits until you get used to the process. If you get decent scales, you can pack at home, buy your royal mail postage via ebay, then just drop it at the PO. I go to small local POs as the queues in town are insane. Watch the proportions when calculating postage.

Today I sorted the shed and most of the diy stuff (I know, 'most of' is anti-kondo). Still very satisfying though. Need more Shelving in there - but now I know exactly how much. Ikea here I come... Still have to take resulting rubbish to dump though...

Purplefrog and JKS

Many thanks for the replies.
I guess i'm just over awed by a lot of it.

Well what to sell, sounds really silly

ww2 whistle - seen them sell for £65 will throw in ration book and home front book.

lots of old books, some charity shop but some more sought after.
Art supplies and equipment, camera equipment, cameras, screen and 2 projectors.

Some carltonware, denby, rare crockery and ornament type of things.

sheet Music and cd's / still relevant syllabus.

They were mostly my parents and of course have taken me some while to sort out and want to get rid of.

As a new seller, I am not sure how many free listings you will get per month. If you are listing as an auction don't start things too low, just in case you only get one bidder. If you have a rough idea how much something is worth it is often better to do it as a fixed price listing, and perhaps tick the box that says "best offer". Maybe start with some music or books, and see how it goes? Just make sure you describe the condition of items accurately You will make mistakes, but you will learn from them. Just remember that with Royal Mail the size of the parcel matters as much as the weight. Good luck.

potatoprints If you want to sell on EBay, get some sticky labels to write on, and buy a mixed pack of mailing bags (about 30 for 5 quid). Keep a bit of bubble wrap but ditch all jiffy bags (someone on Freecycle may collect) - EBay postage rules mean the weight of a jiffy bag makes you likely to lose money, and mailing bags are flat and take up no space. One large plastic bag of wrap should be enough. Ditch the rest.

Look at selling prices on EBay. Anything going for under £5 goes on Gumtree/FB/charity shop here, anything too big to post easily goes on FB and Gumtree then charity shop/outside for free. EBay is still good for selling collectables and weird stuff where two people somewhere in Europe might want the thing. Don't bother with most baby clothes or adult clothes without brand names; waterproofs and specialist clothing do well. Let's just say I used to sell about 100 items a year, now about 10, and not just because I've got through the baby stage...

Don't suppose it's grey Denby potatoprints?

I have no advice on selling on ebay, but it does sound like the WW2 whistle is ideal: it's small and so postage is cheap, plus it's rare, so people will naturally gravitate to eBay looking for it specifically. So as long as you can spell you're good to go!

Are there any Germans around? I live in Oldenburg and I have a PS1 and PS2 and various games to get rid of, but short of putting them outside with a sign saying ZU VERSCHENKEN (which is how I got my cat carrier, thanks, random German!) I'm not sure how to recycle them.

I'm too lazy/confused/language-challenged to try and put them on eBay Kleinanzeigen, so...what do I do?

(Incidentally, the whole 'spark joy' thing is genius, and has enabled me to get rid of a >10 year old M&S trouser suit I've had since I bought it for work experience at school. I even thanked it.)

I'm in Germany but not German :) Couple of options which spring to mind.

Look for any shop which ends in KA - it's likely to be a second hand shop, they love second hand shops. Take it in there and offer it up.

Take it to Gamestop and ask if they will buy it from you. They probably won't take the PS1, but the PS2 possibly. But you might be lucky.

There is a chain called Feebay which will take your things and stick them on ebay for you and give you a percentage of the money back.

Look for a local facebook group or meetup.com page for english speaking people near you, and ask their advice/offer it for free. I've just asked on mine where to drop off electronics needing recycling and someone offered to pick it up and take it for me! :)

Keep an eye for when your nearest Kindergarten is having a flea market (flohmarkt) and donate it to sell.

Look for a refugee centre (Flüchtlingszentrum) and donate it there - lots of Syrian refugees in Germany at the moment, many of them teenagers/children. Usually refugee workers are skilled at communicating without any language, or you can just say "Für die Kinder" and it will be clear, anyway.

If you have an English Language library, give it to them. They often lease games and consoles.

When the weather forecast is dry, stick in the street with a note, defo. "Zu verschenken, ganz funktioniert" (To take, fully functioning)

Even better if you can find the Sperrmüll dates for your street, there will either be one every 6 months (you'll notice, because everyone will stick their old furniture on the street) or you'll have to call up and request one - in which case, wait until a neighbour does it, and piggyback theirs. This is accepted as a perfectly okay thing to do. Although it's probably more likely to be overlooked and end up in landfill this way than offering it randomly.

Lastly, go onto your city website and use Chrome to translate the page, find the page for waste and recycling, and find the electronics recycling centre and take them there.

Uhm, sorry, that ended up being quite a list!

I'm still motoring, doing as much as I can this weekend, because I have a busy week ahead in RL, so will have to satisfy the kondo urges, in short bursts, in between!

I have realised that I have more than enough kondoed clothes (and ones the children left behind when they flew the nest,) to completely supply the local jumble sale next week. Hope they will accept them all!

Ditched an old pair of well-used walking boots (they were really hammered), plus various garments for recycling as rags.

Having fun, and feeling super-empowered, but energy keeps flagging, so I have to take short breaks - very annoying. Still, I can see glimmers of success!

Back to the fray!

Well done to all! Iqueen - glimmers of success here too!

I think I may have had a bit of an epiphany. I've been working on clothes - tiny micro-category by micro-category and suddenly things "feel" a lot better when I look in my wardrobe and cupboard. Is this the MK "sweet spot"? It has inspired me to make some sort of a start on paperwork although this will be a lot harder I think and I daren't just pull it all out because I have students to teach tomorrow here and the place needs to look reasonably as though I know what I am doing tidy!

Bertie, you are lovely. I now have more options than I can shake a stick at, without having to pantomime at my landlady!

(I can make myself understood in German reasonably well, and I am a champion form-filler (Number 1 Most Useful Skill in Germany, from my limited experience), but as soon as people speak to me at a normal speed I am lost).

Go Iqueen and arti! Hitting the sweet spot sounds amazing. :)

Hmm - it is going to be a while before I'm near hitting any spot - let alone a "sweet" one on paperwork - 12 partly used notebooks anyone? However I do have a large bag of paper ready to go in the recycling bin outside (now thankfully emptied!)

Halfterm over. Will try to get back to it from tomorrow.
Dh back to work (hopefully), kids to school and I'm healthy (touch wood) so no excuses!

Aiming for a swim first then need to dig out the list. I want to get to kitchen cleaning products asap not sure where they are in the order.

Thank you for the the support, Everyone!

I am knocking off now. Knackered and heading for a well-earned soak in the bath.

I have emptied boxes and bags of random komono and junk form upstairs, and it is a tiny bit better there now. I ditched the junk, and the komono that can be classed as bricabrac, is heading for the jumble sale collection point tomorrow afternoon, along with sacks of clothes. So there will be a bit more floor visible in the spare bedroom!

educatingarti I think the sweet spot is when you are really happy with where it's at.

I'm sticking to the list as far as I can, but I have stuff all over the house (discovered another new pack of knicks today!) I am kondoing ruthlessly, but I'm pretty sure that I'll need to have a quick second round, when the house is clear, just to weed out anything that has either escaped the first round, or has since come to light and resulted in excess. The second sweep should be easy-peasy!