Clutter & chaos is spoiling my family life - any advice please

[Jemster]

I feel like my life is out of control due to the chaos & clutter in our home. It 's starting to affect my mood now as I feel like when I'm not at work all I do is tidy up, move things around & moan at everyone else for leaving a trail of destruction behind them. I am tired, grumpy & miserable! I've spent the whole weekend trying to get on top of things including a stack of admin & finances that I never seem to have time for.

My dc's are 8 & 3 and don't have a clue about keeping things tidy which of course they have probably learnt from me. DH is very good at keeping the kitchen clean & tidy & doing washing/ironing but even then there is a constant mountain of it pouring out of the laundry basket. It just never seems to go down! He is not keen on DIY so if things need fixing they often stay that way for ages which doesn't help.

Me & DH decide over Christmas that we need some house rules to help us get things in order & to get them to respect their things & our home more.
First though I think we need to sort things out so there is some kind of organisation but I don't know where to start. I usually start one thing & then I get distracted by another area or go off somewhere and never finish what I started! If I'm not at work I'm looking after a very demanding 3 year old so it's impossible to get much done.

We often end up buying things we already have as we can't find them so we're wasting money too. We have had arguments about where things are that we can't find and we are often late for things because of this.

I have bought several books on decluttering but never get a chance to read them so now they just add to the clutter!

I really want to sort this out but it doesn't come naturally to me so I wondered if anyone could give me some advice please? Our home doesn't feel very happy right now so I'd appreciate any suggestions.

I agree about e bay and the money is nice. Set a target to sell enough to pay for a nice day out with DC.

I'm TTC so can't help with the kids stuff but will tell you how I manage this stuff:

Another area I struggle with is, is school paperwork & other bits of admin. Our kitchen is not big enough for an area for this stuff & we only have one living room so no study or playroom. I am good at binning junk post when it arrives but there's always some stuff I want/need to keep for example; school info about events/reminders for payment etc, stuff that needs reading when I get a chance, stuff Ineed to action (when I get a chance), vouchers/coupons etc. Also dd brings home several pieces of 'artwork' from nursery every day. I just have nowhere to put it but she is so proud of it, I haven't the heart to chuck it. Where's best to keep all this admin stuff so it's not spread all around the house? Also how about wrapping paper, cards, sellotape etc. I have bits all over the place.

Admin stuff:

We have two areas for admin stuff...a letter rack on the kitchen counter and magnets on the fridge.

Anything that can be chucked straight away...junk mail but also envelopes goes straight into the recycling bin.

Invitations (e.g. Wedding invites, christenings, birthdays) go onto the front of the fridge with magnets. These go into the bin once the event has taken place.

All other post which needs to be actioned goes into the letter rack. If this starts to look full I go through and see why....have I not actioned things? Should it be thrown or moved?

For any paperwork that has been actioned and MUST be stored (think tax docs, insurance docs), I have one A-Z filing box and file it under the appropriate letter. I go through this about once a year to throw any old paperwork that no longer needs to be kept. I also keep on top of it by throwing out anything that is replaced (e.g. When I put the 2016 pet insurance docs in, I take out the 2015 docs and throw them).

Also as per previous posters I move to electronic updates wherever possible...no paperwork for bills, statements and insurance docs where possible.

Posted before I meant to...I was going to add that coupons/vouchers are mainly kept in my purse so I have them when they're needed. When I notice they've expired they get thrown.

Christmas wrapping paper and any leftover Christmas cards I didn't use go into the loft with the Christmas decorations until the beginning of December.

I have one drawer where I keep a small selection of blank cards along with note paper, pens, envelopes, any sellotape and any other stationery. Basically it's the 'stationary' drawer.

All my drawers and cupboards have a 'purpose' like this so if anything is lying around its obvious where it would be put away as we refer to them this way..."oh, put that in the stationary drawer".

The one thing I do allow myself though is one "junk" drawer. One drawer in the kitchen for things that don't have a home...I go through this a few times a year to chuck/find a home/etc for the stuff that's ended up there.

Just a thought; how much time does your DC spend in nursery? If they're there for most of the week could you get rid of big things like the toy kitchen as they can play with those to their heart's content at nursery. Likewise lots of other toys/messy crafts stuff that they can do in nursery and let someone else clear up

Are you me? It's about getting rid of stuff without guilt. If you aren't hard up for cash, choose the easiest way - charity shop, freecycle, women's refuge. Old broken crap - to tip. I helped a friend declutter and ebayed lots of high value stuff for her - it was hard work and half of it didn't sell anyway so it ended up in the charity shop. If someone gave you a gift (like smellies or plastic monstrosities of toys) that you don't have space for, it's not really helping you, you just pass it on. 3 or 4 of my christmas presents have gone straight to the raffle prize box .

Both our DC have good sets of built in shelves in their rooms so there is plenty of space for books and boxed stuff. DH loves putting up shelves but that is a relatively cheap task for a handyman person to do. You can get good use out of lots of corners, cupboard under stairs etc with shelves and hooks. (when you have made space)

Can you enlist your DH on this to take DC away (to GP's?) for a weekend. Or you get both DC away and you and DH attack the worst of it? It's his house too. Have all bags and boxes ready and aim to do a tip run Sunday afternoon and have the car packed for the next chance at a charity shop.

I have sold 73 items on ebay since last spring, when I began doing it more regularly. That is with fairly minimal effort, just listing things in batches and then going to the post office once a week.

That includes 55 items of clothing, magazines, baby equipment, sports wear, cosmetics, items I had bought and could not return...

Even if you only get 1 - 2 pounds on average per item that is still quite a nice amount of money.

I'm not sure I have anything in a decent enough state for ebaying

I'm feeling spectacularly unmotivated. Was supposed to be getting stuff done today but not a chance :(

I sell and charity shop almost weekly, if I find something I don't want/need it goes. I usually have a bag going in the car which gets filled and dropped at the charity. I use Facebook selling sites for kids stuff as I find it sells well and gets collected quickly versus having it laying around for 7-10 days for eBay.

I keep very little paper, kids artwork gets put in a large slip art case, when DD finishes nursery in the summer I am going to go through everything, photograph it and make it into a BobBook. Invitations/notices/term dates get listed in my diary, replied to and photographed and saved into Evernote.

I sound likes barrel of laughs don't I! I'm a very anxious person and find that organisation helps with this.

I've been inspired by this thread, just sorted through the kids book case and got a huge bag to go to the charity shop. I really want the kondo book but £7.99 on Kindle is too much at the moment

We also have our cleaning chores written on a blackboard in the kitchen (it sounds bad, but it's kinda fancy looking). We have daily cleaning category and rotation schedule as well. This way, when we're done with the spring cleaning, we can maintain the house squeaky clean at all times... or until the next big cleaning, at least.

I have four kids so don't go crazy at Christmas. We just don't have the money or space! I have a tub of colour pencils, basket of paper and some coloring books. It's enough, they can do their main art work at school/nursery. Look at your space and try to reduce your items to fit in that space. Replace things rather than buying things.

I also don't go overboard with clothes. They have about 7-10 of things but no more. Really, they don't need more than that.

I actually managed a reasonable amount over the last couple of days. Long, LONG way to go, but I'm feeling determined. It's frustrating that I need to take it very slowly because I will relapse if I go all gung ho about it and use too much energy. Slow and steady - just need to not lose my motivation.

With toys, if you have storage in their bedroom, don't worry about putting toys there never to be seen again, try and rotate. Dd got lots for Christmas, I just dug out a new doll and she's loving it. If it was kicking about she'd not be interested.