Keep on getting rid of one thing a day decluttering challenge!

[StealthNinjaMum]

After a thousand posts our homes are beautiful, decluttered places of harmony and relaxation….. or perhaps not?

We’re still trying to recycle, freecycle, sell our unwanted stuff and most of all clear out our houses, garages and sheds.

It’s easy to get involved, literally get rid of one thing a day and report back for support (and sometimes finger wagging if you’ve ‘accidentally’ bought a load of new clutter!)

Please join us and a warm welcome back to

@SandSnakeofDorne @PenelopeFlintstone @MajestyRoyal @Cupoteap @Gibble1 @SandAndSea @Medwaymumoffour @Rainbowqueen @Namethecat @lljkk @CapricornWithAUnicornHorn @Helsingborg @Panda81 @abitoflight @fannyanddick @AbbieLexie

(Apologies if I missed anyone out)

Original thread here

Im glad I dont like bananas lol

Queenie hope you are feelimg better today!

Cashew can I ask what is it you actually do witj a glue gun

We currently have our shoes in cardboard boxes 😑
1 box on landing 2 big ones under the stairs

Weve been saying since we moved 3years ago that we need to buy a bloody shoe rack

Hope the veranda is coming along nicely

Hope everyone is ok

I've sorted 2 of those big plastic laundry bag things, 3 black bags out of baby clothes
Got around 4 baskets out to fit until around 6-9 months ish
Have another 5 black bags in that room to go through then in sofa storage and in old suitcases

Once all that is done will sort clothes out into similiar ages (the ones that arent being washed yet) and put back in storage witj the ones we will use closer to tje door

Im knackered already lol
Washing on.
Dishes washed.
Living room needs cleaning but need to eat first

Baby didnt move since last night 6pm so been worried again stupid anterior placenta
Now ive sat down to have a lil break hes really going for it so im reluctant to get up now lol

Today's list so far:

• Some annoying plastic wrapping which has been hanging around.
• An old notebook inc notes taken from my old, much-loved, cat's vet, when she first became ill. Every time I came across it I felt sad.
• Some notes from an old job.
• I had an original print stored in a cheap, unsealed frame and it's been hanging around for ages. I've finally found a safe place for the print and packed the frame up for charity (in one of those bags).

Not binned yet: old car insurance docs. I don't have the car any more. Would I ever need them?? Also, old phone docs - same again. Under what circumstances might I need these again? Does anyone know?

Dessert I'll reassure him with that information. It may calm down the banana hoarding.

Lost they're honestly surprisingly useful! It's really good for bonding stuff that normal glue is too thin for. I used mine to repair soles of shoes and for crafty bits. It broke just as I was about to finish the balloon weights. But you can stick wood, fabric, anything with them. I think mine was around £5.

Sand you could scan copies and keep them as digital copies and get rid of the originals?

Thanks, Cashew. I've been resisting scanning as I've already got so much digital clutter still to sort out.

After posting, I did some googling re how long to keep things and then started shredding. I've done quite a bit. The shredder has stopped due to overheating but will be going again in a few mins.

I seem to struggle to bin docs like that. I think it's partly fear (what if I need it?), partly sentimental (my first car etc) and partly because I put so much into filing it all in the first place.

I've also binned (recycled) all my bread bags. Must have had about a hundred! The bag cupboard is now super clean and organised!

A pencil
8 clips (no idea what they’re used for but I will never need them)
Instruction pack and equipment for hemming a cot skirt

10 out today (have been really really busy and only had a spare 10 mins so I raided the medicine cupboard and found these - which explains me counting the clips individually instead of as 1. I hope that's not cheating )

Total out is 22?

Was inspired to shift some bags.
Popped them in the car.

I did a huuugeeeee part of the nursery today
All the clothes that needed sorting in there (all the ones i can use within 6months) taken out.
Moved cot
Hoovered

Feels amazing to see it like it is lol

Posted off two eBay sales. One was a skirt I bought in a charity shop for £3 but was too small, and ended up selling for 5 times more!

Also emptied the recycling...

A productive day with work, voluntary work, laundry and general childcare (including impromptu play date/catch up after school). BUT, DD needed new trainers and we bought some other bits and bobs. So no net reduction in clutter, really...

I've made a bit of a dint in the emails today, and got rid of some paper junk mail, will try to do better tomorrow.

3 pairs of trousers (cut wrong at waist for me - I shouldn't have bought them, unworn🙄) a shirt and a couple of books to charity shop today
Random bits from old steam mops, dysons etc out of cleaning drawers
Sorted dogs shelves of stuff she doesn't like for sisters dogs
Do weeds count? As did a bit of garden too
All achey and glands up in my neck so not a good start to bank holiday weekend... but on a positive note I don't have breast cancer from recent biopsy 🎉 so up now drinking gin 😂

Excellent news abittoflight! I also don’t have breast cancer according to the letter I got yesterday after my recent two year check after treatment for breast cancer two years ago. So cheers to us! Such a relief. I hadn’t realised how worried I was. Kept checking the post.

Well done to everyone else for keeping on even if it only seems like a little at a time. It all adds up.

I had quite a good day yesterday. Have packaged up some bras and a shirt that I had bought but weren’t right so will post them back today. Bought two white shirts on Tuesday but they are both a bit see through so will be returning them although might just change for a different colour - always find white can be more see through for some reason. Also have a t-shirt to go back to Asda.

Also tackled my bedroom. Had two boxes of clothes on the floor so they are now on top of the wardrobe. Filled a bag with jumpers I didn’t wear last winter so that’s ready to go to the charity shop. A bag of old underwear and socks went ou for textile recycling (should have tried ebay!). Going to keep plugging away at my clothes. I have a ridiculous amount of stuff I just don’t wear. Have washed most of my summer stuff so am going to be ruthless when putting it away.

That's good news abitoflight and cider

Yesterday I decided to rid the house of a thousand bubble mixture bottles (well 9 actually) that seemed to be in different rooms so dds had a bubbly disco and I got rid of 5 in the bubble machine.

I had also intended to go to the tip with left over electrical stuff from the electrician but decided to look through one of our boxes of randomly shoved in wires and found a few more bits than can be chucked out. The shed also has an old tv aerial but I don't know if it will fit in my car. Might have to get dh to help at the weekend but if I do then it won't fit in the car with dcs.

Today I am going to spend 10 minutes in the garden sweeping up a few leaves from the front garden.

sandandsea given that I am the hoarder of papers extraordinaire I actually do my car insurance online and don't have paper copies. Since I passed my test I have always had a car so I wonder if you have a break you lose the no claims bonus? The only reason I can think of to keep the papers is if you want to prove a no claims bonus. Maybe you could keep your last one?

I'm like you with paperwork and have very neatly filed papers from when I was a child with my first abbey national account (with Mickey mouse branded children's club). I shredded papers from 93 to 95 the other day. The only reason I can think of to keep them is for PPI claims. I received PPi compensation because I found some old credit card statements from the 90s. I know I need to claim back some PPi from my first mortgage. I have the paperwork but need to sit down for a couple of hours to do it.

Regarding bags, I shop with ocado and they pay me to return them. I do seem to use a lot as bin liners and also with my many charity shop donations.

sandandsea I have shredded all my old phone docs. I receive a bill every month and shred it immediately. It's a good feeling to not have them sitting around. I suppose my next stage is to not receive a paper copy but then I would never check it online until I go through the email backlog. Until I did my big paperwork declutter I had phone bills and my original orange contract from about 1994. Now all are gone and I don't know why I hoarded them.

I also have huge amounts of paperwork... but it is not all neatly filed (only some is!).

I am concentrating at the moment on getting stuff in piles with similar papers. I think I might eventually take some of these piles into work to scan, as the big copiers with sheet feeders will allow me to scan (single or double sided) to a large PDF. Then, I can throw away the actual paper copies but know that I have digital copies if I need to check anything.

I haven't claimed PPI. I did check our original mortgage documents a few years ago, but reckoned we probably weren't eligible to claim. Then, there was something on TV this week which has made me think again. It seems they have expanded the number of reasons you can claim for.

As far as credit cards go, apart from a couple of hiccups, I have always cleared my bill in full each month. And store cards - again, I have had a couple for short periods in the past as part of discount offers, but apart from one slip-up I don't think I have ever paid interest on any card. And I haven't had a loan, although I have bought a couple of big things with interest-free credit....

I usually pay cards off so only paid £10 PPi in total in a credit card in the 90s. I wasn't sure if I was eligible to claim but did anyway and got £50 back. I know I was misssold it for my mortgage because when I lost my job they wouldn't give me any help, the policy was worthless. It's just finding the time to claim it back.

I have just filled the car with lights, wires and an old satellite dish that's been in the shed for about 7 years and took it to the tip.

There's still a tv aerial and I'm wondering if I should put it on free cycle, I wonder if someone would want it for scrap metal. Otherwise I might be able to take it apart but it's so old it looks rusty and corroded. Possibly a job for dh at the weekend.

StealthNinjaMum - well I suppose at least you have the proof it was worthless!

Our first mortgage in the 90s was an endowment one and there was definitely PPI paid on the endowment policy. We subsequently moved the mortgage itself to another provider, then paid it off a few years later. Then when we moved to our current house we took out a new mortgage. The endowment policy carried on independently until it matured last year. I have no idea if either of our 2 subsequent mortgages have PPI attached. I suppose I had better look!

Ran a few errands this morning, now I'm going to focus more on the gardens as grass needs cutting and weeding needs doing(again!!!already!!!). Will try and get through house admin later on and file away paperwork from recent statements/bills and such. Waiting in for a delivery so I should probably get the back done first quickly in case I don't hear the door bell

You'll all be pleased to read that I have now shredded all my 'old old' mobile and car insurance docs and even quite a few car tax docs. Not all though cos apparently, I'm sentimental about this sort of thing! (Smh.) I also had to spend about an hour de-gunking the shredder as it all got a bit much for it.

I've also binned an 'old old' car tax disc holder. I'm embarrassed to write that I have another one but it's still on the car.

The good news is that the entire house's paper docs are filed in an orderly fashion. I could bin much more though but I'm finding it hard. Old bank statements, for example, are very like diaries to me when I look through them.

I'm going to move onto other things and come back to this. I find that always helps.

2 handbags which have been hanging on the banister for months have now been emptied and put away.
1 used lip salve container - recycled.
Other bits put away and dusted.
A few more things on the 'to sell' pile.
One big item is about to be packed up in a bag for postage.

Sand well done how good do you feel now? I bet it is a weight lifted

I managed to cut front grass, rake both gardens and plant some bulbs. Came in and realised the house needed a good clear up so I decided to focus on that and bin the gardening I'm shit anyway. Remembered I needed to throw out ten things and got a bit carried away, I raided the medicine cupboard, recycling cupboard, under stairs cupboard and managed to get the following:

A book (I rarely read other than gossip real life crazy story magazines)
A car seat (DS got too fat for it months ago)
A lovely beautiful photo frame which chipped the day I bought it. I don't know why I left it this long to throw out as it has been annoying me for almost a year
A small box which once held a necklace
A broken ornament (again it is lovely and I have been meaning to repair it but I don't even have all of the missing pieces to glue back on)
Pram fur
A wire (no idea what for)
2 batteries (I will take them to the shop to dispose in the battery bin once I've finished this post)
Electric tin opener - blade is blunt and I don't know how or if I can change it. Will buy another though as they're great
A broken clock (again it is beautiful but it's completely broken so there is no point in keeping it)
A glasses bag
Bag of clips
2 pictures which I intended to put up before I realised they wouldn't look right on the wall
A paint rolling tray

Items out today is 16
Total out is 38

My little spree has left me with a decluttered shelf with non-broken things on it, and a lovely tidy under stairs cupboard.

Oop, add two Easter egg toys to that and make it 40

Thanks, @Namajesty and well done to you too!

My parcel is ready to go now. I'm pretty pleased with myself for using a bag for life for it. It's freeing somehow.

I'm on a bit of a roll today so have moved 3 boxes of stuff out of the room of doom so I'm all ready to sort them out. At least one of them is full of docs I chucked in there over 10 years ago and have never looked at since. The good news is that I could barely even SEE these boxes a few months ago - not that they weren't visible but there was so much more to deal with then and I wasn't psychologically ready to deal with them. I'm really getting to the heart of things now.

Nama I would NOT suggest trying to change the blade. I'm still traumatised when a little old dear asked me to change hers when I was 16 I still have a lovely scar down the middle of my hand.