Getting rid of one thing a day decluttering challenge: Part 3: Are we nearly there yet?

[StealthNinjaMum]

For 2000 posts a group of messy mumsnetters have been chucking out, selling, recycling and cooking weird cakes.

Are we free of clutter yet? Sadly not.

Thankfully we're here to get support and be told off when we have a relapse and bring more clutter into the house, garages, sheds, gardens.

Newbies are welcome to join us, it's easy we literally just get rid of one thing a day and report back.

Previous thread here

Sorry ... NINE!?

And children happily throwing toys away!?

I don't believe you MrsOH and Buffy it's impossible to be that motivated on a Sunday!

Ihate she was playing with something else so I asked quickly, it worked, if it was the big items I would have a problem

Cashew Would that leftover material make shoe bags for packing holiday cases or for school, or book bags, or shopping bags?

The dogs (he and she) are fine lol.
Cashew, I would leave the unit as is.
9 kitchen drawers? Wow!
I have hoovered. So I decluttered a sh*t load of dog fluff.

I decluttered a bottle of cider as I went, think that was my motivation

The worst areas are bathroom, bedroom and spare room, all of which are buried in clothes. Job for today is to find out if any local charity shops take clean rags.

Gibble1 oh god, don't get me started on dog fluff! Like bloody tumbleweeds rolling across the piles of clothes floor

Well done Buffy that's amazing. And good that dh is helping.

cashew sounds like my dh who actually owns more clothes than me. But he is getting better and with my help has chucked some stuff away.

Buffy nine drawers is awesome. I hope it helps you find room for the stuff on your floor.

A couple of weeks ago I created a 'sock bag' i.e. a food bag to collect odd socks. Every time I find a stray sock it goes in there and then every so often I go through them. This system is working because socks were going up and down the house and now they just stay in the ironing basket in the utility room. Yesterday I found a paid and decided it is a rag so it's gone in the rag pile.

And to my complete amazement dd2 has announced that she no longer likes playing with her pony toys (we have millions). I asked if I can get rid of them and she said yes. That's a job for today!

Going through our office today.
We have a million pens. What do you do with stuff like unwanted pens (just biros with company logos on)?

I’ve had a busy few days so I haven’t achieved much over the weekend. I did get rid of a couple of bits of junk out of the porch. Yesterday I did a quick scan through the house collecting rubbish and recycling as it’s bin day today. It’s quite embarrassing when you see how many things are lying around that we are all just too lazy to put in the right bin. I am definitely going to make sure that doesn’t happen again.

Over the weekend we were given some toys by well-meaning friends who thought DS might like them. The house is full of toys so I am going to see if I can persuade DS to part with a few things to make space for them.

I really need to get back on track so today’s plan is to finish sorting out the shelves in the living room. I also want to try and get the dining table cleared as well. I will report back later so feel free to give me a stern talking to if I don’t get it all done!

Ohhh those are all fab ideas Ada! Annoyingly my suitcases came with shoe bags, but shopping bags are a great idea.

Stealth he's lucky at the moment! The only have on drawer full, but when I go back to work I'll be doing a big shop, and be needing wardrobe space. His days are numbered

Slice I just make DH take them to work, they get used and go 'missing' quite quickly.

Oh Bob. It's so difficult when someone's being nice and giving you toys. I think you're right to stand firm. It one in one out in this house. I'm sure you can accomplish all that today!

Bed arrives tomorrow, so I need to clear the spare room enough to fit it in flat-packed. Going to sand the fireplace today of the dodgy print, and do a tiny bit of the inside of the drawer to see what it looks like first. Few more bits to list on eBay.

Since I last checked in on Wednesday...

I threw out a leather purse that one of the dogs had got hold of, and I
emptied another old half-bottle of suncream into the bin and washed the plastic bottle to recycle.

I also got round to mending the stitching on a pair of slippers that have been sitting in the porch for ages. They are in better general condition than a pair that were in the corner of the bedroom and the pair I am currently using. I have hoovered them to remove the dust and dog-hair and after I wipe the soles, I will chuck out my current slippers. (The other ones from the bedroom have already gone!)

I sorted through a bag of plastic bags that has been sitting in the porch since we emptied Mum's house. It turned out to be mainly full of thick plastic mailing bags that my sister had cut Mum's address details from, so they just went in the recycling! I suppose I could have cut them up into rectangles and used them to wrap eBay packages, but I already have a large pile of intact mailing bags to re-use!

I de-scaled our coffee pod machine at the weekend - something I have been meaning to do for ages. I'm not completely sure I did it properly but it seems a bit better. So, that's one small bottle of de-scaler empty and the other has gone in the cupboard. (They have been sitting around on the kitchen work surface for months waiting for me to get
round to it. ) I then decided to descale our kettle with a sachet of Oust,
and reused the water to descale Mum's kettle and her travel kettle. They
are now drying out thoroughly and will be packed in a storage tub in the loft. They have also been lying round for months waiting for me to do this. I forgot that there is a travel iron I should have done too. Oh well... it can be done next time. I can't remember what I have done with Mum's big iron - I may already have recycled it, or it may still be kicking around the dining room waiting for me to check it and clean it.

I also sold another item on eBay which I posted on Friday. I had intended to put more stuff on yesterday, but ran out of time. I'll see if I can do some photos tonight when I get home from work.

Last night: cleared one side of the bed in my room. 5 items ready to go.

Today: attended event thing at dds school, picked up essential shopping plus birthday gift for dd, 1 item ready to be gifted, 2 bags rubbish out along with 4 bags recycling and one pile of laundry half way done.

Sitting down now with breakfast.

I walked around the bedrooms and picked up one carrier bag of rubbish. Actual rubbish like chewing gum wrappers, new clothes labels, cellophane packets, etc.

I have sorted out one of my kitchen cupboards. It’s very tall and has 3 shelves. Top one is for nibbles, biscuits, crisps and nuts, next one down is for breads and the bottom is for cereals and jams.
I have removed 8 mouldy rolls and a mouldy loaf of bread. DH keeps buying more for DS (who asks and then doesn’t eat it). But it’s all getting shoved into different shelves and nobody can see anything.
I buy a new loaf of bread which lives in my work bag. When it’s gone, I get another. Rarely does it go mouldy.

There seems to be a theme of dogs helping to declutter. Must get one or could someone declutter one by giving it to me?

Day has not gone to plan, dh announced he needed to write a cheque for something, did I have a cheque book? With the confidence arrogance of someone who's tidied their paperwork and shredded old chequebooks I found two within seconds (a year ago this question might've taken hours). Neither had been used in over a decade. Called the banks to see if they still work. One cheque book (my personal one) does work and one (our joint account) is cancelled so I will be shredding it. Annoyingly the bank sent me another one in 2011 and so I have spent much of the morning throwing things onto the floor from boxes of doom realising I am in denial about the paperwork. There is still much to do. I am going to leave it for the time being and go back to pony finding but I do know that dh (who is far less tidy than me) is going to be annoyed that I've lost a cheque book from our joint account. Grrr.

Stealth my parents used to keep paperwork in labeled box files. Everything was labeled really specifically. I used to laugh at them, and they took up heaps of space, but they could always find everything! I'm tempted to do the same.

And pony hunting!? That sound a thousand times more fun than tidying!

Four things listed on eBay. Bought sandpaper and pins for the sewing box. Found a brand new tin of radiator paint, and found myself wondering WHY. The radiators are perfect. Yet another useless item I'll try to sell.

I'm also tempted to sell the glass Christmas tree ornaments and maybe craft some that'll be safer for DS. There's no way I'll really be able to use them for a few years, so it seems a huge waste of space.

Hmmm... not sure I could actually spare a dog @StealthNinjaMum !

I thought she would have grown out of stealing things by now. I had already moved the purse off the coffee table and balanced it at the back of my side table on a pile of paperwork where I thought it would be safe! I was trying to decide whether to put it in the charity pile, or to use it as an interim measure while I replaced the velcro on my usual wallet. But she made my mind up for me. Sigh!

Ok I need this. Today I am chucking out all the old shoes we no longer wear. They are going to the shoe recycle bin, wellies aswell.
And I aim to do this one thing a day, so i’ll Be back tomorrow xx

ihate just in case you didn't see my post earlier by pony hunting I mean my little ponies. We have thousands and dd doesn't want them! I should be sad that dd2 has rejected a huge part of her childhood and is growing up but I all can think of is goodbye to Princess Cadence and that godawful noise she makes.

I did Stealth but I think I managed to convince myself you were going shopping for an actual horse!

You wouldn't want my dogs @StealthNinjaMum!

Although the puppy did a good job of eating decluttering various wires, pants, socks, mail etc. Seems to have grown out of that a bit now tho famous last words

Had to go back into work this morning, so now looking at the floordrobe of doom...

I’ve lost the necklace my dparents gave me for my 30th. Sadface. It’s an everyday one too. Waaaa.

Must look for it once I get home.

Successful declutters here. Bag of earl gray deposited in work kitchen. And candle jar is in my desk drawer. For the pencil pot switch later.

I’ve folded up the washing and got rid of a carrier bag full of holey clothes.
Would gladly give away both of my hairy little buggers. They make sooooo much mess. But I’d miss them because they love us so much 😬. And there’s nothing quite like a dog smiling at you when you come home from work (or do anything actually 😂). Yes, alright, I’m under the paws!
Decluttered some emails that I absolutely HAD to send too.

Hope it turns up Emen. I always find with jewellery that I overlook where it is and it's often right in front of me.

Gibble stop making me want a dog I miss doggy smiles.