Getting rid of one thing a day decluttering challenge: Part 4

[StealthNinjaMum]

And the decluttering continues…

For 3,000 posts we have been slowly transforming our homes from hovels to palaces.

We’re not quite there yet some of us are further than others but we won’t give up until we have a decluttered existence.

We just get rid of one thing a day and report back to showoff for support and to be told off when we’re naughty and bring more clutter back into our homes, gardens, sheds, garages.

As ever newbies are welcome to join us.

Previous thread here.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/housekeeping/3243987-Getting-rid-of-one-thing-a-day-decluttering-challenge-Part-3-Are-we-nearly-there-yet?msgid=79207142

A busy couple of days! On Wednesday I finished sorting one of the kitchen cupboards and did another one. More broken/useless plastic tubs binned. Now we can find things in the cupboard and, more importantly, open the cupboards without everything in there falling out. DS was very impressed with my efforts and kept opening them and looking in there!

In the evening I started pruning some more of the shrubs in the garden. Decluttering the garden definitely counts as it’s on my ‘needs to be done before we move house’ list! Yesterday morning (before it got too hot) I bagged up the garden rubbish and took it to the tip. That was another 3 bags gone so 6 altogether so far this week. After a bit more chopping last night I have another 4 bags waiting to go to the tip. I don’t think they’ll all go in the car in one go but I’ll see if I can deal with a couple of them today.

Also gone yesterday, a pair of broken sandals belonging to DS and a broken holdall. The sandals need replacing before our holiday and the holdall has already been replaced with two so when I find the other old one we have it’s going as well. A few life admin jobs ticked off the list too.

Thanks for all the advice about the car seat. I looked on the manufacturers website to see if it had a particular lifespan only to find there had been a voluntary recall on it years ago . It only applied to ones bought in a two month period in 2012 which will be when I bought it because it was just before DS was born. The problem was something to do with the carrying handle rather than the seat itself but thinking about it occasionally there was an issue with it but I put it down to me not clicking the handle down properly. So now I’m a bit reluctant to pass it on to someone else knowing this.

Must stop writing some epic posts and try to get some decluttering done whilst DS is happily entertaining himself!

Hi everyone!
Can I rejoin please? I was on thread 2 (I think or maybe 3?!) and slipped out of the habit.
I reached a low point yesterday when I had to celotape my freezer door shut because it desperately needs defrosting . Will set to work on decluttering the food
Also, this is day 3 of 3 days off which were supposed to transform my home into a decluttered showhome - I haven’t quite achieved this but going to keep going!!

I think a PP (sorry was it stealth?) said about going back to an area and "seeing" stuff you missed first time round. Oh so true!
I've just taken down my wardrobe baskets that I'd sorted because I'd forgotten to dust the shelves and decide to reorganise them so all sentimental stuff in one, all perfumes in another, all toiletries/bits in third. Makes much more sense plus I've now discarded:

Pair of wobbly sunglasses that don't suit me.
Old comb
Random bit of Chanel ribbon prob from a long gone gift box.
Razor package (coalesced two packets into one)
Empty partylite candle box
Tube of bazuka gel that expired in 2010

It seems I have a lot to learn about decluttering

Also dusted and tidied my partylite stash - I will never need to buy candles again. Forgot I had so much. Will bring some out and get burning! (DH doesn't like them but I'll make sure I use them when he's not around).

Also found one item I'm going to try to sell on Facebook pages.

Everyone is doing so well!

lljkk - I can admit to mispricing items for selling as well. At least your loss was only 20p. My last disaster was a heavy textbook on Amazon Marketplace. It had sat there for a couple of years so I reduced the price. Someone in Finland bought it - and although I would have still made a reasonable profit selling it in the UK, sending a heavy book abroad left me £1.70 down in total. Grrr...

I have sold 2 more items on eBay this week, and listed another 1. I now only have 3 items for sale, plus 2 that I have given up relisting and will add to the charity shop pile and another 1 that I want to try in a different category. My 6 new items a week target has gone by the wayside a bit. I need to spend some time this weekend getting more things ready to sell.

I did declutter some weeds on Wednesday evening ready for the garden bin collection on Thursday morning.

Thursday

Drum roll please! I finished riddling out all the weeds and crumbling mortar from the wall at the sude of the path, and scraped up the last of the moss. Next step is pointing, then deciding whether to repaint or to let the brickwork go au naturel.

I love how it looks now, and the eather dank foosty smell is away too.

In the rvening I weeded and swept some of the back garden path, then watched a programme about the heatwave because it was too hot to do much else.

pmsl at the cellophaning shut the freezer door... glad I'm not the only daft one.

DH was inspired to clear out about 1/3 of his 'useful' wood store, now consigned to the 'burn burn burn!' pile.

ps: I cleared work cupboards of all the teas past BBD. Sheesh, some of it dated < 2009(!) I am drinking my way thru many interesting flavours (air conditioned offices).

There are scary things in the work fridges. Not sure I'm ready for them, yet.

Hi - I'm new here but desperately need a good declutter!! I have 5 weeks off work so plan to make a large dent in the clutter. Now, how to get DH and the kids on board!!

Another bag of stuff to the charity shop and one going to my friend tomorrow - clothes for her daughter. Getting there!!

lljkk - I’m too scared to open it again in case I’m forced to deal with defrosting the whole thing!! It’s full of food too!!

A bag of wires sent to the top this morning.
Posted 3 eBay parcels
Returned 75% of an online clothes order (probably should have returned all of it but hey ho!!).
Listed another 5 things on eBay/fb and one more item just sold so will pack that up and get it sent off in the morning.
Also decluttered several admin jobs off my to-do list so that has lifted my mood slightly because they’ve been on my mind for ages.

climbing inside a freezer sounds like a nice treat today!

nofilter I've just watched that Alejandra Home organising video you posted below - wow! Firstly, I have house envy secondly I love some of her ideas too. Thanks!

Gone today:
Room spray (tiny bit left, my whole house now smells of lavender but I don't care it's finished and gone)
Conditioner bottle
Mini shower wash, was in a travel bag with a little left, now used and recycled.
Random plastic tub found in the bag of plastic bags.
Rubbish out of a couple of handbags. Other stuff (tissues, lipsticks, tampons etc) now put back into proper places. I've also found enough hair bobbles to not need to buy anymore for quite a while!

Dining room table cleared. Ish. Some stuff put back on bookshelf.
I have 4 baskets of washing to put away but I need to pack for cub camp. DS is currently packing his stuff and DD has allegedly packed for her week away doing NCS.
I need to take the frozen food of mine back out of the Cubs coolbox and empty the camp food out of my freezer into the coolbox then refill my freezer so I’m going to go and do that now while DS packs and then I can pack my stuff.
I’m out all day and evening tomorrow at PRIDE for a friend’s birthday. I then have to get up and finish off the last of the food shopping on Sunday before we meet the parents for bike collection. D Nephew’s birthday tomorrow and other D Nephew arriving on Sunday to come on camp with us. It might be his last with us as he is 11 now and off to secondary school- will have to play it by ear next year.
Sounds like you are all plugging away at it- we’ll done. It’s so flipping hot!

Next step in my wardrobe declutter was the winter hats,scarves n gloves bag. One hat and one scarf put in charity pile. 3 left handed gloves put aside in the hopes their mate will turn up at some stage of the declutter (they are all DH's 🤔) but if not will go in rag bag. Everything folded neatly rather than crammed in and it fits much better.
Have realised I'm working round my wardrobe avoiding the hanging clothes and bags as I will find these the most difficult out of my wardrobe. Must be resolute tomorrow!

One small tube of travel hand cream used up and in recycling bin.

Cleared some dodgy looking freezer foods out ( samosas , more ice than pastry)

I have a frozen chicken in the freezer, whole one. I bought it for BH when I had visitors but it didn't get eaten (long story)

DH,DD and I are all vegetarian, only DS eats chicken but he won't eat all of it , I don't want to cook and freeze it so I'm hanging onto it raw frozen

How long can it stay frozen? (Its a Free Range one so cost me ££)

9-12 months depending on the website.

I've been lurking but have decided to join in...!

At the moment I'm losing the war against crap. Every flat surface, as soon as I clear it, someone puts something (crap) on it. I'm surrounded by a sea of kids drawings of dubious quality ;) kinder egg toys (bought by other family members), craft stuff that no matter how many times I put it in boxes just seems to reappear, Father's Day cards (yes, I was leaving them out in the hope that the actual father (grown up adult who has eyes) would do something with them but I'm still waiting. Maybe I'll leave them there until he moves them and report back on here).
DM comes every week with more boxes of crap, clothes that hey don't need, cuddly fucking toys that we have shit loads of and I keep taking to the charity shop etc. She absolutely won't be told otherwise either.

I hate the crap but I also resent the time I hVe to spend sorting it out. I work full time with a longish commute and everyone else seems happy to live in a shit tip.

Advice welcome!

Welcome korma! I've just started this week too. I've started with my wardrobe and planning to work outwards from there, as our upstairs is much worse than downstairs.

Expert declutterers from previous threads will hopefully have more advice but I've seen suggestions to pick an area with "easy wins" to get you going - kids clothes and toys, big items of not needed furniture, fridge, food cupboard, run round a room for 15 minutes picking up rubbish and recycling etc. Good luck!

That's good advice - I have set my daughter on sorting through what she wants to keep from
The enormous bag of stuff she brought home from school. Once she realised she either had to stick it in a scrap book herself, or get rid of it... she was a lot more willing to get rid of things...!

My item put on fb yesterday has sold already. Been collected and paid for this morning, I'm £21 up! Whoop! (Possibly to be spent on take away this evening )

I’m getting really frustrated with the decluttering at the moment because I seem to be bringing lots of things into the house - far more than is actually going. Over the last two days I have bought a swimming costume for DD plus swim nappies, a swimming costume for me, a new raincover for the pushchair, a pair of shoes for DD and I have ordered 3 pairs of shoes which I can collect from next this afternoon. They are all things that are needed for our holiday or to replace things that are broken, too small etc but I just feel like we’re drowning under stuff.

Added to that 3 days of school holidays means that I now cannot see the living room floor or in fact any surface in there and there appears to be a small mountain of washing up that has appeared in the kitchen overnight.

On the plus side I dropped off another bag of clothes at h and m today. Also DS found a couple of DVDs that he doesn’t particularly want any more so they’re in the charity bag along with a necklace of mine. I am sure there’s other things I can put in there before it’s collected on Monday. I also threw out the ripped raincover that needed replacing.

Now I’ve had a bit of a moan I’m actually going to attempt to do something about the mess. I’ll report back later.

Reluctantly creeping in after recommendation from Penelope. I will just listen in quietly from the corner for now... deep breath..

School blazer (still vgc) washed and dropped off at Charity shop

I know half it's another level!! I'm moving on Wednesday so just seem to be drawn to house videos at the moment!!

Definitely going to do something creative storage wise in DD bedroom for all her bits and pieces..

Decluttered a moisturiser today ;-)