Getting rid of one thing a day decluttering challenge Part 5

[StealthNinjaMum]

We’re still here!

For 4 threads a group of mumsnetters have been getting rid of just one thing a day. We’ve been throwing out, selling, recycling and giving our stuff away.

But we're still not finished.

Newbies are always welcome to join us. Just get rid of one thing each day and come back here to discuss your progress and get support when it gets hard.

Previous thread here www.mumsnet.com/Talk/housekeeping/3298777-Getting-rid-of-one-thing-a-day-decluttering-challenge-Part-4?msgid=81434878

Hello :)

I've lurked on and off for a while as I'm terrible at keeping up with fast moving threads but we're feeling super ready to declutter life right now so thought I'd hop on if that's okay?

Last week we finally took an old mattress to the tip that was taking up so much space. Took another 5 bin bags of broken junk too.
Had a massive cull of dvds, have a pile to take to cex, another pile of region 1s that we can't sell so are going to the great DVD player in the sky and the rest are being taken from their cases and given a new space saving home in an organizer. Massive space saver that one!

Clothes should probably be next but I never buy any so I'm always scared to get rid and then I won't have anything to wear haha. Stupid clothes in shops made for normal people

What area have you all found the most success in? Any strange items do well on eBay?

Woogle x

Hope you feel better very soon, @IWillWearTheGreenWillow .

Welcome, @WoogleCone ! I've found clothes quite easy to clear and organise. I've even managed to keep up the Kondo folding! I love to see everything looking nice in the drawers. My kitchen and bathroom clearing has also stuck. And the lounge come to think of it. My dining room is a magnet for mess though.

I'm not sure about eBay - I find it hard to judge as my successes have seemed quite random.

Hello everyone. Just came across this thread when I was searching for decluttering tips and have read all the way through it. So good to know that I am not alone! I've been trying to tackle various areas in the house this autumn but there's a lot more to do I know.

My kitchen, sitting room, main bedroom and bathrooms are fine to live in and look fairly good (on the surface) but there's always at least one room upstairs and also the dining room downstairs where all the extra stuff ends up. Mostly because our storage spaces are full to capacity and there's always a certain amount of random stuff floating around.

If anyone came round for dinner (rare event) the piles of paperwork on the dining room table would need to be shoved in a bedroom. And at Christmas there's always a pile of crap with no home that ends up in our bedroom at the last minute.

So what would make a huge difference is decluttering inside the cupboards so that there's actually a few empty spaces to give me some wriggle room. Is that actually possible?

Another issue is that we are all inclined when we buy new clothes to still hold on to the old ones. That needs tackling too. I did recently take a few bags of clothes to a homeless shelter. That felt like a good thing to do but was just a small start.

Tomorrow my task is to get the dining room tidy for Christmas by first of all sorting out a dreadful cupboard in the sideboard full of accumulated recipes and articles saved from newspapers which I never go back and reread. If I want a recipe or to find out about somewhere abroad I look it up online. So why cut out and keep all this stuff? I'm not sure I'll get it all done but if I can break the back of it that would be great.

Oh and meant to say hi Woogle and well done on getting rid of loads of DVDs. I should do that too. We never watch them with Netflix etc now.

Sand I'm impressed that you find clothes easy to deal with. One of my worst things and now that two kids have left home I've crept into using their wardrobes for the overspill which allows me to hang on to more stuff and is not good!

So, realistically I got rid of the charity shop stuff on Friday. I have binned a load of holey knickers. And today will be posting back an item of clothing that I ordered that doesn't fit. But, there have been Christmas presents in from far flung family this weekend, without getting any out, and due to the damp proofing the house is upside down and looking the exact opposite of decluttered. Urgh. I know it will be worth it in the end. Well done everyone else.

Welcome, @highlandcoo ! I think it might have helped that we have a really small, shared wardrobe. Also, clothes hardly ever seem to fit/suit me which stops me buying many.

Welcome wogglecone you've made a good start. In terms of success I have made a slight difference in most areas of the house. So probably every drawer is slightly emptier, no more piles of clutter waiting to fall out of a cupboard when I open it! At the moment I'm most proud of our stationery which is all neatly put away and labelled and even dh found some sellotape the other day and PUT IT AWAY AFTERWARDS which I think is half the battle.

Ooh, and I just remembered that we now eat in the kitchen because our breakfast bar used to be full of clutter and now it's clear which makes my life much easier and I can be with dc when I'm cooking / washing up.

Welcome highlandcoo you sound like I used to be. Whenever anyone came round I'd shove the most obvious messy crap in a cupboard or the Room of Doom so my house looked superficially quite tidy (well lived in really). A lot of my possessions have 'homes' now so tidying means putting things in their home rather than a cupboard. It is possible to remove things from cupboards, a good start is to do what Kondo suggests (I think but have never read the book) to bring similar items together and then keep them together so you can work out what you can get rid of.

Someone posted a link to this podcast about 'homeless clutter' in the summer holidays and it has inspired me to group these particular items together, throw away the unnecessary ones, and find storage solutions for them. I've done about half of them and it's made a real difference.

link

So having written four paragraphs that make me sound very virtuous and organised I now cast my eyes over my home and after a busy weekend it now looks like a shithole! We had the usual activities, and a party, and a Christmas fair which means a new loads of plastic crap has come into the house. But.... the thing I've noticed is that there is .....

ONLY ONE PAIR OF SHOES OUT THAT IS NOT IN THE CUPBOARD..... (and it's mine)

This has been a common gripe that sometimes on a Sunday that dc/ dh walk in the hall and just dump their crap and don't put it away. After my many tantrums shoes get put away WITHOUT ME ASKING (sometimes)!

So I am going to just spend half an hour tidying stuff away and hoovering and it should be presentable.

So far today I have already donated one bag of DVDs/ videos to a charity shop, one pair of wellies and two bags of books. In a minute I am going to see if I can get the broken toy box in the car to take to the dump.

I find my clothes hard to deal with because I don't want to admit I'm getting fatter. I have put the clothes that don't fit into two boxes in the top of my wardrobe so my hanging rails are really clear now and I've lost 8lb in weight. Even though I haven't yet thrown anything away I love the extra space I have in my wardrobe. Maybe I should buy Kondo as I've heard she organises socks well.

Welcome to all the new people!

I have had quite a good weekend. I took the day off work on Friday and DP and I built the 2nd storage unit that was purchased in the summer for the back sitting room. It had been leaning against a wall in its packaging in the living room since it was moved out of the hall in September to create space for the delivery of the new boiler. I then started to put away some of the stuff previously earmarked for it, and managed to empty a large box which has been sitting in the kitchen for months. So, that is 2 large flattened boxes sitting in the porch ready to go to the recycling site this week.

On Saturday I took 2 medium sized bags of clothing to the Salvation Army Clothing bank at Tesco. It was all stuff that I reckoned was not in good enough condition for a charity shop, but still useable. I had been collecting it for a Cash For Clothes drop-off, but the shop in our town has closed since the last time I used it, and the one I saw recently in a neighbouring town has drastically dropped its price per kilo. At least if it is not re-used the stuff will be recycled.

On Sunday afternoon I almost filled our brown bin of leaves. I have just discovered that our bin collections are changing soon. Apparently they are dropping down to 4-weekly for the garden/food waste bin during the Dec-Feb period. So, I have left enough room to hopefully chuck out some more out-of-date stuff from the food cupboards this week. There are going to be changes to our other collections as well, with more restrictions in the New Year on the type of plastics they will accept in the green bin.

I sold another eBay lot yesterday which was dropped of at the Hermes Parcel shop first thing this morning. So, that is a wine box sized amount of stuff gone from the house, including the item and all of the packaging!

Got a whole heap of stuff out of the house this weekend - several bags of rubble, a chest of drawers that had been left in the shed by previous residents, and a broken coffee maker all went to the tip! I want to tackle the hallway next; we currently have a rickety shelf unit holding hats/bike stuff/general clutter and far too many bags lurking near the door, and at the very least I want the ones that aren't in regular use put away.

Has anyone given any thought to how they're going to tackle imminent Christmas clutter?

Thanks everyone :)

I will listen to that podcast when I get in from work! I'm all for trying every technique going haha.
I think you're all right, there's a space in every house that attracts mess like a magnet. For me it's the side next to the back door, where recycling never ends up quite where it's meant to. That and the kitchen table - will have to sort like your breakfast bar stealth, ours is constantly covered in all sorts. Would love to eat a meal at it!

Scored myself half an hour from work this morning so nipped into cex that's just around the corner and netted £29.41 from old TV box sets. Which is a lot more than I thought I'd get so that'll fill the petrol tank up in a few days.

Wilko's had sold out of the little cd sleeves though so making more space on that front will have to wait a couple days. Instead of doing that tonight I think I'll clear out a kitchen cupboard and take stock of supplies. Were way over budget for the month so finding lots of food would be a bonus haha!

Motherwol I'm dreading the influx of Christmas clutter! Took us way too long last year to deal with excess stuff. I don't want to sound ungrateful but sometimes you just don't need THAT much smelly stuff! I think I'll take a day really early Jan, get the thank you cards written and paper recycled and find permanent homes for things. There's are loads of food banks around that are needing smellies and bits so I'll probably take some to them :)

WOW you guys have been busy. The fundraiser sounds like it’s going well great that your son is working so hard for something he wants

Argh pressed post too soon. Progress here still slowed by family members illness. One more eBay item to dispatch tomorrow- several holed socks for the rag bag too. Try to put newspaper in recycling at end of each day rather than a week at a time

DH had cleaned and cleared the kitchen when I got home from work 😍.
I have cleared and cleaned the bathroom since then and done 2 loads of washing.
I bought DDogs new teddies yesterday and they love them so I’m chucking away the old now not white teddy this evening.
I have put out 2 carriers of recycling and a bag of rubbish.
Also took toilet seat off and have given it a massive scrub with astonish and it’s now vaguely white again and much less stinky.
Am about to go and collect DS from explorers and will be dropping off a pencil tin to my ADC Cubs that she ordered last week. More pennies.
DH is helping his mum with her tv and internet and then when we all return we have 6 more mugs to set and print this evening. I expect I’ll leave DH with my phone to go through messenger and print and I can try to get the washing out away.
Phew- I’m going to be knackered again tonight!

I've got a t-shirt to throw out today.

I'm also building up to getting rid of my old (deceased) cat's brush. It's still got some of her lovely hair in it. She had a skin problem so I can't use it. It has to go. I'm still building up to it.

DH split his trainers today. I’ve asked him to chuck them in the bin. We’ll see!

IWillWear Don't just chuck away the Chalet School books - sell them on eBay! They're always on there at quite high prices, have a look. If you put them up, please DM me a link!

Wow! I've just caught up on 8 pages of the thread. A bit different to those days when I multiple post because you're all still asleep in the UK - it does sometimes make me look like I have very productive mornings!
Today I threw out three bags of rubbish and 2 boxes of recycling from my daughter's room - yes, you've probably heard me say exactly that before - no doubt, you'll hear it again! Read it again, I should say. Also, 17 nail varnishes.
I've been watching The Organised Mum Method videos on youtube which was recommended on MN the other week. I've been glued to youtube since then, hence not posting. I love Gemma Bray, the vlogger! My house is definitely looking cleaner.
I also discovered another one in the US called Minimalist Mom and I really like her too. She's more about clutter than cleaning. She has quite unique ideas. I've adopted her shopping list idea already. Her clutter video is good too - watch the paper clutter one. It's different to what you've seen before, I'm sure.
And thanks for all your nice comments about my bathroom I appreciate them. I still haven't been back in to paint the patch on the wall but I do love that it doesn't matter anymore if my clean wet washing touches the floor because the vinyl flooring is all clean and new .

I was talking to someone about the chalet school books just yesterday! They are what inspired me to become a teacher. Def sell them, I was shocked by how much they cost now,

Aww, I remember loving Chalet School as well! Only ever had them out of the library though.

Am feeling slightly despondent about impending Christmas clutter following DD's birthday. We are going to need some more storage boxes for the playroom I think. Am hoping nobody buys DS too much given he's really too small for toys still.

Penelope I keep experimenting with the organised mum, it's good but then I miss a couple of days and it goes to pieces! May check out the video links when I get a minute though.

Managed to declutter a couple of things into charity bag yesterday and also finished two boxes of Christmas cards from last year. I also chucked a big box of bits of paper that I'd kept for craft activities but have been untouched for a year. We always have magazines around so can easily replace if necessary. Today am hoping to relocate some outgrown toys to the garage.

Can't remember who mentioned solid shampoo upthread but I have just ordered some from Six Foot and Clean. Haven't tried it yet but arrived this morning and smells nice!

Hope you feel better soon GreenWillow and hello to everyone else especially newbies!

I've finally finished a spray bathroom cleaner which I bought after seeing it recommended on here. I'm so pleased to have it out now - it wasn't good at all!

I've also binned 6 pairs of knickers. I'm behind on my clothes washing and these were left in the drawer - I'd rather do laundry than wear them. (Always a good sign of clutter.)

I've sorted out another cupboard! Yaay me!! It looks great! I've managed to get some stains off which I have previously not been able to - they go back to the previous owners (over 10 years ago). In the process, I've also re-homed a wine carrier and an in-the-way, not-used-any-more, plug adaptor.

Another kitchen gadget!

DP finally said yes after years of wanting to keep it, even though we haven't used it for even longer.

A few bits went off to charity at the weekend. But apart from that I seem to be bringing things into the house for Christmas I did put the recycling out though. Does that count?