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Original poster

New home for the new year - still getting rid of one item a day part 6

986 replies

StealthNinjaMum · 29/12/2018 10:28

Here we are again!

Little by little a group of mums netters have been decluttering our homes by getting rid of one item a day. Whether we eat it, bin it, recycle it, sell or give it away we are slowly tidying our homes.

Is this the thread where we finish? Probably not

As usual newbies are welcome to join us. We get rid of one thing and come back to update everyone on our progress and get support when it gets hard.

Previous thread is here

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/housekeeping/3381702-Getting-rid-of-one-thing-a-day-decluttering-challenge-Part-5?pg=1

OP posts:
Battenburg1978 · 03/02/2019 11:23

I found I easily sold the older baby clothes (6 month plus) but struggled to sell the younger ones, so ended up giving them away! All nice stuff too eg petit bateau. As long as it gets used then at least it has cleared the space out of the house! I also buy my daughters clothes in bundles too,locally in FB, I've never tried eBay but will look now!)

I'll advertise the car seat I think, maybe for very low price or free. Hopefully someone will take it! First it needs a bit of a clean!

With ragbags- H and M offer a £5 off £25 spend voucher if you hand a carrier bag of clothes to recycle in at their shops. Useful if you're going to shop there anyway. The last one I had had to be used by the end of that month though.

Charity bag got dropped off at the shop yesterday.

IWillWearTheGreenWillow · 03/02/2019 13:46

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for personal reasons.

AntheaGreenfern · 03/02/2019 14:49

Thank you gassy, Battenburg about the ragbags.

The last one I had 18 months ago I handed over to a local charity shop but the assistant looked a bit nonplussed so that I wondered if fibre recycling was still done in UK! There is an Oxfam I can get to , I'll ask in there, I'll have some books to donate too.

Sorting out the odd sock drawers of doom today. Added to all the worn out socks I'd stashed away over recent months, I have quite a bag of rags already.

MsAwesomeDragon · 03/02/2019 15:01

Anthea some charity shops get paid by weight for rags, others don't. So you may need to ask if they do it before handing them over. I keep all my rags for my mum's charity shop. She then tells me how much I've raised with my raggy donation (not much usually, because I try to hand over a bag before it gets too huge)

Original poster
StealthNinjaMum · 03/02/2019 15:18

I haven't been on for a bit, thank you for the messages. I have mainly been decluttering stbexhs things. did turn bathroom cabinet today and also some plants. Dd1 is disgusted by the mess he is now living in!

OP posts:
Original poster
StealthNinjaMum · 03/02/2019 15:20

keiki well done for continuing the decluttering. I would advertise the curtains on freecycle as some crafty person might be able to do something with them.

OP posts:
Original poster
StealthNinjaMum · 03/02/2019 15:25

chloechloe someone else put that homeless clutter link up and I repeated it a few months later. I think sorting out the homeless clutter has made the single biggest difference to my life since I began this decluttering. In fact I need to go through the list again because I am finding items like batteries, keys and stationery aren't always in their home. Stbexh has given me lots of keys to put away. Will print that lists out tomorrow and reorganise homeless clutter. Fortunately it won't take as long as the first time I did it.

OP posts:
RaspberryBlonde · 03/02/2019 16:24

I think you will be able to sell the car seat Battenburg, my friend advertised one on Facebook recently and sold in minutes. I think people often buy second hand for a spare for grandparents etc. I need to go through the ones we have gathering dust in the garage and see what we need for DS - there are loads because at one stage grandparents needed two seats in the same size.

DH went through his wardrobe yesterday and has allegedly sorted out some stuff although I haven’t seen it yet! Plus the unwanted suits are finally out of the coat cupboard! He also found a vast quantity of change so that is car parking sorted for the foreseeable. I managed the relocate a few dvds to a charity shop bag which I’ll aim to drop off this week.

Liking the homeless items link although pleased to see that I do actually have homes for quite a few of them.

Hope all the poorly people and children are better soon.

EvaTheOptimist · 03/02/2019 17:10

I've been inching forward with bits of decluttering recently.

I haven't yet been throwing out the best of the "sentimental value" things to do with kids. Some of the best drawings, certificates, school work that was memorable (eg stories they wrote, unintentionally amusing descriptions of home life). But actually its building up to be quite a lot. A big box-full so far, plus I know there's at least 1-2 drawer-fuls in a chest of drawers that I want to clear out and use differently.

SO - where do people put this sort of stuff? What sort of storage place? Or are people just ruthless and they keep none of it? (I've heard some people photograph it, I'm not sure I'm quite ready for that yet)

MsAwesomeDragon · 03/02/2019 17:36

Eva I'm quite ruthless now with dd2. I kept a lot of stuff with dd1, and she's 19 now and we've not looked at any of it since it was put in the box Confused. So we've got rid of dd1's stuff, she was quite embarrassed by it really, not sentimental about it at all. And I'm not bothering to keep any of dd2's school work. DH is much more sentimental about dd2's stuff (she's his first), and has a wall full of drawings she's done, from preschool scribbling to her current decent art attempts (decent for an 8yo). I have confined him to one wall and he's allowed a box file for the pictures he's having to take down to make space for new artwork.

I have done nothing but lie around being snotty today. I feel rotten. I'm thinking about taking the day off tomorrow, but think that might be harder than going in to work. I'm a teacher so have to set and then mark work, easy enough for them to do without teacher input (they won't have a subject specialist, so won't be taught anything, just given work to complete and babysat)

AntheaGreenfern · 03/02/2019 17:36

I've kept a very few choice pieces in an A4 lever file per child. This file has other current things at the front so I look over them regularly.
Then every now and then when I look through to the back I will discard things that with the passage of time just don't mean as much. The more generic things I suppose. It helps that my kids were not prolific artists or writers or I would no doubt have had a bigger collection!

I took some pieces of work off display recently, they are going in a plastic pocket at the back of the file. They were special and they will be kept. Eventually I expect everything will fit in a memorabilia box with the school photos.

70isaLimitNotaTarget · 03/02/2019 17:49

I'm starting a new charity shop bag with some of DH shirts .

I've got a couple of small oil filled radiators that I need to decide what do do with ( though I'm thinking I'll keep them for emergencies) and a fan heater that I don't need (there's a shop near me that takes household things, I'll check there)

I will be de-cluttering at my DParents soon, I've taken huge bags of fabric to one of the charity shops that does accept it . We always pack it seperately , take a couple of bags in of sellable things and double check before we cart the fabric in.

I have an idea there is more to recycle, I left some things that DMum was going to sew (she was insistant) but I can bet (with 100% certainty) that she hasn;t Hmm

OublietteBravo · 03/02/2019 17:54

I’m still feeling under the weather. But DH is currently decluttering his wardrobe. So I think I’ll count that for today.

Alexandra2018 · 03/02/2019 18:04

This sounds like a good idea

SandAndSea · 03/02/2019 18:35

I've just tweaked my desk a bit and have cleared a shelf, which looks nice and/or could easily fit my keyboard, if I need more desk space at any point. (I'm pretty sure I've done this before, but you know how it goes.)

Outs include some balloon weights and a packet of drawing pins. (Both kept unused for years.) I've also moved some things around in the hope of using them more, such as bookmarks (put near my books) and a funky little pencil sharpener (which is now nice and clean and in my make-up bag for my eye-liners). I also found the back of my old phone which means I can put that all together and recycle it (at some point). For now, it's in my electricals area (which is 'in progress').

I am now sorting through a wallet of business cards. Many of these are old but some might be useful someday...

Thanks for the reminder about H&M - I'm going to take the clothes out of my charity bag and take them there instead.

EvaTheOptimist · 03/02/2019 18:37

Thanks MsAwesome and Anthea . Hmm seems I do need to be a bit more choosy. Nowhere near an A4 boxfile per child yet!

Waiting in the hall to go to the charity shop is a bag of DD's cast-off clothes

Plus

A CRATE of Beanos. I don't even think a charity shop would want them. Thinking of trying freecycle!

vroc81 · 03/02/2019 20:15

Well done on the progress! Boxfile.. yikes I reckon I could fill one with nursery stuff but I’m being a bit quicker at binning most of it now..!

Been away for the weekend so not done a lot but cleared a food cupboard while looking for some beans and binned a couple of things.. also have 14 tins of tuna Shock Confused so will work through that...! Grin

AntheaGreenfern · 03/02/2019 20:18

Did I say my kids weren't that keen on the art table?!

My bigger issue is all the lovely books we read together! I just can't get rid and not will they part with the ones they read to themselves.

AntheaGreenfern · 03/02/2019 20:20

"..nor will they part" that should read.

EvaTheOptimist · 03/02/2019 20:36

I reckon its OK to keep any book you want to keep, or think you might want to read again. That's what book shelves are for.

On the other hand as the years have passed my kids have had clear outs of books - bags and bags of them. Always astonishes me quite how many once they are off the shelves. (Loads of these entered the house as cheap 2nd-hand books). I mainly donated them to the school library each time.

abitoflight · 03/02/2019 21:51

2 lamps Smile
Used up a face serum

AntheaGreenfern · 03/02/2019 22:21

Yes we have a fair few bookshelves!

I get rid of a few books here and there but there are always still plenty left!

SandAndSea · 03/02/2019 22:37

Out:

A big photo frame with mount.
18 business cards.
A business card wallet.

More business cards to go out once I've copied the details into my address book.

Bowerbird5 · 04/02/2019 00:10

Vroc81 I’m with you struggle to get rid of books I enjoyed with my kids.have too many books.

Fell off this wagon but have been trying when the opportunity arises.

Good today.
3x books to church for children.
Sorted out something’s to return.clean out some food and wrappers.
1 magazine.
Odd cutlery.
Some games.

MsAwesomeDragon · 04/02/2019 08:54

I am good at getting rid of books. I know I don't reread very often so I don't keep them. DD has a bookcase with 3 shelves. If the bookcase is full she needs to choose which ones to donate to school (who always seem grateful for the additions to the library) if she wants to buy any new books.