Part 7 of the decluttering challenge - can you get rid of one item a day?

[StealthNinjaMum]

Back again!

A group of mumsnetters have been emptying our homes, gradually decluttering our homes by getting rid of one item a day.

We’re very green and like to recycle, sell, give away and sometimes eat our clutter I’m still alive after the 8 year old gherkins.

Newbies are welcome to join us. We just get rid one thing and come back to update everyone on our progress, get support when it gets hard, and suggest new household systems and ways of doing things.

The most exciting thread on mumsnet. In this thread @SandandSea will tell us what she’s going to do with her big plastic sheet…..

Previous thread is here

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/housekeeping/3463110-New-home-for-the-new-year-still-getting-rid-of-one-item-a-day-part-6?pg=40

I made some progress on the study yesterday. Went through a shoebox of random bits and got rid of a load of pens that didn't work plus a name badge for the job I did 10 years ago. I've also made a start on the present wrapping bits. Turns out we have a lifetime supply of sticky tape! It's all now in a shoebox with the string, scissors and gift tags. Needs more work though!

Well we might well move house - in fact we definitely will in the next year or so. So I will hang on to my boxes!

I got DH to help me with the boxes on top of the wardrobe yesterday. They went straight back up again pretty much. It’s clothes that don’t fit me but I want to keep hold of for now.

There was also a box with one pair of swimming trunks and a hat of his. Box now empty and ready to be repurposed.

As he was up on th ladder I gave him a duster so it’s all clean up there too. And he replaced the lightbulb so we can actually see!

I’ve put some of my summer stuff in the washing so hopefully I’ll gradually get that done. Plan is to then have another good hard look at my clothes and end up with a wardrobe of clothes that I wear and that work together. Not just keeping things for the sake of it. Which I have done.

I’ve noticed I am gradually getting better at keeping the house tidier in general. Have started tidying place mats etc away after dinner rather than leaving them on the table. Tidying the kitchen properly rather than just filling the dishwasher and switching it in.

Making a real effort to keep the dining table clear too.

Raspberry - I have tonnes of present wrapping stuff. And I never use it. It is all neatly corralled on the back of the door to the understairs cupboard but I do need to get rid of most of it.

Willow - we are an exam house too. No study leave as yet though.

Extant - grey hair decluttering counts!

I haven't done much since my last update. I have, though, just about managed to get the bare minimum out of the house. That includes 2 bags of wildbird food that has been sitting in the porch for at least 8 years. I have been trying to keep on top of the washing and ironing. I have also mended 2 or 3 things, including a bathmat that has been cluttering up the dining room for ages. I also decluttered my hair, which I have been trying to find time to do for about 3 weeks. I'm hoping to get a lot done this weekend. I won't say what, as that usually means it won't happen!

I HAVE LOTS OF PLASTIC BOXES AND I AM NOT GETTING RID OF ANY OF THEM!

What I do need to do, is fill up some of the empty ones and get them stacked under the eaves in the loft, out of the way. I have also identified some places where a plastic tray/basket would help keep things tidy. I need to measure up the spaces and get some ordering done.

ha ha extant76 we could all go on about our love of boxes and storage solutions but we mustn't. We're all better off emptying them!

I feel like every entry I post is the same. But I have made a list, tidied the post pile, done admin, shredded loads and generally moved things around. My dining table is clear at the moment (as it is most of the time ) but I have a sideboard and bookcase in the dinging room that are full. I am going to empty them now which will involve finding homes for things and inevitably some decluttering.

I have emptied out a kitchen cupboard, sorted out some cake cases , put some jars through the dishwasher .

I'm debating if I should keep a very old "The Snowman" snowglobe that lives on the kitchen windowsill (all year) . The water is yellow and the snowflakes are brown.
My 19yo DS said it looks like they're running through piss

I think it's time to part company , my DC won't want to inherit a snowglobe where the stars are swimming in a sewer !

Hi everyone

Sounds like it's definitely the right choice to call time on the snow globe 70 😂

Stealth posts may be the same but the more you shred and administrate, the better it all becomes!

Not much done here today, DF visited early, went to see older SIL with MIL and little SIL this afternoon. Sat for the rest of the day. Just picked DH up from work though. He's officially done with work for 6 months and it's kinda just hit me the reason why. 😅

The work starts tomorrow!!!

Just the one item today, a notebook. It’s pretty but I have loads, DD has loads and as it’s unused it can go to the charity shop.

Reading the thread I’m wondering if I should invest in plastic boxes! We also have loads, mostly full of toys that are the wrong age for the DC. They are currently cluttering the garage which is DH’s domain and last on my list. Shoeboxes are my weakness though!

I do use the wrapping stuff Peridot but there’s just loads as I save paper for reuse, too successfully it seems! Think this Christmas I’ll just have to force myself to bin it.

Oh dear (apologies in advance for a rambling whiny post).

Does anyone ever just feel like they’re going to explode with the constant-ness of dealing with ‘stuff’?

I know that one of the reasons I hold on to stuff is because I have always lived hand-to-mouth (as a child and an adult). This means often spending ridiculous amounts of time and energy trying to store/repurpose/sell items purely because of their worth at the time of buying. However, I just feel like days/weeks/months/years are being lost in the process. I just had to rant at my teenagers because they treat me like a glorified maid and they really are old enough to understand that on my own with 5 of them I’m already stretched. Then, add in the fact that I’ve been (mentally) battling with what to do with stuff since 3am this morning (I’ve hardly slept in the last 3 years). I so desperately want to just pile everything up and take it to the tip, except:
1/ I have no car
2/ the idea that by getting money back I could use the much needed funds to pay for new clothes/activities for the children and so that always stops me just ‘chucking’.
3/ I know that if I needed to replace an item I’ve purged, I wouldn’t be able to afford to.

I probably would store more if I had space but I don’t. So stuff just goes round and round the house in an endless cycle (do I keep/chuck/sell/try and find a corner of the house where there is space to store .... arghhhhh!)

Feel like I really need a hand hold this morning 😢

Sorry for the pathetic pity party!

Extant it sound like the ‘stuff’ is weighing you down and adding stress rather than fulfilling any useful purpose.

You might need to be really really tough with yourself and realistic about any money you MAY make selling stuff. In my experience it’s generally not much really.

It is hard when you have grown up with not much and money is tight. I think it does alter your perspective.

What kinds of things are you holding on to? Maybe we can help advise on what you should do with stuff?

Thanks Peridot. Yes, you’re absolutely right about having to be a bit more tough. I have got better at getting rid of some things when I know their resale value is poor or if I’ve tried to sell and there has been no interest. You've also absolutely hit the nail on the head about perspective. I remember once being blown away by a friend of mine who was having a quick clear out when I was at her place. She swept around the apartment with a bag and threw away all sorts which I just couldn’t get my head around (small but high value items which she tossed like an old crisp packet).

I suppose if I had to categorise the problem areas it would be:

Kids/family games and electronics. I feel guilty getting rid of these because I guess I feel we should be using them. But they don’t get used ... so 🤷‍♀️.

About 10 years worth of old electronics (about 4 laptops and maybe 8 or 10 phones). There’s no resale value here but I know they need ‘wiping’. Some of the phones have sentimental pictures on them and because the phones are so old and either cables are missing or batteries have ‘blown’ - I can’t get the pictures off. The laptops are just too daunting a job for me.

A lot of really lovely clothes that I never wear because I don’t go ‘out-out’ any more or wear business attire. Some lovely workwear and formal wear never worn with tags attached.

Then there’s half of my wardrobe which is items I used to wear when my late partner and I used to go out. Not ready to deal with those yet and it fits in my wardrobe because my day to day clothes are pretty much a uniform of black t-shirt and jeans ... so that’s one place in the house that i’m not really struggling for space.

About 10 years worth of old electronics (about 4 laptops and maybe 8 or 10 phones)
I need to do this, too. So many things stop the progress but then I put them away again and forget what it was that I needed to get, e.g. borrow a monitor to clean up my old pc. We should make a list of what needs to happen to get rid of this junk.
Today, I've cleared out a kitchen drawer of Asian utensils, a different drawer of Western utensils, and the spice drawer. One drawer had all this very fine grey powder and I couldn't work out what it was until I found some pieces of wire and realised they were disintegrated sparklers.

Ok so the workwear and formal wear with tags on could be sold maybe. Have you tried? Obv there is EBay. Or have a look and see if there is a dress agency local to you. There is one in our town and I have taken stuff in there before. You won’t make much as they take a percentage - ours is 60/40. But it gets it all out of the house. The one here is small and tbh has never sold anything of mine so I have just taken it to charity. But I am size 20 and she was honest and warned me my stuff might not sell. A slim friend is usually much more successful.

Kids games - we are the same. Have loads of games that just don’t get used. It’s on my to do list! We do play some over Xmas but loads could go. So I will keep Trivial Pursuit, Monopoly and maybe two others and the rest will go. I doubt there is any resale value in them so that might be an area to be tough about?

Electronics - you can check if there is resale value but really depends on how old and what models.

The phones with photos on - maybe take them into one of those photo places and see if they have cables or can suggest anything regarding the batteries. If you can’t get the photos off or even look at them there is really no point in keeping the phones.

@Extant76 - I can relate to a lot of what you've written. But, like Peridot, I've found that selling stuff is often not as easy as we would like. I've certainly spent a lot of time on it, for relatively little return.

In hindsight, I think much of what I've tried to sell in dribs and drabs, but have ended up giving away, I could have sold at a car boot sale. It's the weekend now. If you feel the urge, you could bundle a load of stuff together today and do a car boot tomorrow??

If this sounds like a good idea to anyone but you haven't done one before, you'll need:

A pasting table or a groundsheet (or two) to display your stuff.
A clothes rail is handy if you've got clothes but not essential. (You might be able to hang clothes from the open car boot.)
Boxes (!!! oh yes!!) to display things.
Sticky lables and a pen for pricing. It's best to do this at home before you leave - I've found that people are more likely to buy or barter if things are priced.
Change in a bumbag or similar, plus your entry fee.
A flask of tea.
Waterproof clothing and a plastic sheet to cover things, just in case.
Be prepared for traders to swoop on you early on (before you're ready) and try to buy your stuff cheap (to sell themselves).

I can't think of anything else right now, but hopefully, someone else will say if I've forgotten anything.

I saw a good article once about NOT saving things for garage sales and boot sales even though I do. The article suggested you add up how much you'll get if you sell all the stuff you're keeping. Then ask yourself whether you would pay that amount of money to have a clutter-free house. So I tried that and everything came to about $100 (I'm in Oz) and I realised that I would indeed pay (or forfeit, I guess) that much. And, of course, that was assuming everything actually sold and in my experience it doesn't. We've all got too much.

I think a boot sale might be a good idea for you extant, the last one I did got rid of a huge bulk of stuff that was just hanging around and whatever didn't sell I dropped off to the charity shop on the way home.
You said no car, but do you have a friend or anyone close by who would be up for doing one too that you can share with?
I did my last with MIL, fit a surprising amount in my little Mazda and we both did ok, plus shared the entrance fee.
The only thing is you have to be prepared to let stuff go for less than the value you'd like. I quite like the vultures at the beginning because although they do ask for stuff a bit cheaper it means it's gone and I don't have to care about trying harder to sell it later.

The electronics, you can pick up replacement cables second hand at cex for super cheap. If you want to back up images and stuff from old phones, grab a couple USB sticks and load them up, you can label them and maybe even have the same stuff on two sticks so you have one as back up (after doing all that work to get the files themselves!).
Ive probably got a couple sticks lying around if you'd like them? (we get them free at work quite often).
Perhaps just concentrate on one of your categories at a time and give yourself plenty of time to do it.

Today we've done the food shop and DH is jetwashing the patio now while there's an ounce of sunshine. The only thing decluttered is two cards from the card box now written and ready to go.

Good luck to all the people with small people doing exams! And I'll be sure to update willow when wooglette arrives :)

I have thrown many, many old paid of shoes/trainers out. Why do my family decide to store old footwear? The holes aren’t going to fix themselves and it is highly unlikely that anyone’s feet are going to shrink sufficiently to fit into size 3 trainers (The smallest shoe size of anyone living here is size 5).

Can I count the two bags of clothes that went to the clothing bank? They’d been bagged up and sitting under the stairs for several weeks. But today they are actually out of the house.

Bag to charity shop with few kids clothes, some of the old kids plastic plates. Duplicate copy of Guinness book of records (from Xmas 🙄) Several tea infusers new in their packets from my MILs

Few eBay bits posted too, including one quite bulky think so that’s a win. Have two bathing costumes to list but have bought another two on eBay. The two are my favourite in the next two sizes down! (Optimistic)

Woogle when are you due? I’ll bet the nesting is helping with the decluttering 😊. Thanks for the great suggestions and your kind offer - that’s definitely given me some options that I’d not considered before (off to google CEX). I do have a couple of memory sticks thankfully so can use those.

I have done ebay a long time ago but have used Shpock more lately. Thanks to everyone’s motivating messages I did get a few bits listed on Shpock today and my 16yr old DD offered to put the items on eBay aswell (she has her own account and has listed things for me before).

I’d love to do a carboot Sand but my friends with cars are less enthusiastic 🙄. The checklist will certainly come in handy for if I can convince one of them do do one though 👍.

I’ll give the stuff a week and if I have to let it go for free, then so be it. The amount of money I would have made is just not worth the hassle of having stuff piled up around the house waiting to be sold.

Thanks all ... you are all wonderful 😘

extant76

Firstly never worry about coming on here venting. I went through a phase of moaning every sunday about the number of shoes my family had left in the hall 3 feet from the cupboard and got quite ranty about it. The lovely mumsnetters left the thread were all very supportive.

I think that with five children and no partner (I am sorry for your loss) it is incredible that you are keeping things together. I can imagine even the washing is a full time job.

Can you make the children do more? I’ve only got 2 so it’s easier to manage them but they are getting better. In the last year I have started to involve them in the process so as I mentioned last week they helped me declutter books. They no longer seem frightened to get rid of stuff.
Obviously I apologise if they're teenagers and unwilling to help - I have no advice for that!

What I would do in this situation is:

• look at the really bad areas (which you’ve done). Could you just ‘Kondo’ the games / toys. put them in a pile and get dc to look at them. Then put the unwanted ones for sale at the same time. If you sell lots of similar items I find it easier to get interest. Set a date and if they don’t go then donate them to a charity shop
• aim for a ‘quick win’ i.e. an area that I can improve massively to make me feel better. That was easier when dc was younger, I’d just decide to get rid of a pram or travel cot or large toddler item.
• set lists and deadlines. I hate throwing things away and like finding good homes for things but I will set a deadline and if something hasn’t sold I just take it to the charity shop.
• ask a friend with a car to help you take stuff to the dump. If you were my friend I would be happy to help you.
• the laptop/ phones job is daunting.I’d ignore the phones as they don’t take much space and maybe take a laptop to bed or sit in front of the TV with it and start deleting stuff you don’t need. I assume at some point you’ll want to back up stuff you do want but it’ll be easier if you’ve decluttered the laptop first. I have to do this with photos and my laptop is in my bedroom at the moment. A couple of nights recently I’ve fallen asleep with the laptop next to me deleting old photos.

These are just a few thoughts but obviously I know that when this stuff gets on top of you it can be hard to see the wood for the trees.

My decluttering today was the freezer. I am trying to eat stuff that belonged to exdh so made a soup with lots of frozen spinach and frozen fish.I have two freezers and one needs defrosting so I will need to empty it into the bigger one first. I might have to declutter some ice cream too.

Thanks to whoever mentioned Clutterbug on Youtube. She's great

In a minute is going a single bed - very solid with drawers and mattress going to.
Also gone today, a bag of jars.
Plus lots of little plastic crap like spoons, tub lids, kiddy cups (to CS).
I've also moved my plates into a cupboard closer to the dishwasher - my family will be confused for a while. They were put in a low cupboard years ago so the kids could reach them themselves, but they are 15 and 16 now so I think they'll manage

Sorry, one more post - I got given a coffee maker and a stack of pods last week - from work but they thought it worked better than it did. I knew it was temperamental but I didn't realise how bad. That's going in the rubbish today but I worked out how to make very nice coffee from the pods without the coffee machine so I'm going to work my way through them. That is a bonus because it takes away some of the disappointment about the coffee machine. If you want to know how (maybe you have a load of pods) then just ask but I won't bore anyone with it otherwise