De cluttering questions

[loubielou31]

What do people actually do with all their stuff? I don't want to send it to landfill if it can be avoided. I am planning on taking a lot to the charity shop and e baying a few things but what about the stuff that isn't sellable?
For example, do doctors' surgeries really want old magazines? McDonald's toys? Old flower pots?
I don't want to clutter up other people's lives with my stuff either. Thanks.

We just Kondo'd a TON of stuff and did a combo of things to get rid:

The tip – unavoidable!
Freecycle – the most random things, like old clothes hangers
Charity shops
eBay
Music Magpie
Compost – magazines, feather pillows
Recycling – not just what the council takes, but for instance H&M will take bags of clothes and rag/fabric scraps too
Pavement flytipping – we live in the kind of area where everything goes within 10 mins so it's not really littering :)

Old magazines can be recycled or torn up for the compost heap. We also put the feathers from old pillows here! The pillowcase went in a rag bag for recycling.

Old flower pots: if they're terracotta and broken, break them further and use them as drainage in other pots. If they're intact, sell them! Plastic ones I would Freecycle – you'd be amazed what people want and it's not cluttering their life if they want it.

McDonald's toys – children's charities, refuges, etc

You can recycle things like old magazines. Anything in good condition and that I think will sell, then I try to sell on eBay, gumtree, FB marketplace, NCT sales etc. Otherwise it goes to the charity shop. Any clothes that aren't in good enough condition for the charity shop, I take to H&M and get a £5 voucher to use when you spend £25 which is useful for stocking up on next size kids clothes. I try to avoid chucking out too much as I don't like adding to landfill, but sometimes it's unavoidable.

Oh yes I forgot about music magpie, I got rid of a load of CDs (does anyone listen to CDs any more?) and books on music magpie and ziffit. Was really easy using the app to scan the barcodes and free to post. Didn't make a lot of money but at least it was something.

Take magazines to a free books charity. If they're specialist ones (e.g. gardening, homes, crafts, travel, fashion), freecycle/freegle them.
If you can't be bothered, recycle them. Do not compost them.
Toys - charity shop or freegle/freecycle them as car boot items.
Old flower pots - freegle/freecycle
Clothes - split into rags, charity shop, ebay. Remove buttons etc from rags and give to charity shop.

Where do you send rags to in the UK?

McDonald toys, charity shops love them, they bundle them together and sell for 50p/£1. So do the PTA, for school fairs etc.
Flower pots, give them to me! Pop them on freecycle or post on Facebook for free. Someone will want them!
Magazines - recycle

Thank you for being one of those people who do not fill up MY pantry with their crap 😂 only for me to sort it out!

Recycling bin at the tip or recycling centre, Pannalash.
Some charity shops will take them - I'd bag them separately and mark them as rags.

@Pannalash H&M will take rag along with clothes, you get a £5 voucher for every bag of fabric, which they sort and recycle. Some other shops do this too – M&S is one, I think. Some charity shops accept rag too.

We used a local sale room to get rid of boxes of bric-a-brac. Included household goods, ornaments, soft furnishings. Easy to manage, boxed it up in 'fruit box trays' dropped it at the sale room, they auctioned it off and sent me a cheque minus their fees. I suppose people must buy it to sell on in second hand shops or at car boot sales.

We also used them for furniture and electrical goods (they PAT test for safety)

These are good tips. Thank you.

I allow myself one big guilt-free trip landfill de clutter a year. Then make a point the rest of the year of taking unwanted things to charity or making the effort to sell.

Beware of listing things on ebay. Unless they sell the first few listings they'll be hanging around for ages. Seasonal things usually won't fly out of season.