The decluttering one thing a day thread - part 12

[AlexTheLittleCat]

For StealthNinjaMum

We’re still here.

After 11 threads my house still isn't tidy!

So join me and a lovely group of mumsnetters who simply get rid of one thing a day and report back. Gradually we’re developing good habits, reorganising ourselves, often improving our mental health and having friendly chatter along the way.

So newbies are welcome, just check in with your news and join in the general chat about recycling, organisation and housework.

Previous thread here.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/housekeeping/3799710-The-decluttering-on-thing-a-day-thread-part-11?pg=1

ALSO many of us have set a target to get rid of 2020 items this year and will report on that.

Welcome anxi

dancingtomusic wow you’ve been busy. Is all the stuff around from your dcs bedrooms? Do you have homes for it or are you waiting for charity shops to open?

laneboy I’ve been unmotivated too recently but it’s normal to go through phases. We just need to do one a day.

I’m going to have a quick tidy of the hall and that will inevitably find things to throw out. The post comes and I ignore it for three days in case it has coronavirus. Well there’s a big pile of post to dispose of now.

pickledlily well done on the jeans. And I’m sorry to hear about your situation. Decluttering and doing practical jobs will hopefully give you something to focus on.

On the plus side of the de-cluttering needs, I can leave half the kid’s stuff here for when they see their dad, which is a good job as they have SO much stuff! I’m not sure what to do with all my books though, I’ve had a clear out and will be sending a couple of boxes off to MM and Ziffit but I’ve still got loads and nowhere to store them. Might have to bite the bullet and buy a kindle going forward but that still leaves me with a couple of hundred books I don’t really want to part with. Maybe I can store them in my mum’s attic for the future when I can hopefully afford somewhere bigger?

Or should I just be brave and declutter the lot? I do love books though so it would be quite painful getting rid of them all. I might actually have more time to read them once I’m single as well!

pickledlilly I thought I'd have more time single but don't. I have loads of new hobbies - or did before lockdown imprisoned me.

Like you I've also got lots of books but hate the idea of a kindle and Amazon sales destroying small local bookshops and libraries. I do have lots of classics and an app on my ipad that has them too so I could throw away a couple of shelves of Austen, Dickens, Elliot, Bronte etc but I like to keep these books as they make me look more cultured and intelligent! I realise I haven't been very helpful at all.

You also need to keep those books to use as your backdrop when you're having Zoom calls!

Well done PickledLilly - great to make some money out of clutter. Regarding the books I would keep maybe 20 of your favourites and donate the rest. Books can be bought cheaply from charity shops.

I didn't have a productive day decluttering wise as I brought the children out for a long walk. Got rid of some cardboard packaging.

I've got a question about selling on facebook. I usually sell on my local 'mum's' buy and sell group. The rules are that you have to buy something publicly (ie no pms) and the first person on the list has first rights to it and if they're flaky you pass it down the line.

Well for the first time I added some sales items to the 'marketplace'. I've had 4 pms. The first offered half the price. The item's a coffee table I was going to give away free anyway but it was a low price so I'm annoyed to be offered so much less. The next person asked a question on the height of it so I replied.

Is there any kind of etiquette now? Can I just sell to anyone? I'm slightly prejudiced that 3 of the buyers are men and I'd rather sell to a woman just because I'm on my own in the house. I'd leave the table outside but I still feel odd about a complete stranger buying off me. I'd invite exdh over to look like there's a man around except the person might not even turn up - and exdh would be angry at me selling MY table and would be annoyed I wasn't getting more money for it.

Pickledlily Good luck with your fresh start. Good luck with the books too, you could try going through a few times and trying to reduce each time?

LaneBoy There's a blog called A Slob Comes Clean, her decluttering tip is to ask yourself "where would I look for this?" whenever you are re-homing any items to keep in your house. I ask myself (and my OH) each time I am finding a new home for something and it helps. It helps stop you buying duplicates because you look for something where you'd expect to find it and it's actually there.

No decluttering today, just some cleaning.

Stealth Not sure of the etiquette with FB, as I haven't used it yet. You could wait until you get a female buyer if you are more comfortable.

Hi Stealth, my mountain of doom is 3 shopping bags of my clothes, 2 bags of bedding, 20 small clarks shoes boxes (kept these to use as storage boxes.) Empty plastic storages boxes. 5 bags and boxes of toys and junk toys. 3 bags of charity shop buys that need altering and sewing to fit. (I really need to let this stuff go.)

This morning I emptied my bathtub and had a shower. Lego box is back in the kids room. I put away 4 shopping bags of random stuff, clothes and toys. Most of the mountain of doom needs to leave my house as my cupboards are bursting. I need to be strong and let things go.
I have decided to sell some of the kids happyland sets.

I havent used facebook for selling but i would like to learn more. I would feel the same as you stealth, I understand. You do whatever you feel comfortable with.

Pickled welldone on the jeans sales. Books are a very difficult one. Do you have any local schools that would take a few of the books?
Big hello to everyone on the decluttering yellow brick road.

Regarding Facebook selling, there really isn’t a lot to worry about, like you said you can leave it outside for them if you want to, most exchanges are done within 30 seconds or so I find anyway. A lot of the time, the person who you speak to on messenger might not be the person who collects it anyway, eg you could speak to a woman and she will say her other half will be the one collecting.

PS with furniture it’s always worth measuring and stating the dimensions, if it’s not listed then a lot of people won’t be bothered to ask and wait for a reply then you miss out on them as a buyer :)

Very brief check in to say that someone at BT has decluttered our copper telephone line, broadband, TV and mobiles, without so much as a by-your-leave. We are struggling very much piggybacking on DH's mobile data on his work phone to try to keep him at work and 3DC at online school! It's like 1995 on dialup in this house. This is not a good time to have got rid of all the CDs and DVDs on the grounds "you can stream anything these days". Thank god for local network storage.

I suppose I should use this time to physically tidy / clean / declutter but I feel weirdly rudderless with no internet to back me up. DS3 is genuinely frightened, he's never lived in an unconnected world.

Brilliant decluttering jobs being reported. Sorry to hear about your personal situation , Lilly. I have a small box of books Without Which I Do Not Move, but have been much better at culling them since DS1 pointed out I mostly keep them for the memory of having read them, not to read them again. But the point about appearing educated in your Zoom back ground that 50 made is very valid 😁!

Anyway. Must get off here so someone else can have a go. Hope to see you all on the other side of the Great Lockdown Telephony Outage, but that may not be until next weekend!

I am tackling the mountain of outgrown kids clothes in the attic. Gradually washing, ironing and listing on eBay with the promise to myself that they are NOT to go back in the attic. If they don’t sell, they’re off to the charity shop (when they open) there are THREE of those massive laundry bags full and that’s just the clothes and these are just the ones I haven’t already sold last time I did a big eBay push.

Oh no Jigolo that sounds very stressful, especially with homeschooling in the mix. I hope that they sort it soon.

Sorry to hear about your situation PickledLily. Sounds like you have given things lots of thought though. I would keep the books but getting rid of books is an issue for me so I wouldn't take my advice!

Yesterday I added a baby toy to the charity bag (was meant to stick to the car window but my DC just pulled it off and then shouted because it fell on them! A few old receipts and things have also gone. I'm about to look at our coast cupboard as DH has been gradually returning all his suits to it. Given that he's not going back to the office this year, they can go in his wardrobe!

22 items (some bundles) listed so far and about eleventy million still to go. What happens normally is I run out of steam about now and shove the rest all back in the attic for another time. Must keep going!

It did make me laugh last night though, my littlest one said ‘what you doin mama?’ I said ‘ironing’ he said ‘wot that?’ I explained. He looked bamboozled.

His lordship STBex came home, eyed up the ironing board and said ‘selling stuff on eBay again are you?’ To my shame, I have to agree that the ONLY time I iron my kids clothes is when I’m selling them

Jigolo hope the BT issues are resolved quickly for all in your household.
Pickled I hope that the sorting etc you are doing now is helping you feel your plan is moving forward.

Have seized on a bit of DH led enthusiasm for sorting DVDs so that he can fit what he wants in the TV cupboard. Not without the usual trials though, as it involved moving various items linked to the TV and the inevitable cable that dropped down the back of the cupboard back panel. Many opinions (DH/DC) offered on how to sort the problem. After some 'blind ferreting' (me) through the access hole, a re-purposed wire coat hanger and some sellotape, the errant cable was retrieved and plugged in again. DC were very helpful but have reached their 'instructed by DH' limit now so retired to their rooms! 50 DVDs now collected to add to the charity shop bags that I will drop in once they re-open.
783/2020

Thanks for the feedback on facebook, I was just being silly. I have often had things collected by men before but they were spouses of people on my community group and often I sort of 'knew' them because I had seen their partners names. Anyway I have had about 8 people ask about the table, two offer discounts, one suggest collecting it and then letting me down. Hopefully it'll go tomorrow. It feels like an achievement to get rid of an actual piece of furniture so fingers crossed it goes.

I brushed the livingroom/kitchen and hoovered both bedrooms and the hall way and cleared out my little ones old toys into a bin bag. They are toys she hasn't played with for a long time and they are just not educational for her anymore. Feels so good getting rid of them.

I have a "present" stash - a shelf in a wardrobe with things I can use for presents in an emergency. I used to buy things when I saw them - something that someone would like and then would forget I had bought it and would buy something else. I have stopped the buying but I still have some of the presents. They are handy when we get invited to a kids party unexpectedly. I delivered one to my brother today that I bought for him last year. That's my out for today!

Ebay has a £1 selling fee on again this weekend so spent this afternoon putting a load of stuff on.

Spent yesterday giving the downstairs a really good deep clean, the house does look really good if I say so my self.

He only room I really need to do work is my bedroom which does need more work manly because I just had to many clothes . In fact both DH and I both have a two many.

So another twenty things on eBay today will try and get another twenty Listings on Tomorrow

I'd love to join as I'm feeling overwhelmed by stuff, even if I try and be fairly minimal usually! Today's out will be a carrier bag of dc clothes (if the Freecycler turns up!).

I've also put a box of random bits and bobs out on the drive for people walking by to help themselves to. Can you tell I want the charity shops to accept donations asap? 😂

Next mission is books - I love them but I live in a small house, prefer to read on my kindle and haven't opened many since dc1 was born a decade ago!

Morning all. Can I join?

House is becoming very cluttered with stuff. Hoping this will allow me to get organised and stealthily declutter!

Hi all! Nice to see so many newbies (I only joined on the end of Thread 11 myself!) - this is a lovely place to be :)

Just caught up - :o at the strangely shaped hen party muffin tin :o reminds me of some strangely shaped contributions to the chocolate workshop we did at a friend’s hen party :o

Re the books I’d maybe focus on getting rid of very “common” books IYSWIM - not in the common as much sense but easily found again. So popular authors and classics as they’d be easy to buy online or in charity shops or borrow from the library if you did want to read them again - classics are usually free on kindle too. Mind you I don’t tend to keep fiction anyway so I’m not the best person to ask! I’ve got library books to finish (got distracted by a new book group and read those) but then I’m reading Eleanor Oliphant next as that’s in my “stuff to use up” box.

Hope things aren’t too tense pickled - sounds sensible to not tell him yet and just quietly go about decluttering. I think all these decisions can help focus the mind, so you’ll be even more determined.

Not got much done at all this weekend, DH is struggling physically and mentally and it’s all about getting through the basics ATM. I’m trying to organise a few things to make future weeks easier but that’s more admin type stuff.

Common as muck, not much 🤣