Still throwing an item away a day – part 13

[StealthNinjaMum]

One of mumsnet's friendliest corners this is the 13th 'one item a day' thread to inspire and motivate a group of mumsnetters to declutter their houses, gardens and lives bit by bit, one step at a time.

Each day we get rid of just one item and report back. We’ve all got different challenges and problems and it keeps us going to discuss them and work through them together.

Newbies are welcome. It’s not just decluttering, join us in the chat about recycling, organisation, grumbles about hoarding family members and obviously our many successes.

Previous thread here.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/housekeeping/3913755-The-decluttering-one-thing-a-day-thread-part-12?msgid=99387987

And for 2020 some of us are also aiming to get rid of 2020 items!

Some information on how to get rid of the items we’re most often asked about.

If anyone has anything to add to this list could you please highlight it like this and hopefully I can update this post for the next thread.

SELLING SITES
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Ebay
Facebook sales sites
Shpock
Gumtree
webuybooks.co.uk
musicmagpie.co.uk (for CDs, DVDs, Games, Books, iPhones, Games Consoles and LEGO)
ziffit - for books, CDs, DVDs and games

TO GET RID OF THINGS FOR FREE
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Freecyle has a good app called trashnothing

Charity shops. Some will collect which really helps if you’re just starting to declutter and have a lot of stuff to go.

Animal shelters like towels and carpet squares and sometimes bedding and duvet covers.

Homeless charities will often take warm clothes and coats, especially in the winter.

Some council tips have a place to drop off quality stuff to be sold.

Some charity shops will take rags if you label them as ‘rags’, this could be materials or clothes that are too scruffy or dirty to sell or donate to someone. Also some councils will collect rags (but you’ll need to contact your council)

Supermarkets are getting better at recycling. My local Tesco has recycling points for batteries, toner cartridges, glass bottles, books and and light bulbs

Bras. Oxfam shops take bras and so do some smaller lingeries shops. Bravissimo do a scheme whereby they send good bras to Africa and strip down those that are too old for parts as well as donating 70p per kilo of bras to MIND. Also smallsforall.org take brand new knickers and good condition bras and send to Africa

Nurseries and preschools will often take old toys, games, books, craft sets and/ or stationery. They might also take clean (obviously) underwear and clothes to keep as spares for when children have accidents.

Foodbanks take all sorts of food (if it is within date) and sometimes half open packets of nappies.

Thanks for the new thread. Some paperwork and a broken pepper mill has gone today

Thanks champagnecommunist. Not such a good day for me clutterwise, but I took dc out for a walk and had a lovely day. They're going to bed now so I'll be tidying my bedroom.

Thanks for the new thread. I had a nice day today and decluttered a birthday present to my niece which I bought a few weeks ago.
I put a tshirt into my rag bag - it had gone off colour and instead of thinking I'll give it one more wear I put it straight into the bag. I'm making decisions much faster than I used to.
I've been following this thread for nearly a year and I have made a lot of progress - a lot still to do but I find the method does work. A little and often approach works for me. I try to get the items to where they need to be as quickly as possible. Recycling bags are dropped to the clothes bank when nearly full, charity bags are dropped regularly and I give items to family as soon as I can.
I'm really hoping to be nice and organised for Christmas with a clean house and presents organised, wrapped or dropped in advance! I've been known to drop presents in January 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ I have started to buy some of the small stocking fillers as this is their favourite part of the morning - I normally panic buy these in mid December! I wouldn't normally think about Christmas shopping until November. So maybe this is the year that I will be on top of things!

Stealth thanks for the new thread. Love that your second post was at 20:20 This weeks outs two old phones sold to music magpie, lots of old text books for recycling, three books I won’t reread to start another charity bag

Elenorrigbywoes

There is nothing more satisfying then being all organised for Christmas, it’s very satisfying to but up the decorations in a clean tidy sorted house it all looks so much nicer, as soon as the tree goes up I like to put the presents under it. Last Christmas I had the whole house done on the first weekend in December, which meant I went out loads and enjoyed My social life in the lead up to Christmas knowing that all I needed to do was the food shopping. Don’t know if that will be so important this year as there won’t be so much social stuff going on😢 any where if you keep up the ground work now then you will enjoy Christmas much more.

eleanorrigbywoes have you found the Christmas topic? Reastie (who has posted here a couple of times) does the bargain threads and I've followed them for years. July / August is often a good time to buy presents in sales. I already have a small pile of gifts from those threads.

gassylady if only I'd done that post 8 seconds earlier!

nanalisa60 it's depressing isn't it? I think it'll be the first time we haven't gone to a panto in ten years or gone to see Santa. My youngest dc is very worried that Santa won't be allowed to deliver any presents

Thanks for the new thread Stealth
I was feeling very disheartened tonight, as not only do I have to rearrange my book collections and the whole sodding lot is still in my hall after a week, but the space I'd cleared in my box room is now occupied by a chair Dh has declared unsafe for the toddler. He didn't get why I was so upset as 'it's only temporary'. I've been trying to sort that room for nearly a year now and every time I make a tiny bit of progress something comes along to scupper it. I suppose on the bright we had somewhere to put the chair, but it's not a huge comfort.
I had to open up the paperwork boxes of dispare (mere doom is not a strong enough description for that nightmare) today to hunt out a mortgage document. I'm definitely not brave enough to take on that job yet.
Out today: 2 broken toys

Thanks, Stealth, for the new thread.

Today I discovered that there are six baby monitors in the tub marked "phones and extension cables" and "what are these cables for?" No doubt some of them are broken, and tomorrow I'll sort out which to bin.

Tuesday is our recycling day, which makes Monday a tidyup and sort the rubbish day.

This evening I started on what I thought was a stack of inocuous old magazines. That turned out to be just a little too triggering for me, much of it from about ten years and a different world ago. So I extracted a few items that I never really had an interest in for the paper bin. Put all the rest to one side for reading later.

Nasalisa I've never been that organised. I'll have the living room cleaned for putting up the decorations but any clutter will have been boxes up and put back in the attic or the room of doom! This year it will be different!
Stealth yes I found that thread a few weeks ago! Some great ideas there. I think even starting to think about it early will help me. I've a lot of nieces and nephews and want to sort that early and get them dropped on time.

Oooh shiny new thread! Thank you Stealth for starting a new one. Thank you Alex for leading the last thread. I did keep reading along, but haven't actually got rid of anything lately.

We got a bag of clothes from a friend that we have gone through, kept some things, but a lot will be donated. I'm not even going to bother putting it in the yard sale (that I'm not sure we'll end up having this year after all). Our charity shop has been accepting things for a while now, I just only like to go when I have one or two bags to donate. I will get that bag into my Jeep ready for tomorrow so I just have to drop it off.
I should be able to get in more of a routine of decluttering soon as the DC go back to school tomorrow. I have one day off in the week so I'll actually be able to get things done with no distractions for a few hours.

I really need to be more prepared for Christmas this year, I've been terrible with birthdays so far this year as well, maybe I should start with that!
I took the bag out to the Jeep this evening, then DS brought me 3 pairs of shoes he no longer wears, one had to get thrown away, the other 2 can get donated. I can't get too carried away with decluttering things that need to get thrown away instead of donated/ sold as we are about at capacity in our wheelie bin.
Meg I hope you find his belongings where they should be and not just shoved under his bed 🤣

Thanks for the new thread!

We have 2 birthdays straight after Christmas, so I also need a plan... especially as I haven’t got a clue what to get that won’t add to the clutter, but then as a kid I used to love all the little clutter creating things, so really don’t know how to balance the 2!

Thanks for the new thread stealth. I'm really going to try to keep up with this this time. I might even carry it on at work as well! My classroom seems to gather clutter far faster than anyone else's, and it's a bit of a joke in my department that if they need something it'll be in my room somewhere.

Thank you for the new thread. Not much out over the weekend - just one magazine from DH and a spare deodorant now emptied by DC.
Out to the garage today where DH has sorted the box of papers that came from his office. A few bits came in to the house but the majority is 'for the bin' so needs sorting in to recycling or not.
Have yet to think about Christmas and empathise with not having been on top of birthdays this year.

Sorry I didn't thank alexthelittlecat for the last thread. I still have the Dodgy Laptop and sometimes struggle to go online so it was much appreciated.

glumygloomer I hope you're feeling a better this morning. I can see how frustrating it is to still have that stuff sitting around but at least you've done the time consuming job of sorting through your books. Do you have a new date when they'll be collected?

I'm still following my own mini version of Flylady. I've had the weekend off so I'm now about to tidy the surfaces in my bedroom removing clutter. I've got two large bags for life so I'm going to set a timer for 10 minutes and I'm going to fill the bags, then I'm going to leisurely put things away throughout the day. I'm sure I only decluttered my bedroom at the start of lockdown and it's a mess again.

Have I killed the shiny new thread?

Report back. I filled up two big sacks of clutter from the surfaces / window ledges of my bedroom and I am slowly moving them to the correct places. About a dozen were children's books, I often read dd2s bedtime story cuddling in my bed, so in moving them back to her room we found 7 books that she is allowing me to get rid of. I also chucked out various bits of paper, receipts, plastic, an old button. My aim is to have emptied out the two sacks of clutter into their correct homes by the end of the day but dd2 now wants to play monopoly so maybe not.

Good progress stealth.

Also reporting back - half an hour and DH's box of papers has been distilled in to 81 'items' (including said box) in to recycling/shredding (and shredded!) plus 9 items filed.
Also, very small box of lego decanted in to large box to be taken to dump once all random lego in house sorted - think just a few more bits in DC's room. Aim for this task to be completed before DC returns to university.
1460/2020

So DP has slightly redeemed himself here. He's borrowing his dad's hedge trimmer and has done the front hedge. Garden waste goes tomorrow and he's going to tackle the bushes which need doing later in the week. Not indoor decluttering but a job which needed doing.
DD and I are away later this week then next is last week of holidays so I'm not going to start anything major. Once DD is back to school I want to tackle the cupboard in the lounge.
Today's out-3 pairs of too small socks.

Thanks, Stealth. Hypothetically 3 boxes are booked for today, but I now believe I have been blacklisted by hermes for some reason and they will never come. 2 other boxes booked for the 27th. Dpd do at least turn up, I just screwed up by being in the garden the last time they came.
It's been a really crappy day, so nothing done around the house. Onwards and upwards I suppose.

Thanks for the new thread Stealth. Need to catch up after a few days away.

Have just been decluttering windfall apples from the lawn although there are lots still there as they are swarming with wasps. It seems a bad year for them, wish they could be decluttered!

Two pairs of socks that developed holes are into the textile recycling bag.

I'm another one who should probably start Xmas planning, DD has a December birthday as do several of her friends, so it feels endless! We do have a good idea what they play with now though having been at home so much. It's going to be tricky this year though ah I've lost the habit of just popping into shops for ideas and wearing masks isn't fun so doubt I will get it back. We saw some interesting shops when we were away but they were all saying things like '2 customers only' and it wasn't interesting enough to wait. Means less coming in though!

Going to catch up with the rest of the thread now!

Good thread idea! I have a 'collector' partner who doesn't live with me, but Christmas and just general buying things for our DD is a nightmare, especially as a lot of what he buys isn't age appropriate and is more for him, think collections of Lego, Mario kart, dvds. Plus I have a lot of books and furniture inherited from my gran. Plus a new baby due in less than a month. I'm almost going crazy with wanting to declutter! Today I took an entire bin bag of dvds to charity plus three normal bags of books...

Another 2 magazines in the recycling
Smart meter replaced and old one already in the “tip” box for the dump

Not huge progress but I’ve been in the office all day.

Hello all hope you are all well.

Have gone through dd underwear/socks and got rid of everything too small etc. Also found a handful of tops to get rid of that was an easy choice. But have to go through the rest. Am being forced too as I have bought new clothes for her so am determined to make room.

The job I'm putting off is my room, I need to just pick one thing up everyone I go in there don't I.