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!

@Pickledlily - Some charities will collect which can be very helpful. Eg. BHF.

Trawl through the family bathroom cupboards with DC before return to university. 6 outs and shelves tidy so that what's in there is easy to see/find.
Bathroom now declared clutter free.
1575/2020

Thanks, Alex. It's always good to know it's not just me.

Can I join. I've done the easy ish Clutter free but now it's the hard stuff. We are also marketing the house at the end of the month

Oh sandandsea I didn’t realise that, I thought it was just for furniture, might investigate then!

Today I have attempted to declutter my car, it’s an absolute filth pit dumping ground. There’s still a lot of crap in it like wellies and things for the charity shop but at least there are no festering crisp packets And the junk that does live in the car is organised. I’ve filled the old cat basket with kids clothes and shoes and a few plates and cups ready for the charity shop so it should be easier to carry than all the random carrier bags it was previously stuffed in to. Will attempt to drop that somewhere tomorrow.

Have also sorted a few things that I’m not going to need for a while like the vac packed summer clothes, Bucket barbecue and FOUR boxes of wine (bearing in mind I’m the only grown up in my house and the last bottle of wine I opened lasted four weeks) so am going to ask my mum if I can store those at her house, there’s no point them cluttering up the Very limited Space I have for a whole year until they’re needed again but I will need them again, just not for a while!

Pickled - It might be now but they've definitely had allsorts from me over the years. Sometimes it's worth making a few calls.

Welcome, @lifelongfrugaleer! What's your 'out' today?

Ahhhh, just managed my charity drop off before the school run. 4 bin bags (though one was not very full), 2 carrier bags of rags, a very large carrier bag of toys, 5 small boxes of books, an artificial Christmas tree and a bag for life of (hopefully) collectible magazines. I did check if they wanted those rather (otherwise I was going to recycle them) but he seemed very keen. This stuff has been hanging around for weeks so I’m extremely pleased to get it out of my house/car.

Welcome lifelongfrugaleer

I ended up spending hours sorting through costumes and toys. School seem to have lots of theme days, word book days and plays so we have so many costumes. So I have been trying to put costumes together so the Victorian chimney sweep had a red bow tie and fantastic mr Fox had a tie and tail and the cleopatra costume had fake jewellery. Anyway the outcome is I have a binbag sized bag of bits in the car for the charity shop, a bag of rags and a huge pile soon to be sorted through. As a result dc are having pasta and pesto for dinner as I was too busy to go shopping.

It feels never ending.

Today I've given away a poster and a picture and am expecting someone for two other posters soon.

The guy did not come for the radiator but I have two other people who are interested.

Threw a rotten garden table into the builders' van for the skip.

Well, I'm still doing bits: dusting, laundry, floor, dinner started. I'm kinda 'on it' today. I was feeling down so I made myself invite someone round tomorrow, which, in turn, has lit a fire under my arse. Even my dining room table is clear now and there's a general shine about the place.

I've just opened 2 boxes of sentimental papers, courses etc and have been looking through them. All I've managed to do so far is get rid of a grubby, torn envelope with info on it. This has been hanging around in one of the boxes for years! (Over 10.) I've taken the info off it and am about to file it properly. It's not much but it will make me feel better every time I go to this box, which I'm pleased about. Everything in that 1 box is at least all filed properly now. The other box needs a lot more work. I might come back to it.

I've also shredded 3 receipts from the fridge door.

I had a few outs. An old magnetic fishing game missing some pieces, a manky bath book and a couple of very chewed and battered board books that weren’t fit for the charity shop.

Just put a pair of outgrown kids sandals in the charity box as well.

Sand The worst thing is that I've decluttered the kitchen multiple times, and I still find out of date things from ten years ago, especially baking things like food colouring etc.

I'm still decluttering unfinished tasks.

Sent off two sold eBay items today.

Started to get the Apartment a Therapy September declutter emails. Day 1 was get 3 boxes (1 sell, 1 donate, 1 maybe). Day 2 use 5 principles and de clutter a drawer. However, then I had a dishwasher plumbing disaster so haven’t actually achieved that!

My day 9 update:

Unpacking stuff from my mum’s house: I went back to the folder of certificates/ sentimental stuff, and moved my Communion and Confirmation certificates to the folder where we keep birth certificates etc, and put my primary school swimming certificates in the folder with my exam certificates. Was reminded of the lessons at the local pool and the scary instructor we had!

Didn’t get rid of anything today.

I’m struggling to get time to go through the boxes. As so much of it is personal and sentimental, I don’t really want to be looking at things in front of DH, but he’s still furloughed so he’s here all the time and I rarely get the house to myself Managed a bit last night as he was doing bedtime, but there’s always other, more urgent stuff to do in the evenings (laundry, cleaning, hoovering etc). It’s hard. Hoping to get an hour or so this weekend to tackle the box of GCSE notes - I’m fairly certain they can all go straight in the recycling!

Ah, I’m getting those Apartment Therapy emails too @Wildernesstips but had not actually opened/read them

I’ve just done a bit on my desk - a few random bits of plastic have been binned. I was hanging onto them in case they are important, but as I don’t have any idea where they came from/what item they go with, I’m unlikely to ever discover their purpose.

A much loved but now broken purse has also been discarded, along with a part used bottle of body lotion that matched my perfume, but now smells really weird. This is a salutary reminder to use nice things rather than keeping them for best.

Alex - So have I! This thread is my proof! I've got to be honest though, even today, I've consciously kept some out of date spices. My thinking is that, firstly, they look fine (one of them is still sealed, as new) and secondly, we don't use those ones enough to warrant replacing them at this point. Hmmm... This might be why I'm always finding ood foods in my kitchen.

@EllieQ - I can really relate to your last post. I've got all that sort of stuff (swimming certificates etc) in my boxes too.

ellieq you’re doing fantastically, even five minutes a day is progress and the sentimental stuff will always be hard to get rid of.

I spent five minutes doing sentimental stuff today. I have photos of stbexh around so I spent a few minutes looking through photos in my massive cupboard of photos to replace it with dc photos. I have always thought it would be a big job but I found photos of a Greek holiday with the girls and felt quite detached from them. I could easily get rid of half the landscapes. Also pictures of people from university who I haven’t heard from since I left. I figure if we never bothered to find each other in Facebook I don’t need the photos. I haven’t got rid of any photos yet but it made me realise it’s not such a big job as I thought and I might eventually get the photos in a shoe box.

I meant to say ‘the girls’ ie a boozy holiday with women friends but we’ve lost touch so I feel less sentimental attachment to the photos than I thought.

First day at home alone for 6 months. It's lovely 😊
10 items to charity shop today
I have a pile for the tip but I need to book a slot and I'm not free to go for a bit

Lots of boring jobs done today including dropping the cat basket full of things to a charity shop. It took three charity shops before I found one that was accepting donations and by then I couldn’t feel my fingers because it was bloody heavy but hoorah! It is out of my house.

Sorted out the baking and decorating ingredients shelf out. Amalgamated some sprinkles into one container, same with cake cases and binned some items with BBE 2015.