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!

ememem84 that soup sounds amazing, I love thai food, ginger, coriander, peanuts, chilli. Noone else in my house would eat it but I might make it for lunch one day.

footprintsintheslow I can imagine you in a film sped up with comedy music trying to dispose of toys before The Toddler sees them. Well done for recovering from a potential disaster!

A carseat has gone. Now I'm doing papers again. Dc do their homework online and so it's a constant battle at the moment to print worksheets, do them, scan them in and then throw the papers away. I suppose it'll be like that until covid is over. I've also gone to Tesco and got rid of old batteries, bottles and lightbulbs. I advertised a couple of bits on facebook yesterday and got no interest so I'm going to do more. Then I might spend some time in the room of doom. I

I threw away a lot of our wedding and engagement cards yesterday. I needed to repurpose the box they were in for my jewellery and that in turn stopped another 'in' in the form of a nice vanity case I'd seen in TK Maxx and told myself I 'needed' for that purpose. I need to stop wandering round TK Maxx full stop actually.

I sold a child's board game yesterday. Just tidied up the playroom for DS3'S playdate after school & realised that I need to declutter that a bit as they are outgrowing some bits- the obvious things being Orchard games, picture books & toy cars (we currently have 2 drawers full but that could be reduced to 1).

@Lamentations TKMaxx is lethal isn't it!
Maybe we need a thread of 'I have not bought anything or spent any money today'.

I almost bought a nice yellow coat in Morrisons the other day but I thought of having to own up on this thread so I left it. I really do not need any more coats and this wasn't even shower proof.

Little progress here as work is taking priority. Just keeping up with one item a day out. However, can add two more for today, unexpectedly. Both single mattresses collected by local council, just was expecting them tomorrow, so was glad I was in, albeit on a client presentation meeting!
1745/2020

Decluttered some porridge oats into some biscuits today. None of us like porridge so best use for them!
Someone was after some beads for a community centre so I thought "great that gets rid of something". I'm still waiting to hear when she can collect them.

Thanks em I’ll resolve to try that ASAP! Already have lots of peanut butter.

No outs and in fact had some ins today as visiting friend (more like honorary auntie/mum) brought a few bits we need (we now have sufficient mugs and glasses!).

I definitely find decluttering harder at this time of year. Some kind of hibernating instinct :o

Day 20:
Tidied garden and recycled some pots and toys.
Child's book passed on to another family.
Jigsaw picked up via freecycle.
Unclaimed free cycle stuff has gone into charity bag.
Some out of date medicines bagged up for chemist.
Inbox cleared daily now.

One teddy bear sold on eBay and posted off. Sold some clothes this evening but won’t post that until tomorrow now.

I'm very inspired by everyone. Wellies I also feel like hibernating. Glumy and Em I also have a teething young toddler who has been up in the night recently, it's hard to adjust when you are used to the sleep. I've listed some baby things on ebay and hoping they will sell.

I have just realised I have abandoned the preparing for Christmas after an early start in September.

I'm loving all the carrot recipes! I love carrots but we often have a surplus.

Anyway, my outs today:

• 1 bill. (It's been hanging around a while).
• 1 sachet of teeth whitening strips. (Again, these have been hanging around for a while. I have a few more still to go.)
• 1 note.
• 1 birthday card. (This is significant actually. I only keep those from certain people and this is from one of those people. It's a family member who doesn't keep in touch very often and I've taken a while to let go of them, if you know what I mean. We still do cards but that's about it. I'm hoping that binning this one might open the door to me letting go of even more sentimental stuff.)

I've also done a load of laundry. I had to do one load twice because they came out smelling of cloths from the previous load.

Come to think of it, I need tips if anyone has any: How do I get an old, oily stain out of a top? It's been washed quite a few times and I've tried treating it with washing up liquid. I'd really like to rescue it if I can. I haven't tried ironing it, maybe I should try that?? Any tips would be very welcome!

@SandAndSea I would I've thought ironing it would set the stain in even more.
Have you tried the obvious things like vanish?

We use cloth nappies and they do stain from time to time and the advice for them is to hang them on the line for a day a day of two to get then UV light to remove staining. That might work? It works well for nappies.

I cleaned out the bathroom cupboard and threw away some out of date medicines. Feeling pretty happy.

Sand Have you tried soaking it for 20 minutes in hot, very soapy water (use washing up liquid) a couple of times? The washing up liquid is good for breaking down oil.

Kristmas Great progress.

Talk of carrots has persuaded me to make a carrot cake this weekend before carrots end up a soggy mess.
Quick declutter this afternoon - anniversary cards (keep up for one week then dispose - not the most romantic, me!) to the recycling bin, apart from the glittery one that had to go in waste bin.
1751/2020

sandandsea I would also have advised washing up liquid and sunlight - if there is any. Hope you manage to get the stain out.

I’m still trying to sell things on Facebook but with minimal interest. I went through our arts and craft stuff and did get rid of some pens that don’t work and bits from craft sets. I’m also having a therapeutic session sharpening our colouring pencils and chucking out the ones that are just broken. Santa usually stocks up on this sort of stuff so I thought I’d work out what we actually need rather than just buy a load of pens and pencils in a last minute rush.

Having a sorting out day, so quite a few outs so far!

• A bag for life of tights & socks going into the boot of my car for next time I see a clothes bank
• A jumper to a friend
• A tatty box of pens decanted into a newer box & container disposed of
• Deceased plants from the garden in relevant bins
• Last few cooking apples & half my frozen blackberries made into crumble filling

Hope to do some more before school run at 2.45pm

A few outs today. Two cardboard jewellery boxes that are too "babyish" for DD; some useless hair bobbles; some off lime cordial and an empty sun cream bottle (not sure why it was put away....).

Managed to sell a fish tank, but also have a temporary in. My parents found this & we are keeping it till Monday, when I will give it to my friend's DD 😍

@confusedofengland

Managed to sell a fish tank, but also have a temporary in. My parents found this & we are keeping it till Monday, when I will give it to my friend's DD 😍

Oh, I had that treehouse, Confused! I had the light house as well, but I’ve never seen the one with the roads and the other trees. Brings back memories

Ooh a friend of mine had that treehouse and I loved playing with it!

The extension part is a little playground & a swimming pool! There was a diving board but that got lost somewhere along the way. My sisters & I loved this so much as children & it's lovely that it's going to a friend's DD to enjoy

Day 21:
A few broken bits of broken plastic that I stashed to fix one day. They are never going to get fixed.

Used up some wool I was keeping for a project.

Also found an episode of late night women's hour about spring cleaning:

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p062q7x9

That link doesn't look like it will work but picture below.

Had an out yesterday - a desktop computer. We only got it in lockdown so it doesn’t seem that significant (family member passed it on to us for DD1 to do her online schooling on but we ended up not using it much and now someone else is going to use it for studying instead) but a relief to have the space back