The countdown to Christmas - but still decluttering one item a day. Thread number 15

[stealthninjamum]

Thread number 15 of the ‘declutter one item a day thread’ and this bunch of mumsnetters are still decluttering our houses slowly by getting rid of one item a day.

It’s always challenging at Christmas for declutterers, as we fill our house with more presents, food and children’s toys. This thread should give us a bit more accountability as we keep plugging away slowly while we making our homes more organised and decluttered.

Obviously Christmas won’t be the same this year and the stealthninjahousehold won’t be having any visitors but I’m still keen to spend the last couple of weeks making my house a nicer space to spend time in.

Newbies are always welcome. We just get rid of one item each day and report back on the thread.

Previous thread here.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/housekeeping/4053749-Getting-rid-of-one-item-a-day-thread-number-14-where-we-extract-precious-autumn-leaves-rocks-and-twigs-from-our-children?pg=1

Got rid of a bunch of printed blood test results and a water bottle with a bad lid.

Out: 11
In: 8

@gassylady I would use them, yes.

inthetropics that’s such a good expression. At the moment I am used to a Lego car next to my bed and I have spent a week carefully not treading on it rather than moving it to dd2s bedroom. Dd2 loves being in the same room as me so will bring her toys with her and leave them. I might do a sweep of toys in the wrong place and rehome them!

gassylady I love that the app is all making us do different areas, it makes things more interesting. I would like to try new perfumes as I’ve been using the same ones for years. I’m not sure if I’d take any - perhaps if I really liked one? You could try it and bin them if they’re still there in a week.

Gah! I misread! Sorry you didn’t say perfumes. When younger I would have taken hair products but now I have my favourites.

Cleaned the oven yesterday ( I was bored ) so quite pleased with myself

Decluttered-
couple of rubbishy baking trays
2 bags of bottles/glass jars to Tesco recycling

I have a huge bag of Charity Shop clothes waiting to go , there's a kerbside collection bag for Tuesday

@stealthninjamum all my daughter does is move toys from their place to the wrong places. It's a hobby.

Day 117:

❄️giant horror doll has gone and I mean actually picked up. To be used in a care home for people with dementia. No idea how that works?
❄️load of receipts gone to recycling
❄️few rogue Christmas items gone in attic along with a cat cushion that eldest daughter wants but doesn't actually want it in her own home.

Tomorrow: few more attic items to go up.
Make soup with fridge ruins.

More of a tidying up day for me today:

• lots of cardboard packaging flattened and put into the recycling sacks
• all Christmas decorations taken down, packed up and put into loft (two broken ones chucked, and two put in the charity bag)

Forgot to add, I have successfully signed up to Freecycle too

I'm behind on this thread again but trying not to make it another thing to worry about.

Stealth - I'm sorry, I'm not following, about the games. We were hoping to giveaway our discs and boxes but still be able to use the codes. Not sure if that's possible.

Welcome, Nemesia!

My outs today include a pot of hair removal wax and a wad of strips.

sandandsea ah i misunderstood and couldn’t find your original post. I thought you were intending to get rid of the boxes and instructions and just keep the discs. I installed a couple of ‘old’ games for dc and you need to have the disc in to play it but you only need to the code to install it.

Thanks, @SandAndSea !
And thanks, @stealthninjamum for the tip about textile banks. I'm going to see what there is around here. I'm trying to locate animal shelters which might take old bedding as I bought a new pillow recently and the old ones are hanging around.

A good cleaning and tidying day today. Christmas decorations are packed up and currently under the stairs for want of a better home. Problem with damp in the roof so they can't go back up there at the moment.

I’ve thrown away two dried up pens, another big sheet of tissue paper and some paper clutter from my desk.

I’m well on the way to using up another of my many part-used hand creams, which I am re-purposing as body cream. My skin has never been so moisturised

Well done on the oven clean @70isaLimitNotaTarget

I think it’s a lovely idea to put your extras in the work changing room @gassylady

Feeling a bit stressed about schools going back tomorrow. Quite a few schools in our T4 area seem to be switching to online learning but not ours (so far anyway).

gassylady We have a similar thing in our work toilets (at least I assume we still do, I haven’t been there for nine months ☹️), a little box of san-pro, hand cream, body spray etc. It’s more for people to use there if they need it, but I think a takeaway version would work as well.

Home school for YR and Y2 tomorrow plus two year old creating havoc 😬

Same in My work toilets.

I took a load of stuff there a while back - tampons etc which I won’t use anymore (use reuseable pads now) and had far too many, some hand lotions etc.

I also keep an emergency stash of stuff in my desk - dry shampoo make up spare tights etc. Just in case. But haven’t been to the office for a few weeks. So should really go fetch it and empty.

I had a large collection of empty cardboard boxes that I was hanging onto partly in case I needed to send presents and then because my recycling bin was rammed. I’ve broken down about half a dozen ready to go in the recycling next week - still got about the same amount left but the hall looks a bit clearer.

Outs today: pair of pjs, nightie, and some old receipts.did the small amount of shredding that was waiting (more of that to come). Have another tip slot to come (thankfully as the communal bins haven’t been emptied since before Christmas and there are 8 flats with two children still in nappies) so going to try and sort a little more before that.

@stealthninjamum i'm glad mine just brings me toys. altho i have to cuddle them and pretend i'm a baby

@footprintsintheslow aww i'm so glad Sarah is going somewhere she'll be loved

Also home schooling tomorrow for two weeks. I'm in a town in the West Mids and seems lots of our primaries are closing

Ah jealous of everyone who's put their decs down, its such a pita job.

Took the Christmas clothes out for all 3 kids into the charity / next kid box (3)
Decanted about 4 bottles from under the kitchen sink but my bins are overflowing so a bad idea lol (1)
Put some more gift bags out into the drawer in the garage (1).
DS decided his trains can go in the garage for the babies (1 even though theres about 60 trains!!)

29:3

I'm keeping my tree etc up for as long as possible this year. It's so cheering!

However, I have used up all the crackers tonight and started my annual 'disposal' of unwanted Christmas presents. A shower thing has gone to my mum. A body spray is our new toilet spray. Various shower gels etc have been put away for hand wash. And I've been lathering on the body butter like there's no tomorrow!

There’s a bag of “stuff” apparently for me from dsis at dparents. Sigh. It’ll
Mostly be bath or beauty stuff though so should keep me in products for a while. I had a few bits to go tomorrow for dsis too.

• the dcs Christmas Eve box
• s’mores fudge (it’s burning a hole in my bag and has been since yesterday. It was reduced in M&S and I know she’ll like it)
• clarins hand cream - she loves this and I have enough other stuff.

2021 Day 3: My Toss app prompt was ‘shoes’ so I went through the shoes I have stored in the wardrobe and have added one pair of mock-Converse shoes to the charity shop bag. I only wore them a few times as they were uncomfortable.

Forgot to mention that yesterday DH put up one of the pictures from my mum’s house, so that now has a home.

There were several ins today - bought a calendar, a new notebook, and a thermal top, and went back and bought the rest of the matching towels. I now have a full set of matching towels (bath sheet, towel, hand towel, and flannels) for the first time in my adult life, which has made me happy Tomorrow I’ll decide which of the old towels are going out.

Had an email from DD’s school saying they should be opening as planned on Tuesday. Still expecting a government u-turn, to be honest.

Hi, just came across the thread and would love to join you. Been in our house 5.5 years and just feel everything is starting to feel a bit full! DH is such a hoarder and incapable of sorting out stuff, so I often struggle to motivate myself to do it. However I've decided to start with the emergency areas and one item or area per day in 2021 could be achievable. Today went through DTD2s clothes with her. Got rid of a bag of things too scruffy to pass on and put aside a bag for NCT friends with younger girls to look through when we next see them (or might drop off at doorstep soon as who knows when we'll be able to do more than that). Very helpful tips on how to recycle in the OP, thank you.

Welcome 1stmrsf. A lot of us have husbands / children who don’t like to let things go. Many of us have found that by us getting on with the bits we can do that the family comes on board.

Today Toss asked me to go through perfumes. I found a perfume that I don’t use much and have put it in the downstairs cloakroom to spray on whenever I go out - which isn’t very often these days. It was a present so I have been holding onto it from sentimentality but I’m sure the giver (an elderly relative) would actually like me to use it.

I also discovered Toss put itself on my iPad and isn’t linked to my phone app. So last night it told me to empty my medicine cabinet. That’s fairly decluttered so I chucked out two calpol spoons and I am going to take some vitamins in there for menopausal women.

interesting re the Toss app. i might give it a go.

i'm making more of a conscious effort (or am trying to - we are only day 4) to use up things and make sure i have a routine.

this morning i've done a full face of make up - even though i am just at parents working while they look after the kids. i have 3 bottles of perfume which i want to get through so brought one with me and will spray every time i have to go somewhere.

same with hand cream and lip balms. too many so need to make more of an effort to use up.

dsis has given me:

a soap ang glory body butter
soap and glory scrub
a box of clarins minis - lip oil, cleanser, face oil and a primer

• three boxes of praline chocolates
• a jade roller
• a bath puff
• bath bomb

radox bath foam dove shower gel. chocolate coins (the kids can have these) and a beach bag to put it all in.

it's all stuff i'll use so not too bothered about it coming in the house.

Hi everyone!
You are all doing so well! New year New challenges! I have been busy with the mission and can report 63 outs for the past 3 days. A lot of it not worthy of mentioning junk that was there the whole time but invisible until a couple of days ago. We are also scheduled for our broken washing machine to be collected today by the council. It has only been there since April but DH was going to arrange disposal and surprise surprise despite walking past it daily in the back garden for 8 months kept forgetting. I grabbed the bull by the horns and sorted it myself.
Most of the 63 items are for charity including a wooden train set, some unwanted bedding, a photo frame that is not to my taste and a kids rucksack that is no longer needed as a new one was purchased as a Xmas present. We have had some ins too; 14 in total to include a baby bottle sterilisation contraption, a new duvet set for my youngest DD as she is in a big girl bed now and a few little bits for baby due in March. I did get myself a lovely blue velvet skirt from m and s to fit in to at the end of the year but as I have discarded over 98% of my non pregnancy wardrobe as my Sister has gone single white female on me 🤣 I don't feel remotely bad!