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

Riding hat gone

Went up in the loft and got down three huge laundry bags of baby clothes. Have got one bag to go back up.

Some has gone into Dds wardrobe (age 18-24m)
Some in a bag for Dfriend (the more boyish stuff age 0-6)
Some in a bag for nursery spares (trousers and vests which are too small various sizes)
Some for Dms friends daughter - due in March.
Some for charity shop
And the rest for ebay. Busy.

Day. 130: haven't caught up on the thread yet but my update is

☔️a crochet basket
☔️ a vegan bottle of baileys both to adult daughter.
☔️ couple of baby vests too small already.
☔️ 10 dull children's books in charity bag.

Hope everyone is ok. I love how supportive this thread is by the way.

footprints it’s so amazing that you’re able to declutter, when my dc were 6 days old I could barely get out of bed. That’s serious decluttering dedication.

By the way what’s vegan baileys like? I have cut down on meat and moved to a few vegan alternatives. I nearly bought a bottle of vegan baileys for Christmas but it seemed expensive for something I might not like.

After doing nothing yesterday I managed to get rid of 17 felt tipped pens, biros and tiny pencils that are impossible to write with.

Only 13 minutes and the Toss app will issue its next mission, Its sad but I’m looking forward to it.

I’m so disappointed, Toss asked me to do jackets and medicines which I’d done, then receipts. So I think I’ll look for some receipts and if I have time find a few more books.

Declutteted several broken bits and pieces from the bottom of LB's tub of small plastic toys.

More lost pieces reunited, now taking up much less space, and being played with / used.

@Clettercletterthatsbetter Sorry for your loss

@Weneedmusicandtheatre This is the blog post: organisemyhouse.com/things-to-declutter/

My current pair of Havaianas got a ripped strip so i got rid of it plus another pair that's seen better days. Bought a new pair at the grocery shop. So 1 in and 2 outs AND i just bought something without realising so i guess my No-buy year is ruined. Ah, well...

Out: 20
In: 14

I’m day 16 of no spends on clothes or toiletries. Wahooo.

Remembered to take the bag of rags to the recycling bin on yesterday’s walk, so they are physically out of the house. I also binned an old backpack that DD2 used to take to nursery; the strap is broken, it’s too small for her now and DS has his own nursery bag, plus a light-up plastic rabbit that MiL bought to decorate DD1’s first birthday cake nearly 6 years ago (the batteries have gone and it’s not really a toy, so no point keeping it)

Couple of frozen items to satisfy Toss, including a double whammy of chucking a year old portion of mashed potato still in the plastic pot I froze it in, since I obviously didn’t miss it for the whole year it’s been in the freezer. Today it’s telling me to do dry goods and pantry items which should be good for a few bits.

Girls have just woken up and gone straight back to pretending to milk themselves with the old breast pump

I finally used up a bottle of old kitchen cleaner that I didn’t like. Now it’s gone I can move onto my lovely Method stuff - at last!

Remembered to do the shredding identified yesterday rather than leaving it sat on the desk for weeks! Also found a couple of old receipts that went at the same time.

Have a load of stuff that was ready to go to the clothing bank at the local shop but DH has reported it is full and there is a sign saying its not being emptied at the moment, so back to the drawing board on that one.

Love the image of your girls playing with the breast pump Sydney!

I think you can let yourself off buying new of it is replacing something needed inthetropics.

93:10

Had a little tidy in DSs room, I've got a box of clothes from when he was a baby so I've gone through and removed a couple of items I don't need to keep and done through the babies stuff too so there's two essentially memory boxes but in proper tidy plastic boxes.
94: So few items of clothes and couple of small blankets
95: also chucked so dried up playdoh and an emotional pot
96: sorted out DSs shoes, some back upstairs as we won't use them until school is in and some out to the garage as they're too small / he doesn't like them and has developed an opinion
97: gone through the baby's toy box and thrown out a bunny (one of those that seems to get dirty if you look at it) and a couple of small soft rattles
98: a t-shirt stained past redemption
99: random 12-18 vest that keeps ending up being used, baby squished onto and vest washed. I've binned it.

100: some learn to read and phonics books o never got the hand of with DS so very much doubt I will get my brain around for DT

100:10

Baby's are eating the crayons I brought.

I've not been on here all week, is a bit chaotic with is all at home all the time.
So sorry to hear about your dad Cletter
Footprints congratulations on your new arrival and continued decluttering.
Not done much during the week but have managed to do a bit this weekend. Got a onesie I advertised for free but just want to make sure they will pay for the postage! It's packaged ready to go.
Two sports bras and three jumpers past their best into a bag for textile recycling.

Using the list of 365 things to declutter (and a second similar list i just found) i tackled a part of my toiletries stash and am getting rid of:

• 1 bottle of alcohol gel (will be taking it to work); we already have 2 bottles being used at home and they last FOREVER.
• 1 empty medicine box; this will be trashed
• 1 empty pump bottle; will be donated (probably to work, as people seem to always need/want those there)

Out: 23
In: 14

inthetropics I skimmed the first couple of weeks and that’s a great list, I’m tempted to do that if I finish Toss.

Toss asked me to do receipts. I haven’t found any - normally they turn up when I’m not looking so maybe I’ve decluttered them - after all I haven’t been shopping for months now other than a bit of online.

I emptied three boxes that had accumulated pens and other bits of crap. Three broken pens have been added to yesterday’s Toss total. I have also decluttered holey children’s trousers.

I have also hoovered the house, including moving furniture around. I decluttered lots of fluff and strands of tinsel. And I tidied the homechool area ready for another week of torture.

[quote Inthetropics]@Weneedmusicandtheatre This is the blog post: organisemyhouse.com/things-to-declutter/[/quote]
Thank you!

Congratulations to @footprintsintheslow - I am surprised you are managing any decluttering at the moment! And @Clettercletterthatsbetter - sorry to hear about the loss of your dad.

We made our weekly trip to Tesco this morning, and I got rid of 2 largish bags in the Salvation Army clothing bank in the car park. One was a bag of bedding, the other of clothes. I also put a large bag of plastic bags into the plastic bag recycling in Tesco itself.

I have done around 3 extra loads of washing this week, doing more of my mum's sheets, pillowcases and tea towels. After washing, anything holey or still badly stained has gone into a bag ready to go for rags recycling to a local charity shop when it reopens. I also have a large bag of good stuff to go to charity, and a pile of things I haven't decided on yet. The good news is that I managed to find 2 bags of clothing and other textiles that I had mislaid. They contained stuff that had been cleared out of the dining room just before we got the new carpet early last year. I thought they were in the spare room, but they didn't appear when I sorted it out a few weeks ago. Anyway, they contained some things which had already been washed for getting rid of, so some of that went to the clothing bank today. There was also a small pile of my socks - nothing wrong with them - they were obviously just left over from the last load of washing before the clearance for the carpet and had been gathered up in the final panic. They are now paired and in my drawer. The bad news is that there is still a carrier bag of belts missing. I spent ages yesterday afternoon re-checking the same places as I couldn't believe they weren't there. I had hoped to take most of the bag to the clothing bank today, but I guess they will have to wait for another week... once I track it down!

@RaspberryBlonde I guess you're right. Just felt a little deflated with not even noticing i was doing something i wasn't supose to.

@stealthninjamum @PurpleFrog
Mu decluttering is not really taking any effort at all. Two things were gifts and any clothes that are too small are getting put aside as we go.
I do want to keep on top of photos as obviously many many are being taken every day so need to delete as I go.

As for vegan baileys, I love it personally. Nothing off putting or offensive about it so give it a go. Amazon had it on offer before Christmas.

Day 130: board game passed on to a friend.

Tried to put three brand new high end posh toddler outfits in charity bag but H stopped me. I can't put them on freecycle as the person who gifted them will see and it's nice that the charity shop will get to sell them on. They aren't practical at all: complicated to get on and off and for an age of child who is potty training....no thanks. Will sneak them off another day.

Photos and emails to do tonight.

Actually I'm day 131! Hooray

Can I join in? I'm not sure that I can do one item a day; I'm WFH which is quite difficult and I just want to chill in my non-working time. Logging what I am able to do might help me though; we have far too much stuff. I hate waste so avoid putting stuff in landfill which means we've kept stuff we should have moved on.

This weekend I've done some general slow tidying, which means putting stuff back in the correct place. So the Christmas decorations and wrapping paper have finally gone up into the loft (it's been too cold until today). Other stuff that's been lying around has been put away.

I've found out that our local animal shelter will take pillows (not feather ones though) and emailed them to find out drop off times, as I have a couple to get rid of. This prompted me to sort out the towels and I have a few which I have offered to DH for cleaning the car; he doesn't want them so they will go to the shelter when one of us is free at the drop-off time.

I'm I'm awe too footprints , I'm not sure I could have told you which was which end of the babies at this point let alone consciously sort out clothes into piles beyond DIRTY, THROW ITS SO DIRTY and NEW

Tshirt of dds binned. Which is a shame because it was a lovely Breton stripe one. However. Tomato pasta sauce. And I stupidly washed and tumbled it. No amount of washing and stain remover will get rid. Sad face. Anyway. She was growing out of it....

Tomorrow I’m ditching some of ds’ art. He has brought more home. I’d have done it today but he wanted it.