Decluttering one item a day (and having nowhere to put it!) – thread number 16

[stealthninjamum]

Once again this tireless group of mumsnetters are decluttering our houses by getting rid of one item a day. Of course this year I’m just piling the stuff behind the settee because the charity shops are all closed but luckily noone’s allowed to visit me to see my clutter mountain.

This is an accountability and general chatter thread and newbies and old hands are always welcome to join in the conversation while we keep working on our houses making them clearer, organised, and clutter free.

This year some of us are trying to get rid of 2021 items and some of us are working through the Toss app that tells us what to get rid of each day. Then we report back on the thread with an update.

Previous thread here.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/housekeeping/4105255-The-countdown-to-Christmas-but-still-decluttering-one-item-a-day-Thread-number-15?pg=1

Had a room of doom blitz last week then I used all my decluttering willpower on listing some items on ebay. They haven't sold yet. Does anyone else find it a pain to do? It eats my motivation.

I'm only on page 30 of the thread, need to catch up and get back to decluttering. Welcome ThatWentBadly, hope Kondo is going well.

EllieQ Sorry you have been having a tough time with DD, homeschooling is very hard on you and them. Hope this week has been better?

Three old batteries
Another calpol syringe
Four books
Three tops Dd has out grown and
A lightbulb

Yes to the router as it’s technically the current one, I just have purchased my own mesh set up. But if the internet was to go down, talk talk would ask me to plug it back in. The echos I’m keeping because when my partner finally removes his sound system back to his house I’ll be plugging them in.

The picture frames - if I haven’t hung them up with photos in by the end of the week I’m taking them to the bric-à-brac at the tip. I’ll admit I got back into bed rather than start on the desk but I’m cracking on with it now.

I hope you don’t mind me using you all for sanity checking. I need someone to tell me my reason for keeping something is a pile of poo. My other half says, your stuff, your house do what you want.

Yes, I also find listing items for sale/free a pain! Once listed, I just want it gone. I use Gumtree/Nextdoor/Freecycle but it's time consuming.

absolutely don't mind being used for a sanity check. i do the same sometimes.

just taken a parcel of eBay sales to the post office. cost me slightly more to post than i made on it. but its out the house. so that's a win in my eyes.

This week has been easier, thanks @AlexTheLittleCat. I got some useful advice from the thread I posted in Parenting about being stuck in a cycle of actions/ reactions and needing to change what I do. I’d really shocked myself by being so angry with her, and it’s helped.

Looking forward to schools reopening on 8 March - I think she will be much happier!

EllieQ Glad this week has been easier. Mine has lots of tantrums too and it is hard. It's good that schools are reopening soon. I'm reading the other thread too. The Incredible Years book is supposed to be good, they do parenting courses based on it. I have it and haven't read it yet . That is something I need to declutter, I have lots of parenting books that I read once and never touch again. When the kids are asleep, the last thing I want to do is read them, I need some me time.

@SleepingStandingUp Are you having more luck with the new nappies at night? One thing I remembered that made toddler's nappy leak as a baby was fastening the poppers on vests. They fit well with a fresh nappy, but when the nappy got bigger through the night, they pushed on it and it leaked. Switched to pyjamas and it is much better, as long as they have plenty of room around the nappy.

Bedroom done, living room done. I have three plastic rattan tubs in the space where the desk was. 1 tub where I put my shoes that I take off upstairs, so that I can take them downstairs! One tub for my exercise resistance bands as I can now use them in the space where the desk was. And one last tub with the remaining junk to sort, not much but just some left over bits. My next job will be the bathroom and then I have clothes DS has grown out of in his room. I also have a coffee table in DS room I had put there so he could play with Lego but he doesn’t use it so that’s going in the shed as it’s not mine to throw away. I hate throwing away DS clothes but I have to stop holding on to things.

And then...the biggie the kitchen. I have 20ish cupboards rammed with I don’t know what.

Another bookcase cleared of outgrown books. I've been ruthless on the ones I'm keeping for Grandchildren. Real favourites only, not the ones that were quite liked. Hoping to catch my neighbour with a 3yo, she is often happy to take outgrown books and games... And when her son tires of them they go to his nursery or charity shop.

DD1 went through her drawers earlier. I need to go through the stuff again to work out what to keep for DD2.

Keep going everyone, sounds like you are all doing great.
Also been through DD

Wow! Some excellent decluttering work going on.
Out here was a hairdryer box. I have posted an item for sale on Gumtree.

Out:

• 3 tshirts sold
• 4 mugs for charity
• 2 giant pipe cleaner things for cleaning radiators, but never worked/fit properly, so out they go
• another room spray I don't care for

10 items, so I'm up to 368!

Still nothing new in, but I actually ordered some storage crates last night that will arrive in a few weeks. They're mostly for under sink storage as I find it really helpful to keep cleaning supplies together and not have to dig everything out to get to one item at the back of the cupboard!

DH took the clothes for nursery today. I need to double check the details for the icollectclothes thing, and put them out for tomorrow.

Day 168:
Photos and emails
Coat hanger recycled
Garden patio tidy abs two plastic containers recycled.
1 leaky reusable nappy cut up for rags.

319: microwave omelette maker
320: couple of ice cube trays
321: some glass ramekins
322: some of DSs art work
323: other bits of paperwork and newsletters
324: broken plastic box
325: another pile of DSs papers gone through and thinned
325: a toy snake torn asunder by one of the twins
326: some books put into the charity pile as Ziffit doesn't want them

@AlexTheLittleCat tbh they have a warm room so don't tend to have vests on under their sleepsuits and the oy thing that's worked is changing them when we go to bed / wake up for a drink.

327: dummy steraliser
328: some long handled baby spoons

Sounds like you’re making a lot of progress, Sleeping!

2021 day 55 update:

General decluttering: put a pair of socks into the fabric recycling bags as one had a hole in the toe. I have been dithering about mending them, but finally decided it wasn’t worth it as they’re not very comfortable!

I’ve been trying to spend more time with DD after I finish work. I realised that despite us all being at home, we were spending less time actually interacting with her (apart from homeschooling), and were just letting her watch TV while we got on with household stuff or had a rest. While this is going well, it means I’ve got less time for decluttering during the week. Feels like very slow progress.

Three dummies for Dd. They’re the wrong ones. She doesn’t like them so why have I kept hold of them for so long?!

I also found new ones under my bed in storage so will wheedle out some of her current ones which have gone a bit ick.

Well done yorkshiremummyof1 I am very envious that you finished these areas so quickly.

alexthelittlecat I hate listing items to sell / giveaway. I tend to list a dozen things at once just to deal with all the messages, staying at home for when they collect (or don’t collect!) so it becomes a big job. I have lots of stuff to list now - maybe I’ll do it at the weekend.

sleeping you’re whizzing through your kitchen. Are you seeing a difference?

ellieq I feel the same, that I’m not spending much time with dc. Have you seen the thread that’s something like ‘silly things I do that make me laugh’? It’s just full of Mumsnetters who have conversations with their cats, dance at home, put googly eyes on their photos. I read it the other night and realised how boring I have been since lockdown. So I did all kinds of stupid stuff yesterday - dancing, singing and dc loves it. We also had an Italian themed food night. Sometimes when we have Chinese or Mexican I’ll have on music form that country or if it’s chinese new year we’ll watch quick videos of China. Last night we had vienetta after our spag bol and listened to Italian music. The cornetto music came on so I laughed at the adverts and chatted about Venice, gondolas, 80s adverts. When we do that sort of stuff dinner can take a couple of hours, the conversation goes in random directions and Is quite fun. I hate mealtimes as a three because they can be quite functional and my asd children don’t exactly have the best conversation skills so sometimes we need a theme.

Anyway into decluttering. More of my larder cupboard. I have lots of stock cubes. It’s a habit to pick them up in the supermarket. So I put them in a Tupperware. I emptied a few boxes into it and threw them away. Anyway it’s nicely organised and rejigged. I also found an empty soy sauce bottle.

And three pens that didn’t work.

Sorting and tidying yesyerday. Three large shoeboxes had been stacked under the kitchen table for several years. No exaggeration. I've ignored them for that length of time becausethey just became part of the furniture, and then I couldn't remember what was in them, and then I dreaded finding out what was in them.

Opened them up yesterday, and it was a huge relief to see that most of the contents were simply bits and pices that had never been put where they belonged during some mad tidy up. eg a cord for curtains now with its other half. Four protectors for my seatbelts. Doing it was mostly a sort-and-tidy job. Reduced the three boxes to one. Stopped because my legs were tired from going up and down stairs. The final box will get finished off more slowly, as it is the hardest remaining.

Decluttered - More rotten bits of fence are in bin, along with another broken ball pump adaptor.

another broken peg has been binned.

i also finished a face mask yesterday so that's another thing gone. yay.

Today’s declutter was a good one. I took a large empty box and filled it with 20 of stbexh s books to go in the garage. The IQ level of the bookcase has gone down now by about 10 points! I also found 9 of my own books that I can happily give away.

Best of all 3 plastic bags. I thought i had run out and I can fill these with some shoes I got rid of ages ago and dc’s jackets for the Salvation Army clothes / shoe bank. I’m excited at the prospect of getting stuff actually out of the house.

I am going to do more painting this afternoon. I feel very inspired as I’ve seen a beautiful house on right move with dark banisters but white painted spindles. I have been wanting to paint mine or replace with glass for years and even bought the expensive zinser paint to do it about 3 years ago. So I am going to crack on with the landing and then do the woodwork and then the spindles. I want to be finished before Easter by doing half an hour a day.

Since I posted last week, I have done a lot of bits and pieces.

We have a A4 shallow box on the kitchen worksurface which houses a lot of supplements and medications for the pets. The box was next to the food caddy so had got really grotty where people had missed the food caddy with little bits of vegetable peelings etc.. I emptied the box and cleaned it. It has now been moved further away from the caddy, and only current, or very recent, stuff put back. I now have a ziploc bag of medication to take to the vet for disposal, next time we are there. There is a shelf in a cupboard above the box that may have some more out-of-date animal medicines, so I hope to empty and sort that this weekend.

I got back to looking at more of the boxes of stuff sitting around waiting to be sorted. I put a lot of things away, and chucked some more. I sorted through three boxes, eventually emptying two, and putting the leftover stuff into one of the smaller ones.

I put 2 pairs of the recently cleaned footwear in a bag, and a coat, a jacket and some smaller clothes in another. I took them with me to Tesco on Sunday but the Salvation Army bin was chock-a-block, so I didn't get rid of them. I have left them in the car for this coming weekend. I did, however, get rid of a large pile of bottles and jars in the bottlebank and a bag of plastic bags at the collection point in the supermarket itself.

On Sunday I also rescued a large towel from the mending bag, cut off the frayed sides and rehemmed them. It is a very useful dog towel that can cover a large area. It has been out of action for a while, so it will be good to get it back in the car again.

The only sunny, dry lunchtime last week I did some gardening, and filled the brown bin with prunings. That was collected on Friday. It is paper and cardboard bin tomorrow so I am aiming to sort out more paperwork tonight.

@stealthninjamum not really, it's all little bits out of cupboards and they're still quite full but hopefully it'll keep it tidier long term.

I feel a bit demotivated by life right now. Might suggest the DH loads the kids into the car and goes to his Mom's one day and get a load of work done but it's a bit like wading through treacle sometimes

Trying to have a good catch up with this thread now..

@EllieQ can you put charity bags in the car boot? Also how's the parenting going? I'm putting in a good routine for a week to see how that goes.

@stealthninjamum I love to hear by our painting progress.

@Yorkshiremummyof1 my rule has come from this thread. At least one thing a day. Not necessarily out of the house but I have a bag for the charity shop on the go all the time so if it goes in the bag it's fine.
I also update on her everyday so I'm accountable to someone. I also make sure I delete emails and digital photos almost daily.