Decluttering one item a day (and counting down til the opening of charity shops!) – thread number 17

[stealthninjamum]

This is an accountability and chat thread for mumsnetters who dream of living in an uncluttered haven of calm and tidiness.

Bit by bit we are slowly decluttering our houses and keeping our fingers crossed that charity shops will open on 12th April – although we’re also adding to the list of places in the second post that will also take our clutter.

The aim of this thread is to help us get rid of just one item a day or 365 a year. We just report back on our progress and then chat about anything and everything. The thread is for anyone so newbies are always welcome.

Previous thread here.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/housekeeping/4144854-Decluttering-one-item-a-day-and-having-nowhere-to-put-it-thread-number-16?msgid=105205665

Day 206: yesterday
12 national geographic mags
Ood samosa mix

Day 207: today
Listed hosepipe and Easter decs on freecycle

Hope everyone is ok.

@stealthninjamum it'll be fine. It seems like a mountain now but baby steps. You know this. One job at a time and you'll get there.

@Times10 I watched 'Sort your life out' last night.

I must admit I could relate to the mother. DP was upset there was no 'crusher' in this re-booted version of 'Life Laundry'. It did spark a discussion, though, and I have said we are really going to get on top of our stuff once this busy period at my work is finished. I think from the discussion it is pretty obvious that DP looks upon his clothes, his books, personal possessions, and perhaps tools, as being 'his', and everything else in the house is my responsibility to deal with.

Thanks @footprintsintheslow my problem is I start new projects before finishing the old ones. The kitchen is clean and I have started on the washing. Annoyingly my iron has broken. I don’t do much ironing so it’s not a disaster but I’ll pop to Argos later.

Still sorting Lego, a few more sets gathered together. Keep telling ourselves it’ll get easier as there are less parts to sort through but it doesn’t feel like it yet. Was it GreenWillow who was also tackling lots of Lego - haven’t seen her in a while hope she’s not buried in an avalanche of the stuff!
@Times10 I did watch found it very interesting. Think I would find it immensely stressful to do it all in such a short time frame. It would definitely help my aim of knowing what’s in every cupboard and drawer though. It did hit home though how stuff they regarded as really precious was just lost in the rest of the stuff. I also had cold sweats at the thought of everything being laid out like that!

Stealth - Your house sounds much like mine atm. I'm going to have to blitz it soon.

Well, the good news is that I have sold 3 items today!! I'm pretty thrilled. Two were collected and the other I need to post. It's been very time consuming but it's certainly nice to have made a few quid.

Had a break over Easter and not getting much done while feeling rubbish . I always do it in spurts as you’ve noticed I’m sure .
Steadily putting away old clothing to clothing bank at dump , rags and a few better ones to charity shop pile . One of the earmarked board games has been now played for the final time and is in the charity pile and my new crockery arrived albeit two cereal bowls broken in transit so old damaged ones are going out to dump next time am packing them up bit by bit . About to fold more laundry so might find more clothing to go . Kids are gone for two more days so I will try to get more done in the meantime although very tempted to just lie in bed since ill forever . Am dreaming of summer holidays by my own pool ...

I watched the tv programme and I’ve seen the original series in the similar format ( US one ?) . As someone said it really seemed they’d never gotten rid of anything I don’t understand how they’d fitted it all in their house but I guess that full garage had a lot of it . Puts things in perspective with their over 20 swimming goggles ( I think we have 2 for 2 kids ) , over 60 useless chargers, 3000 toys and 1000 books ! I’ve been doing this for a few years now and I don’t think we ever had that kind of amount and I thought we had crazy amounts with just 2 kids . I did count our kids dvds at so point and there were 80-100 . growing up we didn’t let DS16 watch tv just dvds with content we knew and no adds so we accumulated a lot . Now with Amazon prime , Netflix and Apple TV we don’t need the physical copies of any of them .
By now I’ve decluttered the last of them except a school concert and play ones .
Remaining rooms in this house still feel like a big task when I’m always so tired . I don’t even want to think about moving again after just doing it a year ago ! I think in the original one there was a family with so many clothes that in one room the pile was nearly touching the ceiling maybe it was on a bed but OMG ! I read somewhere they’d counted items in average family homes in the US and the total
Was something mind blowing also US homes had much more stuff than the average UK ones I seem to remember

A slow but steady trickle out of items via Vinted. Nothing much else to report except the decluttering of several Easter eggs...

@Nordicmum - Can you remember the name of that US programme? I'd like to see it if possible.

Well, I woke up super early and felt far more awake than I should so decided to start blitzing. I've cleaned quite a lot of the kitchen and tidied under the sink again and done bits in the bathroom too. I've got the shower curtain in the washing machine and the DW on.

Out: A plastic container which I was using but it seems unnecessary now.

I watched that TV programme too, thanks for recommending @times10.
@Gassylady I would find that really stressful too having all my possessions laid out like that. Much of my clutter was hidden away and I have only ever told one real life friend (who was on this thread briefly) how much I have got rid of. I liked the family and the programme gave just enough back story to see how they'd got like that but didn't focus on it. I started to watch the hoarders programme on Prime and (was it called Hoarders?) but that felt voyeuristic and very uncomfortable to watch. I liked the storage ideas and actually it inspired me to rejig my main food cupboard around. It sounds stupid but I'd never thought to change the heights of shelves in there. So I emptied out that cupboard and have a new home for oils and vinegars and have ordered a storage container for them to sit on. I try to have easy to cook food in for dd1 in case I'm ever ill. Well I discovered I have 10 jars of pasta sauce in case I get ill. I tend to cook things from scratch but have got in the habit of buying a jar of sauce when it's on offer which I rarely use. Anyway I used one up last night and will aim to get them down to about 3 as it's silly to have that much.

I spent yesterday painting, doing washing, bought a new iron, tidying and doing the kitchen cupboard. Only decluttered chocolate so not great from a decluttering perspective. Today I'm going to spend time with dc and attampt to go through the pile of their books.

Stealth decluttering chocolate seems a very purposeful activity!

Slow and steady progress here -
several pairs of threadbare socks binned after one last wear,
boxes from DC's new furniture out today with recycling,
bag of other non recycling packaging to the dump
along with dead lightbulbs,
several newspapers and magazines read and recycled too.

Both DC will be back for the summer so I am glad their rooms are now 'adult'. It will also assist me in the sorting of the room of doom as there will be stuff for them to decide on. They can also help with shifting the furniture around. My aim will be to have that room done by end August as we are likely to have family visiting early September and I would rather not have to just put stuff 'out of sight' once again.

The program was called ‘Consumed’ I think it was Canadian. Used to be on Netflix but haven’t seen it on there recently.

Hello everyone!
Hope you are all well, have been keeping up to date with the thread but have not been decluttering because baby Ice arrived on Mother's day and it has been a blur since then!
Going to sort through the children's books and will post later.

Can I join in? I saw the ‘sort your life out’ show on Monday and seem to have caught up already with throwing one thing out a day for this year (or at least bagging it up to go!)

Plastics cupboard stripped out, and only what we actually use has gone back in... we don’t need 7 juicers. We don’t even use one

One (of four) bookcases has been stripped out and the majority of the books boxed up ready to go to charity when they can.

The medicine cupboard that desperately needed a clear out, but I didn’t realise how bad it had got! (Didn’t have any calpol syringes though!)

I’m not normally this productive, but I needed some bits to be urgently sorted, and it’s making my head a bit clearer so I don’t procrastinate so much while wondering where to start.

Ooh iceisnice congratulations! I hope you and babyice are well. As ever I’m impressed with mothers of newborns doing anything.

Welcome crispychickenthighs - an excellent start but I’m sure the calpol syringes will be hiding somewhere?

I ordered a little tray for my beautifully organised oils and vinegars and it was too small so I am about to order a second. I keep opening my food cupboard to admire it. I need to find a recipe next for my three bottles of ground coriander. I’ve also organised more photos and chucked a couple out. And I threw away a little card from Lapland uk. I was going to put it in dd2s memory box but she couldn’t remember going so I realised it’s more for me. I did find a photo of her and dd1 with a reindeer from that trip which I can stick in a picture frame I have. It replaces a picture of stbexh.

Thank you @stealthninjamum. We are really well thank you, he has fitted in perfectly to our crazy household and his two big sisters absolutely adored him.... phew!
I watched 'sort your life out' as well and I was gobsmacked at the amount of extras they had
... all those swimming goggles for example. Would have been nice if they could have said how much money they managed to raise from selling their unwanted items and at least a lot of items went to the donate pile.
Ok, I am starting the 2021 in 2021 again because I have lost count and haven't listed all the bits I managed to get rid of just before baby ice was born.
Today I tackled the children's books and have 37 for the donation pile. So 37/2021.

Congratulations Ice !
I'm really not making progress bit just checking in. I have 2 weeks until my surgery so have been ordering various things to assist with the recovery, some of which I never knew existed!!! Did a large H&M order yesterday as DD needs some new clothes and I need shirts for post op. We won't be keeping everything.
The decluttering of Easter chocolate is going well.

Congratulations @Iceisnice hats off to both you and @footprintsintheslow I didn’t emerge from newborn sleep deprivation/chaos until youngest was about 12months!!
Hello @CrispyChickenThighs sounds like you are off to a flying start. I’m sure someone could send you some calpol syringes so you don’t feel left out
I’ve sorted yet more Lego today but none actually out as yet. I also had a bit of a lightbulb moment last week. It was paper recycling day and I only had one bag, when I started sorting old paperwork we would regularly put out six at a time. We’ve actually just about caught up. Feels great

Day 208:
4 baby sleeping bags via freecycle
Too small baby clothes in the bag for my friend.

I have about a hundred children’s books to go and a bookcase. I have a big pile of books that are staying but several other book cases dotted around. Dd2 loves reading and I used to compulsively buy them to read to dd2 to encourage her to read. Most are second hand so I couldn’t sell on ziffit but I might try with some of the new ones.

Decluttered one small purse
One broken pair sunglasses.
One biscuit tin into recycling and about a dozen six-year-old biscuits into food bin.

Thank you @Vinorosso74 and @Gassylady.
Hope you can find everything you need to help recovery and some treats as well @vinorosso.
I am tackling the craft stuff and baby clothes that ice baby has outgrown already. Hope you all have a lovely day.

Day 209:
1 knitted boob given to health visitor.