Decluttering Club thread 20(22)!

[Mommabear20]

Let's go!

A few outs today - random kinder egg toys and a charity shop paper back that had at some point got wet and wrinkled. Also went through some papers and put plenty in the recycling.

Fingers crossed the new meds will kick in soon Incessant - I remember feeling like death warmed up when I started on Venlafaxine.

Biggest out today was DD2 heading back to school with an enormous suitcase and 12 bags for life. She turns 18 later this week so 2 bags were full of Colin the caterpillar cakes and another 2 had presents in.

I managed to go through another storage bag from the airing cupboard and listed a coat on Vinted, topped up a Thrift+ bag and the charity shop bag. I also booked a collection for the Thrift bag tomorrow and have put a bag of clothes and a bag of non clothes in the hall to drop off at the charity shop tomorrow. Now that the DC have both left I binned all the random bits on the stairs that they have walked past all holiday on the grounds that if they wanted it they would have taken it/put it away. I also binned a whole boxful of pens etc - I've no idea if any of them worked but I just cba to find out as we're swimming in stationery anyway.

It is starting to get easier, partly as some things now have a home to go back to and partly because I'm growing a spine when it comes to getting rid of stuff.

I'm currently sat reading the life changing magic of tidying by Marie Kondo

I put three more items into my ragbag, dropped three glass jars to the recycling bank on my walk and put two candle holders into my charity bag.
I have been doing the declutter one item per day for over a year and I have lots of clear spaces now which I love. The areas that I have focused on are a lot easier to clean. My aim for 2022 is to clear the unused office and make it a nice tidy space. The door is permanently closed as it is filled with clutter.

I did really well yesterday! Had some time and some energy, so 3 carrier bags of clothes to go, the toss app suggested looking at tools so three things gone out of the DIY drawer. Asked oh to go through 2 drawers which I knew had stuff in he wouldn't want, reduced down to one and a bit. So I have some space to sort things into.

@Pineappleapple why have I never thought to go through the tool box???!!!!! Ours is massive so I can guarantee there's some stuff in there that can go!

Made two lasagnes yesterday. So two glass jars in recycling (ordinarily I’d make the white sauce but cba so bought it).

Rinsed out a candle jar which Has also gone to recycling.

So DH and I had a few words about the big old pile of stuff waiting to go to the charity shop. I'm guessing this may have been discussed before but I find our local charity shops quite intimidating. There's no parking so you schlep over from the main car park with a couple of bags and then the volunteers look horrified at the prospect of your donations (I guess I must look like someone who donates tat! Which I am not)

ANYWAY bypassed all of this and made peace by taking four large bags to the Salvation Army clothing bins, selling a box of books/DVDs on Ziffit and giving away some things on local FB site. Of the latter two, the FB stuff is going today and Ziffit are collecting tomorrow.

I cleared lots of things out the kitchen cupboards yesterday.

Sadly the items I've been listing haven't gone well at all. Two enquiries on Facebook and then nothing when one said she'd come over the weekend.

Total outs for year so far: 10

VikingNorthUtshire I feel the same way as you about charity shops. I have a favourite and I usually try to sneak in unseen with my bags of donations. I think in the last thread I mentioned that a couple of volunteers saw me and started moaning about people still donating stuff and you’d expect them to have finished emptying their houses 18 months after lockdown! It really upset me.

I had some craft bits collected yesterday. Today I’m going to catch up on housework and look through more craft stuff.

I dropped a load of books to Oxfam Books last week & have sorted another pile to go. Clothes from before Christmas that needed returning to the shops have gone back. I sold the ridiculously luxurious Sleepypod pet carrier for £100, that's being collected in the next day or so. It cost £200, they're now over £300 brand new, & it was only used once to carry a puppy home (in style 😀)

Task for today is to re-organise a load of clothes into storage. I got rid of a divan bed to make an office & all four drawers were full of summer clothes that I want to keep but don't need ready access to. Once I'd finally thrown away all the stuff I had been saving up to eBay that wasn't going to make a lot of money I realised I'd created useful space for the storage of things I actually want. It's like a positive version of domino rally - one domino falls over & the rest go as a result!

Didn’t do much yesterday, but recovering from booster jab effects, so not bothered.

I’ve realised i don’t have much left to declutter - just got to work through kitchen cupboards (tiny kitchen) and finish up my dressing room, which is half done. Its made me realise that its not really clutter thats making my house messy, its that I am not very good at housework - so depressing.

Tidying up ready for disability childrens socail workers first visit this afternoon. It's a tip but probably not a bad thing that she sees I'm not coping fantastically.

I offered some of dd outgrown clothes to someone looking for that size on FB. But they cant collect. In the spirt of getting rid I'm going to put it into the charity shop pile as i dont want to make lots of little trips when one big trip to charity or play group would do.

I need to do lots just to get presentable today I think

Good luck @IncessantNameChanger
We used to have social worker visits (ds2 got signed off when they de-escalated hundreds of families years ago), I always felt so stressed about my house being judged.

Shame about some charity shops making people feel bad.
The main one I go to is next to an Asda, so easy parking, get a trolley and wheel it over, they have a side door and so far always seem helpful.

I checked last time as had more than a trolley (persuaded Dd we were never going to make it to the boot sale!). And a bin bag full of cuddly toys. They were more than grateful, just wanted to know if I could gift aid.

Ahhh I am on another thread on here about the same thing!!

Day 10 & I have filled a mini skip (recycling) & done 4 charity shop runs. My family have not noticed.

Annoyingly the person who was coming yesterday to collect the fairy castle didn't show up, so I have relisted it and hopefully it will go today. Some ins in the form of clothing - mostly new school uniform bits to replace stuff that doesn't fit, so should be more or less one in out out. The DDs also cleared out some of their toys, including a hideous old doll they never play with but which I suspect DP will insist they keep, so I'm hiding the bag from him until I can chuck in another couple of things and then I'll bin it secretly when he's at football

In two minds whether to keep some of the old PE joggers for DS, but he's 3.5, doesn't start school till September and they're age 5-6, so realistically he won't be wearing them for at least another two years. I think I'd rather donate them than have them hanging around, as I've already got hand-me-down barely-used joggers from DD1 to DD2 to store, and these smaller ones have already been through two DC so had a decent use.

incessant I hope your visit goes well, they won’t expect a tidy house when you have four dc and sorry if I’ve misremembered but I think two have autism?

I have 10 found items in the playroom to go - some were plastic or wooden bits from toys that have already gone and 5 small cotton bags to be recycled.

I also managed to put together some playmobil people that I think can go to the charity shop. This is not a great thing to do - I usually run everything that goes past dds but I had the instructions with the playmobil people so the ocd part of me that likes to get rid of complete sets just wants them out of the house.

2022 total 54 items decluttered.

put some outgrown and not good leggings in clothes recycling on school run hope there'll be something else. eldest never cleared out those things ⬇️ so I'll have to do it 😤

I've been managing one or two things a day.

I gave Dneice around 20 childrens books, and binned around 40 old copies of the beano. It comes weekly and the 3 dc fight over it, but these never got reread just piled up on the bookcase.

Also chucked a small pile of tat I found.

Only half way through the bookcase but looking much better already!

Trawl through the pants and socks drawers yielded about 20 items for the ragbag. I have finally finished tidying and dusting the top of my bedside chest of drawers. That bit of the bedroom looking good. Need to sort out storage for shoes at some point but pretending not to notice for now 🤣🤣

A very unproductive day today. I fell over on NYE and am still feeling very sore so spent much of the day resting to see if that helps. My huge Thrift+ bag was collected so that is a major out though. Also something sold on ebay so I have packed it up and booked a Royal Mail collection for tomorrow - sadly that now costs 48p so I shall have to factor that in to future pricing. It does mean that the parcel is tracked from my door though so it is cheaper than sending recorded delivery.

I've also ordered 3 more Thrift bags as I will need them when I finally manage to get round to doing my wardrobe. At the moment needing them to arrive is a perfect excuse not to crack on with it....

Hopefully I'll feel a bit less sore tomorrow so can drop off some charity shop bags.

I didn't get the clothing sorted - that's for tomorrow - but did get a load of stuff that does actually need to be kept up in the loft. It's now in the company of around a million other things that don't need to be kept up there...😀

Got another couple of things listed for sale. Went through several bags of skincare & toiletries. I have a second home & I hadn't been during Covid until late last year, when I finally got there I brought all the skincare I'd left there back & it's just been sitting in a bag waiting to be sorted. I found a load of traditional nail polishes to give to a friend as I rarely paint kind these days & only do the LED ones when I do.

The new filing cabinet I ordered should have been here a few days ago, it seems Amazon has lost it but I gather they've found it & it should be delivered tomorrow, so my work document re-organisation can get underway 🙂

yes I just did one corner @Gassylady it does look better. also an old watch and some redundant instructions out from my running drawer

Not bad today considering I've been working. Another box of shredding on the compost heap. 2 toys and a load of candles gifted on Facebook!

Back of the same cupboard is the gift that keeps giving here - more clothes for recycling and charity shop as well as rubbish for the bin. I got rid of a couple of items of clothing I would never use again but had kept for the memories - can no longer remember why!?!?!