Decluttering Club thread 20(22)!

[Mommabear20]

Let's go!

@EllieQ - are you frustrated beacuse you see others enjoying their free time and not bothering? If so can you set aside a joint 30 minutes to declutter? Otherwise can you "compensate" yourself in some other way - eg that you'll buy a nice bottle of wine or bath oil when you've cleared a particular area? One thing I will say is that, having now decluttered a lot of the house and given things designated places I find that my life is a lot easier and things are quicker to do.

Today I managed to take a bag to the charity shop so about a dozen items out!

Today I took a bag of old pairs of glasses to the opticians, they send them to charity.

I’m spending my time cluttering now. Need to put back the kitchen things.

Yesterday our dining room wine cabinet came as did the 6 chairs for there . I’ll order the table once the elliptical has been moved hopefully . In the meantime I’m going through rest of the storage locker boxes. I now have 9 left in total , DH brought the rest from the locker on Fri evening before going to his moms . There were 23 in total ( apparently 2 of Lego left in the locker we’ll try to donate ). I now have 9 left . I’ve done 14 so far, 3 of which last night . They took a while since I looked through every bit of paper in them . One was more kids school work booked and notes , one of kids art ( need to weed this though a bit more but tossed quite a bit and it’s contents is in a new labelled box now ) and then one of cards from the last 20 y .I thought I’d keep all of them since I have already weeded through them but went through again and got rid of 40 more which is good for me . Now I have left 2 boxes of kids picture books , 2 memory boxes , 1 school work books and notes , 2 kids art , 1 camping , 1 new wall picture frames . I’ll try to do a few more today . I’ve asked DH to start hauling the rest of the items from the locker to dump etc this weekend . It’ll take several trips so I want him to get on with it on sat . On Sunday hopefully going out to Mother’s Day lunch . My mantra is “ Do more , think less “ with my household / life in general now since procrastinating has always been my problem !

nordicmom it sounds like you’re doing well. I love the idea of unpacking your storage boxes, you’re really going through things thoroughly. I’m at the stage where I randomly go through drawers but put a lot back for another time and never quite finish.

Anyway my current project is the playroom. It’s inspired by dd2 who emptied her bedroom and is receptive to giving away / chucking out toys at the moment. I emptied one of the canvas storage boxes in the furniture and have so far thrown away about 50 items. I don’t throw things out unless dc see them usually but there seem to be lots of crap like feathers, stones, parts of toy sets (eg octonaughts, paw patrol, Disney dolls) that we got rid of ages ago so dc won’t complain about them going. I’m feeling annoyed about how many of these bits there are given I regularly empty these drawers and usually sell complete sets. When I’ve got rid of them I’ll present the remaining toys to dc who I suspect will be happy to throw them out / donate charity.

Loving the dedication to declutter wine and gin.
Binned some home learning creations from one of the lockdowns. Also found some notebooks from home learning which have been put in the recycling. I'm surprised I didn't just burn the lot!!!! Several dried up felt tip pens also binned.

Stealth I’ve been throwing away 3/4-2/3 of what was in that storage locker so far ! Proud of myself and happy to be letting go . We don’t need most of this stuff anymore at all but I needed that time to get to that point with the kids clothes and my old too small clothes and kids art , school books etc .

And I’m all about finishing projects and areas. Half finished things drive me crazy , i hate mess and chaos and dirt and if I don’t constantly do stuff here that’s what happens . Generally I just want less of everything … I am annoyed at cleaning and tidying after other people constantly but at least I can get on with it all by myself now that kids are older and then I can enjoy the tidy house until the next day . I try to do my housework in the day DH and DS do stuff in the evening on weekdays . I try to do admin and maybe clean laundry folding after school pick up but no more cleaning etc .

Well done Nordic!

Today's out was a pair of carved stone heads that DP bought back from Africa ages ago and which I've never really liked. I'd thought about selling them on ebay but they are really heavy so postage would be impossible. I dropped them off at the charity shop this afternoon and as the guy took them to the back room I could ear someone asking how much they'd be so hopefully they've now gone to a more appreciative home.

One dress sold on Vinted taken to post today.

this won't help anyone but me however; several colleges started boasting a while back on the WhatsApp about how they love tidy drawers and I know some people get off on that it makes me sad because it's very hard to achieve especially in my overcrowded house ⏩ to today the boss let's slip that he's got stuff in drawers he doesn't know what it is and "I never throw anything away" 🙊 wow! so it's not all 10000% tidy then? it just somehow made me feel better 🤐

should also mention that I tidied the front yard on weekend and decluttered leaves /bits out of it and got rid of some boxes today

There’s definitely some frustration with other people (DH) @londonmummy1966 ! It’s not that he won’t declutter, but he does nothing for ages, then (usually after I’ve got annoyed) does a lot in one afternoon and makes a Big Deal about it.

Last weekend he had to go through a bag of paperwork to find something essential. This meant he spent about two hours in the dining room sorting, piling, and organising and reduced the bag down to half its size. It struck me that if I’d been doing that job on a Sunday afternoon, I wouldn’t have had an uninterrupted two hours. I would have been trying to do other stuff at the same time (laundry, prep for the week ahead), DH would have wandered in every so often to show me something on FB that he found amusing/ interesting, DD would have come in to ask if I had finished and if I would play with her now, despite DH being in the house…

Another source of frustration is that my life is so tightly timetabled, so any spare time is limited and it annoys me when I lose it to something that needs to be done. I know that decluttering will make life easier in the future, but it can be hard to get motivated especially when I can only do tiny amounts at a time.

Anyway. Over the past two days I’ve sorted through two half-full bags of DD’s clothes and combined them into one bag of stuff to go to the charity shop or textile recycling, and a few items to keep. I’ve also shredded a pile of receipts that were stashed by the computer. So that’s something positive!

@EllieQ - really sympathise - I don't know how anyone declutters with DC around. I think that you need to carve out time to declutter whilst DH has the kids (I used to do this when I needed to sew in name tapes and made DH take them out for an allotted period of time -- usually 2 hours when he couldn't return early without getting extra chores to do.) Might this work for you? SO DH takes DC for 2 hours on a Saturday afternoon so you can declutter in peace. Penalty for coming home early is that you declutter what you want of his without his say so?

If that won't work then you do need to be able to buy yourself a treat for decluttering an area - if you don't reward yourself somehow you will end up resentful.

Continuing with sorting through mobiles, chargers, etc. Now have two clamshells that still charge up, and would be useful for starter phones. Looked on ebay for similar phones, and was surprised to find some. Mostly in worse condition than mine and no chargers, etc.

Three small boxes now reduced to one by recycling old instructions and warranties.

Still bagging up and labelling bags of clothes.

Hello all. Sounds like some splendid decluttering and sorting going on. @Nordicmom can I ask what you preferred storage boxes/crates are. We have a small room with some shelving built in that is currently a hotch potch of Christmas decorations/camping gear/plastic crockery etc If the extra was all in transparent crates that could stack if needed if would be so much more usable

My clothes storage bags are all sorted. Today I will be taking the resulting three bags to the charity shop. Also have sorted a couple of pairs of shoes to add. Have sold five items on eBay in the last couple of weeks too, steady progress.

Have come across a box of old first day covers and coin sets that were collected by a now deceased relative, no sentimental value to me and probably not worth much either. Best way to sell, eBay or auction house? Any ideas?

This was from 2 days ago, never posted!
Got a little free time this evening, did a couple of jobs and then a little declutter. Did ok actually. Want to clear stuff off one of the cupboards into a drawer, but it won't all fit yet. Tidied some bits away, and brought OH a few things I thought he would get rid of. A couple were gifts from me, nothing serious, but I think me asking if he wants to keep them kind of gives him permission to say no. I asked him to pop a couple of his books on the shelves and he said they could go. So an unexpected win there.

Gassy lady, honestly I would have a quick check on ebay to see if worth anything then charity shop if not. Think you can spend an awful lot of time selling stuff for pennies. That's my view anyway, I just end up with piles of stuff to sell, so now I just hey it out the house

@Pineappleapple I quite agree and most stuff like books and clothes I do just pass on or donate. But the first day covers and stuff may just take up lots of room in charity shop when chance of a fellow collector coming in is low. Thats why I wondered if anyone knows of a more specific site than eBay. I generally only sell stuff on eBay if I feel the lot or bundle will make more than £10 these days. It is very easy to feel you have sorted something out only for it to sit somewhere else in the house waiting for the elusive bid that never comes

Gassy lady, ah that makes sense. What is a first day cover? Hope someone else knows more than me can help!

@Gassylady this might be a useful port of call for the First Day Covers - seems they have a newsletter you can put an ad in.

www.gbfdc.co.uk/
Otherwise Oxfam see to sell a lot online so may well be set up to take a job lot in.

Today I gave a bag of evening dresses to a friend for her daughter who needs them for work so another out!

@londonmummy1966 thanks for the link I will check it out. Didn't realise Oxfam did stamp stuff so may do that as I could then gift aid the donation too

Sold an eyeshadow palette I don't use on Depop, posted today!

Hit a wall here after starting the week well! Not really anything of note gone. I'll see if I have any motivation after the weekend.

Gassy lady, ah it's stamps! They probably do have a nieche market.
Threw out a couple of blow bubble things, they leek and I always get them all over my hands. Need to replace probably as my LO loves bubbles but I never use these and they are cluttering the kitchen.