Decluttering Thread 3 - Decluttering on bit at a time

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Just realised we filled up Thread 2 without a way to link to this one, can’t see that anyone else has started one?

I did drop back the borrowed boots, go me!

didn’t tackle the umbrella pot/dumping ground though

Thanks separatedmum I knew someone would know a place that might want swimming goggles. Dd2 said they ‘don’t work’ but I’ll check them. She also said she wants to keep them which is really annoying but I suppose they can go in her swimming bag rather than the utility room which was my original project.

My other plan is to do my bedroom this week. I have emptied a drawer in my bedroom, it had an unwanted toy helicopter which I put on freecycle because we couldn’t get it to work but someone else might.

Have been feeling meh about getting anything done and annoyed with myself at the same time for doing nothing.

so, listed a shower stool on fb and that’s going tomorrow morning (my DBro needed it when staying with us recently after a cycling accident but don’t need it cluttering up the place anymore)

also listed a pile of mixed toy trains, did get a message about it but unclear if that person can collect.

also offered a bunch of craft stuff and ink stamps, no interest yet.

so, a start of sorts.

What do you do with cuddly toys that are good as new? Do charity shops take them?

I don't know what to do with cuddly toys either. There is the Teddy Trust but they only want teddies.

I have millions!

Lots of schools have teddy tombolas in their Christmas or summer fairs. A couple of years ago I had a big bag of cuddly toys and I advertised it on Facebook for free and a pta mum from another school came and collected it. November’s a good month to get rid of teddies as it’s definitely the Christmas fair season.

I got rid of old crockery in the same way - some schools have a crockery smashing stall too which now I think about it isn’t very green.

Some charity shops take teddy bears too.

Having smart meter installed today so I had to clear space in garage for access. Sound good? Not really items in the way taken round to D’s garage round the corner from us which is already bulging at the seams. Cannot believe we hired a skip two years ago to clear both garages out and we are now in the same position.
On the plus side, I couldn’t find some paper I wanted for craft making so have organised the paper shelf in my craft room. All colour coded now and useless bits recycled. Just a box of odd bits hiding under desk to sort…ooh and the rest of the room!

@DorritLittle You have to check with individual charity shops.
Some will take soft toys in good condition with CE labels, others don’t take them at all. A lot of our labels had been cut off “to make them more realistic”. Sigh!

I agree what @stealthninjamum said. I hit the jackpot a couple of weeks ago, and replied to a Facebook post on a local site that was looking for teddies for fundraising. It turned out that they wanted any soft toys, not just teddies, and they didn’t care about intact CE labels as long as they were in good condition. ( I think a tombola was also mentioned in our exchange of messages.)

Anyway, when I had sorted them all out, someone came to collect a very large bagful, so I got rid of 24 stuffed animals in total, of various kinds and sizes.

Good call about the school raffle. I will have a look on Facebook! Thank you.

Just looked back and I haven’t updated since the beginning of October. Despite my best intentions, I was ill last month, so didn’t manage to get as much done as I had planned.

I have managed to get more out of the house.

2 bags of clothing in reasonable condition went into the Salvation Army bin at Tesco at the beginning of October.

This month I collared the “child” to help sort out the Christmas decorations. They took some stuff away for their flat and a large bag of other decorations went to a local Charity shop on Saturday, as well as my mother’s Christmas tree.
I haven’t sorted out the majority of the tree decorations yet - I think they will have to wait until another year. I also took a large bag of textiles for recycling to that shop.

Today we went out for lunch and I took a large bag of clothing and a box of mugs to one of my favoured Charity shops in the next town. The mugs were from of a box of old mugs and glasses I found in the loft a couple of months ago. It had come from the loft of our old house and I was absolutely positive that I had already got rid of the contents!

On the past two blue bin (landfill) days I have managed to put in an extra bag of random bits and pieces. I actually got around to collecting together a number of things that I had already mentally earmarked for disposal. I also chucked some holey boots of DP’s that he had replaced. (Our Council textile bins ask for paired footwear, so I don’t think they recycle unusable footwear.)

I have also been listing around 6 items a month on eBay this year, so am chipping away at that pile, and also my stash of cardboard boxes, used poly mailers and bubble wrap.

This Friday it is our paper/cardboard bin collection, so I am planning on thinning out some of my stored boxes. I have already replaced a very tatty one that held Christmas decorations.

The shower stool went this morning ✅

box of craft supplies going tomorrow …

pile of toy trains not gone yet.

have got back into my routine of unsubscribing from junk emails as they come in instead of just deleting them

hoping to crack on with Christmas shopping and start decorations (early Christmas with PIL this weekend) tomorrow.

have got a large box of bits to donate to the Christmas charity collection this weekend, but need to add some food stuff, need a proper list before tomorrow.

Spent most of today trying to unjam my beloved shredder. I think it’s dead. So I am going to put it in the car with a broken fan that’s been sitting in my bedroom for months and some wires to go to the tip. I realise I haven’t been to the dump since before covid because of their stupid new booking system. I looked today and you can pretty much get an appointment on the day now so I’m going to put stuff in the boot and then go to the tip when I have a moment.

My bedrooms not looking much better so I am going to do a bit more on that tomorrow.

I've been watching this thread bit I'm only a very intermittent poster, however today I want to celebrate that despite lots of difficulties going on for me and having a streaming cold, I have taken 3 cans of paint ( colours no longer in my home) and a broken crate on wheels to the tip and two bags of random items to the charity shop!
I have my sister coming to stay overnight next week and my elderly and unwell mum coming for Christmas so the spare room does need to be sorted out a bit!

Well done to you!!

the box of craft bits got collected.
no movement on the box of toy trains.

have not progressed any further with sorting out the vast Thomas collection for DNephew vs eBay vs charity.

Sunday is the charity Christmas collection day so I have some time still.

have started cluttering the house with Christmas crap/tat/decorations/presents though…

Thank you! <bows>
Glad you made some progress too. I know what you mean about Christmas clutter!

decorations really do clutter the place up! I love Christmas in some ways and look forward to tidying it all up in others.

not helped by the pre lit tree only being partly pre lit this year for some reason 🤷‍♀️ hoping to turn the ‘dark side’ to the corner and no one will notice.

want a real tree for the new extension but haven’t got organised to buy one yet. Also just twigged that I want a big one and it won’t fit in the car, will have to find a delivery option if that’s a thing?

I've been a bit rubbish recently too. I have been quite busy which doesn't help but still!
I feel like clutter is taking over again but I'm the only one who seems bothered by it. There's lots of little jobs need doing too, some of which I can't do (not tall enough) but they just don't get done.

Nothing done since last weekend. DD has been ill and off school for a few days, so I missed the deadline for donating stuff to the school Xmas fair. There are a couple of other charity collections going on locally, so I’ll try to get one to one of those. Haven’t found a charity that would take maternity clothes, so may end up putting them in the usual charity bank.

DH is away visiting his family this weekend so I probably won’t have a chance to do any more decluttering. A few Xmas decorations are out, though we won’t put the tree up yet, and more stuff is coming into the house from DD’s Advent calendar (Smiggle - mainly stationery), plus she won two soft toys at the tombola at the fair, plus I bought four books from the book stall. I’m my own worst enemy!

I've had a good day after a very mentally challenging week. I've cleared a load of rubbish out from the living room, taken a large bag of clothes to the charity shop, given away a load of wellie socks, and generally had a good tidy and chuck out of rubbish.

We’ve been rejigging the children’s bedroom so all three DC are now in one room, with the hope that the 4 year old will sleep through the night in his own bed if he’s with his sisters. Got rid of the toy kitchen to facilitate the move, and it went very quickly on Olio.

Also bought a new wardrobe/chest of drawers unit, which looks great but there’s loads of cardboard packaging hanging around and various Black Friday amazon boxes which need to be recycled, an old chair that needs to be dumped, four bags of clothes for charity… It feels overwhelmingly cluttered right now but once we can start getting the stuff out of the door it’ll feel better. I hope!

Just ticking over here. Have a few more bits listed on eBay hopefully a couple at least will be gone by next weekend. Sideboard drawers yielded a few old party invitations and some empty party bags 🤷‍♀️ Few more holed socks intercepted from the washing. A kids dressing gown, some tops of mine that are comedy big now and some books to start the new charity bag.

Bag of rags gone to fabric recycling, some books and toys to the charity shop. We have reached 2,003 items out this year.

However after 2 November birthdays it's feeling quite cluttered in our small space and will get worse at Christmas. We're on a very tight budget this year so the dc won't get much from us but they will get bits from extended family (which I'm very grateful for) and there is nowhere to put it.

Pair of holey socks in the fabric recycling

Big box of Christmas tat (books too young for my DC, excess wrapping stuff, etc) and bags of food donations gone to charity collection yesterday

(did end up bringing home a mountain of sorted donations but have dropped them off to their proper place today)

couple of birthday cards posted (on time not like usual!)

but mostly a lazy day here. Need to crack on with Christmas decorations as the boxes are just annoying me now. But need to order a real tree first, first time in years so not used to doing it.

I’m running around here doing things for dc like buying Xmas jumpers and selling raffle tickets for the school fair. Last night dd1 announced I needed to buy a present for a child by tomorrow so I have popped into town to get something. so decluttering has taken a backseat somewhat.

Anyway I have bought a new shredder but not got round to shredding anything yet. I have added some gift bags to the charity shop pile and put a few things for sale on Facebook.

Today I found myself throwing away about 8 headlice combs. We still have 4. One had a very dead louse in it from about six years ago.