I’m doing the 31 Day declutter challenge

[Sallygoroundtheroses]

I’ve done it before but not for a while. Despite a huge effort to declutter last year, the house is looking a bit chaotic again. So 1 item on day 1, 2 on day 2 etc.

I’m off to find an item…

2 sets of measuring spoons
2 manky old food cover thingys
Half a box of cheese labels
Pile of boxes and tubes for local charity who need junk box modelling stuff.

94/496, it’s quite time consuming tbh, but I’m going to keep chipping away

1 craft kit, 2 recorded tv programmes, 1 lurking tub of brandy butter, pair of pants and odd socks.
Think I'm on track. Now I need to find a nice but firm phrase to stop people buying me stuff for my January birthday. Gifts are lovely and so kind, but I can't think of things I need.

Bit late to this so am going to get started this evening! Sounds fab!!

Today includes 5 x old spice jars cleared out, 4 x bits of 'artwork' from DD and an old instruction leaflet. Takes me up to 117 / 310. Every little counts!

I've been keeping count but this week I threw out
old boxer
Old socks
Two tops with marks on

Mixed bag and a bit like pulling teeth but managed 9 and a half today - 4 pairs old underwear, pretty gift box (sadly, but specific to the gift inside, no other use), half tin expired fruit (by eating it), large bundle of tissues from decluttering handbag counting as 1 item, ancient roll of baking parchment, 2 boxes from other kitchen bags on rolls. Running total 102.5 / 500

Made a start on the loft today. Loads of cardboard boxes into recycling. Several annuals to take into work for kids to cut up. Sorted out one pile of the kids school books, only kept art, English and topic books. The rest are in the recycling. I know there's more in the other loft.

Some books earmarked to go, some shelves ready to be listed on olio and a spice rack.

Dd2 made a start on her room, she has some books to go and not sure what else.

I "banked" 3 bits and pieces today which I'm going to let myself count towards future days when I may be struggling or short of time. So far, so good though!

Day 8

Just some old bits of paperwork and yet another old crochet sample (I'm finding these all over the place!)

109/310

I'd rather do a drawer or cupboard a day. Otherwise the early days are pointless. I have whole drawers that could give me 30, 40, 50 things to get rid of!

Day 8 cont.

1 necklace
Cleaned out purse - 1 pile of receipts
4 old loyalty cards
1 lipstick
6 old ehic cards
Tweezers
1 stocking
1 book

261/496

I'm not counting (totally forgot and have had 3 / 4 days of sorting)

Did my yarn today. I had projects and stash yarn in 16 different bags / drawers etc round the house. I put them all on my bed and sorted them into yarn weighs and vague colours then vacuum packed them into 4 big vac packs

They're all in 1 cupboard and the projects I'm working on are in 1 small basket in the living room

I'm over the moon to have done it and now have piles of empty tote bags (charity shopped 5 of them) and some empty cupboards and drawers

I've now put 2 IKEA bags into a cupboard in our bedroom too. One for charity stuff and 1 for the clothing bin in Tesco

Ds put a pair of jarmies on after his shower - they were skin tight so he stripped them off and took himself off to the cupboard to pop them in rhe right bag

I'm hoping that training him will massively help

I am working all this coming week but I aim for the following:

Monday - My clothes
Tuesday - My sons clothes
Wednesday - Book cases
Thursday - Sons 2 upstairs toy boxes
Friday and the weekend - Delve into the cupboards of doom...

Been a bit flakey the past few days so today I tackled the medicine shelf and the dry goods shelf.

Six opened and now out of date packets out, one out of date pack of dried noodles and four lots of OOD medication

I have Cupboards of Doom too. I have been putting them off.

Haven’t posted for a couple of days.

Yesterday I opened the charity bag full of old kids’ clothes which has been gathering dust under the stairs and counted 20 items in it. I will keep adding to it and then actually drop it off!

Today I found 10 cosmetics which I will never use up so threw them out.

108/500 - pleased to have hit 3 figures but I’ll need to up the pace to hit the target!

Bizarrely I was dropping DD1 off at a birthday party yesterday and found an IKEA muffin tin on a garden wall which I took as I was planning to buy a second one. The universe is clearly paying me back for leaving my own stuff outside to be taken!

Didn't make it to the charity shop today and not sure I'll manage tomorrow but fingers crossed! Ten items (including bag) ready to go. Binned an old purse that was lying on top of a book case for some unknown reason and gathered a lot of dust whilst there... Also chucked some more Christmas cards so currently on 34/36.

Didn't quite make it to weekend target of 34 but made 25 and one parcel lined up to post tomorrow. So that means am ahead of game for tomorrow's numbers but probably will need to catch up later in week for Tues.

Strangely encouraging to see all your posts, motivated me to keep sorting tonight when would have happily just scrolled on phone instead

Have just binned three incomplete puzzles (the pieces are somewhere in the house but the puzzles were never played with even when they were complete. I've added a wooden tissue box (lovely, but we've gone fully reusable), a flute toy that will tip me over the edge if the DC get hold of it, and a little jar/ pot that I have pardoned from the charity pile so often it's become a bit ridiculous, to the charity bag (which is now in danger of ripping).

37/36 now

Early morning Sweep of the house has yielded
Ood Anhel delight
2 x pot of vitamins/supplements that I never use
1 pack of jelly
Pair of kids shoes
1 greasy hsndcream
Box of cereal the dc don't like

87/496

I would love to do that Stacey Solomon show- where you group it all in sections and bin and flog together.
But instead I am faffing with various bits - some to sell some to donate etc etc