Decluttering at the speed of life

[Sallygoroundtheroses]

The follow on from www.mumsnet.com/talk/housekeeping/4709904-im-doing-the-31-day-declutter-challenge?page=21&reply=123534967 as we go into February and maybe beyond. We are no longer doing the numbers challenge but chucking, recycling, regifting and reselling the clutter in our life.

*The title is a nod to Dana K White, someone who has helped me declutter.

It’s the twins’ birthday next month- we still have unopened stuff sitting in the cupboard from Christmas. Dread to think what their birthdays will bring! I find it emotionally difficult getting rid of kids’ stuff, when it’s been bought and given with love. Also lots of the toys have many pieces and they end up everywhere, under furniture, so I don’t even have complete sets to pass on. But I agree, keeping on top of toy clutter is a huge challenge.

Really struggling with the time and effort it takes to sell stuff. I'd LIVE to just take it all to charity, but I'm skint. But I just want rid of it and it's sooooo time consuming!

Anyone else just got rid of the lot?

Just catching up, welcome @HelebethH . @DitzyDaffodils I have never managed one in one out. It’s seems to be too sensible an idea for my brain to compute.
we are still getting presents now! So I’m going to go
through all the toy boxes again.

I have charity shopped where I could have sold @Bemyclementine because of time. I wonder if just selling bundles would be better.

I'm still continuing the January challenge, ie. 1 item on the first, 2 on the second, etc. I'm a bit behind because health keeps getting in the way but I added it up this morning and realised that we have got rid of 1,014 items so far this year! We're being very strict too, e.g., consumables don't count (or we'd just eat and drink everything to cheat!) and some things are bundled together, e.g., a bunch of old mortgage paperwork was just counted as a single item.

with toys even if given with love doesn't mean you have to keep it in your house, if you get 3 very similar toys just either place two in a pile to be regifted or donated or sell 2 and earmark that money for the child who they were given to, once a gift is given it is given and becomes yours to do as you wish with.
there are some you tubers that talk specifically about dealing with unwanted ( whether it is because there are too many or it's not something you like) gifts and sentimental items

2 bags of books to the charity shop yesterday. Definitely more to go, but everything is now on shelves, rather than also stacked up all over the place!

What has been positive (because I’ve been whining a lot on here) has been that my OH has continued to go through stuff. We have a huge amount of art supplies because of his job and the children and so I never go through it because I don’t know what should stay or go. He’s gone through all the overflow and reduced everything down to the drawers in which they belong. This has helped so much because it was so visible as soon as I walked in, now it’s organised and put away.

One of the huge toys is also marked to go in the summer when child will too old for it and less likely to notice as they’ll be outside more. I can’t wait!

That’s amazing @SwordBilledHummingbird I admitted your dedication!

@Cottagecheeseisnotcheese good point. I also thought about the gifts I have given to other people’s children and I wouldn’t expect anyone to hold onto stuff I have given for sentimental reasons. If they play with it great, if not I won’t even know about it.

I went through my 5 year old’s wardrobe with her today and we have another bag ready to go to charity. She was quite mercenary with her clothes, I am impressed!

a gift can be enjoyed for a season, maybe you got a lovely cushion, but later on you change your decor you loved the cushion but now it has done its job and it's time to go elsewhere, just keeping a toy because it is a gift when it is not being played with , try and think of it as releasing the toy to fulfill its function elsewhere to be played with by someone can will enjoy it

I don't sell any more. I lost the heart for it when I was no longer broke. I can't stand dealing with all the idiots. It's harder if you're skint bemyclementine, maybe take a break from it, pile all the stuff up somewhere out of sight and come back to selling in a few weeks or months. How many items are you listing? It's so much easier to only have one thing for sale, list it everywhere repeatedly and wait until it's gone from the home before listing anything else. It also flags up to you if something has been sitting around for ages unsold and perhaps it never will sell, so time to get rid. If you only sell one thing you have time to focus on finding suitable perhaps specialist places to list it, so it'll be seen by the right people and will hopefully sell quicker. Also consider what time of year you're selling which things. TBH though, I came to the conclusion that selling was for people who either enjoyed the process or whose lives were already organised and homes already decluttered, those are the people with time for it.

@Bemyclementine I don’t generally sell anything worth less than about £10. When clearing stuff I run a quick EBay check for value, that takes seconds. Anything over £10 I will list on EBay if it’s small or Marketplace if it’s bulky. I price bulky stuff to sell, matching or undercutting the lowest price as I want it gone quickly. It all depends on your circumstances though, if you have the time and need the money it can be worthwhile to sell little bits and pieces.

@Bemyclementine could you do a car boot sale? Take the whole lot with you and then donate anything left over at the end of the day. I did this last time I moved house, and made a couple of hundred quid.

Surprisingly (to me anyway), I sold hardly any books but all of the clothes and handbags.

I sell one thing at a time, but usually only bulky stuff that is awkward for me to do anything else with. I'm not broke any more so I'll sell that stuff for a couple of quid, but I don't have to pay to get it taken away.

Im starting to see a bit more space now, it's encouraging.

see if one of the secondary schools near you has a PTA that does car boot or table top sales often you pay about £10 for a table then you keep all profits great for getting rid of toys clothes books etc price to sell have often made £60+

Progress today! In part it’s thanks to Stacey Soloman.
I’d been saving a set of cuddly toys that we bought one of the kids for their first birthday, bit actually they never really were bothered about them. On the show SS does (sort your life out?) I was watching kids trying to chuck stuff and the parents trying to keep it and thought about the toys I’d kept. So the cuddly toys have gone. More toys fit in that box and that box fits under the bed. Now I don’t see the mass
if toys when I walk in. That makes me happy!

I really like that Stacey Solomon show.

The crew have quite a nice vibe going on, though I don't wince a little at how much must get spent on matching storage boxes and hate the label maker obsession.

The Minimalists have a good podcast if you're interested in getting into the nitty gritty of getting rid of the clutter.

Joining! Love Dana k white and think her blog really helped get me started. Also love sort your life out. Chipping away at things bit by bit here but it does feel easier the more I do.

I love Stacey Solomon's show!

I've had buyers for nursery furniture, DC1's )(never slept in) bed and various other bulky baby items.

We now have two empty rooms (2 kids are in our bed 🤦🏻‍♀️) and I hate the thought of dust collecting on furniture that isn't used.

I've massively decluttered toys too. I followe a minimalist Instagram account who claims she got rid of 90% of her children's toys and they never noticed. I wouldn't go as extreme as that but I actually have noticed more prolonged play when the children have a lesser choice of toys.

My husband fears that he will one day come home and we will have to sit on the floor because I've sold everything in our home 😅

Clean the gutter, that's impressive with the toys. I definitely think it's true kids play better with less. We took very few toys on holiday though I was intentional about what I took to make it open ended play, and my 2 year old did brilliantly, lots of imagination. I was doing well with sorting toys but have definitely stalled. Need to look again. Feel like we are at an in-between stage, not quite ready for some stuff we have, still playing with the other stuff. Not sure where to start. We have a kallax unit with boxes in, all a bit too full

I’m back to it after a really busy few weeks at work and being ill. I chucked a broken rucksack this morning and today I’m tackling my office!

Please rest assured that we haven't decluttered 90% of ours but I'd love to! We have 3x kallax units in the play area in our home (🤦🏻‍♀️). My first step was to remove all the top boxes across the units and put one toy in each space. Then to make the remaining boxes at the bottom only half full.

A huge load off of my mental stress re toy mess and the children are finding joy in toys previously overlooked.

The in-between stage is hard. My eldest is 3 and youngest is 1 - both boys with similar interests already - and it's a balance for age appropriate toys!

2 x broken big toot toot toys to the tip today plus a dustpan and brush plus DS’s car seat which he’s growing out of and vomited over last week.

As I went to go to the tip my DH asked if we could sell it - I replied no as no one wants a well used (used for both DC) second hand car that smells of vomit (I’ve scrubbed it but it still smells!) Arrrggghh!

We did an entire car full of stuff to the tip, (mostly from clearing out the cellar) and a wheelie bin full of cardboard boxes of things we'll never need to put back in them and I've got a bag of children's books to take to the tube station swap shop - so a productive weekend.