Decluttering Thread 6 - hit those targets before New Year!

[Pigtailsandall]

So the last thread got filled up and I think I seem to have taken it on myself to start a new one every time, lol! I hope everyone finds us because I'm too lazy to tag everyone, but here's few who spring to mind. It also doesn't let me add some people, for some reason

@realfastfoodie
@IndianSummer78
@stealthninjamum
@cornedbeef451
@EllieQ
@Gassylady
@IncessantNameChanger

@nordicmom
@Vinorosso74

Now it's the last push until the holidays to get it all out and done (before new cr*p comes in)

I was wondering that too about Glass baking trays I used to have stone trays, but maybe I use them wrong because I found that they stuck like anything else 😕

This weekend is being spent sorting furniture into rooms, so that we can sort around them knowing what space we have to play with.
DH is sorting the loft, so that DS can properly 'move in!'

https://pyrex.co.uk/collections/baking-trays/products/bake-enjoy-set-of-2-glass-multipurpose-cooking-sheets-high-resistance-32x26-cm I have these ones although I may have bought them off Amazon I don’t remember, I have 3.

Back from PIL - guess I should say MILs now, funeral went off well yesterday. MIL passing along all sorts of bits and pieces to the DC and DH, not sure I want all the stuff coming in really.

Not sure why it forgot my name change.

94 current total just to remind me.

Some great quantities being evicted from houses here! And I'm loving the sound of glass baking trays, they're going on my mental list for when I need to replace my current ones 🙃

I'm not sure what I last updated with, but I've got rid of a few things via Facebook, including a baby change I picked up from there and didn't like. I'm not including the mat in the count, but it's a definite improvement in behaviour to have given it away again as previously I would 100% have held onto it "just in case" or "as a spare" 🙄 I also gave three bags of small baby clothes, plus 6 halloween/Christmas outfits to a pregnant friend with strict instructions to not return them to me but to pass on or throw away! I'm only counting each bag as a single item as I had no intention of counting them out 😀

My intention to get rid of something every individual day hasn't been entirely successful but I have got rid of more items than number of days which I'm counting as a success! I'm also still on target for decluttering 1000 items this year. Tomorrow I want to go through the bag of soft toys my oldest put into a bin bag before christmas. None have been requested so can all go from that point of view, but there are a couple I want to retrieve for the baby.

Total for 2024: 68

Hello spent the last few days reading the thread - inspiring!

Downloaded to Toss app and got "sideboard" today.

Don't have one so sorted the drinks cabinet (nothing out, apparently DP needs all 5 pewter tankards, although I have never seen him use 1).

The did a first pass on the cables draw & about 20 to go to the small electrical section at the tip.

@LivingInaBuiltSite I am really coveting those trays. Are they particularly heavy? I wonder if they sell them in Lakeland or Robert dyas for me to pick up.

i do want some but since putting my existing trays (and another 4 I found) in the playroom I have not needed any.

Yesterday I decluttered the freezers and cleaned the utility room one. I threw out some overnight oats I’d made that looked dry and gave dd1 sausage pasta for lunch today.

Toss asked me to do the baking cupboard and I have thrown out 23 items - including out of date, icings, food paint, food glue, rose water, almond extract, vanilla extract, peppermint extract.

My app has told me to declutter the garden. I have ordered someone to get rid of the shed so this would work out well. I’m intending to get rid of some old bits and pieces and maybe a kitchen bin or two so I’ll spend ten minutes in the garden collecting the stuff to go.

Total 196

Built Site it records whatever name you start posting on the thread with. So you'll have to name change manually each post, until the next thread when it'll record your new name and post automatically under that.

Incessant if all the bedding is scattered around and not all kept in the same place I'd do it week by week when you change the bedding. Mine is all stored together but I do it this way anyway. I find I just know. I put it on, think the quality isn't so good or there's faults like those stains you mentioned, then mentally mark it for either washing and donation or recycling when I next change the bedding.

Welcome to the thread Champagne.

Only one out today a face cream used up, dozens left. Total is 1831

Got rid of a huge candle that wasn’t in good condition anymore and 6 plasticky decorations. Also carried on the kids clothes sort and put a bag of things in the baby bank pile. Not major progress but it’s all heading towards being more sorted.

I keep forgetting to do an overall count.

I have donated 3 bags of stuff to our local Emmaus store today. I hope they are able to make good use of it. I listed several things on Ebay last week so they should go out the house next week once they have finished/been paid for.

Been going through more DD clothes and grabbing a few other bits . Have yet to go to the attic , to do the remaining kitchen food cupboard or the study cupboards . Those three are the next bigger jobs . Might redo some smaller areas that take less time in the meantime like DD art drawer .I don’t think she’s using any of her colouring books atm so I can reduce those for sure . She’s in the art club at school though so enjoys art but has grown out of some things . Might look at board games and mainly my books in the living room bookshelf again too , there’s only a few there by now but maybe something isn’t needed .

Out :
-spare mop bucket part
-1 scratched oven tray
-1 my finished book
-1 DD small party dress
-1 DD small pair of trousers
-2 DD small sweatshirts
-4 DD small hoodies
-3 DD small jeans
-2 DD small pairs of sweatpants
-1 DD small raincoat
-1 DD small leggings all to charity shop
-1 DD used up bath bomb
-1 DD used up Christmas gift face mask
-1 DD used up engineering box
-1 unwanted plant pot
-1 pair of DD small trainers
-2 pairs of old pants
-2 pairs of old socks all to rags

More tomorrow hopefully !

Total is 293

Yesterday the Christmas card fronts went too and the backs (signed bits) went into the Christmas card container, to make it easy next year.

Already discovered we don't need to buy cards next year, when I rounded up all the ones we have from there various homes!

Now all in one place, in a container

I have sort of decluttered the garden. We have a broken chair, two tiles, a broken watering can and an old bin. I’ve put them in the shed. When the shed gets taken away with its contents these will go too. I will probably need a new watering can - although will see if I can make do with just using the hose. I also have two dirty buckets I’ll clean. There are also lots of plant pots which I’ll advertise on freecycle.

Toss has asked me to do wires. I have done loads - but we still have loads so I might spend ten minutes seeing if I can find what they being to.

One item sold on eBay so need to package and post that. Few bits of financial paperwork shredded as no longer have the policy. More Lego sets dismantled and checked for completeness before selling or donating. The toy room floor is starting to emerge for the first time in what feels like forever. TBH DH has been doing most of the work with the Lego. I feel a little bad if I’m sitting reading and he is clacking away with it but I have been responsible for about 95% of the sorting/decluttering so far. So I’m managing to maintain my interest in my kindle!

@Gassylady i bet your dh is enjoying doing the Lego so don’t feel too bad. Dd1 did some for us a couple of weeks ago and enjoyed it. Lego is probably my last really big area now as so much of it is in different boxes. I could sell by weight but I’m sure we could make a lot of money if we made the sets.

@stealthninjamum that's it, it is worth more in the sets but also I like to think of someone else enjoying the complicated build with all the little details. Given that we have kept boxes for many of the bigger sets as well as instructions it seems daft to just bundle it up by the kilo. My MIL who is responsible for buying tons and tons of toys over the years seems rather annoyed that we are getting rid of any of it. However if she were to see the enormity of what we have already sorted and got stacked up in the spare bedroom I think she would be shocked.

My MIL is I think a tidy hoarder with the space to mainly conceal it. When we visited yesterday she mentioned sorting through some drawers of charging cables (a scenario familiar to us all!) However it became clear that they had merely been moved from one drawer to another rather than thinned out if they were no longer required.

Another two items sold on Vinted yesterday. Along with what would be 6 black bin bags of huge toys to the children's charity shop yesterday. It's a large volume but it doesn't look a lot in the house really.

291 out this month and it's getting much better but I still not sure it's touching the sides. Feel really sad reading a hoarding thread this morning.

Daughters room has got messy again but it's purely because everything I had formally stashed sizes ahead are in her room now. This time last year I had about 6 - 8 stashed boxes that has been incooperated into her clothes.

I know by the end of summer there will be nothing stashed and nothing too small. She will have minimal of everything. But it's hard as 1) I should just get rid and not sell on Vinted 2) however much I have improved I still want to sort and order my outs in a way that logical to me ( but not to others maybe) as its a copeable way to deal with vast amounts of nice but useless stuff ( Daughters Boden and Zara clothes). Once they have been sold I'm happier to donate the rest.

I'm certain that if I don't replace dds clothes then it HAS to get better right?

Feeling unsure now really

@IncessantNameChanger Yes, of course it will! Buy less or don't replace at all and the pile will reduce. I bought myself and dc some new stuff. Dc clothes policy is one in, one out, mine is one in two out. Dc got a dressing gown, a hoodie and 2 trouser, plus socks - the smallest of the old ones are going to be donated or sold on Vinted. I got few new trousers, a fleece, a backpack and a few tops and I've already sold 3 tops on Vinted. Need yo list few more items, particularly trousers that no longer fit me.

Thanks, I know logically I'm buying hardly anything and it's hundreds out but it's yielding drastic changes in what it looks like. I think I'm going to do the bedding today and tomorrow and stop putting that off

I've gone through alcohol today, moved a shelf around in a cupboard to organise it better and organised the medical items - now have a bin bag full of old medicine and booze that has meant we now have a kitchen drawer clear and space above the fridge to store extra tins and milk etc. Going to try and keep ploughing through the kitchen - I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now!

Been AWOL, things have been busy but we have been doing what we can, holey socks being thrown out, packaging going straight in the recycling. I've sold a top and swimsuit on Vinted and posted them off, plus have a few more bits to list.

I've got stacks of stuff to shred but it always seems to get to after the kids bedtime before I get to sit down and think about it.

General rubbish dustbin day tomorrow & the bin is full - my aim is to fill whichever bin is due for collection each week - we have alternate week collection here general/recycling.

Toss gave me bedding today. I didn't do the whole linen cupboard (partly because DP would notice and want to keep it all) but we have 4 sets of spare single bedding, so got DD to choose which one to keep, for emergencies (as I usually wash and dry hers in one day), so 3 duvet cover & pillow sets gone.

Am in the attic tonight mainly organising but there might be some outs too . Turns out there’s already 2 big storage boxes worth of charity shop stuff for DS to take in the Easter holidays . By then there might be a few more . I can’t drive and DH is at work during the week so need DS help to take them but he doesn’t mind doing it a few times a year like this . Lucky there’s space to store them in these stackable lidded boxes where they don’t get dusty either in the meantime . The place we take to now every few months is only open a few hours a couple of weekdays but it’s a kids charity warehouse drop off so you can drive right in front to unload and they have always taken it all so very convenient and time saving to gather things up for a few months and store them neatly out of sight then take it all at once . Now that we have a garage too unlike ever before we can store anything going to dump there like boxes , clothes and shoes bank bags and general crap , then DH drops off every few weeks . We are near one and you can just show up . This hasn’t been the case before and I appreciate the luxury . I’m packing away Christmas gift boxes and rearranging and labelling stuff while grabbing a few things that can go like more small shoes but I’ll have to come back again to do more . Just have to do it sooner rather than later . The dog puts a stop to it during the week generally can’t be going up and down the stairs with my health issues much and I don’t feel comfortable leaving him down alone for hours although we have a dog camera system I can often see him in .
Anyway back to work here ! I’ll have my meal up here too tonight and I’m listening to stand up comedy on Netflix while I work …

Given 16 items to the clothes bank tonight. Good day afterall