Decluttering thread 7 - as the days lengthen we’ll feel more motivated to declutter

[stealthninjamum]

Sorry for the long thread title, I’ve just seen that the old thread has reached 1,000 posts.

For newbies this thread and the old one a day threads are for a group of mumsnetters who are decluttering. We’ll share tips and advice and inevitably the conversation moves on to organisation tips, pretty storage solutions and persuading our families to join in.

We’re all at different stages of decluttering so join us for support and chat.

Some really small ours at the moment. So about two weeks ago I found a load of old stamps and posted them to a special Royal Mail address and they were replaced with 21 stamps today with barcodes. Technically that’s an ‘in’ but to me it signifies the end of crappy stamps in the house.

i also used up an expensive voucher that was due to expire so that’s a few bits of paper gone. It has led to an ‘in’ - a watch but the papers just represent admin. And I found a debit card that had expired in 2021. That’s gone too.

@EllieQ Bags of bags for life are the bane of my existence! There are two horrible old dusty BFLs on top of the fridge, filled with yet more BFLs and I know we will never need them, and yet they just fall into my blind spot and stay there year after year.

@alrightluv I assume flat sheets to sleep under in the summer when it's hot? I sometimes take the duvet cover off and just sleep under that when it gets too much.

The footspa I listed on Olio had no takers after a week, so I changed it to a free listing and got five people interested, whereupon DP decided that he'd rather give it to charity than let randoms have it for free 🙄Kind of missing the whole point of "just get it out of the bloody house", but it's now going to the charity shop when I have a spare moment.

Re bags: I find I don’t have enough anymore to give stuff away in. So I’d use them to put donations in. Either charity or things people are collecting from you. They’ll soon disappear.

Have persuaded DH to bin the ancient sofa cushions, hooray. Hopefully will go with black bins this Friday.

Jobs:

1. hang up as many pictures as poss/get rid of some - 3 out to charity ☑️
2. decide about the shelves we used to have as cat shelves/put up or get rid - DD doesn’t want them so will prob get rid
3. Take sentimental broken wooden box to a friend who says he’ll try and repair it
4. Massive sort of mountain of bedding we now have in the house (duvets, pillows, covers, sheets, pillowcases…)
5. Start looking at DS2 paperwork: done cinema pass, railcard, started blue badge

Not quite outs yet:

more stuff on Vinted - taken some stuff off there to donate to charity instead
21 items in a Music Magpie box but waiting for password reset email to actually confirm sale - system is not working for me
pile of Allen keys - someone due to collect on Tuesday - no show, sigh.
box of DVDs - maybe library?
my birthday jigsaw completed today, needs to go to charity - DONE ☑️
old ironing board (Friday)
old cushions x 3 (Friday)

Out:
old ironing board cover into recycling

676+1=677

Charity (I hope to go tomorrow):
jigsaw
2 x old lamps
old battleship game
darth Vader mask
jewellery cleaning kit I’ve never used
box of old Mr Potato Head bits (when you have to use a real potato, remember them?)
2 x fabric wall hangings I don’t want anymore
3 x small framed pictures we don’t want anymore
=12 (will search for more before I go)

Got rid of even more of ds too small clothes today. I pulled out a bag of his summer clothes and he now has all of that to try on. My two order boys are extremely thin but ds12 is a chunk so if he carries on like this he won't fit into his 20 year old brothers clothes.

He off on a three day residential with his SEN school and they are doing axe throwing! What could go wrong??!!

I have been head down in a pile of boxes for weeks (it feels like) lots of stuff now bagged up to donate and masses of paper, cardboard etc gone with the recycling and bin people.

DH has had a first look at ziffit re books and I will now suggest Music Magpie.

I'm finding this a tough journey but am committed to keeping going. Thank you for the inspiration!

Sydney if you can't sell it cheaply then can the charity shop? You might end up bringing it home again if they won't take it. I'd give it to a random when DH isn't looking.

Well done with the clothes Incessant I remember you posting ages ago with too many drawers bursting out but struggling to let go.

Congrats on getting through the paperwork Stealth, must be a relief to get rid of huge furniture.

I'm on my second go through of clothes at the moment. It's going to be slow this time because all the easy wins are done and I'm having to be a bit more ruthless. I'm not going to have the same things re-worn over and over, I'm pulling out from the drawers and boxes so every day is a try-on day. A couple of boxes aren't totally full now so I'm hoping this continues and I can condense drawers/boxes together so I end up with less overall. Last time the declutter mainly dealt with overspill, so drawers could be opened/closed properly, but didn't make much difference to space.

Just one out for me so far today. A dress in the wrong colour. Total is 2161

Tackled the jenga cupboard of Tupperware tonight. Not much out - some going to DD to use in her classroom.
But I do now have a curated Tupperware cupboard all with matching lids in size piles.
Sadly found some unused dog food...😢

One blunt makeup pencil that came free with something. I never did work out how to sharpen it. Pencil sharpener or knife no good. Binned it. Also binned a tub of expired in 2022 sudocrem. Total is 2163

Bags are a rare commodity now in my house! When I'm donating or giving away stuff, the bag it leaves in has to be carefully considered. Charity shops and food banks will often take excess bags.

Also packaging, I ordered loads on line during Covid and then mat leave, and kept all the packaging. I've sold so much on Vinted etc lately that I have almost none left and am checking the packaging stash before I list to make sure I have something to send it in!

462 outs so far this year.

Been to school to drop bits off, then charity shop, then food shop.
Now to sort DS1’s 18th birthday stuff for tomorrow.

Jobs:

1. hang up pictures - make some decisions on what is going where?
2. decide about the shelves we used to have as cat shelves/put up or get rid - DD doesn’t want them so will prob get rid
3. Take sentimental broken wooden box to a friend who says he’ll try and repair it
4. Massive sort of mountain of bedding we now have in the house (duvets, pillows, covers, sheets, pillowcases…)
5. Start looking at DS2 paperwork: started blue badge

Not quite outs yet:

more stuff on Vinted - taken some stuff off there to donate to charity - some gone today
21 items in a Music Magpie box but waiting for password reset email to actually confirm sale - system is not working for me - need to try this again
pile of Allen keys - someone due to collect on Tuesday - no show, sigh.
box of DVDs - maybe library?
old ironing board (Friday)
old cushions x 3 (Friday)

Out:
Charity shop (12+ 8 more random bits from DH)
Charity clothes/prom stuff collection at school (2 dresses, 1 pair of shoes, 5 trouser hangers, 4 flower hair clips = 12)

677+20+12 = 709

@IndianSummer78 I think it didn't do so well on Olio because it started off as - and I think still primarily is - a free site, so the regular users are less likely to want to pay for things that they're used to getting for free, whereas the expectation in a charity shop is that there will be some sort of money-for-goods transaction IYSWIM? It's unused and in original packaging so they shouldn't have a problem.

Found some old vintage patterns when digging out my sewing box so DP could use a needle to pop a blister ( not envy!) and am toying with selling them on eBay. Quite easy to pack and post, and I'll never get round to sewing them. They were my great-aunt's and some are from the 60s and 70s and never used, so may be worth a bit.

DD had a sort out yesterday evening, 20 items to go, and someone collected this eve, I like that kind of turn around time.

709+20=729.

couple more bits to list on Vinted, just washing them first.

LivingInABuiltSite you could put your allen keys in the recycling if you just want rid, they're metal I presume. If you put a box of DVDs on FB marketplace you should be able to sell them cheaply as a job lot.

No outs for me today but I did take two full bags-for-life to the clothing bank.

A little burst of morning decluttering

3 junk leaflets
1 damaged plate
8 doodads for fastening furniture to walls
1 clothing storage bag
1 dried up tube of glue
3 mini bags

Total is 2180

I have relocated the shredder from the home office to the hallway. Hopefully, this will help declutterring by encouraging immediate shredding rather than papers floating all over the place.

Lots of tidying has happened but not so much in the way of declutterring. Bathroom supplies are the next thing on my hit list.

Tip trip - cleared a handful of items that have been in the "to go" pile for possibly a few years- unusable metal kitchen items, hard plastic.

More Vinted sales.

498 year to date.

Worn out undies and a too small dress gone. Total is 2182

Still waiting for mum friend to puck up ds too small clothes. Sorted some socks and some went, there's more to go yet. Ds is away on residential so still got some things to try on so possibly more to go of his yet.

Put some more things on Vinted but still getting very low views so everything has a week max on Vinted now. I don't want to store much right now. I need another big shift of items out.

Child’s camping chair collected today after being put on FB earlier in the week. However, it will be replaced by a normal-size chair. Still good to get something out of the house! Waiting for someone who wanted the baby carriers to say when they’ll collect them, which is a bit frustrating.

Sorry I haven't posted in... weeks!

But I'm currently at my hoarder/shopaholic parents house. In the attic. Feeling rather overwhelmed but DB and I want to make some progress.

Theres just so much of it!

@PuttingDownRoots do your parents still buy? What's stopping them just refilling the space?

I have been to the tip today.

900 things out so far. Now there's lots sorted to go I just want to concentrate on getting this lot at it's final destination. Lots of bags in my car now. Then there is still a pile for ds to try on.

The key is not buying anything at all unless it's unavoidable. A few people have now said my house is looking very different now

Just to share. I watched a Dana KW video on one hour visible difference.

As a consequence I have cleared the kitchen table of the bowl full of random crap and the aloe plant and cleaned the table.

I feel hugely energized and motivated just as she said I would. 💕💕

@IncessantNameChanger I've no doubt more stuff will come in. We are actually mainly sorting our own stuff they have kept for us....

I think I've mentioned the massive panda Teddy before. Unfortunately now very moth eaten.... he has gone. Along with some others. Plus a mouldy highchair, 10 year old nappies (from when my kids were young!), baby Gates, my old school bag...

The charity shop pile has baby clothes, toys, a travel cot, a baby bath and toddler books so far.

I went through the miscellanious cupboard again. It still looks too full however I organise it. So I weeded it out yesterday and today, and reorganised again. Today got rid of 4 legs to something I can't remember what, decided I'll probably never use them, whatever bit of furniture is obviously fine without them. And two empty boxes from the reorganization side of things. Total is 2188

Hmm, the people who said they would have ds outgrown clothes haven't picked up. Mental note just to donate stuff in future as now I have a boot full of bags I feel obligated to keep just in case they do contact me at some point. How long do I keep it all for? Do I get it down to one smaller bag or do I just donate it all now?

I don't feel any lighter 😕