Decluttering thread 11

[TidyClutterIsStillClutter]

Whether you’re taking days or decades, whether you’re glacially slow or galloping along, please come here for inspiration, encouragement, and congratulations.

Hello 😀 A little bit about myself. As my name suggests, I thought the answer was more shelving, most of it to ceiling height!

I try to discard something every day. I’m not always successful, but the decluttering posts keep me focussed.

It’s great to share how we dispose of stuff, as that can be a stumbling block for some people.

So I hope we will all continue the good work, and more will join in.

Hello

Thanks for the new thread @TidyClutterIsStillClutter
Checking in as we hurtle towards the end of the year!

Thanks for starting a new thread!

I’ve been steadily decluttering this year. What’s really helped is that there’s now a British Heart Foundation donation point at my gym, so I’ve made myself the rule that every time I go (usually twice a week) I take a bag of unwanted things with me to donate. I’m now at the stage where I’m having to actively search for things, rather than bring swamped with things to go.

I follow a decluttering expert on Instagram (Dilly from Sort Your Life Out) and she posted today “guilt clutter is the quiet pile of ‘shoulds’ - things we thought we’d use, but never did” and this really resonated with me as I’ve got a lot of these and find it really hard to let them go. Just need to bite the bullet, but it’s difficult, particularly the things which were expensive but have little resale value.

Hello 👋 Thanks for starting the new thread!

My 2 outs since I last posted are a bag full of carrier bags and a pair of holey socks.

Total for the year to date is 1545

Thanks for the new thread op 😊. Out: Dried and fake flowers, plastic water bottle & clothes taken from 'Wall-mart'. Three items listed on eBay. Recycled an old broken DVD VCR player/recorder.

Thank you for the new thread. Was too tired to post yesterday but decluttered inside the house while looking for some documents and filled the skip in the afternoon.

Bagged up..inner fleece jacket -sleeves too short, pinstripe skirt suit, pinstripe trousers, cream dress, grey cardigan, striped tshirt..not nice, cotton top, green top, black lace top, unworn dress with tags.
Binned old car statements, car is gone since 2023 so presume the paper work can be thrown out as well. Banking booklets, utility booklets that come with new cards or bills. Plastic copy cover.

Skip items:
Double bed mattress
2 tonne bags, tarp, wheelbarrow and 3 dustbins full of green waste.
Plastic plant pots 15 or more
Mesh tunnel frame for veg beds
Bamboo 30 sticks
Tomato cold frame poles & plastic
Grow house poles & plastic
35 second hand decking boards (gifted to my parents 8 yrs ago)
Banister spindles 15
Bed lats 12
Various plastic paint trays/buckets
Old tiles 8
Outdoor rug
Dog crate - plastic base, mat
Broken garden wheeled bucket
4 fence posts
One old table top and 4 legs

2 x brown bins filled with grass and sticks for collection today also.

Hopeful that the second skip will arrive today as there is still a huge amount to dispose of, this time it's mostly for items that someone might take away for free, if I cleaned everything up but I don't have the time for that. A swift exit is best for me and my mind.

Thanks for the new thread TidyClutter.

Incessant my clothing situation looks like yours (and then some!). I've had the exact same thoughts about capsule wardrobes. DP has even suggested we hire a skip, empty out the place completely except furniture and start again. I can see his point. The sticking point is wanting the stuff! I have some hoarder tendencies I think. So what's happened is I've packed up everything into storage to deal with the overwhelm, tried the capsule wardrobe and got bored of it so packed that up too and got another capsule wardrobe. If you do the getting rid of everything part first, I can see how it might work. But if you do what I did and just put things away to see how it goes, you just end up with even more clothes and still can't get rid of anything, so I don't recommend doing it that way.

I've decided on a new tactic, which I'll start in spring once I've tidied the place up properly. I'm going to shop my own stash for a capsule wardrobe without buying anything new, I'm thinking around 15 items, not including underwear. Then I'll wear it for the entire season. At the end of that time a lot of it will probably be worn out from being washed and worn so much, I'll be thoroughly sick of wearing it all and at the end of the season I'll recycle or donate the whole lot (depending on condition). My thinking is I'll be able to feel like I've got a whole new wardrobe each season, without buying anything new. I'll get a decent amount of wear out of the stuff and I'll gradually get the overall amount of stuff down when I dispose of it all at the end of each season.

Today's outs:
Skirt
Top
DVD
Leaflet

Total is 3777

Afternoon. I wonder whether I can join you to help with some motivation (and accountability). Although I'm a bit in awe of the amounts you are managing to clear.

I'm currently in the middle of trying to sort a room that's nominally a study, but in practice is a dumping ground for all the shit that doesn't have a home. My logical head says I should scoop the lot into a bin bag and chuck it all. My emotional head says there's stuff in there that I might want to keep - even though I've not seen or thought about it for two years. It's not going well.

Thanks for starting the new thread @TidyClutterIsStillClutter. I will do a proper update later, but wanted to join the thread before I forgot.

Welcome @BlackCatsAreBrilliant and I hope we can help to motivate you. I’m decluttering very slowly as I struggle with parting with things, then I struggle with finding the ‘right’ place for them to go - I hate throwing something out that could be reused or recycled. But I’m getting there! My total for 2025 is 244 to 31 July, but other people have done much more than me.

had a big book clearout - giving away 25 and returning 2 to friends who’ve let us borrow them.

total 783

Listed a mid century Scandinavian funky vase today (that I like but it doesn't really fit in with decor here)on eBay then DD swiped it back saying she wants it & had only moved it out the way temporarily so I had to delist it! Got more stuff to photograph & sell so better crack on.

@IndianSummer78 I think Shop yur own wardrobe is a great idea if you pack your things away and you really need something you cn go and get it
there are you tubers instagram on "shop your closet" as most are American
the 333 method 33 items fpr 3 months it includes shoes bags and coats but not sleepwear underwear or sportswear only worn at gym

It'll be an interesting experiment cheese plant. I'm going to do 3 months per season, starting spring 2026 so March/April/May. I'm going hardcore with around 10 outfits and chuck it in the laundry all together weekly. Combined with a no-buy on clothes that will kill me. Capsule wardrobes are supposed to simplify your life so I'm really curious to try it properly and see if it does.

Welcome to the thread black cats. Hopefully you can figure out a place to start from in your room of doom study. I've been decluttering a few years and found this thread is really helpful.

Out tonight:
2 newspapers recycled
Total is 3779

Finally fixed our wobbly fence posts with 3 huge iron spike spur repair things that were cluttering up the shed & making it really awkward to get to stuff. Fence now sturdy! Listed another vintage vase on eBay, sales are very slow again.

Another good day yesterday as DD and I made a start on the toy cupboard. The top shelf had two large storage boxes on, so I took everything out, grouped it by type of toy, and we worked through about two-thirds of it. Found 33 things to donate plus a few bits of rubbish to bin/ recycle, and organised some playmobil sets that had been in amongst the random stuff.

We also took a bag of the toys (the larger things plus the Paw Patrol toys from Wednesday’s sort out) to the charity shop, plus a bag of DD’s old clothes, so things have got out of the house! There were two ‘ins’ from the charity shop - a small ceramic plant pot for a new plant I got a couple of weeks ago, and a small soft toy for DD, but overall we got rid of more than we brought in.

Today we’ll be going through the remainder from the storage boxes, and moving onto the second shelf, which should be quicker as it’s larger items. I’m pleased with our progress.

Thanks for the welcome.

I spent most of yesterday shut in the room, audiobook on and trying to be ruthless. I filled one bin bag (now in the dustbin so I'm not tempted to rethink anything chucked) and a substantial pile of paper/card into the recycling. It is still a shit tip though so I need to go back in. I doubt I'll make as much progress today.

So, does that count as 2 (bin bag and recycling) for my count?

Thanks for starting the new thread. Sadly I’m a ‘takes decades’ kind of declutterer.

after my last post I made dd1 tidy the dining table so my ‘public’ areas are tidy again. I sort of realised that I have a routine every night which is why those areas are generally tidy and it only really takes 5 mins to have the house ‘guest ready’. I don’t have a similar routine for my bedroom which is why it’s always a mess. So I set a timer for 5 mins and in that time chucked out an old Amazon box, made the bed, put skincare products away and it did look better. One chest of drawers has an empty surface.

Outs include a lipstick that doesn’t suit me and a hallloween mask.

Posted 3 items on Vinted - if they don’t sell, I’ll give them away.
Gave a large toy to a friend
Gave another toy to another friend
Sorted out 4 things from DDs wardrobe to give away today

Total outs: 792

Thank you for the new thread @TidyClutterIsStillClutter
I was going to start a new one but got stuck in thinking of a snazzy name. The best I came up with was "Ushering a new season in, get those things in the bin" 😆 but I wanted to incorporate the word autumn and nothing rhymes with it!

Anyhow, my last two days' declutters were 2 soft toys which were in my memory bix but which I didn't really remember. DC didn't care for them either so they go jn the charity shop. We are now on day 221!

I'm trying to build in good daily habits too Stealth. I was given a small A8 notebook by dd early help worker so need to write them down like empty and restock the dishwasher, (dhs job but I need do more of this too) clear the draining board.

I'm going to upload as much as I can on Vinted then try the spotlight function. But I'm not keeping things on there for over a week. It's already getting on my nerves.

Really interested in trying this capsule wardrobe too. So tempted to buy a open rail from ikea to put the things I often wear on there and see if I can live with just them? But it's more furniture? I could close my wardrobe so it goes in front of it?

I don't think my clothes would wear out. I have a few M&S dresses I live in that are Presteigne

Decluttering the garden & partner painting the house outside wall so using up masonry paint. Whilst collecting up old rotten wood a bloody wasp stung me on the backside, done all the usual first aid things. Looked for wasp spray & found 2 cans were seized up so they've gone in recycling along with an empty bug gun I found too. Using up some wasp eze stuff too from first aid.

Gosh you lot have been busy.

and so have I.

finally got the courage to go in DH’s shed (I did go in there a few months back and thought ‘holy crap’ and shut the door).

so I threw lots and lots of junk and organised probably a million screws, and put spanner’s with spanner’s and garden games together etc etc.

I’ve sold a few things on fbmp this afternoon and got thirty quid for my efforts.
I now have a list of lots of random stuff, I asked the kids if they wanted anything and have put those bits to one side. Found the camping gas cooker and put it in an easier place so if we have a power cut I can get to it as we replaced our gas cooker last year and Ive never not had a gas cooker until now.

what I can’t get my head round is what do I actually keep, how do I know if I’ll need that random bit of downpipe, that electrical blanking plate, various bit of plumbing pipe and countless nuts and bolts in numerous boxes.

in the end I got overwhelmed and shoehorned it all back in and shut the door but not until I’d mixed a two stroke engine oil as her DS’s instructions and will now be able to use the hedge trimmer, as long as I have enough umph to pull the starting cable thingy. (I may just get a gardener).

Took stock of a kitchen cupboard. Some things sorted and soon to be evicted!

I have a small rail, got it in Argos years ago and it was in another wardrobe for a while and came out for visitors coats at parties.

I use it in my bedroom and compile outfits on it, if im busy I put a few days outfits, including bras and knickers on the hanger of the outfit, so just need to get dressed from the rail.

it dismantles into nothing and I can pop it under the bed easily if I want a tidier room.