Thrifty hoarding vs clutter clearing- which tactic works for you

[wheresmypaddle]

I don't like clutter but at the same time I hate throwing things away that might 'come in useful' one day or save me some money. As a result our (small) home is filling up all sorts of clutter (magazines I 'might' reread one day, clothes I might fit into, books I might lend to friends, old toys DS might regain interest in, CDs I might want to listen to..........).

I try to store these things neatly but that leaves little room to store the rest of our stuff. I have been considering doing some ebaying / charity shop runs but always seem to find an excuse to hold onto things in case they save us money or come in usefull.

A little voice in my head is telling me to get rid of it all this clutter, another voice is telling me not to be so wasteful- can anyone tell me which approach they take??

Just put lots of stuff on freecycle and feeling good!
Thanks for all this.

mathanxiety you may well be a genuis - are you a life coach or similar? If not a career change could be in order!

In the Declutter books the best way to declutter, and get past all your reservations is to turn them on their head.

You get your seperate boxes/bags for Charity Shop, Friends, E-bay, Recycling AND you have a bag for the things you'll keep AND a Maybe Keep bag.

You take a cupboard/ section of a room and empty it out. Then you extract the things you definately and maybe keep instead of trying to extract what you'll get rid of.

That way you are looking at your possessions and thinking "what do I really want/need" instead of "what can I do without" Makes a big difference!

The idea is its much easier to get rid of the rest. When you get irritated by the sheer amount of stuff (you will!) you will stop taking things to keep and start shoving it in the give away bags to get it out of your way.

You leave the maybe bag for a few months and see if you actually take anything from it, before going through it in your next declutter- you become much more practised and ruthless when you see it as an ongoing process and less crap tends to get into your house in the first place!

I have another strategy to suggest - digitising.

I've been scanning all my old Uni notes, letters etc, photographing DD's artwork, scanned all the old pre digital photos, recorded any old personal family audio/video tapes onto computer. Anything I can't be bothered to scan gets thrown away.

We move house a lot due to DH's job, so I've tried to do this to keep clutter down. Haven't finished the scanning of letters yet but the other projects are complete. I am a real hoarder at heart, but this way I can still keep it but not have the junk in the house, just a bigger hard drive (backed up...)

House is still far from tidy though

Ooh I need this thread - marking my place to come back and read...

I used to put old paperbacks in the spare room and encourage visitors to take them away. Or just give them to friends you think will enjoy them. Just moved back to Britain and have joined library to stop accumulating more (I think some books are great but if they don't fit on your bookshelves you have to act). I hate clutter and have a one in one out policy for all purchases. I found a book called The Life Laundry by Dawna Walters very inspiring - she has some great tips and a bit of psychobabble to try and analyse why some people find it hard to chuck stuff out.

dh is a hoarder and I am a de-junker.

I don't think it is wasteful to get rid of stuff you don't use. It was wasteful to buy it in the first place when you obviously didn't need it.

I am slowly bringing him around to my way of thinking. I give him the office and his shed to hoard bit and pieces - everything else is open to me de-junking.

OK, have read the thread and joined flylady.

But I have one major area of hoarding - my kids' schoolwork and artwork. What do you do with it? How do you decide what to keep? I have boxes and boxes of it and the oldest is only 10!!!

Sort through artwork as soon as it comes in - some on the fridge, some on walls in their bedrooms/playroom - take down old stuff as new stuff comes in. This way you feel it has been displayed and don't feel so bad about getting rid of it. Send stuff to grandparents/Godparents/aunts etc - then they can have the guilt of deciding when to dispose of it!! Occasional works of absolute genius (be VERY discerning) can be framed and kept for posterity. Also have memory box for especially sentimental things like baby footprints/handprints. If you do all this you need have no second thoughts about chucking everything else out.
Schoolwork I keep for a year and at the end of the next academic year - ie when new load comes in I sort out brutally and chuck out. You can't keep everything. By all means keep examples of first handwriting, stories they've writte then they can see their own edited highlights when they are older, but act now to save yourself drowning under mountains of paper.

Oh those are really good ideas, thank you!

It's true, we don't appreciate any of it at the moment - am off to sift through the first box and try it out!

some good ideas - my big problem is feeling that I should be able to make money from things - I need to really change my mindset and realise it's not worth holding on to stuff to do this mythical car boot sale that I keep thinking I will do when I have enough to ditch - far better to give things regularly to the charity shop - I could think of each book I give as a 50p to charity.

Housemum my DH has that attitude but to my mind just getting rid of the stuff is payment enough.

We have had a couple of carboot sales years ago when moving house and we did make a bit of money. I think if you have a substantial amount of decent quality items and the time to do it then it is a good idea.

I do get a good feeling when I drop a load of stuff at the charity shop. I get an even better feeling when I get back home to a clean tidy house.