Continued: Getting rid of stuff / Clearing out clutter! PART 2

[rivendale]

Gave my 32 year old brother his school mementos folders. They were being stored at my place because "reasons." I was over it. He did try and leave them at my parents' house,  but they held firm.

Gave away some unused stationery and a brand new, never used photo album to an acquaintance.

I have 4 bags ready to get dropped at the salvation army, but I am waiting to consolidate trips.

[I'm a red panda]

Week 2 report:

8. Teeny tiny Pony bike that came with my house.  What kid could ride a 15" at the seat 2 wheeler?  No one that small would have the necessary balance.  Gone to thrift store.
9. 23 plastic plant pots - thrift store also.
10. Golf club thrown over my fence.  Put aside for animal rescue garage sale.
11. Silver necklace - thrift store.
12. Pair of shoe insoles - thrift store.
13. Pair of sandals - thrift store.
14. One winter glove, also thrown over my fence. Thrift store.  (What's wrong with you people?  At least give me something useful!)

So far, still easy.  Why didn't I start this months ago?  One item a day is so doable.

You are doing great on the decluttering SunnyDays but why on earth are you giving a pair of shoe insoles and one glove to the thrift store? They won't sell or even give these away. Why not throw them away instead of making someone else do it?

Many thrift stores sell crap to fabric recyclers.

[SunnyDays]

Well, in my defense, the insoles were new in package, not ripped out of old shoes!  Also, the one glove was in brand new condition and maybe the store could find a match for it.  Worth a try!

[FireHiker]

Such a crazy, busy, productive weekend. VVA came again today and picked up a giant load of stuff, with the next pick up already scheduled for next week. Too much really to itemize for VVA here, although I have it all itemized to enter into It's Deductible for taxes next year. This was all stuff like books, clothes, shoes, toys, misc house items.

In addition to the GIANT PILE that went out today we also decluttered the following this past weekend:
-furniture my sister-in-law wanted, and some decorative stuff
-boy's suit my son will never wear (buy nothing)
-old Wii games and controllers (buy nothing)
-preschool toys, two giant toy boxes, two booster seats (buy nothing)
-so much old art stuff, recycled or trashed or donated as appropriate

[SunnyDays]

My OCD thing is not wanting to throw way or donate anything 'useful'. It's emotionally easy for me to sell it, though, even at a very low price.

Yeah, I used to be that way too, but after many garage sales and the amount of work that goes with them for very little profit (and still ending up with 3/4 of the stuff left), I just bit the bullet and started giving stuff away.  Once it was gone, it was such a relief and I really never thought about the stuff again.  As long as I can see it, I still hem and haw and find reasons why I like it and should keep it, but out of sight and out of mind.  Once you realize how much time and mental energy you spend on things that are worthless TO YOU, the easier it is to let go.  The amount you might receive for selling things is usually pretty small compared to the time and effort it takes out of your life.

You might consider getting a 2nd hand dealer to come in and give you a price on the whole lot and be done with it.  At some point, it's just time to move on.

[Fresh Bread]

My OCD thing is not wanting to throw way or donate anything 'useful'. It's emotionally easy for me to sell it, though, even at a very low price.

Yeah, I used to be that way too, but after many garage sales and the amount of work that goes with them for very little profit (and still ending up with 3/4 of the stuff left), I just bit the bullet and started giving stuff away.  Once it was gone, it was such a relief and I really never thought about the stuff again.  As long as I can see it, I still hem and haw and find reasons why I like it and should keep it, but out of sight and out of mind.  Once you realize how much time and mental energy you spend on things that are worthless TO YOU, the easier it is to let go.  The amount you might receive for selling things is usually pretty small compared to the time and effort it takes out of your life.

You might consider getting a 2nd hand dealer to come in and give you a price on the whole lot and be done with it.  At some point, it's just time to move on.

Thinking of car boot sales I've done in the past, there can be a bit of community around it, so if slackmax goes every week, so there's a benefits there. Talking to people and making friendships with the regulars could be quite fun.

[mustachepungoeshere]

Finally dropped off two bags of donations to charity, and a bag of soft plastics to recycling.

I suspect there is another bag for charity in the garage that was put in the car with the best of intentions then removed before a trip. That's next on my hit list.

I actually did a little charity store shopping while interstate recently, picked up some beautiful notecards and greeting cards for about $1.50, so that motivated me to actually take in my donations.

[Fresh Bread]

Fabric recycling at H&M has been a game changer for our clutter - husband is finding it much easier to let things go if they go to recycling. We are talking worn out stuff that charity does not want and we already have plenty of rags. Four big bundles have gone out.

[chaskavitch]

Fabric recycling at H&M has been a game changer for our clutter - husband is finding it much easier to let things go if they go to recycling. We are talking worn out stuff that charity does not want and we already have plenty of rags. Four big bundles have gone out.

Ooh, do they take undergarments as well?  I definitely have some undies and bras that aren't wearable anymore, but I don't want to just throw them away.

[slackmax]

Fabric recycling at H&M has been a game changer for our clutter - husband is finding it much easier to let things go if they go to recycling. We are talking worn out stuff that charity does not want and we already have plenty of rags. Four big bundles have gone out.

Ooh, do they take undergarments as well?  I definitely have some undies and bras that aren't wearable anymore, but I don't want to just throw them away.

My municipal recycling place has a huge bin called 'textiles'. They take all sorts of things. Old shoes, boots, clothes, rags, hats, you name it. I asked the worker there what happened to all the stuff, and he said it gets sorted through eventually and some is thrown out, some is recycled into who knows what, and some is given to charity.     

[slackmax]

My OCD thing is not wanting to throw way or donate anything 'useful'. It's emotionally easy for me to sell it, though, even at a very low price.

Yeah, I used to be that way too, but after many garage sales and the amount of work that goes with them for very little profit (and still ending up with 3/4 of the stuff left), I just bit the bullet and started giving stuff away.  Once it was gone, it was such a relief and I really never thought about the stuff again.  As long as I can see it, I still hem and haw and find reasons why I like it and should keep it, but out of sight and out of mind.  Once you realize how much time and mental energy you spend on things that are worthless TO YOU, the easier it is to let go.  The amount you might receive for selling things is usually pretty small compared to the time and effort it takes out of your life.

You might consider getting a 2nd hand dealer to come in and give you a price on the whole lot and be done with it.  At some point, it's just time to move on.

Thinking of car boot sales I've done in the past, there can be a bit of community around it, so if slackmax goes every week, so there's a benefits there. Talking to people and making friendships with the regulars could be quite fun.

You nailed it, Fresh Bread. It's therapeutic for me to do the car boot sales. I would even say 'adventurous', since I'm so INTJ.

SunnyDays, you are right about the low return on investment. I end up putting 80 % of the stuff back into the car at the end of the day, but so far, I still like doing the yard sale thing, and I'm getting rid of stuff. I've already donated a ton of it to Goodwill, anyway. Time will tell. Maybe I'll end up donating a ton more.   


 

[SunnyDays]

Fabric recycling at H&M has been a game changer for our clutter - husband is finding it much easier to let things go if they go to recycling. We are talking worn out stuff that charity does not want and we already have plenty of rags. Four big bundles have gone out.

Ooh, do they take undergarments as well?  I definitely have some undies and bras that aren't wearable anymore, but I don't want to just throw them away.

My municipal recycling place has a huge bin called 'textiles'. They take all sorts of things. Old shoes, boots, clothes, rags, hats, you name it. I asked the worker there what happened to all the stuff, and he said it gets sorted through eventually and some is thrown out, some is recycled into who knows what, and some is given to charity.     

Don't get too excited about H & M "recycling."  There's a show on CBC called Marketplace about clothing waste, and apparently only 1 % of the donations actually get recycled.  It's mostly just a "feel good" for customers.  This show is worth watching - most clothing going to thrift stores ends up in Africa, where it's sold in street markets and the unsold stuff is just burned in landfills.  Makes you never want to shop again.

[Roadrunner53]

I worked in a factory years ago and we would get barrels of rags for wiping down stuff. All just cut up clothes. Hahaha, one time a pair of men's jockey underpants were in the barrel. We all got a good laugh that day!

[FireHiker]

We're still making progress, as we will continue to do for the next two months...I have VVA scheduled to pick up again on Monday so I'll spend a lot of time this weekend clearing more stuff out. Since my last post we got rid of two large chairs; comfortable but need to be re-upholstered or have a slip cover. We've also cleaned out a bunch of junk on the side yard: broken old outdoor furniture and umbrella, large trash can and sprinkler fittings given to gardener, old materials gone from a small construction project.

My oldest is finally feeling better (long story involving strep AND an allergic med reaction while on vacation with his dad) so he's sorting through the boxes of stuff from his room. I'm hoping for another productive weekend.

[happy]

Still making slow progress. Council cleanup is booked for the coming week...2 more mattresses and bases will get recycled, and nearly all the the remains of what was  a carport of furniture will go out. The rest has been given away, donated to the goats to climb on or smashed up and put in the skip. Deconstructed an old guinea pig cage ( about 6 foot long) that was collecting leaves on the back deck....relevant parts will go out also. Another large green garbage bag of old clothes and linen was also donated last week.

[RetiredAt63]

Cleared out a desk file drawer - mostly old calendars with pretty pictures and lots of dates.  Gone to recycling.

[Bracken_Joy]

Some wins, some losing ground(ish)-
-Gifted maternity clothes I didn't like/didn't fit well and some boys clothes to another expecting neighbor
-Sold an exercise pen and dog crate we weren't using. $40!
-We're getting a dresser for baby clothes, which will allow them to be properly stored- and as part of this, properly sorted more for quantity at various sizes.
-Losing ground in that we're selling our truck, so everything that was in it is now inside our apartment! Went through trash immediately- old deodorant and protein bars that are better off tossed, etc. But we had a full emergency slash camping kit in there that we'll now need to either consolidate to our car, store, or pass on.  Problem with consolidation is we need room for Husband's work gear for his new job (lots more than the old one!) AND room for a stroller. Gulp. Physics, be on my side! Haha.

Still, I think net we're moving in the right direction =) I suppose you could say going down to one car is a BIG declutter, haha! 1500lbs worth or something ;)

[mustachepungoeshere]

Sorted through my binder of important paperwork and pulled out about an inch-high stack of old insurance policies, out of date rego papers, etc that I no longer need to keep on file.

I'm going to ask if there is a shredder at work (not sure what the deal is since we moved offices).

[Bracken_Joy]

Sorted through my binder of important paperwork and pulled out about an inch-high stack of old insurance policies, out of date rego papers, etc that I no longer need to keep on file.

I'm going to ask if there is a shredder at work (not sure what the deal is since we moved offices).

Oh yes! This reminds me, when I was tracking down the title for our truck to sell it, I grabbed a few things that clearly could be shredded now out of the fire safe. I need to go back and slim down all our files. Hmmm, and make one for the baby while I'm at it!

[Cannot Wait!]

"Quote from: slackmax on July 08, 2019, 11:23:03 AM

My OCD thing is not wanting to throw way or donate anything 'useful'. It's emotionally easy for me to sell it, though, even at a very low price. "


Me too! Except for me it's not OCD but MMM  ;)
I've cured this by posting pics on fb marketplace to sell stuff as I go.  I made $45 to clean out some cupboards yesterday.  I'm going to  be home decluttering anyway - this way I feel like I'm getting paid for my time. So it's a switch from thinking that I'm selling stuff at a fraction of what I paid for it - to thinking, hey, I'm getting paid to clean out my cupboards.

Also we have a "Really, really free market" group in our town that sets up in a park and everyone just brings stuff.  Sometimes you get to see the people who pick up your stuff and their reactions.  Gives me the warm fuzzies that I don't get from Value Village.

[Cannot Wait!]

The other thing I find very motivating is to take before and after pictures.
And to commit to doing just 20 mins at a time.  This gets me started; most times I continue, sometimes I don't,  but those 20 min sessions add up.
These tips come from the "Unfuck Your Habitat"website.

[CrustyBadger]

Major decluttering happening this week in the Badger household.  I had some visiting relatives with teenagers come to help me declutter attic and basement.   it was so nice to just be able to point to things and say "Donate!" "Garbage" "Recycle" and have them whisk away the boxes and bags to the appropriate location.  We did the work the morning recycling was picked up by the town, and the day before big trash day.  So they brought stuff down to the curb in time for the recycling truck; placed donate bags and boxes into my car, and left big trash by the side of the house until the evening when they carried it all down to the curb.  (We live on a big hill so doing all this myself would have been tiring.)

I'm thrilled that my attic and eaves are completely empty now (will be replacing insulation next week).  And even the basement has been emptied a bit of stored items.

I've been reading a really good book for me on home organization called "Organizing Solutions for People with ADHD".    It is full of specific rules for me on how much of something to keep.  The author's suggestions might not be useful for people who have the organization thing under control (like Marie Kondo fans!) but for people like me they are really useful.

[SunnyDays]

Week 3 report:

15. Another paperback - for animal rescue garage sale.
16. Brand new wallet - gifted to me and passed along to relative.
17. Wrecked dog toy - garbage.
18. Cracked plant pot - recycling.
19. Unused frying pan - thrift store.
20. 4 pots of flower bulbs - put on donate table at old work place.

Still pretty easy.  More to go .......

[SunnyDays]

Oops, one more:

21. 2 dead dustbusters - going to electronic recycling.

[zygote]

Finally started dealing with the bag of hard drives and other electronics that's been haunting me for months. I know I want it all to go, but I have to deal with checking and wiping everything first. These are all computer backups that ran out of room. I'd just buy another bigger one and let the old one(s) collect dust. So most of them are redundant beyond the redundancy I build in with my two active hard drives. I'll never pull files off these things, and I hate using them because they require external power sources.

Anyway, tonight I pulled out the first one to check what's on it. I was expecting to just be able to delete everything, but there are some extra files not backed up anywhere else. So I'm letting those transfer and will wipe it in the morning. I knew this would take a while, which is why I've put it off. But I didn't realize it was going to take days/weeks based on the speed of the external hard drive to external hard drive file transfer and the number of files I hoard. So I've got to just get through them one at a time.

I know digital clutter is a problem too, but my files are well organized and I do look back through stuff a lot. My way of dealing with it is to be more selective about files I bring onto my computer. I still accumulate more, but at a much slower rate than I used to.

I've also got an old kindle with either a dead battery or a broken charging port. I got a new one for Christmas last year and don't use the old one anymore, so I just need to wipe it and recycle. But how can you wipe a dead device that won't turn on?? I think I need to suck it up and contact Amazon help. I don't really care about the content but I don't like that it presumably has my Amazon account info on there.

[Fresh Bread]

Fabric recycling at H&M has been a game changer for our clutter - husband is finding it much easier to let things go if they go to recycling. We are talking worn out stuff that charity does not want and we already have plenty of rags. Four big bundles have gone out.

Ooh, do they take undergarments as well?  I definitely have some undies and bras that aren't wearable anymore, but I don't want to just throw them away.

My municipal recycling place has a huge bin called 'textiles'. They take all sorts of things. Old shoes, boots, clothes, rags, hats, you name it. I asked the worker there what happened to all the stuff, and he said it gets sorted through eventually and some is thrown out, some is recycled into who knows what, and some is given to charity.     

Don't get too excited about H & M "recycling."  There's a show on CBC called Marketplace about clothing waste, and apparently only 1 % of the donations actually get recycled.  It's mostly just a "feel good" for customers.  This show is worth watching - most clothing going to thrift stores ends up in Africa, where it's sold in street markets and the unsold stuff is just burned in landfills.  Makes you never want to shop again.

My understanding from when I looked it up myself is that a tiny percentage actually goes for sale in charity shops /overseas and the majority goes to rags - did the source you watched say the majority was going to landfill? I'm fully intending my stuff to go for rags, it would not get as far as market stalls in Africa unless the sorter is blind, so I really hope that's not happening.

We generally wear our clothes out beyond the charity shop stage, so the issue I was having was the husband was having trouble letting go of almost wearable clothes like work shirts where the collar has rubbed away and the cuffs have ripped. But there's a limit to how many painting shirts and rags we can get through ourselves.

[mustachepungoeshere]

We generally wear our clothes out beyond the charity shop stage, so the issue I was having was the husband was having trouble letting go of almost wearable clothes like work shirts where the collar has rubbed away and the cuffs have ripped. But there's a limit to how many painting shirts and rags we can get through ourselves.

Shirts like that, I offer to my mum.

She is a gifted seamstress, so she cuts them down into cute shirts for herself or dress-ups for my nephews.

[former player]

We generally wear our clothes out beyond the charity shop stage, so the issue I was having was the husband was having trouble letting go of almost wearable clothes like work shirts where the collar has rubbed away and the cuffs have ripped. But there's a limit to how many painting shirts and rags we can get through ourselves.

Shirts like that, I offer to my mum.

She is a gifted seamstress, so she cuts them down into cute shirts for herself or dress-ups for my nephews.

Also: quilts.

[slackmax]

Finally started dealing with the bag of hard drives and other electronics that's been haunting me for months. I know I want it all to go, but I have to deal with checking and wiping everything first. These are all computer backups that ran out of room. I'd just buy another bigger one and let the old one(s) collect dust. So most of them are redundant beyond the redundancy I build in with my two active hard drives. I'll never pull files off these things, and I hate using them because they require external power sources.

Anyway, tonight I pulled out the first one to check what's on it. I was expecting to just be able to delete everything, but there are some extra files not backed up anywhere else. So I'm letting those transfer and will wipe it in the morning. I knew this would take a while, which is why I've put it off. But I didn't realize it was going to take days/weeks based on the speed of the external hard drive to external hard drive file transfer and the number of files I hoard. So I've got to just get through them one at a time.

I know digital clutter is a problem too, but my files are well organized and I do look back through stuff a lot. My way of dealing with it is to be more selective about files I bring onto my computer. I still accumulate more, but at a much slower rate than I used to.

I've also got an old kindle with either a dead battery or a broken charging port. I got a new one for Christmas last year and don't use the old one anymore, so I just need to wipe it and recycle. But how can you wipe a dead device that won't turn on?? I think I need to suck it up and contact Amazon help. I don't really care about the content but I don't like that it presumably has my Amazon account info on there.

Can't you just bang the heck out of the kindle with a hammer, making it unusable? Then take it to electronics recycling? It doesn't have to be functioning to be recycled, does it?     

[Plina]

Fabric recycling at H&M has been a game changer for our clutter - husband is finding it much easier to let things go if they go to recycling. We are talking worn out stuff that charity does not want and we already have plenty of rags. Four big bundles have gone out.

Ooh, do they take undergarments as well?  I definitely have some undies and bras that aren't wearable anymore, but I don't want to just throw them away.

My municipal recycling place has a huge bin called 'textiles'. They take all sorts of things. Old shoes, boots, clothes, rags, hats, you name it. I asked the worker there what happened to all the stuff, and he said it gets sorted through eventually and some is thrown out, some is recycled into who knows what, and some is given to charity.     

Don't get too excited about H & M "recycling."  There's a show on CBC called Marketplace about clothing waste, and apparently only 1 % of the donations actually get recycled.  It's mostly just a "feel good" for customers.  This show is worth watching - most clothing going to thrift stores ends up in Africa, where it's sold in street markets and the unsold stuff is just burned in landfills.  Makes you never want to shop again.

My understanding from when I looked it up myself is that a tiny percentage actually goes for sale in charity shops /overseas and the majority goes to rags - did the source you watched say the majority was going to landfill? I'm fully intending my stuff to go for rags, it would not get as far as market stalls in Africa unless the sorter is blind, so I really hope that's not happening.

We generally wear our clothes out beyond the charity shop stage, so the issue I was having was the husband was having trouble letting go of almost wearable clothes like work shirts where the collar has rubbed away and the cuffs have ripped. But there's a limit to how many painting shirts and rags we can get through ourselves.

I have the same understanding and I am personally only giving them stuff that you can’t sell in a charityshop. I have noticed the same effect with my mother. I took 4 bags of her stuff there yesterday and a couple of months of ago I took 4 bags and my sister took our old baby clothes a couple of months ago. So I think we have taken about 15 bags that would have gone to trash or been in some boxes in storage.

[Need2Save]

I've been tracking since the beginning of this year towards my goal of purging 500 items from the household for my family this year.  After a lot of momentum in the beginning of the year, it fell off after around month 4 with other priorities including a death in the family and a brief absence from work for a procedure.  But we have kept at it.  Just reached 300 items after this weekend. We took a big trip to our local bulk dump/recycling center.  Felt good to recycle a few random metal items that had been sitting in our garage waiting for such an occasion and we got rid of a used mattress which was recently replaced.

[YellowCat]

Took 3 bags to the Goodwill yesterday-clothes, CDs, DVD’s, assorted other bits & bobs. We’re having our first child in January and the house will be de-cluttered before then, come hell or high water...it’s not actually too bad, since I have a pretty strong minimalism streak, but there are areas that definitely need work. Some are entirely my husband’s, so I’ve given him a deadline to get those spots done by Christmas, and I’m trying to put together a list of the other areas so we can begin checking them off. Some of this is just crap that the previous home owner left behind, so no emotional attachment, just lack of prioritization. Wish me luck!

[Cannot Wait!]

Good luck!

Today I went to attack my shed but basically walked back out again because it was too hot, I could work on something else, I didn’t feel like doing it, blah,  blah, blah.
Then I laughed at myself as I realized that I was NEVER going to FEEL like doing it.  So I stepped back in and got 'er done!  I am so proud of myself.  There was crap in there from my ex husband who left in 2007!

One of my problems is that I am a sucker for free stuff.  I'm trying to internalize that just cuz it didn't cost me anything, doesn't mean it's free....

[FireHiker]

We had another hugely productive weekend cleaning out stuff. Our pile for VVA today was so big that we actually put some of it back in the garage for next time because we were clearly over the allotted donation size I'd specified. I really hope they take everything that's out there. I'll set up another pick up date for next week, again.

This weekend we cleaned out:
-6 drawers by the garage...they're not entirely empty, but I made a good first pass
-upstairs hall closet: 1 large box for VVA, some trash and recycling, and packed a box of stuff we'll keep
-my 18 year old's room: worked with him to sort everything (take to college, keep, get rid of) and then boxed up accordingly
-my husband cleaned out most of his tool chest to make sure he's only moving what he wants to keep
-all the corners of our giant master walk in closet; so much random stuff everywhere
-downstairs bathroom drawers and cabinet under sink: got rid of old sunscreens, old first aid kit stuff
-another pass through the pantry
-the top two shelves in the entire kitchen: several things out to donate!
-laundry room cupboards and shelves: not done, but I did finally recycle almost all of my old college notebooks. Seriously pared down our spare linens.
-my husband and I both thinned out our sock and underwear drawers. He also got rid of all the shorts he doesn't wear, and so many old white(ish) t-shirts
-china cabinet drawers and storage: got rid of excess table linen. I donated 58 cloth napkins. Everyone buys them for me; I only kept what I liked. Seriously, mom, I'm glad you're on board, but I don't need more every time I see you (got another 12 from her at Christmas last year!). Also pulled out a large wood bowl we don't use, and placemats
-storage closet by kitchen: got rid of old water bottles, sorted through old kid stuff (old slime...yay).
-upper two shelves in four cabinets by garage cleared out: mostly recycle, e-waste, donate. Very little keep in that pile.

I know there was more. It was a very productive weekend, but I'm exhausted.

I don't see how we can possibly still have so much left to do, but there is still plenty left. We went to our friends' house last night and my husband said it's actually freeing to downsize by so much because you HAVE to be ruthless and not keep everything "just in case" which is what he usually does. I knew I felt that way, but I was glad to hear he did too! He's always been the "keep just in case" one, so I'm glad he's coming around.

[I'm a red panda]

3 boxes of random stuff out of the house.
Also I bought new ottomans and the old ones were picked up by someone from BNP within an hour. :)

[zygote]

Can't you just bang the heck out of the kindle with a hammer, making it unusable? Then take it to electronics recycling? It doesn't have to be functioning to be recycled, does it?     

I may give that a shot if Amazon can't help me. I'm waiting another few days until the Amazon strike is over, and then I'll see what they say.

At least all the hard drives are empty and ready for recycling now.

[LinneaH]

I have been off the decluttering train for a while, my mental capacity was busy dealing with other things (job loss, husband suddenly thinking he may want a divorce). Things are now better (communication w/DH making him want to work on marriage) but kids are home from school, we have been travelling, and husband is either at work and/or travelling, so I never had time and energy at the same time.

In the last few days I have been planning and starting out a project of clearing out the laundry room, where I have kept A LOT of stuff that should leave the house, only it has been mixed together. There is recycle/trash/give away/charity and a small amount of sell, mainly bigger toys where the kids get a couple of dollars. I have almost given up on selling, it is not worth my time and effort. I only sell if I can get more than $10 on the local FaceBook group and I normally price very low.

Today both kids spent several hours with friends so I had the place to myself. I went through several bags and boxes and got almost all the stuff from laundry room sorted. Kids are now back, with their friends, so those parents can go 1) grocery shopping and 2) to hardware store w/o their kids :-). So I now have four boys here, refusing them to use computer so I will join them to the football field shortly. But first I will load some bags into the car so we can drop off tomorrow morning as we leave the house.

Also, as the other parents came to drop off the kids, I managed to give away one set of rain gear for a younger sibling and a large noisy toy my kids have said they wanted to sell. The parents were really happy to receive but I was happier to give :-D.

[slackmax]

Decluttering is now interfacing with home repairing. I have to move lots of clutter away from a corner on 2 floors, in order to allow space for a contractor to work on a leaking french door. But... I guess I can put off the repair for a while longer without further damage.

I've had 2 years to declutter, since my hoarder girlfriend departed this planet,  and I've made great progress (pat on the back) but the place stills looks like an episode from Hoarders. There's just soooo muuuuuch stuff.... I estimate I'm half done at this point. At least 1,000 pounds of paper clutter recycled. Hundreds of knick-knacky things donated to Goodwill.   

I'm currently working in the living room, clearing out that corner. I'm just relocating the clutter to the other side of the room. But I'm finding stuff I can sell also, and putting it aside for my weekly yard sale. Also found some old financial records that I have to look through, and then probably recycle it all.   

[Sibley]

Decluttering is now interfacing with home repairing. I have to move lots of clutter away from a corner on 2 floors, in order to allow space for a contractor to work on a leaking french door. But... I guess I can put off the repair for a while longer without further damage.

I've had 2 years to declutter, since my hoarder girlfriend departed this planet,  and I've made great progress (pat on the back) but the place stills looks like an episode from Hoarders. There's just soooo muuuuuch stuff.... I estimate I'm half done at this point. At least 1,000 pounds of paper clutter recycled. Hundreds of knick-knacky things donated to Goodwill.   

I'm currently working in the living room, clearing out that corner. I'm just relocating the clutter to the other side of the room. But I'm finding stuff I can sell also, and putting it aside for my weekly yard sale. Also found some old financial records that I have to look through, and then probably recycle it all.

No, you can't put it off. Get the leaky doors fixed.

[former player]

Decluttering is now interfacing with home repairing. I have to move lots of clutter away from a corner on 2 floors, in order to allow space for a contractor to work on a leaking french door. But... I guess I can put off the repair for a while longer without further damage.

I've had 2 years to declutter, since my hoarder girlfriend departed this planet,  and I've made great progress (pat on the back) but the place stills looks like an episode from Hoarders. There's just soooo muuuuuch stuff.... I estimate I'm half done at this point. At least 1,000 pounds of paper clutter recycled. Hundreds of knick-knacky things donated to Goodwill.   

I'm currently working in the living room, clearing out that corner. I'm just relocating the clutter to the other side of the room. But I'm finding stuff I can sell also, and putting it aside for my weekly yard sale. Also found some old financial records that I have to look through, and then probably recycle it all.

No, you can't put it off. Get the leaky doors fixed.

Yeah.  The main key to keeping a house in good condition is keeping water where it should be.  Fix the damn doors.

[SunnyDays]

Good going Slackmax!  Keep at it-there will be an end to it.  Just be careful that your weekly sales aren’t flagged as a business.  Where I live, we’re only allowed 2 per year.

[RetiredAt63]

Another carload of stuff donated.  The end is in sight.

Although as I unpack from the move, I am sure there will be many "Why did I keep this?'" moments.

[happy]

Success! We can now get a car into the carport :). Nearly all of the old furniture in there has been given away, or this last week the remainder has gone on a council cleanup. A lot of this is from my deceased parents house. @slackmax : we removed >500kg (1100lbs) of paper from their house, so I know how that feels!

I am collecting up a pile of animal cages/bowls etc to donate to RSPCA at some point, as we now only have 1 guinea pig left, but not done sorting yet. And I have a  box of bric a brac slowly filling, also for donation. Not done yet, but progress is being made.

[Freedomin5]

We just moved to a new apartment and the previous tenant left a lot of stuff that they thought we could use. We’ve found two things whose purpose we can’t identify. We spent the afternoon sorting through kitchen paraphernalia. My Chinese friend started laughing when I showed her the garlic press, whose sole purpose is to mince garlic and release juices by smashing it. Her comment was, “Why can’t you just flatten the garlic with a knife and then mince?” She also laughed at the lemon/orange juice squeezed, the egg separator, the egg slicer, and apple corer, the pineapple peeler, the ice cream scoop, the pizza slicer, and the rectangular griddle for making pancakes.

We cleared out a giant ikea bag of kitchenware which will be donated.

[CrustyBadger]

Success! We can now get a car into the carport :).

Congrats! That's a monumental achievement!

[CrustyBadger]

I have been spending this heat wave staying inside my house (I'm a teacher on summer break) and decluttering.

Yesterday was the hardest ever.  I'm going through two boxes of personal mementos, letters, photos and items from high school and college days (some elementary school too!) .  I have lugged these mementos through over 12 moves, never going through them but also never weeding them out!

It is so emotional to go through them now (at almost age 52).  Young people, don't put off this task as I have done!   

I have letters high school friends wrote me the year I was an exchange student; letters and cards from old boyfriends; letters my family sent me when I was living away from home.  So hard to just recycle without rereading but everything is in cramped, faded cursive and so wordy!  How did we have time to write such long missives back then?  (I know, we weren't emailing, texting and binge watching on Netflix.)

I can't throw much of it out but I did a rough sort yesterday and am going to try a more massive purge today.  Some easy rules to help me:

- toss all birthday cards
- toss all postcards.  All of them.
- toss all letters written by people I can't remember
- toss any letter that doesn't remind me of something happy (so, the bad break up boyfriend letters -- toss them.)
- toss any memento that is broken or stained
- toss any recipes
- toss old report cards from grade school and high school
- toss awards from elementary and middle school


-keep anything written by a family member to me or anything I wrote to a family member (but not birthday cards)
- keep letters from old boyfriends that made me happy
- keep all photos for a later sorting day
- keep any saved schoolwork that makes me happy to look at it
- keep awards I earned high school +
- keep religious documents and mementos

Hoping to get two large boxes down to one organized half a box through this hard work today

[Tyson]

Here's another way that I moved away from clutter and toward minimalism (which was HARD, btw).  Instead of looking at each item and deciding if I wanted it or not (which just got me bogged down half the time), I changed my approach to asking this question:

"If I were starting out from scratch, TODAY, what would I actually use or want to own".

This is a subtle shift away from the idea of "what can I get rid of" and toward "what do I want to keep". 

Once you know the things you want to keep, it's a lot, lot, lot easier to get rid of the things that you don't.

[CrustyBadger]

@tyort1  that's a great way of looking at things.

I'm wondering, do you find you want to keep any old letters or cards?

[diapasoun]

I do this too tyort1! It's especially helpful in evaluating my (large) book collection.

CrustyBadger, I do keep all my old letters and cards (and I do read through them periodically, actually). They make me really happy to look at/through them. That being said, I don't have anything in the breakup letters/schoolwork category.

[Tyson]

@tyort1  that's a great way of looking at things.

I'm wondering, do you find you want to keep any old letters or cards?

Let me answer in a bit of a roundabout way, as for me it wasn't an immediate (or obvious answer).  But I promise there'll be a payoff :) 

I'm recently divorced.  When I first got married, my wife and I bought/acquired really nice things.  A lot, lot, lot of nice things.  To the point that things were fairly cluttered. 

At a certain point I became uncomfortable with all the clutter, all the time, in all areas of our lives.  So I made efforts to pare down, but these efforts were strenuously resisted by my then-wife. 

I didn't understand it at the time but I do now.  For me, I only wanted to keep the things that were "the most" beautiful and/or functional.  She wanted to keep everything.  Because we "might need it again some day", but also there were memories associated with a lot of it.  So it wasn't just "we don't need 3 nice knife sets", but rather "oh, remember when we were in Germany with my mom and we got this?" 

So after the divorce I still had a fair bit of clutter that I needed to deal with, even though she took like 4/5ths of the furniture and stuff to her new house.  So I went through and ruthlessly pared down to only the most essential things and the most beautiful things.  I started this during the separation.  For example, we had 5 really nice table lamps, but one of them was clearly nicer than the others.  So I kept the single lamp that was the nicest. 

Here's what happened - the impact of the single awesome lamp was actually increased because it didn't have all the other "sort of nice" lamps taking away from it's awesomeness.  It stood out even more BECAUSE it was alone. 

So the moral for me - even if you have lots of nice things, the beauty/impact of them is hugely impaired when you have too many of them.  Thus, I keep ONLY the very, very, very NICEST things and get rid of all the other stuff that's merely "good".

Now, to bring this back to cards and papers - I take the same approach.  I only want to keep the things that have the MOST impact, and bring me the MOST happiness.  IME, those things are actually pretty easy for me to identify!  So I sort those out of the pile first and put them in the "You won't even get this out of my cold, dead hands" box.  Those things are the things I cherish the most and they are sacred. 

The other stuff that makes me "sort of" happy, I toss all that.  Because I don't want the "pretty good" memories to take up any of my headspace and thus distract me from the "super awesome" stuff that I really cherish. 

Sorry for the longwinded answer, but I hope that helps!