Declutter challenge - 90 days - clean up in 2016

[horsepoor]

A photographer friend pointed me to an online buyer for used photo equipment, so I got a quote from them this morning for my mom's old 35mm gear, boxed it up and will get it to FedEx...

Do you mind sharing the contact (by PM if you would prefer)? I have 2 35mm cameras that we would love to re home.

I used KEH.  They have an online quote tool, then print put a FedEx label, mail it to them and they send a check.  It won't get you top dollar, but it's  easy.  My stuff was 25 year old Olympus, and no one seemed to want it.  Canon or Pentax or whatever  might be easier to offload.

[Rosy]

Oh thanks for the info, horsepoor - I'll have a look, I do have one camera I'd love to sell. I think it is a Yashica.

Anyway, just popped in to say - success! Mr. R. and I went thru four grocery bags full of old bank statements and pay stubs - all the way back to 1992 - all his, and now all shredded.
He said that paper clutter was like an Albatross around his neck and he was glad to see it leave the premises.

Nothing will happen tomorrow of course, it's SUPER BOWL SUNDAY:)

[Squirrel away]

I decluttered 2 water glasses that I don't like.

[Rosy]

@Londoner - you always make me smile, I envision your home to be near minimalist with a spacious feeling to it:)
My goal is to surround myself only with things I like and not choke on a million little dusty (and they would be dusty in my house, trust me:) trinkets.

Action to speed up de-cluttering and maybe at least make a buck or two - since so far I have been donating everything in my frustration to get rid of it - NOW:)
Saw an ad yesterday, $5 a table for a one time indoor garage sale at a nearby senior center - not only have I decided to do that, but it changed my perspective to "Who says I have to do a full blown garage sale"?
Prompted by - OMG, I have several boxes of beautiful coaster sets (I used to enjoy making and selling - interest wained at some point) and in looking around the studio I also noticed several items in boxes - hmm.

I wouldn't go to the trouble save for the fact that our house sits way back from the road on a busy street and anything I ever put out by the trash that is still worthwhile - always gets picked up within minutes.

So I am going for it - one table here and one table there - which endeavour will be the winner:)? - I will report back on the results.

[horsepoor]

A great thing about decluttering is that it frees things up to become more useful.  I was thinking that I needed to build a seed-starting rack, but after decluttering the nearly useless garden shed yesterday, I hauled back in some shelving and just set it up in the basement.  It will be perfect for housing all my seedlings and lights, didn't cost a dime and took way less time than building something new.

More cruddy nursery pots went in the trash just now, as well as the catch bag for our mower, which we have literally never used.  There's so much space in our main shed/shop now that I'm thinking that I'll actually be able to get rid of the little tin shed at the end of the driveway.  It has garden overflow junk in it, and it's an eyesore, a magnet for wasp's nests, and a PITA to use due to it's size and lack of standing headroom.

Someone is supposedly coming tomorrow to buy my aquarium, so that is all cleaned out and the accessories are boxed up.  If they don't show I think I'll just take the tank itself to the thrift shop since I can repurpose the stand as a nightstand in the guest bedroom.

[Mongoose]

- prime and paint the unfinished drywall ceilings (almost the whole house...ugh!) Not started yet.
- clean out, organize and paint inside the bathroom cabinets (2 bathrooms) Cleaned and organized but not painted
- tackle the kids closets and hall closet
- sort/organize DHs clothes that I wasn't sure what to do with Done
- work on the basement/garage (boxes dumped when we moved in and untouched are keeping me from getting my car in out of the snow! Grrrrr!) Done

We worked in donation and recycling runs for Friday (three carloads...and I mean full to the brim...) repurposed, recycled or re-homed.

My car is in the garage!!!!! And, while we were trying to clean out the garage, we ended up cleaning and organizing the entire basement and using some of the leftover lumber to build DH a workbench and me an indoor gardening bench. DH's tools and remodeling supplies are sorted and neatly stored. I also cleaned my washer, dryer, oven, refrigerator top, and vacuum cleaner. Kitchen drawers were cleared out and organized. We have another 13 gallon bag of clothes that the kids have outgrown to donate. Youngest's dresser has been purged and sorted. Oldest's and our dressers have been KonMaried (spelling?). It is so easy to find our clothes now!

What a weekend. Yay for my parents coming and offering to help! While the guys were tackling the basement/ garage, we also got ahead on cooking. Three casseroles and four blackberry cobblers have been added to our easy meals stash.

In addition to the items above that need to be finished:
- clean, organize and purge office spaces (shelves and two desks)
- sort and organize business paperwork
- sort and file personal paperwork, manuals etc
- tackle the two closets in the guest bedroom
- sell crystal glasses and two 35mm cameras
- organize kids' toy shelves

With all our progress, it seems like we might finally get our house cleaned up and in an easier to manage condition. I can't wait until it is done!

[cityfolks]

Been preoccupied the last few days with grocery shopping and a mountain of laundry, but now that my closet is more accessible I'm planning on starting in on that tonight. I'm making a donation to a local group that provides business clothes to job-hunters, so that'll be good motivation! I've gotten the extra books out of the house as well, which has cleared up some visual clutter.

The house-hunting process appears, unfortunately, to come with a lot of paperwork. Luckily our realtor does a lot of online document management but I'll still have to figure out a way to store what we need to have accessible but not necessarily staring at us all day ...

[NeverLost]

Wow, it sounds like many of us had a productive weekend.  I've got to say it, I'm a bit burnt out with decluttering right now.  I have spent at least one day of my last 3 weekends (both days on 1 weekend!) working on our bedrooms and I'm just tired of it.  I was super motivated with our room and my sons room but I was just sick of it when I went through my daughters room this weekend.  I think a lot of it was my husband was out of town and I just kept thinking of how I'd rather be playing with my kids!  It was sunny outside and we've had freezing cold temps and snow for months now and they were out riding their scooters and playing catch while I was stuck in my daughters room.  I love the konmari method, but since it requires dumping out everything on the floor it's not like you can just do a little and move on.  You have to stick with it till you're totally done.  Don't get me wrong, the result is incredible.  My kids have thanked me a million times and yesterday when I was cooking superbowl apps my daughter said she wanted to play her kindle in her room because it was nice and clean :)

With that being said, our bedrooms are probably the most time consuming of all my decluttering because it takes forever to fold/hang everything back up after you've chosen what you're keeping so that's good.  We all have a three day weekend this weekend so I think I will pick just 1 or 2 smaller items off of my list and try to do them early in the weekend and just enjoy the rest of the weekend with my family. 

[Need2Save]

Sucessfully purged minimum of 10 items both weekend days!!! Yeah.  Focus, as planned, was on master bathroom which far exceeded minimum on Sunday.  In case it's helpful to others, here was my criteria for bathroom purging:

1. Expired medications (over-the-counter mostly) - GONE!
2. Contacts for my hubby who had laser surgery three years ago - GONE!
3. Have 3 of the same kind of hair brush for some reason - 2 of those puppies GONE!
4. Old makeup and cosmetic bags (not sure why I was keeping them) - GONE!
5. Have 2 of the same bathroom cleaner for some reason? merge into the same bottle if possible - empty one GONE!
6. Toiletries that you bought thinking it was a good deal, but you actually didn't like? - GONE! (I did put a small number of unopened items for donations to our local women's shelter, but if already opened - GONE!)
7.  Extra wash cloths and hand towels - relocate to the linen closet.

Now, I'd say 1/2 of what is left is usable cleaning products which are in a easy to move plastic bin.  The other 1/2 are mostly 'extra' toiletries we will in fact use, including travel size ones for upcoming trips and my hubby's electric razor.  These will be easy to bag and move when we are ready to yank our the cabinets and sinks.

Also, although I was absolutely dreading this project, it went pretty quick and wasn't that bad.  It took only 30 minutes to clean out the cabinet under both sinks!  Sometimes we are our own worse obstacle!

[Ready2Go]

1/14
-Started the records purge.
-Gave DH a challenge: 10 items a day to toss/donate.  Four days of success so far!
-map everything to your new house. 

1/20
-DH is keeping up with the purge 10 items a day challenge. Ten days at this challenge so that's 100 items!!
-Records purge still a work in progress. Mainly because I need to spend a lot of time helping DH with his items.
-Mapped our furniture to the new house. So far it looks like we have an extra bedroom set, desk, 4 large chairs, and a huge old dining table that's currently used as a desk.  New house has 3 fewer rooms than current house. 

82 days to go...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

2/9
-Not quite an utter fail, but sure feels like it! Big snowstorm 2 weeks ago and we completely lost momentum.  Trying to get back on track and did have some success this weekend.
-We have a HUGE cookware collection purchased years ago. Most has never been used. Got DH to agree that I can get rid of all the items  I don't like. 12 pans now ready for Ebay.
-DH back on track for 10 items a day, and he did even better than that. Big box of books and huge stack of paper into recycling --no one takes donations of ancient engineering textbooks
-Boxed up old iPods, Mac mini, Nintendo DS games for Ebay. The sad thing is, my family is only willing to part with this stuff after its lost almost all value while sitting around.
-Did the taxes this weekend, and now I want to try something new: digitize copies of all records I need to save and toss the rest. Might be a stretch goal!

63 days to go...



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Bracken_Joy]

I feel like I should de-lurk! I've been following this thread since the beginning, but haven't jumped in... I'll tentatively join, because I've already done some decluttering as inspired by this thread! Already done: rehome sewing machine, general decluttering, etc.

Deadline: May 8th, 2016

Challenges: Working too much, living with Brother (who is an absolute clutterbug and lived in a MUCH larger space before moving in with us).
Advantages: we live in a fairly small place (1000sq ft- no basement, attic, or garage) with very little storage (1920s house ftw). Also, DH and I lived in a tiny place until July, and we still have many tiny habits- like sharing one small dresser.

Goals:
1. Food storage: sort and organize
-inside pantry
-outside shelving
2. Kitchen utensil drawer: minimize, organize
3. Laundry room shelving (aka, our "tool shed")
4. Hallway "closet"
-gift shelf
-get Brother's items back to one shelf (and determine where weird smell is coming from in his stuff)
5. Dining room "closet"
-at the minimum, reorganize
6. Bathroom cubbies
-meds
-medical supplies
-DH's black hole basket
-Dog supplies
7. Hard stuff:
-jewelry box
-bookshelf in our bedroom
-papers: file box, desk drawer
8. DH's dresser drawers (at the very least, launder and refold everything so that he will wear it)
9. Living room
-Brother's DVDs
-Craigslist items to sell
-Gift bag collection
-Make sure we don't have anything in Brother's bookcases
-Little drawer unit
10. Go station (where we keep our keys and such)
11. My clothing
-closet
-dresser drawer

[Need2Save]

-get Brother's items back to one shelf (and determine where weird smell is coming from in his stuff)

This made me literally LOL, only because we've been trying to figure out same for my 17 year old son's room.  I even stripped all the bedding and made sure nothing was hiding under this bed and there is still kind of a funk in there.  I need to get some febreeze me thinks!  It's possible the smell is in the carpet which we are hoping to replace in April after some bonus $ comes through.  The carpet is 15 years old. Paint stains and god knows what else.  Thankfully he never takes any friends up to his room. ;-)

[Bracken_Joy]

-get Brother's items back to one shelf (and determine where weird smell is coming from in his stuff)

This made me literally LOL, only because we've been trying to figure out same for my 17 year old son's room.  I even stripped all the bedding and made sure nothing was hiding under this bed and there is still kind of a funk in there.  I need to get some febreeze me thinks!  It's possible the smell is in the carpet which we are hoping to replace in April after some bonus $ comes through.  The carpet is 15 years old. Paint stains and god knows what else.  Thankfully he never takes any friends up to his room. ;-)

I'm allergic to febreeze =o

And to be fair, I can't judge Brother too much. He lives with us because he has brain damage, and while for the most part he's functional, he.... overlooks things sometimes. Part of why he's such a clutterbug, I think, is that he associates things with the memories they're place holders for. (Although he was a clutterbug before his accident, so there is that!)

As for 17 year olds, god only knows. I would pass on trying to ask "why", and just move to, "how do I fix this?" Pretty sure I wouldn't want to know!

[ruthiegirl]

Go through my clothes
Go through son's clothes
Go through kid's toys and do a purge
Clear out old school papers from laundry room shelf
Clear off cabinet
Fix broken lamp or finally get rid of it
Clean off mantel
Go through winter coats, donate anything too small and put the rest away while we have guests and need to coat hooks
Empty extra dresser and donate


Day 8 -- Have a big load of stuff to drop off at Goodwill this afternoon and I am going to tackle the kids' toys.  Need to pick up some fresh superglue and see what I can do about the lamp.  Either I fix it this week or I toss it. 

[norabird]

I thiiiink I have someone to buy a light fixture from me tomorrow. Most of my clutter right now is stuff I bought that doesn't work for my place, and is now just sitting around...so one fewer item is great! Plus I allllmost make back my money.

[Bracken_Joy]

Getting rid of a boat load of gift bags through my local Buy Nothing Group.

Pantry was easier than I thought, but unfortunately, just means I don't have enough space for all the cooking we do. I will need to pick some ingredients to use up and not replace. (Ie, "de-own" some of our food options!)

Started dealing with some laundry room items when I realized Brother's dog had peed on the end of my bed >.< So lots of laundry to do, and I have NO IDEA what I'm going to do about our boxspring being pee soaked. It's pretty much already dry (ick ick I slept with it on the bed and didn't know ICK). Suggestions welcome! (Other than "burn the whole thing" lol)

[TheBeardedIrishman]

we have been minimizing the items in our house and selling everything else on craigslist...just got rid of the tv yesterday, not like we really watch anything beside redbox movies on the weekends...but wow when I come home there is a lot of open space, no unnecessary clutter and it feels so nice and relaxing...wish we would have done it sooner

[Rosy]

@Bracken Joy -  You win the prize for this weeks "icky" post:) Oh no, peed on mattress is the worst, how on earth would you ever get that out - although Goodwill always has those "guaranteed sanitized mattress" so somewhere there must be a "dry cleaner" for mattresses?

@Mongoose - YAY YAY YAY!!!! YOUR CAR IS IN THE GARAGE!!!
I am so happy for you and I envy you all that help!

No updates here - except I've been clearing my e-mails a little at a time every time I go in. Not on my list, but hey:) Feeling meh - started a new journal over the weekend - so right now I love/hate Mustacheland, because I had to look into the abyss of my past financial failures.

But, it wasn't all bad, I won the Super Bowl football pool at half time - $25 - going straight into my savings.

@CCAC - welcome - feel free to join the 90 day challenge at any time. Spacious is definitely the key word! Kudos for managing to sell things, haven't really scored on that end yet.

[Squirrel away]

Started dealing with some laundry room items when I realized Brother's dog had peed on the end of my bed >.< So lots of laundry to do, and I have NO IDEA what I'm going to do about our boxspring being pee soaked. It's pretty much already dry (ick ick I slept with it on the bed and didn't know ICK). Suggestions welcome! (Other than "burn the whole thing" lol)

My dog peed on the bottom of my living room curtains last night! I knew he needed to go out but I just wanted to watch the last few minutes of a TV show. Very unusual for him as he is only 5 years old and trained. Oh well, let that be a lesson to me! Curtains were washed last night and back up now.

@Londoner - you always make me smile, I envision your home to be near minimalist with a spacious feeling to it:)

It is minimalist, but not very spacious.:)

[Ready2Go]

1/14
-Started the records purge.
-Gave DH a challenge: 10 items a day to toss/donate.  Four days of success so far!
-map everything to your new house. 

1/20
-DH is keeping up with the purge 10 items a day challenge. Ten days at this challenge so that's 100 items!!
-Records purge still a work in progress. Mainly because I need to spend a lot of time helping DH with his items.
-Mapped our furniture to the new house. So far it looks like we have an extra bedroom set, desk, 4 large chairs, and a huge old dining table that's currently used as a desk.  New house has 3 fewer rooms than current house. 

82 days to go...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

2/9
-Not quite an utter fail, but sure feels like it! Big snowstorm 2 weeks ago and we completely lost momentum.  Trying to get back on track and did have some success this weekend.
-We have a HUGE cookware collection purchased years ago. Most has never been used. Got DH to agree that I can get rid of all the items  I don't like. 12 pans now ready for Ebay.
-DH back on track for 10 items a day, and he did even better than that. Big box of books and huge stack of paper into recycling --no one takes donations of ancient engineering textbooks
-Boxed up old iPods, Mac mini, Nintendo DS games for Ebay. The sad thing is, my family is only willing to part with this stuff after its lost almost all value while sitting around.
-Did the taxes this weekend, and now I want to try something new: digitize copies of all records I need to save and toss the rest. Might be a stretch goal!

63 days to go...



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

2/9
-Just realized I had the date wrong all day yesterday!  Feels like I just got an extra day back this week

-Sorted and packed up all my "work" clothes for donation. Megacorp went casual this year, so no more need for any of this stuff and I'm not going to work after the move, so happy days!  I'm almost ashamed of the quantity of stuff accumulated for my working life.  Guest room closet emptied of my stuff.

-Tried to digitize tax records using my phone. Way too much work and I am not sure it's worth it to buy a scanner. Will have to think about this one.

-No progress for DH last night. Now he needs 20 items tonight.

Still 63 days to go!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Bracken_Joy]

DH's drawers successfully gone through! (That sounds... sexier than it really was, haha).

He works from home a lot of days, and has a very busy day today. So what I did was pull everything out of his drawers (teehee, there it is again), and lay them out by category (workout shirts, short sleeve shirts, etc) and put those into 2 piles- what I think he would want to keep and what I wasn't sure on/thought he would want to get rid of. It took less than 5 minutes for him to go through everything. Now I'm washing everything (they smell like ikea drawer... ick) and then I'll refold them and put everything back.

I guess we're still more minimalist than I thought. DH has:
jeans x2
workout shorts x5
work out shirt x3
tshirt x4
long sleeve x1
then underwear and socks

Fits in 2 small dresser drawers with plenty of room to spare

Of course, this doesn't count dress shirts and work polos, which hang in the closet, but there's plenty of room in there so I'm not worried about those. They don't get much use (except the polos) but they're good to have when they're needed!

Now I just need to do as well on my stuff as he did on his =P

[Eric222]

Progress!
I'm most of the way through my kids' room, with the notable exception of the closet - mostly it is filled with either luggage, things I need to sell, or clothes from my niece that I'm waiting for my daughter to grow into. 

Their old beds are gone, old toys and clothes are being donated, and tonight I'm assembling their new bunk bed.  Yay!  They'll actually have a functional living space.  My old couch will go in their room, mostly because they like to pull it out for Friday new movie night - and now their will be space.

That will then free up room in my main living space for the desk from my bedroom and a repurposed old computer for the kids to use (chess, old video games, and occasionally minecraft...). 

Moving the desk from my bedroom will give me space to move things around and start de-cluttering there.

Main things left:
1.  My closet.
2.  Kids' closet.
3.  My room. 
4.  Small closet in main living area.

My kitchen, main living area, and the kids' bedroom are so much better than they were two weeks ago! The benefit and downside to a small place with minimal storage is that you can't store up a lot of stuff - but the stuff you do store up tends to show pretty quickly. 

[Need2Save]

Hey, Hey!  Officially the beginning of the weekend for me since I have off tomorrow!  Gotta love my flex schedule. I'm feeling pretty motivated that I can do serious damage in the basement this weekend.  If I have three days, that's 30 items to get rid of if I can stick to my 10-items per day goal.  That should be no problem.  I really don't know everything that is tucked down there but to keep the project from ovewhelming me and thus making me give up, I'm going to focus on the following areas this weekend and see how it goes:

1. Holiday Decorations - I'm sure there are some Christmas, Easter, Halloween, etc. decorations we have not use in several years. If they are not our favorites, that's why we didn't pull them out recently so why am I holding on to them?
2. Empty boxes and packing materials that we keep for 'just in case' reasons.  My hubby actually does resell on Ebay from time-to-time (me too actually) so I don't want to purge all of it, but we should trim it down and organize it better instead of just a big hump.
3. Serious question for anyone who lost a loved one or parent.  I was my Dad's Executor when he passed away more than ten years ago.  Obviously I want to keep his original death certificate copies, but is it necessary to keep all the letters to various creditors we wrote stating 'he died, there are no asset's, please close the account?"  Should I keep anything else?  It has been ten years.  I think the first 2 or 3 years there would randomly be a statement or letter show up but it's been a very, very long time.   I also have many family photos which need to be scanned, sorted, distributed to my siblings, but that is a major project in and of itself. Right now I just want to purge the non-photo items taking up space in the storage and deal with photos at another time.

Thanks for your input.
 

[norabird]

I would potentially scan those letters to have them on record; but then, ten years out, you may be safe.

As for boxes I don't have a recycling bin so I use old boxes and shopping bags to collect our paper and plastic/metal recycling and carry it out of the house, so two birds/one stone. You may not need that solution but it (somewhat) keeps things in check.

[cityfolks]

I took a few things to the tailor today and have a pair of boots in my car to run by a cobbler (this is my first time trying this so fingers crossed!). I also returned a whole tote bag of books to the library today, so while that's not clutter, it cleared some much-needed mental and physical space. Baby steps are still steps, right?

Tomorrow I'm off work and my husband is at jury duty, so I'll have a solid chunk of uninterrupted time in the apartment. I find this helps me focus, not to feel "observed" and just be able to focus on the task at hand. Then again, when he's home the cat is usually hovering around him and out from underfoot so ... six of one half a dozen of another, I guess.

[Rosy]

^^^ blaming it on the cat are you now:)

*Took another car load for donation this week. Today I'll get my last two boxes of more donations together - all from that infernal closet.
Then I'll run two loads of laundry created by cleaning out said infernal closet.

*Shredding budget related papers that are beginning to clog my file drawer today and will clear my e-mail box.

*Not very ambitious, but hey, it's a move forward and IF I feel up to it (after watering the garden, baking for Valentine's Day and general house cleaning) I just might start in on the bookcase in the hallway.

Next week will be split between gardening and de-cluttering - always a soothing combo, because being out in the garden and the sunshine always  alleviates any stress caused by the de-cluttering.

[Need2Save]

So much awesome success!  I may even take the day off tomorrow to reward ourselves.  What happened was this morning we decided to work out downstairs in the basement since it's like 6 degrees out and super windy today.  My wimpy self said "no way I'm going outside to walk/run this morning!"    After 40 minutes on the treadmill.  I hopped off and ventured into the dreaded basement storage room with a fist full of trash bags.  After about 15 minutes, my DH finished up his cycling and without me even saying anything, he started helping me!  Before you know it, an hour and half went by and we did the following:

1.  Consolidated all the shipping boxes into 4 MUCH smaller piles and recycled about 15 of them that would not be suitable for reuse.
2.  Consolidated all the extra bubble wrap and peanuts we saved into three kitchen grocery bags. I hung them from the wall so they won't take up any floor space!
3.  Threw away or recylced all packing materials unsuitable for reuse (a lot of it!).
4.  Took out 2 huge bins of my Dad's papers.  One full box (overflowing really) ready for the shredd-it van when it next becomes available (we will watch for this on the news). We have a small shredder in our office but the shear volume of papers will probably send our little shredder to an early grave.
5.  Filled up three construction size trash bags (the big black thick ones)!!  Yeah - that felt good.  I couldn't believe the volume of stuff DH was putting in there! Go DH, Go!
6.  Pulled out my Dads old photos.  Took the photos out of the old frames (in poor shape and not worthy for resale) and put pictures into box about 1/3 of the original size.  I now have them ready to start the scanning/sorting process!

So I didn't get to the holiday decorations - but we made so much progress in that one 1/2 hours it feels like 150% victory none-the-less.   The fun parts were: glancing over old photos my Dad had saved.  Finding his Pilot Log Book!  (he had his license but never owned a plan of his own). Watching how much my DH was pitching stuff without a single comment or word of encouragement from me!  Sometimes, saying nothing is magic!  DH turned up some music and we actually enjoyed the purging process for a small while.  We basically stopped because we were getting hungry for lunch and felt like we accomplished so much. Maybe we can tackle some more of it next weekend.

Happy Valentines Day to the all the DW/DH's out there!  Be nice to your honey - clean something up for you both this weekend. 

[horsepoor]

Someone came today and bought my aquarium and all the accessories!  Big chunk of clutter gone and $180 cash to be deposited in the bank today.

[Bracken_Joy]

Sold an item through Craigslist, $60. And that's the conclusion of our "craigslist stash" we've been working on selling off the last few months. Lovely to have a clear corner where we had been storing stuff!

Went through the kitchen "stuff" drawer. Got rid of several items (plastic rice paddle and little cup that came with our instant pot, can opener that never worked well, chip clip that we don't use), and ordered a replacement for one of those oven grabby pads that I've been putting off.

Small progress, but progress none the less!

[Rosy]

@CaptainBenefits - you guys rocked the house - score:) Hope next weekend goes as well.

No real progress today on the de-cluttering project, instead I fixed a super dooper Valentine's dinner with lobster and steamed potatoes and fresh peas from our garden.
Desert was double chocolate brownie, whipping cream and fresh strawberries - big hit with Mr. R.:)
Opened a nice bottle of wine and took it easy today:)

De-cluttering to continue on Tuesday.

[Mongoose]

Wow. Great you guys got stuff sold. I still have to look into selling the two cameras and crystal glasses. Decluttering was on hold this weekend to focus on our business (yay! We were busy!) and fixing various items. DH fixed the outbuilding roof. I fixed a couple of pairs of kid's pants, glued mirror back in child's jewelry box, sewed hair bow back together and am working on a pair of my jeans to patch holes. Also cut DH and youngest's hair (first clipper cut I've done).

Took some extra time this weekend to play with the kiddos and do some art projects.

I hope to get back to decluttering and house repairs on Tuesday.

[ruthiegirl]

Go through my clothes
Go through son's clothes
Go through kid's toys and do a purge
Clear out old school papers from laundry room shelf
Clear off cabinet
Fix broken lamp or finally get rid of it
Clean off mantel
Go through winter coats, donate anything too small and put the rest away while we have guests and need to coat hooks
Empty extra dresser and donate

Awesome day.  Cleared out a mess of stuff, purged some toys and more clothes.  Rooms are clean, floors vacuumed and clear, I love all the clean surfaces.  I still have done nothing with the lamp, mostly because I need to buy glue and I haven't been to the store in a week.   

I have someone picking up a dresser tomorrow and trunk full of stuff for Goodwill.  I need to walk around my house and see what is next for cleaning.  Hmmmmm?  Game closet? Pantry? Kitchen? 

[Need2Save]

ruthiegirl - that's like 8 out of your 9 items done!  Pat yourself on the back for just a moment. 

Even though I was planning to take Sunday off, I found myself wandering back into the storage room and decided to organize two bins of crafting supplies.  We will likely have a yard sale in spring with anything worth value from the storage room we can get rid of and I'm hoping some of those supplies will find a nice home with a mom/dad, teacher, or girl scout troupe leader who can use them up for craft projects.   I certainly have no intentions of using them in the next few years (my boys are a junior & senior in HS now!)  No more classroom projects for us.  I didn't realize I still had some leftover stuff from halloween and valentines parties from like 8 or 9 years ago!  wow! That feels like a lifetime ago.
:-)

[Ready2Go]

2/9
-Just realized I had the date wrong all day yesterday!  Feels like I just got an extra day back this week
-Sorted and packed up all my "work" clothes for donation. Megacorp went casual this year, so no more need for any of this stuff and I'm not going to work after the move, so happy days!  I'm almost ashamed of the quantity of stuff accumulated for my working life.  Guest room closet emptied of my stuff.
-Tried to digitize tax records using my phone. Way too much work and I am not sure it's worth it to buy a scanner. Will have to think about this one.
-No progress for DH last night. Now he needs 20 items tonight.

Still 63 days to go..

2/15
- DH faltering this week on his 10 items a day, but I picked up the slack and so he gets credit for another 60 items. Yea!!
- Cleaned out the china cabinets today of old knick-knacks and kids school stuff... who knows why we have 4 clipboards, multiple pencil cases, and hundreds of crayons, pencils and markers..
- Cleaned out my embroidery supply cabinet of everything that isn't related to my embroidery machine. Its 1/2 empty now.
- Cleaned out 1 filing cabinet drawer of old receipts, manuals, papers.
- DH brought up old speakers, amplifier and carver (???) from the basement.  Took some pictures and will post on CL.  Win, Win! The speakers are huge, hard to move, and in poor condition so I am glad to see them go.  OTH, we had great times with those speakers, so it will be a little sad to see them go, but time marches on and the new house will be small..

Except for some boxes of papers/stuff that only DH can sort,  the pickings are starting to get slim for easy discarding.  Decision making time will clearly start next week with some 'stuff' that we may not use, but still don't want to part with.  Today I was looking at a huge pile of pillow cases I have accumulated.  How can a woman with only 1 set of sheets per bed have 50+ pillow cases I ask??  Where did these come from?? 

57 days to go..

[Rosy]

Today I was looking at a huge pile of pillow cases I have accumulated.  How can a woman with only 1 set of sheets per bed have 50+ pillow cases I ask??  Where did these come from?? 

LOL - clearing out the linen closet is near impossible for me, I never want to let go of anything. I did purge 2 big boxes last year, but I really should purge again - NO NO don't make me - I want to keep it all:)

[Bracken_Joy]

Today I was looking at a huge pile of pillow cases I have accumulated.  How can a woman with only 1 set of sheets per bed have 50+ pillow cases I ask??  Where did these come from?? 

LOL - clearing out the linen closet is near impossible for me, I never want to let go of anything. I did purge 2 big boxes last year, but I really should purge again - NO NO don't make me - I want to keep it all:)

Oh man. I'll take the pillow cases! Just yesterday, I swapped one of our pillow cases with holes for a backup one, and felt oh so smug. Until I noticed the one I didn't swap also has holes! So now I'm back to one pillowcase with holes I guess. Sigh. Need to make a Ross or TJ Maxx trip soon- cheapest place I've found for linens, but I'm open if anyone has any suggestions/links. Just plain white normal sized (ie, not king) pillowcases wanted.

[ruthiegirl]

ruthiegirl - that's like 8 out of your 9 items done!  Pat yourself on the back for just a moment. 

I am really enjoying my house.  Just finished vacuuming and it is so easy.  We have always kept things fairly minimal, but now we are like vegan monks.  Kidding.  We have 4 kids, so it is a daily battle to keep the shoes and back packs and coats and soccer cleats and swim bags and mitts and all the stuff organized and purged. 

Today I went through the shoe basket.  Everyone has one pair of every day shoes that we keep by the front door.   All dirty cleats went in a bucket in the garage.   Tossed two pairs of worn out shoes and donated two other pairs that were in good shape. 

[horsepoor]

Sold the last of my last horse's  "clothes" and have $75 cash in my wallet.

It seems like it's getting good easier  to sell stuff... maybe people have their Christmas  bills paid off, or its just the spring  like weather?

[Well Respected Man]

Quote from: Well Respected Man on January 23, 2016, 01:54:34 PM
Areas to declutter now through 4/23:
- woodpile - move empty racks, secure tarp better
 - bureau top
 - t-shirt drawer - move holey ones to rag bag (or maybe dog bed, I like that creative use by many ITT)
- bedside table
 - office shelves - books, photos
 - help move wife's off-season clothes to the freed-up basement closet
- books in the living room - I need to fight the urge to rage when I tackle this area

 - recover photos from old hard disk
- move boxes from basement closet to crawl space - probably putting off the day of reckoning, maybe I'll look at some of the boxes

 - office papers to shred
 - office miscellaneous junk to deal with
 - pantry dead/live batteries/light bulbs
 - extra Ikea furniture in the basement
 - basement work bench
 - the "antiquities" in the basement -- we stored a bunch of junk from my MIL's move for five years in a storage unit, and now a lot of it is still in storage in our basement.
 - cables and electronics in the basement
 - basement bathroom - currently has a shop vac, cooler, space heater, panes of glass, all the usual bathroom necessities (also try to get it working again)

Following 90 days:
 - remnants of my wife's stitching business in the basement
 - hazardous waste drop-off (this is always on Saturdays about once a month in the warm weather, and I can never get it together to go)
 - back of house - wood racks, hoses, yard waste, old bike
 - shed - old bikes
 - workout area - remove tub, lay down mats, organize weights and equipment

Great to see all the good progress!

My sense of urgency was redirected to the first couple of weeks of class, which have sandblasted my brain. Last weekend, my daughter inserted her own decluttering effort into the fray, and so I ended up helping her take apart, move, and reassemble two beds. Her bed ended up in the guest room.

This past weekend, I removed suitcases to toss and books to donate from the guest room, which is getting there. It's really my wife's project, but I'm happy to help. :-) Next, I tackled the basement closet/cupboard, and moved all of the boxes to the crawl space. Some of it was old financial and school papers. Almost everything that came out of there will have to be dealt with eventually. I warned DW that she needs to think in that way, for when we downsize at some point.

The basement efforts also included moving some other large junk to the curb, opening access to the old Ikea furniture and a set of dining chairs. Those will be next out the door, hopefully to a nice home that needs them.

Oh, I also changed my cable + internet from $186/month to about $80 month, which will be paid by work. Detached the converter box and cable cards, and will bring them to the cable co. this week. Now it looks like I am getting down to more difficult stuff. 

[Mountainbug]

For Valentine's Day hubby and I sold some extra motorcycle parts on Craigslist. He also unexpectedly decided to organize our important paperwork, best gift ever! Otherwise progress has been slow, thinking about taking our garage sale pile to goodwill just to be rid of it... Not sure if I'm being impatient or if a garage sale with a small amount of stuff is a waste of time.

[ruthiegirl]

Listed a bunch of things online and they have all been picked up.  We have a local Facebook page that I use a lot to unload things. People list things they don't want, other post asking for things they need and it is rocking my world. 

Gave a pack and play to a young couple expecting their first baby. 
Gave an old trunk to a college student.
A dresser is going to a family for one of their kids.
And some quilting books are going to a literacy center's sewing room.   

Things that were clutter in my house will hopefully be useful somewhere else. 

Now I just need to figure out how to get rid of a pile of broken concrete.  I have listed it several places and I haven't had any takers.  People often use concrete chunks to edge garden beds, so I thought I would get some takers, but not one nibble.  I can take it to the dump, but it will cost a fortune.  Still brainstorming this one....

[Basenji]

Have been sick for a few days (I'm a walking cold and flu TV ad). But I tackled some old mags, ripped out a few recipes and chucked the rest in recycling.

[Ready2Go]

...
Except for some boxes of papers/stuff that only DH can sort,  the pickings are starting to get slim for easy discarding.  Decision making time will clearly start next week with some 'stuff' that we may not use, but still don't want to part with.  Today I was looking at a huge pile of pillow cases I have accumulated.  How can a woman with only 1 set of sheets per bed have 50+ pillow cases I ask??  Where did these come from?? 

57 days to go..

2/19
-Took a deep breath and put all but 4 pillow cases in the donation pile.

-Still doing 10 items a day for DH... This week he gets credit for 50 things that include taco seasoning from 2007! Yes, I hit the spice cabinet this week.  I easily had enough partial pumpkin pie spice tins to last my lifetime as I only make 1  pie a year.

-Went through my baking tins this week. This is getting REAL HARD. DH asks "How are baking pans different from garage tools".  Caught!  Maybe I can trade some fancy bundt cake pans for a lawn fertilizer

52 days to go..

[cityfolks]

Today I corralled these items for getting rid of, either donation or trashing/recycling:

- a pair of wellies with a crack beyond my ability to repair
- four paperback books (still so hard for me to part with books)
- a damaged baking dish (why we still had this is beyond me)
- a good stack of paper clutter in the form of expired coupons, recipes we didn't end up liking, and whatnot
- a few old batteries I've been meaning to discard responsibly

Tonight I think I'm going to tackle the bathroom cabinets. We're lucky to have ample storage in our bathroom, but it does mean things tend to get pushed to the back and left. My husband is theoretically tackling the pantry tomorrow, he's an overbuyer when it comes to non-perishable foods like condiments and he's agreed we need to make sure those are in the line of sight when we're cooking.

[Rosy]

@Awellrespectedman - wow 186 bucks a month saved, that's terrific! High five! - I'm green with envy:)

Oh, I also changed my cable + internet from $186/month to about $80 month, which will be paid by work. Detached the converter box and cable cards, and will bring them to the cable co. this week. Now it looks like I am getting down to more difficult stuff.

@ruthiegirl - Art project for the garden? New walkway? Support underneath the trashcan?

Now I just need to figure out how to get rid of a pile of broken concrete.  I have listed it several places and I haven't had any takers.  People often use concrete chunks to edge garden beds, so I thought I would get some takers, but not one nibble.  I can take it to the dump, but it will cost a fortune.  Still brainstorming this one....

No progress this week - the garden was calling my name, it's time for spring gardening in Florida and simply didn't have the energy to do both.  But, I did sign up for that garage sale table and I'm compiling a list in my head of things to take. Might recruit Mr. R. for de-cluttering tomorrow.

Worked on some MMM inspired stuff, that should add extra income, which I feel good about - it all takes time.

[Cassie]

In regard to the funky smell in a teen aged boy's bedroom having raised 3 boys I usually found that their shoes were stinky and shoe deodorant put in at the end of the day solved the problem.

[Mongoose]

Light weekend...the whole family was together so we declared yesterday play time. :-) Today is half business and half play.

While organizing for play we have set aside a 13-gallon bag of clothes the kids have outgrown, a dart board set we never use, and finished setting up our basement play/exercise area. We identified some boxes in our basement to go through some weekend that doesn't have unseasonably wonderful weather.

[Need2Save]

In regard to the funky smell in a teen aged boy's bedroom having raised 3 boys I usually found that their shoes were stinky and shoe deodorant put in at the end of the day solved the problem.

Thank you for the tip.  He doesn't keep his shoes in his room though.  We have a place in the laundry room for sneakers.  The smell has improved if we keep up with the laundry and insist he washes his comforter every 2 weeks.  I think it's just his teenage-sweat.  He sweats a lot at night due to some medication he takes (makes him extra hot at night). 

To keep myself honest with regards to the 90-day challenge - a quick update on what got done this weekend:

I ventured back into the strorage room for one hour each day (Saturday and Sunday).  Filled up another contractor size black trash bag.  Recycled about 4 more cardboard boxes and added anything with resale value to the growing 'yard sale' pile in the middle.  The DH and I are agreed that we will have another yard sale this spring and anything that doesn't sell will be donated or taken to the dump.  It's not coming back into the storage room.  We've had pretty good success with a spring yard sale in 3 of the last 5 years.  What we do - and I highly recommend this if it works out for where you live - we always pick the weekend that the church up the top of our street has their spring flea market.  There is already a lot of traffic coming to the church for their event and people just drive down our street when they are done at the church.  We get a lot of free advertising from the church signage!!  We have made $300 - $600 each time we did a spring yard sale.  This time, I don't think we have quite as much to sell, but our goal this year is to get the stuff out of our house. The income is a nice 'bonus' if you ask me.   

I found a few items that will sell on Ebay and we have another pile of books to donate to the library as well!  I'm not sure about you guys, but we found that generally books do not sell well at yard sales.  Even when we have them priced very, very cheap.  We've only had small amount of success reselling the popular titles in good condition on Ebay. This time, I'm taking some of the children's books to the pediatricians office. I noticed their books are all torn up and looking sad. They may appreciate some replacements. :-)
 

[cityfolks]

Today's successes include five more books (donated), 30 t-shirts cut up to be sent away for quilting, a binder I don't need anymore because the paperwork is gone, and a few handfuls of debris from my desk (dried out pens and rusty paper clips) that was mixed in with the 'good stuff'.

I also returned three library books, added a handful of change to the piggy bank after tidying my car, and mailed off the check for our new CSA share.

[Bracken_Joy]

Slightly off-topic, but only kinda. For others who, like me, are donating lots to Goodwill or St. Vinny's or other charities, I just learned a very cool tip: to make tax stuff easier, when you do your donation, snap a few photos to notes or Evernote or whatever you use to keep track of things. Tag it with taxes2016 or whatever you want to do. Makes it a lot easier in case you get audited. Also, goes without saying, but fill your donation slip out right away or otherwise you'll forget what you donated.

Figured I'd bring some of the tax stuff I'm learning into the thread that caused me to learn about it!

Today went through skin care products that didn't work for me. Need to get them listed on the Buy Nothing Group in my area. That's on the list for tomorrow. This weekend checked Brother's bookshelves in the living room for things we own- only decor in the glass sections, and I'm leaving that for now. Nothing hidden away to sort through. An easy victory there!