The Great Declutter Part 3 - 2011

heebie-jeebies

I finally got rid of my garden rubbish on Friday (6 bags and a Xmas tree!), still a little bit to go but almost there.
I also managed a bin bag full of plastic and glass bottles and then 4 bags of general rubbish out today.

Yorkielass

LauraMac wrote: »

- 31(!) charity collection bags collected from locations around the house. Not sure if I'll use these as binbags or just bin them so they're not cluttering.

That's some decluttering LauraMac - wow!

I use these as binbags (turned inside out) but beware many have big holes so not ideal for kitchen stuff/dyson contents etc (we now have a wormery so less of a problem). Or we use them for shredded paper.

If you have too many they can go in carrier bag recycling bin at your local supermarket so they haven't gone completely to waste, or if you freecycle if you put them on there I'm sure someone would want them.

Yorkielass

I've done a bit of decuttering this weekend - counted, bagged up & got ready to send all the Tesco and Sainsburys vouchers my Brownies and Guides have collected this year which have been coming into the house gradually. Catalogues & some letters relating to it in recycling too. This does mean lots of stuff will arrive later in the year which will need to be stored somewhere but we'll come to that later!

Then I made my cushion up so cushion pad & front and a piece of backing fabric all married up together & on the settee now. Got a few more projects like this where things need sorting and finishing off which will help decluttering.

Other than that I've not been making much progress on a grand scale, only home to sleep, wash & change this week so next week I'm hoping I'll get some more stuff done as we're going to try and put the house back up for sale we think.

LauraMac_2

Yorkielass - I'd forgotten about the plastic bag recycling at the Tesco round the corner, probably because four out of five times I've been to it it's been so full it's like an erupting volcano of bags!

Anyway, today's efforts:

Charity:
- 3 books
- 2 shirts
- 9 CDs
- a soft toy
- a scarf

Green Metropolis:
- 2 books listed

Bin/recycle:
- 12 bottles to the bottle bank
- Cleared out a box of random office supplies and binned - pile of unused floppy disks, lump of fluffy Blu-Tack (clearly dating from my student days as it had a dried up noodle stuck to it), various stickers, various non-working pens and a dried up tube of glue.

I can't believe that despite my decluttering efforts this year the house never seems to look less full - maybe the mess is just more spread out now. It's so frustrating.

mineallmine

Evening all,

Felt so good to take a sack of stuff to the local charity shop last week. They asked about Gift Aid - I always forget to do that so signed up so they get extra money too. It was all stuff mainly from the kitchen. Which still looks a mess! Going to have to accept this is just going to take a while.

Glad to see everyone working away.:j

Right I'm off to find 25 things tonight!!! In just over 25 mins - I've got a burst of energy.

:T

mineallmine

Right, phew...sorted 25 things.

An old pan for freecycle (ideal for camping)
Food/magazine for a friend
The rest Out Of Date (OOD) food so either binned or containers rinsed out. Urrrrrggggghhhh! Loads of stuff sitting in the fridge that was v.old!

So that's a bagful of recycling and (sadly) a bagful of a black bag sorted.

cat04

I mark a Maths GCSE paper online, and it's all started today so I'm going to be spending a lot of time on my bottom with the lap top unfortunately until early July....but, I will declutter and clear when I can. This morning I did a big load of ironing whilst I watched DD2 play in the back in the glorious sunshine we had After school the DDs and I planted some seeds that they found in the 'greenhouse', whether or not they will grow is a different matter, but it meant a shelf of the greenhouse got cleared a bit.

Plenty of recycling has gone out; the girls tidied the playroom at the weekend bless them and did a great job; I'm baking cakes for the school fair on Friday and we're also going to hunt out some cuddly toys and other bits for the stalls there. Had a few ins of P.E. kit and new canvas pumps for the kids. OH has lots of Blu-Rays on ebay and I have 12 things on there too so hopefully a few more outs soon.

Everyone seems to be going great guns at the decluttering - keep up the good work!

Yorkielass

LauraMac wrote: »

Yorkielass - I'd forgotten about the plastic bag recycling at the Tesco round the corner, probably because four out of five times I've been to it it's been so full it's like an erupting volcano of bags!

My 2 Sainsburys are bad at that, I normally talk to customer services and they get it emptied, I guess it doesn't take many people having a clearout to fill it up!

I should have time to pop to some charity shops on Saturday morning so I'm going to try and bag a few bits up before then (which considering I'm only getting an hour or so awake at home each day this week is going to be a challenge) so going to find:

10 items to take to a general charity shop, got a few clothes to start with.
All the books I've got listed on Amazon and Green Metropolis. Most have been on for years and I think now it's time for space for me and for Oxfam bookshop to give them a go, and I believe they have books they can't sell collected for recycling.

Then I have a pile of books a shop in York said they might want to buy earlier this year, so will contact them if I am going in to try and sell them.

Think I've got a few textiles that aren't suitable for resale so will get those in a bag and in the car for when I'm next near a textile bank too.

If I get rid of all of this, and keep up with general recycling then things should hopefully look a bit better and I can get on with working out the next area to tackle.

LauraMac_2

I've had rising mental instability and depression the last few weeks, which isn't good. It's mostly triggered by the persistent bad weather but exacerbated by hatred of this flat - horrible rented new build magnolia box that we didn't see ourselves living in for more than a year and we've been here for nearly five years (OH apparently isn't interested in saving some of his good salary for a house deposit, and I'm saving what I can from a miniscule income, and have some money in an ISA).

Anyway, to get to the point, mental instability makes me more ruthless at decluttering (though more likely to get rid of stuff I'll later regret). Today's efforts:

Charity:
- 4 scarves and a shawl
- 40 books (about half were listed on Green Metropolis previously but they've been there too long)
- 2 pairs of jeans
- 1 pair of pyjamas
- 5 t-shirts
- 14 CDs

Green Metropolis: 2 books listed

Bin:
- tub of handcream (very old)
- Bach Flower essence (very out of date)
- Pulse point essential oil blend (very old)
- deodorant (empty)

verynewmoneysaver

I decluttered a 3 baskets full of rubbish from the kitchen, gave a bag of mainly clothes to the charity shop, sending two old laptops to M&S recycling(will get some vouchers) and am selling some shoes on ebay.