Decluttering 2012, this year, definitely ...

ticklepenny_2

Thank you to everyone for your help and advice. Its nice to know its not just me that finds it hard, my mum always just had a cleaner and we lived off ready meals but I want to be more like my late Grandma :A who ran her own home and cooked the most delicious food (luckily she also taught me the food part shame we didnt get round to the rest).

Plan of attack:
Use kitchen timer to help break things down into manageable chunks (brilliant! Thank you)
Never leave a room empty handed. (So simple but I really like this tip)
Wipe Kitchen and bathroom before bed (this does mean I need to get ontop of the kitchen).
Ironing - I have already stripped back our ironing to OH's shirts and Tshirts as I was drowning in clothes before.
Clutter - I have an ever growing car boot pile and to be honest if I can get OH to go to bed early tonigh and tomorrow night I may be in with a chance of getting rid. What doesnt get sold will go to a charity shop.
Hoover front room when kids go to bed - essential as our youngest eats anything not pinned down (:eek:)

Laundry is the only thing at the moment I am up to date with, mainly as I refuse to buy myself anymore clothes till I lose weight so only have a couple of outfits that actually fit lol

Cooking... the main reasons i cook from scratch is OH, DD and me. I have reduced the salt/fat content in our food to bare minimum in line with his consultants recommendations. DD is a fussy eater (insert rolls eyes smiley) OH is also somewhat fussy which makes it a challenge. Finally I am trying to lose weight as if I can get rid of my excess weight I will have more energy (in theory anyway lol). I do need to batch cook more often, last night we had oxtail stew and I am just going to boil up some more veg and stretch the leftovers to freeze for another evening. I am trying to get into using the SC as much as possible so I am not doing too much cooking which ties me to the kitchen. Infact I am thinking of buying a bigger slow cooker.

Dishwasher - we rent a small 2 bedwith no dishwasher point, otherwise we would have had one a long time ago. It is one of my all time priorities when we finally get to move/win lottery :rotfl:

merlot123 - it does feel like shovelling snow in a blizzard

Right off to do the 4th nappy change of the morning by the smell of things, then must get off my bum to get the kitchen tidy and tea prepped whilst the little ones are engrosed in snack time (accompanied by fantastic Mr Fox c/o sky+).

Just once again thank you everyone x:T

cat04

Last night I reported that 4 items of children's clothes were being collected today via my local facebook selling page. After I logged off here I had 2 other people wanting clothes, and one came this morning and took 10 things plus some wellies. Another lady is coming later for some slippers and 7 items of clothing. That has seriously deminished the pile of clothes left to sell, and even though I knocked some off for buying a bundle I'll still take far more than I would have done at the carboot (everything expected to be 20p or they're not interested!) and it's less hassle (and cost) than ebay.
DD2 has been ill all week but is finally back to pre-school today (all day!!) so I have plenty of time to get stuff done. First on the list is a shower as no time before school, then ironing, washing up, tidying and more photos for facebook selling

Keep up the good work everyone

Edit: Timed the shower almost right, got out and as our bathroom is at the top of the stairs you can see down to the front door and I could see someone was there, so had to go down dripping wet in my dressing gown lol. Poor woman collecting the kids clothes got a bit of a shock lol. Didn't help it's freezing here either, so I'm having a cuppa to thaw out

Sylvia1982

Ditch 100 in January Challenge 55/100

Hello everyone!

Soo happy to see all the progress that you all are achieving... :beer:

I have three days off work, so finally can concentrate and sort out my bedroom once and for all. I cannot believe al the carp i am coming across. Major issue of hiding things so well in a large room:rotfl:


Sylvia

Aarons_mummy

Again not much done here grrrr! But a few more things added to the list:

47. couple of boxes out to the recycling.
48. 3 books into CS bag
49. 5 bottles recycled as I had no need for them and they weren't useful for flavoured alcohol.

In for a good bit today so hoping to get rid of some more stuff but to be honest I'm starting to struggle to find things! My house isn't cluttered just more I had to be ruthless with some things which I have been but now it's getting to the point where I'm down to the bones and everything I have I need! Argh!

Clutterfree

Ditch 100 in January challenge

Not decluttered as much as I'd like, but I've stated to make inroads with my "to do" list. Also, I've started to get my filing up straight - I didn't realise how behind I'd got with it so it will take some time. Anyway, recycled/thrown/charity bag...

23. Socks
24. Candle
25. Cookie Cutter
26. Blusher
27. Drinks bottle
28. Fitted sheet
29. Bottle of wine (re-gifted)
30. Box of Chocs (re-gifted)
31. Knickers
32. Shred lots of old documents
33. Recycled lots of paper

Well done to everyone else. Keep it up!

lilac_lady

Gave dog next door large fluffy bunny that my DGC never look at now. Dog delighted.

Took fold up chair to dump as I've been going to recover the seat for months (ahem, years). I'm delighted.

Various other items in box for charity shop but will not count them till they have left the house.

BitterAndTwisted

ticklepenny wrote: »

Ironing - I have already stripped back our ironing to OH's shirts and Tshirts as I was drowning in clothes before.

You iron T-shirts? I'd allow that if he was going out to a job but I can't think of any jobs where T-shirts would be OK.

T-shirts do not need to be ironed. If you have as TD give them a shake when you take them out and put on a hanger until they're completely cool. Fold.

If no TD take out of washer, shake, put on hanger till dry then fold.

Was it Shirley Conran who said that life's too short to be dusting under sofas when you could be lounging on one eating chocs and reading a book? Superfluous roning falls into the same category imo

topbargainhunter

SavingJane wrote: »

Thanks, havnt had time to fully catch up on topic, thought someone would of asked.....6yrs WOW thats a lot of paperwork to store :eek:

I don't know if anyone else has replied to this, but only businesses and possibly the self employed have to keep financial records for 6 years.

If you work for someone else, then once you've got your p60 you can get rid of your payslips for that year, the P60 is the thing to keep for future reference so I would keep this for 6 years. Personal bills etc, it's up to you, I usually keep 12 months worth.

You can also scan stuff if there's a possiblilty you made need to refer back to it in the future, then it doesn't take up physical space.

SueMaggie

I've been reading through this thread off and on for the past few days - keep imagining the huge mountain of stuff that everyone's getting rid of.

I'm also trying to declutter but have an OH that will never get rid of anything - his late Dad was exactly the same - so every "out" is an argument waiting to happen.

I notice that lots of you are using zapper.co.uk to get rid of books. I've sent my first boxful to http://www.webuybooks.co.uk/ this morning. Sent 7 books and am due £16.54 back.

For my list of books they were giving a lot more than Zapper, but there's the same problem of them not taking some things at all. I had a pile of around 40 books, of which they'd only take the 7 I ended up sending. Still, it's a start and as I'd either won or been sent them all to review it's pure profit.

black_cat

Found a skirt and jumper to go to the charity shop and in the process a whole bin bag of clothes to go through. That's my project for this afternoon. Hopefully I'll be to report quite a few items of ditched clothing!

27/100