Enough is enough - the great declutter

Soapy955

I got rid of a load more toiletries to my Mum and her friend yesterday that I know I'll never get through.

I also collected a baby monitor through Freecycle as my old one was faulty and kept cutting out so not really much use. This new one is perfect. I LOVE Freecycle, it's saving me so much money!!

i got rid of some more stuff out of the filing cabinet and shredded it into my green bin yesterday. I can't believe how much rubbish and uselss paperwork we store in that filing cabinet! :eek:

Plum_Pie

annie123 wrote: »

do I dump all stuff in one room/area then when finished gathering decide what to do with it ebay/freecycle/charity shop or do I put it in separate piles from the start?

Annie, hope you don't mind my answering, I'm just getting to the end of an 18 month declutter. I lurk a bit on this thread to stay inspired! Love the 'in: xxx, out: yyy' post style!)

I definitely recommend sorting from the start.
You could use flylady's simple categories:
1. Put away
2. Throw away
3. Give away

However I used:
1. papers to be kept, important (eg stuff from bank)
2. papers to be kept, interesting (eg recipes) (I recycled a lot of newspaper-clipped recipes though! If I had never cooked it, it went!)
3. recycling
4. rubbish
5. charity shop
Stuff to put away, got put away as soon as it was discovered!

Labelled containers are better than sorting stuff into piles. (I use plastic bags and a permanent marker.) I didn't Freecycle much, just things I thought the local charity shop wouldn't take. Freecycle is great, but can take longer than just bagging stuff up and dropping it off. Also, don't wait til the end of your declutter to go to a charity shop (if possible), the more often you can go, the better.

When a bag of stuff was supposed to leave the house (freecycle/for charity shop), I put it in the hall, rather than leaving it in the corner of a room, to remind myself it was on it's way out. Bags of recycling and rubbish were taken out of the house just before tea breaks!

saffouri

Hi all,

Haven't posted since adding this thread to my subscription list a few months ago... but my husband's just left today for a 2-week work trip, and I would rather use my time more usefully than watch silly TV into the wee hours! My brother's girlfriend got stuck into some tidying and decluttering when he was away and I want to take some inspiration from her, and you lot. So I'm posting now before I get started. In fact, not quite sure where to start... which usually means, it would help to set a timer for say 30 minutes and just decide on something, anything, to start with!

Would like to flog off some of our stuff on ebay too. We completed our first ebay sale last month after reading through the ebaying guide, so I feel more ready to start doing that regularly. We have a giveaway/ebaying pile in a corner I can start with and so would like to aim to make £150 on ebay this month (£5 a day in September). Will keep coming back here to post.

The house is a bit of a tip after a lot of travelling over the past months, so there'll be lots of tidying work as well as decluttering, but plan to report on progress especially over the next two weeks.

Right, enough sitting on this website, time to get moving!!

Thanks all for being there.

saf

LameWolf

Finally took a HUGE box of books (mostly technical stuff of Mr LW's, to do with computers) to the Hospice book shop. YAY!!!! I can see part of the floor in the [STRIKE]junk[/STRIKE] spare room now!

Also got Mr LW to hang up a very large Limited Edition print of a bird of prey that I won in a raffle, so that's also off the floor.

I WILL get that room tidy...... honest, I will...... one day.....:rotfl:

furrypig

How strange I posted on here earlier (or so I thought!!) and it's gone now!!

Anyway I too am loving freecycle as have had all my bits rehomed bar 1 set of bike stabilisers and I might just reoffer them or take Plum Pie's advice and just give them to the 2nd hand shop! The only downside of freecycle is when you don't hear back or people don't collect , still waiting to hear back from someone I offered an item to???! Also someone said they'd be round today and didn't turn up!! someone collected yesterday and someone collected some bits today and hopefully another 3 people will collect later on!

Must keep up the good work!!

essexgal

saffouri wrote: »

Would like to flog off some of our stuff on ebay too.

saf

5p listing day on Thursday if you're quick

Just got to find where I de-cluttered my camera:rotfl:

Have lurked and not posted lately (mainly 'cos you all put me to shame:o ) but decluttered three drawers last week - now have photographs and 'family cards' tidily in their own separate boxes and can weed them further at a later date - but at least they're tidy now. Also got half a carrier bag of old paper/brochures/catalogues to recycle, and a good quantity of used postage stamps for DD1 to take to guides next week. Feel I have at last achieved something.

Also decluttered DD2s school uniform drawer (she's obviously had a growth spurt in August:rolleyes: ) - carrier bag to go to school office tomorrow:D

Going to concentrate on sorting out of shoes this week - did manage to offload a couple of pairs to my sister for her girl, unfortunately said sister had also had sort out so a carrier bag of clothes came back for me/DD2 :rotfl: .

Right - going to find camera now......may be gone some time

essexgal

mumoftwo

Made £37 in 2 hours at a school carbootsale yesterday and it was raining, so not too bad. We sold: jeans, jackets, leotards, shorts, games, barbie till, Bratz skates, numerous figures, books, cuddly toys, gift set,

Unfortunately I had to bring a dolls pram and bird cage and some small stuff home again, but the garage is not so full now.

Goal for this week: my bedroom. Declutter, that should be fun..

annie123

Plum_Pie wrote: »

Annie, hope you don't mind my answering, I'm just getting to the end of an 18 month declutter. I lurk a bit on this thread to stay inspired! Love the 'in: xxx, out: yyy' post style!)

Not only do I not mind I am very grateful:D

Lots of good ideas that I can (only because of today) understand.
My bedroom is now junk free:j however my living room now has piles of stuff :eek: that need a home somewhere or to go to charity. So tonight I will make a start on that.
I did think about free cycle but at this stage I think its important that I get it out quick, before I change my mind so anything reusable is going to the charity shop and if I think I can get £20 up wards on ebay I will list on Thursday (thank you essexgal)

proud to announce the following:

In.........a bottle of wine:D

out.......1/2 a recycle wheelie bin..I had boxes stored flat under my wardrobe for appliances that I don't have anymore:rotfl: 1 bag of rubbish, 2 black bags in hall for charity shop tomorrow

plus more bits tomorrow when I have sorted through the lot in my living room.
Hope flylady doesn't do living rooms on Tuesday:rolleyes: bathrooms would be good;)

pollys

Today I decluttered a few boxes at school but only managed to declutter the letter-rack at home. Managed to get rid of a few old leaflets.

Have fun everyone.

Soapy955

I thought I'd already posted this but obviously not!

I sorted out the shelf in the kitchen where all the takeaway menus lurk. I couldn't believe how many menus we had for the same pizza place. It's like a new one comes through the door and we just stick it on the shelf with the others! They half filled my paper bin! I also took all the scraps of paper that I'd written recipes down on and copied the recipes into my recipe notebook so more paper goes out the door! :j