Hoarding...not just on TV

whitewing

Thought I would link in the Shoeboxes 'what to pack' page for anyone sorting out children's stuff and coming across new items.

http://www.operationchristmaschild.org.uk/what-to-pack

short_bird

GreyQueen wrote: »

Yeah, as a matter of fact. A set of 3 bowls with snap on lids, one avocado, one yellow and one orange. Are they covetable in certain quarters? They're certainly well-made. Probably see us all out and be handed down from mother to daughter as priceless heirlooms of the industrial age.
Look! they'll coo in wonder. Real plastic, so smooth, so colourful. No one knows how to make them anymore, the ancients took the secrets with them to their graves.

Yes, covetable. If they're the Harvest ones - cylindrical with a little gold flower on the side - a set of 6 have just sold for £25 on ebay.
(Steps back to avoid stampede to cupboards...)

PipneyJane

Lazy_Liz wrote: »

Hotel shampoos, samples and so on....what a pain they turn out to be. DH used to bring them back for me and a collection built up, then I started travelling for work too and I use the good ones but sometimes bring them back myself. I try only to bring back nice ones but sometimes the "what if's" ambush me!
One solution is the hotels I like to stay in in Scandinavia now offer shower gel in big dispensers on the wall, its nice quality so I don't need to take my own and I can't take it home.
Have a draw full of these pesky bottles plus several airline comfort kits (business class ones from DH's travels) some are so nice but the best use I have found for the bags was a AirNewZealand one which nicely fits my sat nav and all its bits.
Need to gird myself to throw a lot of these out but needto do it well out of reach of the dog who is very likely to steal them and then be found running around the garden with his booty.

Don't throw out the samples! Use them.

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to use up the stash of hotel samples acquired on holidays and when I've worked away. Some of them dated from two month of staying in a hotel for work in 2001! (I can identify those by type.) I corralled them all in one drawer, using plastic mushroom boxes to separate them by type. After throwing out those that had leaked or suffered colour changes (which demonstrated they'd gone off), I had approximately 15 hair conditioners, 60 shampoos, 10 moisturisers and 50 body washes! This is despite four years of routinely staying in a hotel that had one of those containers fixed to the wall for my visits to Site.

I use recycled soap containers for my shampoo, conditioner, body lotion and body wash. As they emptied, I've been pouring my stash of samples into them. A good shake and they're ready for use. Because they're designed to be unisex, the smell isn't an issue either - they just smell "clean".

Both the shampoo and hair conditioner have been excellent; far better than the Value stuff I'd been using. I had to water the hair conditioner - it was so thick - so extended it's life by about 50%.

Only just started using the body wash and it's good, too. One squirt onto a scrubby goes a long way.

I amplified the quantity of body lotion with some YSL "Paris" body lotion that had been hanging around forever and wouldn't otherwise get used. Again, no clash of scent; it just smells weakly of Paris, which is the current perfume I wear to work.

This has been a win-win for Frugal Me. The products in those small samples are, generally, first class. They've cost me nothing. Using them has meant I haven't had to go and buy products. And I've got rid of something that has been cluttering up my bathroom, gradually getting covered in talc dust!

Lazy_Liz

Contessa: I would put a bed in your room, treat yourself to some nice bed linnen or a lovely bed cover and dress the bed with that and a few matching/toning cushions. The bed should be a appropriate size for the room, if its a double room put a double bed in. The new covers can move with you and will be nice to have in your new home.
For other items either get something that you want to take with you or see if there is anything you can borrow off friends or family.

DH and I decluttering our office, help! so much shredding as almost all old paperwork has to be destroyed. Lots of out of date catalogues gone too. It feels good though once the stuff has gone, now just to remove all the bottles (we work for a glass company) to our "storage facility" that's a shed to you and me. Onwards, ever onwards.

Lazy_Liz

Hi Pipney
You are right of course and I think I will do that, I have refillable containers for times when I need to carry toiletries in my hand luggage or am not staying at helpful hotels but I have more samples than I can ever use that way so using them up at home is the best way. The quality is as you say very good.

With bar soap that gets brought back, I use this at home, I put really nice bars out for use if someone is comming for a vist, its nice to offer guests a new block of soap. I take less nice ones on holiday if we are going to a holiday cottage, soap is often not supplied and I insist on being able to wash my hands in the kitchen as well as the bathroom so I can was before cooking etc. I just chuck the used bar before we come home.

blossomhill_2

valk_scot wrote: »

I have a friend coming round this afternoon so I'm not going to have time to do much around the hose by way of decluttering. However I have emailed a friend who keeps chickens asking her if she'd like the chicken run I bought two years in a sale, and which has been sitting (still in packaging) in the shed ever since. I've always fancied keeping chickens but realistically I don't think I ever will, so why own a chicken run?

Sometimes I think I buy things because they're part of this alternate reality I'd like to live in. I'd like to live in a Country Homes & Interiors house, you see, with two labs and Buff Orpington chickens and three kids dressed in Boden clothes and a craft studio in the garden, converted from a summerhouse or gypsy caravan. The reality is somewhat different! But I still buy things for this other woman whose life I'd like, lol.

Anyway, hopefully the chicken run will find a new home. .

I wish you would talk to her instead about what is so different between her life and yours instead of just giving her the run - and see if you are really that far off being able to keep chickens

It seems to me that the main requirements are commitment and good housing - so you are halfway there (and chickens, but you can get free rescue ones off Gumtree)

I agree that a lot of our hoarding is aspirational, but even those magazine women start somewhere so why not try to achieve some of the things we aspire to?

I AM that woman with the craft studio in the summerhouse, it wasn't easy to get to that point, and I live in a place that sounds to others like Midsommer but my colleagues describe as Beiruit, but I still have a little country corner here. I may not be Kirsty Allsop but I can do some things she would envy! And you all know I live in a muddle but that little studio was an important milestone, so maybe the chicken run could be yours

Contessa wrote: »

I recently had my bedroom redecorated and the EA suggested that I should not put anything in it at all ( as my stuff was old) What do you think?

Welcome Contessa, I think you should borrow some furnishings from a friend .. so you dont have to [STRIKE]hoard[/STRIKE] keep them

sjprmc01

Today I've got rid of 2 prs of kids Lego kickers shoes that have seen better days and one Minnie mouse slipper (I couldn't find the matching one)

wannabe_sybil

Not done much today, having a bit of a low one.

But I did watch a recorded SuperScrimpers, and one thing that struck me that someone was making sock toys and they said, 'Don't buy stuffing, just use an old cushion or pillow stuffing.'

And I heard, 'don't throw out old cushions or pillows as they might come in useful...'

I have made a decision. I do not do toymaking. If I have to do vast quantities of toymaking I will nip into @sda and buy their cheapest value pillows. Or, more likely, I will go to a jumble sale and buy a factory made sweater and unravel it, as that makes the most comfortable stuffing for a cushion you can imagine.

And I will throw out old duvets/pillows/cushions etc, regardless. Eventually, when I get there.

The living room was so de-richarded, btw, that evil cat hid from the vet under a chair and last time there hadn't been room. Poor old girl didn't manage to get enough fight to draw blood this time. Still physically stable, skinny as a fish bone, blind as a bat with all things more or less okayish for now. I suppose being a psychopath for the last eighteen years does make her mentally stable as well - she's had the same mental state since she was a kitten.

hugs to all.

wannabe_sybil

I have been thanking people haphazardly, as and when, often read to catch up when I am not logged in and forget to thank.

I just want to say that I really appreciate all those who are posting and have posted and especially Jojo (still working up to dealing with little bear's collections). I apologise for not pressing the thanks button every time, but actually I do appreciate all posts.

Also contessa, welcome. I think this is one of the loveliest threads, very nice people on here.

THANK YOU ALL!

sjprmc01

Oh I've given up watching super scrimpers it's so rubbish lately