Hoarding...not just on TV

whitewing

Out are going 3 cardboard boxes for relative.

Recycling to recycling centre.

1 bag confidential waste.

Nothing decluttered as such but helps to keep it in mind.

Going shopping now so am hoping that there will be some stuff being chucked out to replace the ones I've bought.

My nan used to clean before the cleaner came too, not just tidy. They were a poor working class family, super careful, but still managed to employ a cleaner (with the kindest Christian mindset) because the cleaner's husband had upped and left leaving her and her children.

katep23

Have found some oomph finally but it has been focussed on outside - we have cleared the patio (well, concrete outside the door!), bagged up all the leaves, weeds and mud and are in the process of pressure-washing it.

I shall leave OH doing that whilst I go to the dump as it doesn't feel like we have "achieved" anything until something leaves the house (preferably a Fronter-load full!)

Oh and I have decided to look at the food hoard as a gradual reduction - I have gone from 78 to 73 lots of meat so despite buying more it is going in the right direction.

Byatt, glad to hear you are champing at the bit to get on with de-cluttering, you seem really motivated!

Byatt

Kate, thanks, yes I do feel really motivated right now. Being here and realising how easy it is to keep clean and tidy even though it's so big, has been a real eye opener. So definitely more of my stuff has to go.

At my home I spend ages just trying to find things or moving things so I can do something else. It's no wonder I don't have the interest to cook or write when at home, because it requires so much energy before I start.

idristhedragon

Kate I am also a food hoarder- currently have two freezers stuffed full, a larder full to the brim (example : 23 cans of mackerel) yet I spend £100 a week on food.
My plans for the week are a good couple of hours ebeying tomorrow, more CS stuff cleared over the week and a freezer and cupboard inventory doing. I have a big bill to pay this week (£300) and I was going to barclaycard it but I think I will use the housekeeping money to stop me stockpiling any more food and not add to CC. That should kills Agee birds with a few stones!

lostinrates

We food hoard, but I like to think sensibly now.. I buy meat in bulk and things I can only get in certain places when we are there. (so, the capers we prefer from Italy we get lots of while there, and other Italian stuff we cannot get here). Dh was meant to have a European conference this year (now he is nopt going) and I'm mildly peeved as I was going to get some crisps that a are great for nibbles for festive parties, and various other things we cannot get cheaply in uk.

Otherwise I meal plan and shop to it.

My food issue is now parent, who will NOT check if I have something on their turn to cook, and goes and and buys everything again.

We budget and live quote differently, food wastage through over buying makes me very stressed.....if we don't like something I do not insist we eat it to save money, but I find straightforward waste .....wasteful!
Similarly parent buys those bag for life things every supermarket trip...I just don't get it...accept you are a plastic bag person or leave the hessians in the car.

Parent and I had a chat this week. I am starting to feel drmatically better, and so I don't want to eat like 'an ill person' any more. For me this means eating lightly mon to fri lunch, so I can eat a 'proper meal' with dh at the weekend. I dn't want to cook And not eat during the week, though I cope with that ok at weekends. Parent says they will be more self provident but I have to stop telling them how to eat (type two diabetic with a sugar addiction it seems to me and drives me up the wall). It's true I cannot expect to goven others behaviour. But there are something's I find hard to stomach in my house.. I am a control freak libertarian, and find these conflicts very hard to come to terms with!

D&DD

I finally got DS2's Dla form done today so now have NO excuses not to carry on with a vengeance
We are off into the realms of the loft again tomorrow as its bin day again monday :j
OT picked up all the un-needed equipment so made a huge space in many different rooms and will go on to help others in need.

I need to break down some old games tomorrow from the loft as we can put boxes in the recycle bins so less stuff for the proper rubbish bin but I've still got a fair bit of room left in there so will get cracking early.

JoJo well done on the debt clearance :T Hope you're feeling a little better XX

ooh edited to add ELONA YAYYYYYYYYYYYY great news XXX

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

D&#8517 wrote: »

JoJo well done on the debt clearance :T Hope you're feeling a little better XX

Ummm....there's a story there.

Got an appt at the walk in centre this morning as I was quite wheezy and my chest hurt. After taking my medical history (RA, EDS III, OSA, steroids, etc) she took my BP. And got out the stethoscope.


Next thing I know, she's gone a funny colour and is insisting that I go to A&E NOW or she'd phone an ambulance and really make a scene.


I then spent 5 and a half hours being treated like royalty (seriously) at the same time as having various pointy things being stabbed into me and assorted beeping machinery attached about my person.

Anyhow, turns out the additional heartbeats she'd heard, along with the elevated rate and diastolic BP being far too high, isn't going to cause me to shuffle off this mortal coil anytime soon, but the bug plus inflammation of the joints around the breastbone, swollen ankles and a dodgy bloodtest result from a couple of months ago gave a damn good impression of heart failure until they could do some more tests to exclude it.


At any rate, it frightened the living daylights out of the GP, who was obviously expecting a constant flow of snotty noses and flu jabs at half ten on a Saturday morning.






Saved me doing some housework, I suppose. In any case, I made a point of buying a large custard doughnut on the way home. :rotfl:

The diet starts on Monday!

lostinrates

Oh no jojo!

falady

JoJo, I'm not always v good at finding the right words but I hope that you're OK and all the tests show that its nothing too serious.

I read this thread every day and like to keep up with everyone but am a bit rubbish at names and remembering everything.

I am glad there has been good news for some and progress in decluttering for others :-)

Things are progressing a little slower here, but that's OK. I am still ticking along with it when I can manage it and even have hubby decluttering too! He has sold a couple of things on ebay today and is going to put some more on tomorrow, plus some things of mine. Putting stuff on ebay is something I have a bit of a mental block about - I avoid doing it as it seems such a tedious job, so luckily OH is doing it!

One of the things I am pleased with this week is that I have sorted out the other underbed drawer - it had junk and old photos in. I have put all the old photos, sans boxes and wallets, into one plastic box, to be sorted or even put into albums at some point. I've chucked out the junk, and the drawer is now being used for wrapping paper, tags etc and as my present drawer. Previously, the wrapping paper etc was shoved in a big cardboard box on top of a chest of drawers in the very spare room. The presents were in a wire drawer unit thing in the very spare room. The drawer unit is going to the charity shop / tip and the old cardboard box too.

Next thing to tackle in the very spare room is the hanging rail which hold our coats which are not in use. Most of them are hubby's. I am going to sort them out and persuade OH to get rid of ones he doesn't use (OH is very partial to coats so it might be difficult, but I have planted the seed....), get rid of the hanging rail and put up a coat hook on the wall which will take up much less room.

We also have a lot of luggage to sort out - think i might struggle to get rid of some, but it needs doing as they are just dumped in a pile and take up loads of room.

Hope the tip is open tomorrow - we're going to need it!

Good luck and energy for those that want / need it.

Ali x

GreyQueen

:eek: OMG Jo Jo! What a day. Here's hoping that it's not as bad as it could be, IYSWIM.

I have been pootling around at my decluttering. I have a tiny home so, although I haven't got stuff to jettison like huge bags/ boxes/ spare furniture/ contents of lofts & garages I still need to hustle for every spare inch of space as it's needed for the day-to-day stuff. Or just elbow room.

I completely resonated with whomever it was who posted a while back about not feeling comfortable with having nice things, things they actually wanted, because they were stuck on the good enough/ this will do mindset.

This is me. I take home just under £10k pa but live in social rented accomodation, so am probably as well-off as some who make a lot more than I do but have higher living costs. So, what I'm trying to convey is that I'm not rich but not on my uppers, either.

But I have been. And it's very hard to move away from that mindset that keeps you in a form of fear;

• Fear that if I buy something nice, which is dearer than something adequate but not-so-nice, I won't be able to make the rent or pay the utilities as a direct result.
• A sense that I'm not "entitled " to have the nicer things, even though I'd be buying them with my own hard-earned cash.
• Feeling that I would have to account to myself to some imaginary critical third party if I have something conspiciously nice in my home or on my person.
• Fear that I'll be burgled/ that a natural disaster will destroy my belongings, so it's best not to have too many special things, to which I'd be attached, so it won't hurt to lose them.

Blimey, that's better out than in.

The daft thing is that I do not have the excuse of having had a traumatic upbringing to justify these thoughts. I come from a secure and loving home. I never went cold or hungry or unloved. No one hurt me, abused me, betrayed my trust, beyond the minor playground stuff we're all heir to. I didn't get everything I wanted but I had everything I needed.
And then some.

I'm plugging away at this garbage-chatter inside my head. I replaced a knackered fridge and a knackered mattress in the same month this year. I bought really really good quality replacements which I figure will be MSE in the long run as they should outlast the cheaper versions, as well as giving me pleasure in the using of them.

It was a bit scary to research and choose and say to the shop assistant, I want THAT ONE knowing that it was one of the most expensive models in the shop. And that I'd saved up for it and could afford it, but I was still half-expecting to be collared by store security and told I wasn't allowed in there. And I'm talking John freaking Lewis not Harrods fer cryin' out loud.