Hoarding - Springing Ahead

thriftwizard

Today didn't go quite according to plan, and the porch is still not cleared... a series of minor frustrations meant that tasks kept getting shunted down the line. However I have managed to empty two big bags of kipple that were just sitting in the hallway - nearly all just stuff that wasn't in the right place, like jars of pickle that had simply not been put away! And Freecycled another bin bag of fabric, some of which I would have loved to have used, but realistically I'm not going to within the foreseeable future.

Instructions & guarantees; I keep the instructions as close to the appliance as possible - washing machine instructions live on top of the machine, cooker & dishwasher instructions sit on the base of the unit next to them, etc. - and the guarantees in a folder in a small metal filing cabinet under the stairs, in the drawer above all the various insurance documents. When an appliance finally dies & gets replaced, I chuck out all the paperwork associated with it. I'm quite disciplined about this because it's very frustrating to have to hunt through reams of useless paper when you need to get something repaired pronto!

mothernerd

I have one wallet file labelled 'Receipts.guarantees and instructions' and go through it at least once a year, discarding anything that relates to something I no longer have eg boiler was replaced this year so instructions/ purchase and details on original installation of old boiler went.

When I first set up home in 1982, I had five files
1 Wages and tax (wageslips + P60 - end of year tax certificate).
2 Bills and Bank (dividers for each supplier and info on bank account/ build soc acc).
3 Certificates (mainly educational)
4 Receipts/ guarantees/ instructions (not very big as most of my stuff was second/ third hand from relatives)
5 legal (Papers relating to house purchase, deeds in a separate envelope - should really be in bank).

It's a bit more complicated now. Added a will before birth of first child and have boys birth certificates (gave them their own when they moved out but DS2 is always losing his so now I keep a spare). Also loads more stuff so some files grow. Managed to cull most of the child benefit/ student loan applications / Council Tax exemption form for student stuff in the last two years (DS3 finished full time education last year) but the Working Tax Credit/ Child Tax Credit stuff always says to keep it (and they send me two copies with the same date but have been different figures in the past.

At the end of the tax year I bundle up all the receipts for that year into large brown envelopes and file labelled but try to keep any figures I might get asked about in the business account book. If I was ever required to produce a particular receipt, I ought to be able to do it, but if short of space the brown envelopes can hide in the bottom of the wardrobe or similar. I also have paperwork relating to my father's and my brother's estate but culled it as soon as everything was wound up, then again several times since - again probably not needed but just a few items now.

Hope this is helpful.

Aaleigha

Both of you have been very helpful I just now need some sort of boxes/folders to keep things in and then a home for those

So the hoard that is finding a new home
Includes most of the aforementioned items, however, I have to admit that due to hoard I can't get to it all
I find this so stressful but hopefully it will give me the kick up the **** I need but one thing at a time
Next week I want to find the dinning room table and finish my bed room
I hope the weather is nice as I might do some sorting in the garden
I think taking things away from where they are living might help a bit then they can go to where they will be living
I live in hope

Huge congratulations to every single one of you who has let just one thing go without bringing something new in (excluding food)

H xx

GreyQueen

I don't have room for a filing cabinet so have most of my paperwork in lever arch files sitting on top of a cabinet. There are 5 although one is presently holding the stash of punched pockets.

One is labelled Warranties and Instructions and is subdivided into categories; Large Appliances, Small Appliances, Furniture, Bicycle. Most items have their own plastic pocket (some very small things share pockets with other small things) which contains the instructions with the bits in foriegn languages removed, plus the receipt. I can find anything in seconds. When an appliances leaves, dead or alive, the paperwork is culled. At all times, only the current stuff is in there. It's so soothing to know where this stuff is and to be able to get at in in under 10 seconds.

I have a smaller folder for hospital letters as they tend to make me appointments about 2 years ahead of time and you're supposed to bring the letter to the hospital to check into the clinic with the bar code printed on the letter.

I have a folder of recipies which needs a sort out, but that's a rainy day job and I haven't had many rainy non-working days to play with lately.

Stuff which is a bit more sensitive is kept in a locking file box which is hidden up. An interesting convo with one of the Met's scene-of-the-crimes officers who I met at a party, revealed that some of the things which are stolen in burglaries aren't the usual suspects of cash, jewellery, high end electronics, your car keys. Thieves can also target personal paperwork for identity fraud purposes. So the sensitive stuff isn't sitting in plain view.

Happygreen

It is raining today, so no veg garden time for me. I might join in with filing stuff, the piles of paper are suffocating me again.
Or maybe DD2 has plans to start with decorating her room, like moving furniture and steaming wallpaper off....

mothernerd

Grey rainy day so have been mostly reading with the remains of a chocolate cake (an Easter special that I bought reduced). However have just re-arranged the freezer contents and turned off the fridge-freezer. Will have salad from the bits in the fridge (to atone for the chocolate cake) and marg/ cheese spread etc are decanted into a large saucepan (with lid) and are now outside on top of the water butt - should be sufficiently cat/ rodent proof there.

I was going to use the empty fridge freezer as 'larder' space for the time being but now I want it to leave the house asap - it works but isn't beautiful, although I 'fixed' the cracked drawer fronts with hippo tape and have used it safely for the past six months. Hope I can find someone who needs one.

The small fridge will be cleaned and put back on some time in the next two weeks (birthday sleepover for DS3) but will wait for now as would like another couple of things to go out of the house as well. Still waiting to see if DS3 wants to swap bedrooms - hovering between 'he wants to' and 'it will mean a lot of work' (mostly for me but for DS3 'lot of ' translates to anything he is required to do. I cannot 'dip' the wardrobes under the door frame by myself. If I could I would wait until he went downstairs and when he came back up, he'd be moved.

Aaleigha

thank you everyone for your ideas

as for all this rain we had four spots on the windscreen on the way back home

I had a fantastic day I took 7 things to be rehomed by a new and wonderful friend
and came back with two things not too bad at all really I did expect to go home with a lot more - but I managed to keep the purse closed

tomorrow I am going to take stuff out of my bedroom to sort - in the garden if possible
it says its going to be partly sunny and 16 so hopefully I can do some
once the bedroom is done it will be time to move on not sure what to tackle next but I am hoping to get stuff done - I might tackle coats next as I have far too many and my hall is looking narrower by the week

thriftwizard

And I had an excellent day too, meeting up with a very lovely lady & acquiring some very relevant bits & bobs for the summer festivals & shows! And some stuff that will keep my Mum and her knitting ladies in clover for weeks...

I also took 4 big bags of stuff from home to put on my stall, including the enamel bread bin that was so wonderfully shabby & appropriate for our house, but just didn't work for us. It was fine for proper bread, but plastic-wrapped supermarket loaves just kept going mouldy overnight in it, and then no-one would eat anything that'd been in it. I would happily never, ever buy said plastic-wrapped cardboardy stuff again, but unfortunately two members of the household are under the impression that that is REAL bread & anything else is just Mum being daft again...

So that's gone onto the stall for the same price that I paid for it. I'll reduce it in a couple of weeks if it hasn't gone; it's a biggish item and those are the ones I need to move on quickly. I've also spotted a big item (a kind of loom) in the porch that can be moved on, and have a pile of things to pop on Ebay during the week. I'm fairly busy tomorrow but have promised myself that I will try to shift at least one bin-bag of stuff out of here each & every day of the week, whichever direction it goes off in. That should make a visible difference...

I may have felt downhearted about it all during the week, but I woke up this morning feeling much better. There is quite a lot of difference now; there's also a very long way still to go, but it doesn't feel like one step forwards, one step back any more, more like two steps forward to one step back.

thriftwizard

Slight change of plan to the above; DD1 & I are planning to do a car boot on Saturday. It's one we often attend as buyers, and it's always a good one; the forecast is reasonable so I think we'll go for it. I can offload some very big stuff there! Things like some excess shelving, a piano stool, some old suitcases that haven't sold, and a rail full of clothing that's been clogging up the stall & preventing more interesting stuff going on sale.


But I have also taken a vanity case (too tatty for revamping, in the end) full of second-string stuff down to the tip - on foot, so I couldn't came back with anything! - and committed to giving away another bag of fabric. That's no hardship, I just have too much, and I know she'll put it to very good use. She's also going to take some excess craft books off my hands.

Plus I've finished a project that's been hanging around for weeks - revamping a lovely old needlework box on legs - which can go down for sale tomorrow, and I've moved one step closer to having all my paper crafting supplies in one place, and my fabric & sewing supplies in another. They'd got hopelessly muddled up, with the result that I couldn't find things when I needed them and actually had to buy some cards lately - when I normally make & sell them, as a stall-filler & good use for small scraps!

So, despite a bad night & a slow start, I'm making a bit more headway. I'm still going to try to dispose of a bin-bag of staff every day, but shan't feel so downhearted if I don't manage it.

Aaleigha

oh a bin bag full a day

well today I have done nothing
OH I mean nothing I did make myself coffee and let the dogs out in the garden a couple of times

got so stressed over weekend that today I awoke with a migraine - simply a lack of stress migraine like some people who get weekend migraines its the lack of stress and the change in hormones

so dosed up and spent time in bed sleeping

tomorrow I am putting away two loads of washing
and taking all the stuff off the top of a chest to sort
fold some and pop it away and charity shop the rest - as soon as I have the surfaces cleared in the bedroom I will polish and wash the floors and keep it that way might even light a candle or too one evening during the week we will see

so that is my plan for this week - get one room totally finished so we have a haven and then keep it like that

hope everyone else is doing well - its rubbish week this week so will get all that out my recycle bin is already full - paper glass and cans in one full of paper = the cardboard plastic bottles bin is also full - so I have obviously been getting somewhere