Hoarding - Springing Ahead

thriftwizard

Quite chuffed with myself today; £54 taken at the car boot sale from redundant stock. Some of the remainder has gone back into the garage for me to try my luck at another one on Tuesday, but the rest has been split into two bags to be dropped off to relevant charities on Monday - blankets to the local animal shelter, decent warm clothing to the Sally Army. I had originally sorted that out for the refugees, but apparently the charities helping them are overwhelmed with donations, and not accepting any more. The only thing that came back into the house was a felted wool jumper that is the perfect thing to cut up & use in a current project.

Onwards & upwards! How's it going for you all?

mothernerd

Well done thriftwizard. I finally had my flu jab this week but the walk there and back was a struggle. I was hoping that I would get back to a regular daily walk once the antibiotics were gone but it's obviously not going to be that simple.

I contacted Stepchange last week. The other house still hasn't sold and I did a cash flow for the next few months (when buyers will be scarce) and didn't see any way to make it through Winter (originally thought I would run out of money last December but made it this far). On this plan (a TPP) I will make token payments to my creditors through Stepchange for 12 months and pay everything off when the house sells.

I have taken a few items found during the move round to the charity bin in the library and ahve been working my way through the basket of paperwork (an 18" cube of basket) that I brought in here with me. So far i have several little piles sorted out (sub-categories or things that have a place elsewhere - I have a health file in the kitchen for healthy recipes and also reports from all my annual check-ups). Larger than usual amounts of paperwork have been going in the recycling and want to get radical with what is left. I have two large (A5) address books which have a lot of things in (list of past employers, list of operations and diagnoses, scores for things I need to keep track of as well as interesting websites). One of them is starting to disintegrate. I tried re-binding it with some tape but need to weed out a lot of stuff from there and some other notebooks. Seems like a never ending job as I have just gone through three old notebooks - I tend to have one notebook which I use and then decant stuff to where it is supposed to go about once a month.

Have written a list of things I want to get done in October but tries to make them small - 5 minutes dancing and a little walk somewhere everyday (getting outside rather than a long walk) so that i don't lose the habit. Today I swept down the (uncarpeted) stairs, another job that has been driving me mad but haven't been able to tackle before now. Baby steps in every area.

thriftwizard

It's amazing how baby steps add up, Mothernerd. I take my hat off to you for keeping going when you must be feeling pretty ropey. And every little helps, as they say...

I think I need a notebook; I also need to keep my paperwork up to date for the business. I do keep good records of what's coming in, which will please the taxman, but I'm not so good at keeping track of my outgoings, and that can sink a small business very fast, even a pocket-money operation like mine.

Happygreen

Well done, thritywizard!
I managed to get some broken electricals to the skip this week - I tend to just walk past the stuff by the door unless it's library books needing to go back or something to be posted and I'm usually running on a tight schedule - so a good step for me! And they were stripped from plugs for OH first, ready to be re-used. Next step - once I've decluttered the trees from some more apples and magically turned them into jelly - I will tackle the pile of papers in my room, filing system to the ready!

dragonette

Great to read about all the progress baby steps really do all add up

Visited my hoarder-ex this evening, and the flat was in a good phase. Will keep my fingers crossed that continues. Onwards and upwards

thriftwizard

Yippee! There's going to be a jumble sale in another town, run by a friend - next week I shall be dropping off a van-load of stuff to her! :beer:

I can part with it perfectly easily if I know it's going to support a good cause. I just can't bring myself to dump really good stuff - designer clothing, pretty china, genuinely useful things - although I really need the space back. Isn't that bizarre?!

GreyQueen

thriftwizard wrote: »

Yippee! There's going to be a jumble sale in another town, run by a friend - next week I shall be dropping off a van-load of stuff to her! :beer:

I can part with it perfectly easily if I know it's going to support a good cause. I just can't bring myself to dump really good stuff - designer clothing, pretty china, genuinely useful things - although I really need the space back. Isn't that bizarre?!

Makes perfect sense to me and chimes with my own life and what I see of several other peoples' lives where they interact with my own.

F'rinstance, I am knitting charity blankets. I started off with two pulled out jumpers to knit up. The magical resonance of worthy craft work went out and Nan told me to take her entire yarn stash, the contents of one drawer. Some of the yarn was baby yarn and was knitted by Mum (within the fortnight) into something for the child of a neighbour of Nan's, from a pattern of Nan's, and Nan has got to see the finished garment and the infant in it. What a result over yarn which was just being stored by a woman who can no longer knit.

And a friend mentioned to her mother what I was doing, mother decided to de-loft her SABLE yarn to daughter and pal gave me a huge bag of it, plus some unused stuff to Mum to knit a sweater for my brother. The circularity of it isn't unique, woo things like this happen so often.

It's almost as if by releasing what we don't need, we're getting some kind of karmic credit, which means that what we do need or want will be wending it's way towards us. Sounds a bit dippy-hippy, which isn't my style at all, but it happens all the time in my experience.

thriftwizard

I've taken not one but two full (as in, can't see out of the rear-view mirror & have to use the side mirrors all the way) van-loads down to my friend's so far, and will be taking another on Tuesday. I've completed the move from one stall to another, and now only have stock I'm proud to be selling down at the Emporium. Whether that's a sound business decision, only time will tell! But I'm A LOT happier with how it looks now. And the porch & the garage are steadily coming under control; there's not actually all that much of my stuff left in either place now, but I'm sure the family won't see it like that! The garage is mostly my stall infrastructure & DS2 & TDiL's furniture & effects, and what's left in the porch is 3 bags & boxes of hats, which need to be kept dry and can't be crushed. However moths are also a worry...

There's still some stuff lurking in the conservatory; 3 bags of good vintage fabric awaiting its turn on the stall, and 3 cases of vintage "stall-fillers" - leather purses, wind-up alarm clocks, musical boxes, budget boxes - for when I do the pop-up markets. These will go out into my storage shed as the stuff in there goes down to the stall. There's also a shelf unit which is going down to the Emporium as soon as the one big item left has sold; that's a lovely rocking-horse which I have now reduced to the price I paid for it. Hopefully it will find its new stable soon!

In the meantime, I'm not acquiring anything else until I actually have space to store it in the shed or put it straight on the stall. I really mean this; I managed to stay away from a good local jumble sale today!

suzitiger

Well hello there! :wave:

It has been a very VERY long time since I last posted.

Went travelling last year and never got back into the forum.

I have lurked a little on the email reading every now and then though

So, we have now moved into a three bed flat. And last month we took everything remaining that we had put into storage when we went travelling.

So now, it's a bit chaotic!

But from this thread I have learned many things over the years. And travelling reinforced those lessons. I lived very happily for the 4 months I was away and the next three before we had the flat out of one and then two bags. I felt happier surrounded by less stuff, and appreciated everything I had around me.

Whilst this doesn't mean I can get rid of everything much easier, I can appreciate much more my reasons for wanting to live more simply. And it has given me good motivation.

Anywhoo, I am glad to be back. I am hoping to help others (old and new) with how I have cleared out things I've had for well over 10 years.
And I am hoping to find support here for whenever I come across a sticking point. :rotfl:

Thanks for reading and I look forward to chatting

mothernerd

Just left a facebook declutter group (had to learn how to do it). They were going too fast (A-Z challenge and yesterday they were up to G for garage - don't have one luckily). They also seem to be fans of OCD Cleaners, don't they realise those women are mentally ill and need help, not people you should be trying to emulate.

I'm with Dara O'Brien - "If you find any dirt in your kitchen, rub your child's face in it, you are doing them a great favour by encouraging their immone system to develop". I also remember a child care book where the parents spent time and energy protecting their first born from any possible real or imagined danger. Baby number two came along, they looked in to find baby tucked in front of the fire next to their dog, chewing on the dog's paw - "Yeah, it'll be ok".

So back to plodding. I need to go through the house again but also have several other things I need to work on so taking it easy. The 'up for sale' house has had an offer (very poor but I am taking it) so some things from the shed will have to be re-located here. So on the plus side will soon be able to add house to list of things got rid of, on the other feeling weak before I start trundling things here on the dolly. I am re-using parts of DS1's bed as a new garden gate and kitchen shelves but don't have the energy to do that atm. They may need to go under my bed until Spring. May try putting random items by the gatepost with a note and see if anyone takes them. Would love a skip but would need to make some money to afford one.

I have changed bank accounts and got rid of several small accounts (an ISA and a savings account that only had pennies in them) and will be closing 4 credit card accounts as soon as they are paid off. Paper purge is working, paper recycling bin was half full this time, so feeling a little lighter. Have written my Christmas cards, so that spare envelopes could be put back in general use.