Hoarding - Springing Ahead

Happygreen

Going to visit mum next week and suitcase is packed with mainly clothes and other bits from the girls she can either car boot for her charity or pass on. Not much but some stuff gone. Other than that I keep on falling over things I must list to sell (like 2 guitars, a polly pocket playset, an old internet phone...), hope to have time for that when I come back!

thriftwizard

I have a small pile of things in here to list on Ebay this afternoon; auctions ending on weekend afternoons get the most bids. Only 3 items, but potentially quite high in value, and every little helps. Not a lot of action this week as we've been preparing for my mother's 90th birthday tomorrow, but trade has picked up down at the Emporium, so a fairly big pile of stuff has vanished off down there. There's still acres of it to go, though.

Some good news; DS2 has been offered a better, higher-paid job with the firm he works for. This potentially means that they won't be with us very much longer... they'd be able to afford a flat AND save up for a deposit on a place of their own. I'm not banking on it, but that also means I'd be able to have students this summer, which is a good earner for me and means I could look at possibly booking a holiday... which makes me feel lighter-hearted and more able to tackle the mess! Maybe there is some light at the end of the tunnel, and it doesn't involve oncoming trains...

thriftwizard

I did manage to list the three items yesterday, and one has sold already on a Buy-It-Now. I've also had an offer on another, but it was on the low side so I'm going to let that one run - it's got lots of watchers. Might just see what else I could list, tomorrow...

Masterplan for the week is to create enough space to lay some of my rugs out & clean them before listing or taking down to the Emporium. I'm not going to part with all of them; I love some of them & want to live with them, but not whilst we have elderly moggies who are sometimes mistaken as to the purpose of any softness underpaw. But just parting with half of them would create quite a bit of space. I will also make up a bag of zips, buttons, interfacing & other stuff to go out to the Third World; I have far too much of each of those.

Gingernutty

Gingernutty wrote: »

Yesterday I found four scarves that can go and today a black and white patterned, Per Una cardigan which has an odd frilly ruff around a heart shaped neckline.

Bought it from a charity shop but it suits nothing else I wear and certainly doesn't suit me.

I washed the four scarves and one was so delicate it tore in the wash!

3 for the charity shop and 1 for the rag bag.

Also

Another pair of jeans (total that are now too large = 10)

4 pairs of bed socks - still got three pairs

1 pair of pyjamas - still got three pairs

1 pair of waterproof trousers - they rustle like paper and are now far too large

1 pair of shorts - like I want to show off my cankles :eek:

1 pair of non-prescription sunglasses - just had a new better fitting pair from the opticians

1 pair of lacy knickers - they scratch something terrible

8 pairs of socks - still got loads

1 spectacles keeper - new prescription means I don't need a 'desk pair' and a walking around pair

1 shorthand notebook - still got a few notepads

I've got it all loaded into my 'wally trolley' to take to the charity shop tomorrow.

GreyQueen

Hello and welcome to libbyrice.

My heart goes out to you having lost your Mum only last year, that's a lot to process mentally even without thinking about Stuff, your Stuff and what used to be her Stuff.

Please be gentle with yourself and try not to self-flagellate.

On to the practicals, I would suggest you make a priority of getting your paid-for storage sorted out. It's a bleed on your budget and is bound to be contributing to feelings of lack of worth.

With the sole exception of cases where people have had a gap between the end of a tenancy/ sale of a previous home and the completion of a purchase on a home they were buying, I have have noticed something about paid-for storage; stuff in paid-for storage is NEVER needed and always ends up being junked or sold for pennies on the pound, for far less than the fees for housing it. Sometimes, the paid-for storage goes on for years, costing enough to have re-bought the items several times over. And it can even get ruined in storage, such as rats getting into things like mattresses and upholstered furniture.

Having observed this plenty of times IRL, I would be very reluctant to ever go in for paid-for storage myself. It's just an expensive form of procrastination but out of sight isn't truly out of mind, and it really drags you down.

If you make resolving the paid-for storage your first priority, I am convinced you will feel an incredible lightening of spirit, as well as enjoying the positive improvement in your finances. Hopefully, that lift will take you from the despair of not being able to cope with the Stuff into a positive, can-do mindset. One where you can see the light at the tunnel, albeit around the pile of Stuff which you can see a way to whittle down.

Stuff is just inaminate objects. In most cases it isn't welded to the floor or the walls, it's eminently portable. Sometimes you need helpers and a truck for big items, but a lot of it can be lifted in your two hands, bagged or boxed, and carried out of there. After all, you probably carried it in that way!

The kicker is that Stuff represents postponed decisions, recriminations, entanglements with those loved and lost, and a lot of other emotional things. These feelings are in your head, not in the items. You don't reject someone's love by not wanting to keep every single item they ever bought/ touched/ wore/ made.

That love is stored inside your brain, where you can revisit the emotions at will. The rest is just Stuff made of metal, ceramic, plastic, cloth, chemicals etc.

Wishing you all the very best on your decluttering journey. GQ xx

Gingernutty

One grey beanie hat - it's too big and keeps slipping over my eyes whenever I put my hood up

Four pairs of headphone covers - an odd, medium size for headphones that fit over the ears

Six CDs that I bought from charity shops. They're the sort that one could buy in motorway service stations that have famous singers (Jim Reeves, Nat King Cole etc) but instead of good quality studio recordings of their most famous hits they are poor, tinny, live recordings. :mad:

One defective clock radio. It had a CD player but the lid became misaligned.

This, in and of itself, shouldn't have been too much of a problem (the clock and radio still worked), but the manufacturers decided that the buttons for the CD player on the lid should do double duty as the radio and alarm clock buttons.

The misaligned lid finally became too 'wonked' and if I switched the radio on to listen to it during the day, then I wasn't able to switch it off. At all.

I have had to wait for the alarm to come on and automatically cut off after another 59 minutes.

I bought another one today and was very impressed to find that the time automatically set itself from the DAB signal, there are 16 presets (8 x DAB and 8 x FM), it's less that half the size of the last one and the sound is very impressive.

I've cut the cable from the old one and I'm going to take it to Curry's tomorrow for recycling.

libbyrice

Thanks for all the advice so far. I really appreciate it. Makes me feel like im not on my own. i do think it was getting to a stage where it has become a psycholigical issue for me, especially the shopping .....storing stuff like im going into a siege....and hoarding. I had a few days off work and thought that i'd made a bit of progress (well it felt that way to me!)

I took 2 bags to charity of my daughters outgrown clothes, chucked away an old nightie of my mums, and generally had a good clear out of paperwork. I havent made a start on the spare room though. Thats going to be a massive task. I threw away a few bits of craft stuff...like a whole bag of stick on googly eyes...as my daughter is past the card making stage and I couldnt think of anyone to donate them to. I filled both my bins (waste and recycling)

I got a bit down when my new boyfriend (can you call them that when you are in your 40s?!) commented that he thought \i hadnt done much. His house is very minimalist but he doesnt even have books or photos around. He is always complaining that he finds clothes around my house that have still got the labels on and Ive never worn. he is right, but I dont need him to be nagging me about it all the time.

I know it doesnt look like massive progress but it looks different to my eyes.

I have started to try and dispose of/throw one thing away from each room every day...even if its just an old receipt. Today it was using up some stuff in the bathroom, chucking away some old lip balms that tasted horrid and a few bits from the bedrooms and kitchen.

thriftwizard

Libbyrice, those first few steps are the hardest, so well done for taking them! Your BF sounds like my OH - he genuinely cannot see when progress has been made, because he'd just hire a skip for the day, throw it all in & have done. Mind you, it would only be my stuff he'd throw in, and as I've got further & further into the stuff in the "spare" room, which doubles up as my sewing studio, I've realised that most of the stuff in there isn't actually mine; it looked as if it was, because my stuff was strewn about on the top, but underneath were two trunks full of DS2's bedding & TDiL's cuddly toys, several keyboards & mixers, two large boxes of cables, jacks & connectors, two big boxes of DS3's university paperwork, two guitars, and heaven knows what else.

I've taken a large bag of part-done projects to the Tip - that HURT! But they've been there through two moves of the sewing room in the last year, and haven't got done - and am giving away a large quantity of embroidery threads that aren't saleable. I probably would be able to use them up eventually, but there'll be more along sooner or later. I've thinned down my own fabric stash considerably, and will sell on the rest; I'm not finding much fabric at the moment, so will release some of the stuff I'd earmarked for my own use into the wild for others to enjoy! I just had too much...

I can see daylight in places now! The rugs aren't yet done, but I have the space to tackle them one at a time now.

libbyrice

For quite a number of years i was into knitting...but rarely got anything finished. So I have bags and bags of wool...some of which is nice stuff, like Rowan Big wool. I know i could sell this on ebay. My DD likes hats and scarves so I could finish some quick accessories for her but I also have a lot of wool that I bought for bigger projects which I will never start! It will be a wrench getting rid of it. My BF said if I binned it all and then wanted to buy it again he would gladly give me the money (I can see the reasoninbg here as he knows I would be unlikely to ever have the time to knit in the near future and he is just being sensible and trying to show me how crazy it is to hang onto bulky wool that is just gathering dust)

I threw away ONE BALL of scratchy horrible dusty wool yesterday then had a wobble and nearly fished it out of the bin! Thats how bad I am. I have to be hinest with myself about my craft stuff though. i like the idea of being crafty and making stuff but I really dont have the time. .

JustAboutThere

libbyrice wrote: »

For quite a number of years i was into knitting...but rarely got anything finished. So I have bags and bags of wool...some of which is nice stuff, like Rowan Big wool. I know i could sell this on ebay. My DD likes hats and scarves so I could finish some quick accessories for her but I also have a lot of wool that I bought for bigger projects which I will never start! It will be a wrench getting rid of it. My BF said if I binned it all and then wanted to buy it again he would gladly give me the money (I can see the reasoninbg here as he knows I would be unlikely to ever have the time to knit in the near future and he is just being sensible and trying to show me how crazy it is to hang onto bulky wool that is just gathering dust).

I've also got multiple crafting / knitting projects sitting, gathering dust.

As long as they're not too bad, you want them out of the house and yet don't want / can't ebay them, can you contact a local charity that has a knitting group and donate the yarn?