Finally Debt Free After 34 Years, But Still Need to Live Frugally

beanielou

In awe. Just in awe.
When are you coming to mine.
I have a cupboard of doom.

HairyHandofDartmoor

I still have two voids of doom left to de-clutter Beanie :eek: and two bedrooms of doom belonging to DS1 and DS2 :eek: :eek:.

elizabethhull

beanielou wrote: »

In awe. Just in awe.
When are you coming to mine.
I have a cupboard of doom.

We (well mostly me!) have an entire double-length garage filled with absolutely essential clutter !!!

Willowtree222

Cupboard of doom! ha ha. That has me laughing.

I have 16 drawers of it in an Ikea unit that is absolutely full of odds and ends of little ones toys! x

HairyHandofDartmoor

elizabethhull wrote: »

We (well mostly me!) have an entire double-length garage filled with absolutely essential clutter !!!

When did you last use any of your essential garage clutter Elizabeth? :rotfl:

Nicnak wrote: »

Cupboard of doom! ha ha. That has me laughing.

I have 16 drawers of it in an Ikea unit that is absolutely full of odds and ends of little ones toys! x

Does little one ever play with the toys Nicnak?

foxgloves

Hey, HHoD,
On the decluttering front, I'm pleased to report that mr f DID go to the tip on Monday & the peculiar pile of assorted crud round the back of the shed has pretty much vanished!! Oh joy!! Spotted a few things in the shed itself yesterday which I thought really should also have been taken, & mentioned it. But it isn't a problem......because now our current car is registered to use the tip (local council regulations) & he knows exactly where it is & the whole 'visiting the tip' drill, he's apparently PLANNING TO GO AGAIN!!!! Double joy!! I can actually foresee a time when we might also shift a bit of random detritus from our loft. Going to give him time to reorganise the shed first though. He is generally very organised, but he likes to come round to an idea first, so thinking time is important.
F x

HairyHandofDartmoor

There's nothing to report on the money front today so far. But I've de-cluttered the Christmas void :T :j :T :j. It used to be the seasonal void, but I de-cluttered ALL the halloween decorations recently, so now it's just the Christmas void now.

We had two large cardboard boxes, two small plastic boxes and about ten carrier bags in the Christmas void full of lights, decorations, baubles, cards bought in the sale, gift tags, etc. It looked messy and tatty, pus I could never find what I wanted :mad:. Now we have everything in three large plastic boxes and three small pastic boxes.

The Xmas lights are in a 35 litre box, other assorted decorations like wreaths, fabric advent calendars, spare cards & tags, etc, are in a 42 litre box, and baubles for the big Christmas tree are in an 18 litre box. In three 10 litre boxes I have tinsel for the big tree, Xmas china and Xmas dvds.

I did put a few items in my rucksack to go to the charity shop on the grounds that if it didn't fit into the boxes then it had to go. This focused my mind on the things I really wanted to keep. I'd like to focus on better quality more natural looking decorations in future (budget allowing) rather than sparkly, tinsely type decorations. Children like a bit of sparkle but now our kids are all grown up I can indulge my desire for a slightly more toned down look. I'm thinking of green garlands with a few holly berries for colour, fake ones because I don't want to have to rebuy them every year, but good quality ones that look real. Or I could raid our local park for real holly .

It looks really tidy in the void now and I know exactly which box to look in to find things as the boxes are transparent plus organised better :T. I always need the advent calendars first and have frequently searched through two cardboard boxes and about eight carrier bags before finding them :mad:. Also they stack neatly, and the contents are protected from mice, damp and dust. So that's a job well done .

HairyHandofDartmoor

foxgloves wrote: »

Hey, HHoD,
On the decluttering front, I'm pleased to report that mr f DID go to the tip on Monday & the peculiar pile of assorted crud round the back of the shed has pretty much vanished!! Oh joy!! Spotted a few things in the shed itself yesterday which I thought really should also have been taken, & mentioned it. But it isn't a problem......because now our current car is registered to use the tip (local council regulations) & he knows exactly where it is & the whole 'visiting the tip' drill, he's apparently PLANNING TO GO AGAIN!!!! Double joy!! I can actually foresee a time when we might also shift a bit of random detritus from our loft. Going to give him time to reorganise the shed first though. He is generally very organised, but he likes to come round to an idea first, so thinking time is important.
F x

Ooh fantastic Foxgloves :T. Nothing gives me greater joy than getting rid of total carp . In fact I find the tip absolutely fascinating, the things that you see people dropping off are quite incredible :rotfl:.

Now Mr F knows the way hopefully he'll be a regular visitor. My DH needs a lot of thinking time too, so I have to sow seeds in his mind and hope they sprout :rotfl:. but he does seem to be coming around to this whole de-cluttering lark.

HairyHandofDartmoor

I'm having a rest now before planning the rest of my day :think:. I've run out of plastic boxes now, so need to buy some more as I can't do much more de-cluttering without proper storage. So I'll have to persuade DH to nip out to a box shop at some point today. He has to go out anyway to do something and there's a pile of clutter in the hall from yesterday's efforts that needs to be dropped at the charity shop.

Storage boxes are the only thing I feel prepared to spend money on at the moment as I'm convinced it will improve our mental health and make life easier for all of us. And much as I'm sometimes tempted, you can't get rid of all of your belongings :rotfl: so the things you want to keep are going to look cluttered unless you have suitable storage for them.

Once everything is pared down to what we use or love, then we can stop the expenditure on boxes because we can operate a one in and one out system.

HairyHandofDartmoor

Another de-cluttering victory, I've de-cluttered the smaller cupboard under the stairs :T :j :T.

This wasn't a huge job to be fair. In the cupboard normally there is a large plastic box of books which don't fit in our current bookcases, some outdoor shoes on top of the book box, the hoover and a small stockpile of tins and jars of food. This was all well and good, but lurking at the back right under the stair treads were some mysterious objects wrapped in plastic bags :huh:.

So I dragged these out and unwrapped them. I found DH's drain unblocking kit (wellies and heavy duty plastic gloves), two other pairs of wellies, some paint stained clothing, a dust sheet, a wire brush, and a currently unidentified metal object (old boiler or fireplace part?). The plastic bags all disintegrated as I unwrapped them, leaving bits of plastic all over the carpet :mad:.

The only useful items from this collection are DH's drain unblocking kit, the dustsheet and the wire brush, which are now in the new shed (which I'm still in love with ). The painty clothing is to be disposed of and the two random wellies can go to the charity shop. I need to consult DH about the mysterious metal object but I'm hoping that it can go to the tip.

The cupboard is now much emptier at the back, so I've been able to transfer the rest of our food stockpile there from the kitchen where it was cluttering up the counter. So I've gained storage for useful items, found some lost items, and earmarked the rest to leave the house. A very useful exercise indeed :T.

I'm sitting down with a celebratory diet coke now. You can tell I'm on the mend because things are happening ::rotfl:.