2022 DECLUTTERING CAMPAIGN MrsSD

GeorgianaCavendish

11. In the middle of decluttering a baking kit that has been in the cupboard for months - should have some lovely cinnamon buns in a couple of hours! 

Liverpool_Anne

@balabooberlies it's not surprising you dropped the ball money wise, you had so much to cope with plus no doubt unexpected expenses. I have tried spreadsheets but I do struggle with them. I am in awe of people who know to the penny what they have spent where. I don't do internet banking which seems to help some people but it scares me. I am so glad you have been successful in your selling. I have got as far as asking a friend to show me how to do it but have yet to take the plunge, your success will spurn me on. I have also been looking at other places to sell things and there seems to be quite a few so I will explore those this year. As you say what is easy for some is a mountain to others. We are all different thank goodness

Mrs_Salad_Dodger

1. Write a daily To Do list - only 5 tasks.
2. Deal with Old Frogs & potential frogs ASAP but at least one on FROG Fridays.
3. Reduce/Restrict time watching TV and playing AB2 during daylight hours 😉
4. Continue to keep kitchen clean & tidy - before going to bed

Friday was a bright cold day with lots of sunshine but no warmth ☹️ Quite a successful day for me as I managed 7 tasks - 1 rolled over from Thursday + a Friday frog of sorting out the fridge. Joy of joys nothing had to be binned. Actually left the house - short trip out to post a couple of urgent letters & pick up a loaf of bread. DH didn’t get up until 3:30 p.m. having stayed up to watch the cricket 😱 However that gave me time to write a menu plan & shopping list 🌈 DH went to MrS - only thing oops was my weekly magazine ☹️ Dinner was breadcrumbed chicken, mash & peas. Wudupa. I kept nodding off last night - hence no post 😉

37 - 41 Kitchen recycling, 2 newspapers, magazine, cardboard box - recycled 

42 Kitchen detritus binned 

Saturday is a dark, damp, dismal day ☹️ Was awake at 8:00 a.m. for a bathroom visit & got up & dressed as DH was snoring for England 😱 Haven’t done anything apart from clear down a few programmes from the TV planner 😉 However I did receive a call from one of the nurses at the surgery with the results of my blood test (done in October) First the really good news - NOT diabetic or even pre-diabetic 🥳🥳🥳 The not so good news - cholesterol is a bit high & BP is a bit high 😞 However on the bright side I should be able to deal with this myself by giving up smoking, losing weight & exercising 😉 I will ponder  over the weekend as to how I will start my campaign 🤔 

balabooberlies 😃 Absolutely brilliant tackling of your Frog - so impressed that one medal 🏅 is on its way to join your gold star 👏

TC77, what a supportive post ☺️ Hope you took time away from the buffet car to pop into The TLC Carriage 😉

I couldn’t agree more florianatwobob 👏☺️

(Hopefully with balabooberlies being so brave & such an inspiration,  it will give us all a boost in dealing with our own large frogs 🤞)

ruby_eskimo, good decision to declutter the Christmas tree lights 👏 Yet another item to add to my Master list - deep clean bathroom 😱 A kind dentist is worth his/her weight in gold - we travel across London to see ours 😉

wort, You devil you 😈 adding alcohol to the tea trolley 😉 

Lovely to see you Vascodakarma 👋 Mind-mapping and planning 👏 I think that is what I need to do re my physical well-being. You are an inspiration & I am definitely benefiting from your positivity 🙂 Fantasy you is becoming Reality You 👏

Great advice -taff 👏

Excellent work try_harder 👏 Clutter out, monies in 🥳

vulpix, sorry to hear you are unwell 🤒 but very pleased that you are -ve 🙂 Well done on sorting the Christmas decorations 👏 Hope your appointment at the breast cancer clinic goes well 🤞

Absolutely excellent decluttering GrannyKate 👏 One medal NO scratch that one Gold Star ⭐️ coming your way for dealing with such a humongous Frog 👏 Good luck with Project Study 🍀  - hopefully lots of decluttering 😉 Well done for treating yourself 🙂

GeorgianaCavendish, Very useful information for balabooberlies - thank you for sharing 👏
Well done on the decluttering & the gifts conversation 👏

Lovely post nannywindow 😊 & I love your motto 🙂 if only everyone felt & acted the same way 😞 Sorry to hear about your thigh - healing vibes on their way. Absolutely excellent decluttering by you & DH 👏 My DH’s office is currently a dumping ground for most of our bedroom furniture so once the bedroom is finished I might take a leaf out of your book & see if I can persuade DH that the office is our next major project 😉 

What a great idea OWD_nana 👏 counting what comes in - helps to identify clutter creep 😉 Sorry you are not feeling so well but great work on your decluttering 👏 The ‘Do it NOW’ motto is a life changer - means the To Do list doesn’t get too long 😉

Not much of a lull, shangaijimmy 😉 Great work not only decluttering but sorting & putting away 👏 Well done on donating all that wool 👏 and what a good decision to get CS bags out even if only half full 😉👏

Excellent work on sorting Frogs, marrob 👏 and a huge amount of decluttering as well 👏
Good luck with the loft 🍀

Great work Finstickle 👏 Must admit I misread your post first time - I was thinking how ‘wicked’ you were banishing babies to the playhouse 🙃🤣

What a great cheerleading post, bit_by_bit 👏 Sounds like you enjoyed meeting up with friends & family 🙂 With the way things are going (whatever the muppet in charge says 😖) it is probably best to take the opportunity to meet up 😉 Good decluttering & how strong of you to identify another ‘project’ but defer it until a later date 🙂 The dress sounds beautiful 😍 

Good for you shabbychic12 🙂 but remember you don’t have to step off The EDT, you can just relocate to the buffet car or the TLC Carriage 😉 Discovering that your current decluttering journey is ‘better though not easier’ is a testament to your determination to succeed 👏 Perhaps your new OH can be gently encouraged to start his own decluttering journey 🤞😉

Excellent work on sorting out the freezer frog, Fizz2015 👏 Rather annoying that you had to be your own delivery driver 😖 Fingers crossed that the weather doesn’t disrupt your plans for the shed & freezer 🤞

Excellent work Gem-gem 👏 The book sounds very interesting 🙂

Good work on the electronic decluttering, short_bird 👏

Pleased to hear that your dad is doing a bit better, TC77. Sorry about your ears ☹️ Remember that the tortoise always beats the hare 😉 so keep up the good work 👏

Ouch Liverpool_Anne 😣 Sending healing vibes to accompany the ibuprofen gel. Thanks for sharing the amusing/embarrassing story 😉

Sorry to hear about your DH testing +ve, villagelife ☹️ Great decluttering work 👏

roundtuit, when RL gets in the way you are NOT consigned to the baggage carriage 😈 unless you are feeling antisocial 😉😉 Everyday recycling going out the door daily is a great way to keep clutter out, so well done 👏 “.. I've decluttered 4 lbs of chubbage just by eating less - so, not a total train wreck” absolutely blooming brilliant 🙂👏

Very impressed with your resistance of temptation, vulpix 🙂 I loved the decluttering by stealth - what a generous thing to do - gifting your handbag - no wonder your friend was surprised 👏🙂 

What an informative post, Baxtersmum 👏 Well done on being so close to 6 years of keeping up your payments 👏🙂 you should be very proud 🙂

Guineapigsqueaks you are allowed to take it easy after busy days at work 🙂 it is called recharging your Life Batteries 🙂

Thanks for the useful information Floss 👏

Excellent decision making nannywindow 👏 The ‘Do it NOW’ motto is coming up trumps 🙂

What a lovely post balabooberlies 😊 Now that you have the information needed, you are in a position to take control 👏 You can now ponder, plan and execute decluttering your debt 🙂

Great work SootySweep1 👏

I will be round later GeorgianaCavendish 😉 cinnamon buns 😋

Liverpool_Anne, I am a pen & paper person when it comes to dealing with finances but my DH is the spreadsheet king 🤣 Good luck with exploring your selling options 🍀 hopefully you can find one or two that appeal & you can become a selling queen 🙂

MrsSD  🏅🏅

Decluttering Target: 42/2022

2022 - 1p Savings Challenge: Jan £5.00; Feb

florianatwobob

The weather outside was frightful (rainy) so today DSis and I decided to tackle the ‘islands of detritus’ that were forming in the front room & kitchen. 

We also tackled the drinks and veg trolley  (a glamorous combination)  and then (drum roll please) 🥁………….the cupboard under the stairs! This resulted in a bag of shredding and Jiffy bags that were past their best being identified. The Jiffy bags had been kept ‘just in case’ when we were on our mammoth eb@y selling campaign. We’ve now split those into stretchy plastic and paper for recycling. 

Off to change the bedroom curtains now! 

Thrifty_Taylor

Well done everyone, you've all made a good start in the first week! An extra round if applause for those tackling frogs & things never tried before, by the end of the year you'll all be experts & feel proud of your achievements & new things learnt 😃🎉

I've been back at work for 3 days, but have sorted through a few more areas : 

37-38 70 Xmas cards, some recycled, some collection box
39 dvd
40 Xmas decoration
41 glass bottles, recycled
42 u/u perfume
43 birthday card from stash & stickers
44 pair of boots
45-46 100 emails
47-50 4 tops
51-59 underwear binned
60-69 new underwear given to a friend
70-75 underwear binned once worn
76-78 craft tat
79 duvet set
80 used stamps to charity
81 birthday card

mothernerd

Just added the 86 for Wednesday and the 49 for Thursday (found my jottings eventually) to my total and going to give myself a blanket 200 for yesterday (probably an underestimate, edited highlights in a moment) making my current total 586/ 2022.

First of all, I did make it in time for the milk woman and man (married couple) even though they were 15 minutes early. So 4 bottles from my house and 7 from mum's (was 8 but I dropped and broke one trying to carry too many at once) another 4 will be handed back by the neighbour I gave them to. Monies paid and many thanks for their help and support (life saver during the early lockdowns and bad weather). Sat down, had a drink and a snack, started on a letter to go with my hip replacement review but when I got to page 7 I realised I was giving myself a therapy session (probably much needed). I was apologising for the lateness of my response - the letter was over 4 weeks old when I found it, in the floor litter at my house. I put it somewhere safe and then could not find it when I had time to respond.

Was drifting (didn't get the sleep I wanted), set the washer running (had set the washer going at my house before I left), had a shower, messaged mummy of twins, cleared a bit of space and was about to crawl into bed for a couple of hours, when DS2 phoned. Long and interesting conversation, mainly him telling me what I should be doing - decluttering, simplifying so that everywhere is easy to clean, keeping my favourite hobbies but scaling back on the materials and wip (told him embroidery threads were down from 4 x 3 drawer sets to one (using roughly one drawer's worth a year, lots used when I was running a craft group and another drawerful (along with fabric, notions and general crafts) to a friend of DS1's who runs a similar group for young mothers in Glasgow to combat isolation and depression. Plus fabric given to local embroidery group and a couple of charity shops and a random kindness group at various stages (had to give up using coloured fabric in 2018, bright shades first and then pastels).

He asked if I had ever seen pin ter est so I told him I had 'pantry !!!!!!' - as in pictures of small rooms/ large under the stairs spaces filled with shelves of varying heights and row upon row of matching, neatly labelled storage jars and bespoke wardrobe sized units filled with drawers, shelves in the doors etc all in beautiful wood and equally beautiful painted outers. (wondering if the p word will be picked up by the censor elves). Similarly 'kitchens', ''perfect home', 'cross stitch sayings', cross stitch owls, wellbeing, decluttering, organising, cardboard engineering etc etc etc.

His deepest desire seems to be for me to have garden furniture - square plastic fake rattan chairs that will not tip even when someone sits on the chair arm. I did stop him at one point so that I could put my dress back on for answering the door and he was still talking when m-o-t arrived (she came through the gate I'd left unlocked for her and round to the back to peer through the window looking for me).

Yesterday we more or less went through all mum's clothes and the floor to ceiling cupboards in her room and all the drawers and cupboards in the front room. The things left in the cupboards are being 'kept. for the time being - it wouldn't be fair to dump Christmas stuff on the charity shops now - possibly thinking could take the purple and gold tree ornaments to the service so that people can choose one as  a memento (and will fit with the anniversary of her death - opinions wanted please). When we got to the third cupboard m-o-t said "Oh look, your mum's 'best' coat" and I teased  "Are you sure that's mum's 'best' coat, we still have 2 full suitcases under the bed to go through."  Sure enough we found a camel coat, many blazers and everything in the second suitcase still had tags. All saved for holidays and weddings. We set aside clothes for mum to wear on her big day and some suitable for someone who wants to have a 'memory bear' made.

All clothes wrapped round the hangers - plastic but not flimsy shop ones (I'm keeping my metal and wooden ones, nothing else), wrapped in 3's and double bin bagged, 2 bags for the YMCA  and about 6 other bags (didn't do a lot of counting, even less writing it down but can remember some things. The YMCA  had requested 2 bin bags of women's clothes, 2 boxes of bric a brac and one box of books. I've asked at each charity shop I've been in what donations they can use (easily sell) or most want. The box of books was made up of cookery books (mainly baking and cake decoration but a couple I think were wedding presents) from the kitchen, 2 photo albums (very fancy, one is country diary of an Edwardian lady, but very few slots for actual photos and some shaped apertures - probably perfect for cardmaking), some ancient (older than me) St John's ambulance manuals (but many people collect things like that) and a few oddments (I remembered  were on one of the tops shelves in the cupboard).

Many warm/ fluffy/ crocheted scarves gloves and hats including her grey fake fur funeral hat (I remember her previous funeral hat - a fifties upside down pinched in flowerpot, like lady whatsit on Father Brown wears), nylon summer gloves, lacy gloves, evening gloves (elbow length). We sorted most of the jewellery (a few items saved). I set aside a grey and silver scarf in case I need one for the funeral - thinking there may be black party frocks on sale but embellishments may have to be hidden. About 20 vest tops in assorted colours which haven't been worn in over 5 years (we chose something with long sleeves, as she wouldn't want people seeing the warts).

Bric a brac included several unused picture frames (smaller ones), 11 fridge magnets (can't remember if that was the total number or after 2 broken ones were discarded, an umbrella, 2 electrical items (manager has to pat test in between doing other things so could take some but not a lot, about 10 small ornaments and a medium vase filled with fabric flowers. I also packed all the reels of sewing thread from the little round table that is actually

running out of charge and charger may be at mum's  signing off

Baxtersmum

Gosh it’s chilly, my fingers don’t want to type 

• 13 odd bits of crockery etc to the charity shop
• 1 eDay parcel into the post 

New total 1944/2022 😀

It’s been a lovely day, cooked breakfast out as a treat from Son1, I’m really enjoying eating strawberries from the Olio order I picked up on Thursday, it’s satisfying my sugar cravings in place of biscuits, Shepards pie for dinner made with turnip mash top again from the Olio collection and red wine gravy also free as a gift from a neighbour, I don’t drink but wow was it yummy in the gravy 🍷

Enjoy your weekend everyone and thank you MRS SD for the cheerleading, you are fab x

Blackberrycurved

Decluttering and accounts Saturday has turned into tidying, wine and napping Saturday oh dear. 

GeorgianaCavendish

The cinnamon buns were delicious, will definitely share them with the carriage next time Mrs SD! 

12. Cleared out 6 jars of condiments and pesto from the fridge, just scrapings left that were well past the suggested Use By dates. All washed and ready for a trip to the bottle bank. 

GeorgianaCavendish

13. Clutter avoidance rather than declutter - said no thank you to MIL trying to offload some of her own decluttered items. I usually feel guilty and accept with effusive thanks only to have even more to deal with. Pointed her in the direction of a local charity instead.