2023 DECLUTTERING CAMPAIGN Mrs SD

Siebrie

@charlies_tribe I'd let him buy it for the house, it may be a point of pride for him to properly contribute to the household. You can always suggest he takes it with him when he leaves.

Wednesday2000

I dropped off the bag around midday. I added a long cardigan, an unused leave in hair conditioner, a brown hair dye unopened and a wrapped bar of soap.

I got our passport pics done finally as the photo booth at the train station wasn't working yesterday. We went to Snappy Snaps today. I didn't even realise those stores still existed until I moved here.

We got some fresh smoothies from a lovely cafe on the way home and popped into the post office and Coop. I had a wake me up smoothie with espresso in it.🤩

We are going out to dinner tonight before my dog gets back tomorrow. I have a GP appointment tomorrow morning  and the plastering is being finished so I need an early night.

Brie

Trying to be good about a bit of declutter every day but it isn't easy..... Part of this is emptying the fridge of stuff waaaaay past their best before and putting those things just a bit past front and centre so they get used soon. (aka before they'd kill us).  Need to have a chat with him who thinks he should be obeyed about the raclette cheese in the garage fridge.....I love raclette but 2 packs of cheese were purchased months and months and months back.  I can't remember off the top of my head if they are marked best before April 2023 or 2022.  Either way I'm a tad reluctant to base a dinner on them even if they do look ok still and are sealed and the packaging isn't bloated.  I did get rid of the gazpacho bbf August - the pack was beginning to swell.  It's so wasteful of us - I do try to manage these things but some times it's difficult.  And we need to make sure that a lot more is used up by the end of the year - well at least enough to get us down to having just 1 fridge/freezer worth when the kitchen is being transformed.

Need to go to the post office - I've filled in the blanks on my pension form to get annuity quotes.  Company needed 2 separate forms to be filled in for 2 different pensions rather than me putting all the info on 1 form.  I suspect I'll get a query back about why the form I've filled in this week isn't the same as the one from 2 months back...  Also I've got my passport application all done, completed with references and photos - just need to find a suitable envelope so I can send my current passport with it as they need that and I need to get it returned to me for visa continuity.  That leaves me getting to Edinburgh Woolen Mill to pick up a cardigan for my mom.  I looked at them before going to visit her in Sept but they weren't on sale so didn't get one and am now being told she urgently needs a new one as her carers refuse to mend her old one yet again (they go at the elbows after about 12 years....).  So rather than pay £45 and pack it to go with me I'll now have to pay £45 for the cardy and another £15 for postage to get it overseas.  Sigh.

florianatwobob

Hello everyone! I have been decluttering financial jobs the last few days so 1) finally sorted my self assessment (without the 30 min to 1 hour wait in the phone to HMRC quite chuffed with myself) 2) upped my AVC contributions now my back pay has been finalised 3) settled the remaining balance for Christmas Day dinner (decluttering that job to the professionals this year) 4) sorted out the maturity option for my ISA (also involved looking at the predicted base rate for the next couple of years). You’d think with most of that I’d worked in Financial Services for a fair proportion of my working life 😉. 

Lovely to see people’s news and sending hugs to all. 

QueenJess

TheMillions said:

Thanks for making me feel so welcome, I came across this group after starting to read @QueenJess diary ( I initially thought @QueenJess numbers on the footer was money she had made from selling lots of items decluttered!)

What a terrifying thought... I shudder to think how much money I wasted in the past on things I never really used!  Thankfully these days a lot of my decluttering totals are kids clothes/toys grown out of (much swapped through Buy Nothing) and scrubbing my digital devices.

Ongoing decluttering today included work stress (it's very relaxing once you've resigned, but no one else knows yet!), decluttering new employer admin requests, starting to work through the finalisation of shutting down my old cloud account (I'm using a new provider now) and sifting through a huge amount of photos and videos (still got at least 10,000 to look through on my laptop alone... not counted up the ones on my phone yet ).  I've started off concentrating on specific areas and am having a fun time going through all my old sport related photos/videos with 1,000 of these ones left to check.

Must get back to the overall to do list and revisit the frog list I made at the start of the year to check progress. I have now completed catching up with everything health related, so onwards and upwards now!

Decluttering to declare:

34,709-35,387 - photos/videos deleted

GrannyKate

A slow day today but I got a few things done.  I went into town and it was horrible but even more so at the out of town site - all cafes were packed and I felt really hungry.  Took myself to a local pub chain restaurant - fancied fish and chips - they didn't have any.  Ordered soup and small steak and chips.  Soup was cold so had to send it back.  Then the couple at the next table started a 'domestic' in loud voices with many swear words.  Seemed to be arguing about her MH diagnosis and what it really meant.  Not very relaxing. 

1744 Loads of emails read, dealt with, filed or deleted
1745-47 Three Christmas things to CS - they were pleased with them as they are short this year.  I was pleased to realise that I had very effectively culled the Christmas decoration boxes last year and I will use most things.  Found tablecloths which go with my colour scheme for this year
1748 Some C Cards recycled - either I don't like them or no envelope
1749 Autumn wreath to CS
1750 Christmas wreath binned - keeps falling apart so will get a nicer one
1751 Bag of 5ps paid in at bank - money taken out for some Christmas gifts
1752 Various stuff to CS
1753 Stuff to tip
1754 Foreign currency collected
1755 Hair appointments made for next week and Christmas week
1756 Some stocking fillers bought along with some Christmas cooking ingredients
 
I found a trout in freezer that I bought a couple of months ago reduced from £3.80 to £1.40. Baked it in the oven for tea (defrosted) and it was delicious.  There is another one in the freezer for another day.  Plan an early night and then start on some more cleaning and sorting tomorrow.  Will also finish writing Christmas cards tomorrow and get the rest of the stamps.  I checked out the January birthdays and there are just 4 men (2 sons and 2 nephews) so I will look out for some nice cards in a multi offer (4 for 3 or something).  DD asked if I had a candlestick - I have a silver one of my mother's which doesn't have a home.  I'll take it when I go down and hope she'll keep it but I suspect she will give it back after Christmas. 

TheMillions

Day 3 (28.11.23) Yesterday
DC1 - Mind and Body
Exercise bike, Body brushing, Day 3 face mask and light therapy - done (I am doing a 7 day face mask routine at the moment)
DC2 - Personal Admin
Finances done
DC3 - Business Admin
60 mins done
DC4 - Emails
Started on this mammoth task 350/5000 done
DC5 - Images
Started this today not sure how many I have but lots, so about 50/5000 done
DC6 - Beauty
Used up another 2 bottles, some are small sample ones which I am aiming to go through aswell - 2 recycled 
DC7 - Cleaning Tasks
Still on glass door cleaning, did one door today, only 2 left to go!
DC8 - Items for Sale
Target 5 daily - Decluttered and for sale 5 items - Done (Total so far 15)
DC9 - Other

Excited to see how much O/P has been made on the mortgage at the end of this month. This is the first proper month of doing this and been making a payment a day.

Let’s see what today brings, have a good day everyone!
Milly

Wednesday2000

I have just decluttered a lot of money for the plastering! The flooring is being done next week and then the painting should be the week after.

I just had a GP appointment and it is quite chilly, but really bright and sunny here.

I saw that Location, Location, Location tonight is about Margate and Broadstairs so I am going to be watching that with interest as that is we were want to move to.

QueenJess

Day off today and I should be doing tons of stuff, but in fact I am doing precisely nothing and enjoying just lazing around.  Feel like I need a break after long work stuff coming to an end (started in September) and being up all night for a couple of nights with DD's high temperature due to teething.  

Ok, so not exactly doing nothing... bread is about to go into the oven and I've sat on my laptop sorting through tons of photos/videos whilst watching some TV.  Now I've got 7,152 left to look through on the laptop alone.  Found a bunch of duplicate photos I never dealt with, so that reduced the folder size dramatically.

Decluttering:

35,388-37,237 - photos/videos deleted
37,238-37,249 - documents deleted

I've decided to try and concentrate on the laptop stuff during the week when I am sat around on a work laptop anyway and break out at the weekends to do other tasks.  Lots to get through, but I think my target is the end of Jan to be pretty much done with all the lists, so I have a bit of time yet.  Getting through all the photos/videos would be a massive task completed and I have to figure out how to maintain that one going forward.  Maybe it'll be a monthly task to run through all the photos I've taken for that month and make sure they are filed.  Will think about that once I start work on the mobile photos.

ruby_eskimo

Afternoon all.  I've been out of touch over the last couple of months due to decluttering a lot of travel (NYC, Arizona, California, Buffalo and Devon).  Even though I managed to hit my target for the year when it comes to decluttering, I think next year is going to be the BIG year when it comes to getting rid of stuff.  So I've started to focus in my diary on tracking what comes in and out of the house and also focusing on taking care of what we have on a more regular basis.

This seems to have manifested itself in trying to do a whole house deep clean before Christmas which is insane but by doing a little bit each day I think we'll get there.  Today's focus is on:

- Putting away the massive pile of washing that's been collecting on the spare bed
- Tidy hallway and landing
- Clean skirting boards in main bedroom
- Vacuum / wash floors in bedrooms

Hope everyone is doing well and hugs to those that need them.