2026 DECLUTTERING CAMPAIGN Mrs SD - our Year of Redistribution

Deb4

I would like to join, I join in 2024 but the page went to fast that I couldn't keep up but I have been decluttering but it doesn't seem to make a difference.

I did my craft room but it doesn't last long and I have to start again just need to put things back in the right place once I have finished with and also the dining room table needs a good sort out as I use to do some crafting on it but also every day things gey put on there so I would like to keep it clean.

I'm not going to court how many things I declutter as I lose count, I have started today by sorting some clothes out to sell and I have taken the photos and also some things to donate.

Happy new year and happy decluttering 

Deb4

Brie

Deb4 said:

I would like to join, I join in 2024 but the page went to fast that I couldn't keep up but I have been decluttering but it doesn't seem to make a difference.

I did my craft room but it doesn't last long and I have to start again just need to put things back in the right place once I have finished with and also the dining room table needs a good sort out as I use to do some crafting on it but also every day things gey put on there so I would like to keep it clean.

I'm not going to court how many things I declutter as I lose count, I have started today by sorting some clothes out to sell and I have taken the photos and also some things to donate.

Happy new year and happy decluttering 

Deb4

Confession time - I sometimes skip a few pages as there are too many to keep up with.  And I don't count things either - life is too short!!!  I'll depend on the fact that the place (should) look tidier.

BlueJ94

I started decluttering at 1.25ish, spent an hour ripping everything out of the room and then smashed down a wardrobe. We then walked the dogs which was about 45 minutes, I came back and continued to declutter etc. 

Ive only just sat down but ive got to put food on soon, ive still go so much left to do. But no time so will continue tomorrow after work.

ilovetea

Hope  you have all had a good day.
I haven't decluttered anything as such but I have got the tree down and put away. dusted as well!
 Not sure about numbers but I'm not counting rubbish, recycling and stuff in the compost bin as they go out every day anyway.
My wardrobe needs doing as everything is getting squashed.
Want to declutter a few lbs as well, maybe when I've finished the Christmas goodies.

      ilovetea  xx

florianatwobob

Ziffit box boxed but I need to finish a small book of seasonal murder stories before it gets taped up. 

I also sat down and looked at the mortgage finances. The mortgage FR is ending in 2028 and the mortgage is due to end in 2029 so I’ve long handed the maths to work out how much is due to be paid off at the end of the fixed rate. 

Then for fun (Dear Readers it was not fun - I was overjoyed to get a C in my Maths GCSE which makes the 20+ years I worked in Financial Services including a mortgage company, high street bank and life company doing maths even more hilarious) I long handed what difference paying a lump sum off would make to the capital and interest if the monthly payment remained the same. 

Tomorrow I’m off to give the beautician money (and declutter my goatee) and drop the rag bag off for recycling. 

grandmanerd

I'd like to rejoin you all again, this year. I was a regular contributor a few years ago but fell by the wayside (life). I can't remember quite when I stopped posting but I'll do a (hopefully) quick resume of the past few years. At the start of the pandemic I moved into my mother's bungalow to look after her as she was extremely vulnerable and had no clue about ordering food online. I stayed there for nearly 2 years, moving back to my own house in December 2020. My mother became ill (I suspect she let her deceased partner's children in and they only followed the rules when legally required). She went into hospital on the 30th December, was diagnosed with COVID the day after and died on Tuesday 3rd January.

I managed to mainly clear her bungalow and sold it in August (sale was due to complete in December of that year, but then delayed until January and I didn't get the money in my bank account until February). My ex-husband died in May following my mother's death and left my children (all grown ups) an inheritance of old cameras and vinyl (I may have written about that). DS3 was given the job of cataloguing the vinyl and getting it to auction,so that came here. After telling me not to bring any of mum's stuff from the bungalow. DS2 persuaded me to find room for 4 pieces of furniture that my ex-b-i-l identified as having been their (his and ex's) mother's.

My mother's cousin died nearly a year after her and I spent a lot of time talking to her daughter (extremely troubled relationship, her mother was a narcissist who controlled people with money and used her will as a final obstacle course for my cousin). She was the main beneficiary but not an executor and has had to wrangle with problems like asbestos ceilings throughout her mum's house and a bolted on aluminium greenhouse that leaked. 

18 months on from mum's death, when I thought I had only a few things left to tie up, my brother and my niece (he is also extremely vulnerable, a cough or cold could kill him and she deals with a lot of officialdom for him as he has MH problems) who did very little work on the estate but then started to criticise and second-guess everything I did, decided that our grandma's house, which had been rented out for nearly 30 years to the same tenant, should also be sold. Of course neither of them wanted to talk to the tenant about this. I helped him get a small bungalow with a housing association, then cleared £500 worth of rubbish from the house (he officially left in November, booked a moving van for December 12th (I said it didn't matter as I was too ill to get to the house to sort anything) and I finally got the keys in mid-January.

Some of you may remember that my DS3, his Beloved and 3 chinchillas were living with me. Well they still are. Various properties have come and gone, DS3 has pulled back from making an offer because of problems with his main distributor and uncertainty about the future of his small business. I took him with me to look at grandma's house because I thought buying out my brother's half of the house and renting (mortgaging) it to DS3 might be a quicker route to setting them up in their own place (or possibly doing the work that needed doing plus adaptations I needed and move there myself).

Cue 2 years of my niece wildly overestimating the value of grandma's house, demanding outrageous sums for me to pay my brother, not wanting to organise or contribute to the nearly £30k of repairs it needed and once again asking why had I done/ not done such and such. In the end I gave them the job of selling it. It's probably contributed to the delay in getting things done but I refused to give in and take over when things went wrong. We had a buyer in December 2024. That broke down in July last year. A new buyer was found and completion date was fixed at December 19th. Surprisingly it didn't happen and is now supposed to happen on January 9th.

My own health (physical and mental) has deteriorated over the past 2 years. I have the dreaded lurgy (not sure which one but I've ticked all the symptom boxes for coughs/ cold, flu and COVID. I self-isolated for 8 weeks last year and had an earlier 3-4 week period when I barely left the house (add triple hayfever - grass, flowers and trees during the hot dry spell and living in close proximity to 3 chinchillas to the previously mentioned). In May I made/ attended appointments some due from the previous December and in November/ December I attended nearly all my follow up appointments to the May ones. Spent whole days making appointments, then having to cancel them due to illness. Got my flu jab on the third attempt, diabetic eye exam on the third attempt, still have to see the practice nurse for my annual review and have a regular eye test.

POSITIVES 
Grand-daughters. The elder is 3 and a half, the baby is 9 months. A constant source of joy and fun. I haven't been able to see as much of them as I'd like but we have had lots of fun. Early on in the year DS2 and I took the elder one for a meal and to our local country park to feed the birds (ducks, geese, moorhens, swans and more). His partner was heavily pregnant and had a gruelling series of night duties (Thoracic Registrar). DS2 had brought bread, I brought wild bird feed, grand-daughter took it from my hand and distributed it to the birds. We have also had Mother's Day/ welcoming new baby at their house and went to see 'The cat that slept for a 1000 years' at Manchester Museum. Illness meant I missed the baby's baptism, an important funeral and Christmas staying with DS1. He and his wife brought presents and food in the evening. We had an early Christmas celebration at DS1's at the beginning of December because DS2 and family left for a month in Australia, the week before Christmas.

New Kitchen After many years of planning I finally got my new kitchen plus a small shower room/ sink and toilet separately within the kitchen space. I will never have to climb up to change light bulbs flat against my 8'9" ceilings. I have a sink that does not need bailing out every 2 weeks. My crockery, pans and kitchen ware are held in drawers that glide with ease and have pegboards inside to fit the items securely. There is plenty of room to move about in case I end up in a wheelchair (working to improve but prepared for the worst). I have small storage units to add extra storage space on the ends of units. It's all cladded so I will never have to paint it again. It was hard work living through the alterations but my builders are very considerate (only one day without a sink as they had everything lined up to go in as soon as the old sink came out). I no longer have to go upstairs to the toilet or for a shower (it was getting harder and harder and left me out of breath).

Retirement I finally got there and am better off than I have been in years (basic pension and PIP). I am not fully adjusted. I know I can buy food without checking the bank balance (very helpful when I can't stand up for more than 2 minutes without going dizzy, sometimes don't know what to cook or feel like cooking and sometimes don't think about food and then am ravenously hungry). I make poor food choices when I'm tired, ill or hungry and there is quite a lot of tired in my life (I had a series of 5 days without any symptoms but I was so exhausted that I slept day and night). However beyond being relaxed about food shopping I still have a scarcity mindset. I've been debating getting a new bedcover. I've been admiring thick velvety ones for about two years. I've bought new clothes pegs and other 'necessities' (currently on the list -doormats and a laundry basket) but still struggle with things for myself (I can buy for other people) that feel luxurious. Keep thinking about booking a coach holiday but not gone any further.

Mrs Builder Mrs Builder was working full-time and helping Mr Builder on her days off. She got laid off towards the end of my improvements. I've wanted a cleaner for some time (I'm just not able/ can't keep up). She asked me at the same time as I was working up courage to ask her so she now does 2 hours per week (varies to fit in with other obligations). She cleans the kitchen and shower room and sets things to rights and then asks what else I need doing. At first it was going through the remaining things that had not been relocated to the kitchen - some don't belong there, making more space, re-arranging the furniture. The week before Christmas it was putting together the sofa bed (I arranged a bulky waste collection including the wrecked 3 seater couch but the first available date was the 18th December). 

Tentative Plans
To get back to being happy
To be as productive as possible for as little effort as possible
Review my books - reading is getting harder, some books now on the laptop, consider size of print, weight of book, whether I will read it over and over
Review my craft supplies. I've made many adjustments, particularly with my embroidery supplies. The time is coming when I will have to give up altogether. I have 5 WIP which have been hanging about for the past 2 years. I have some sewn items I started soon after my elder grand-daughter was born with very little progress. Even writing is hard - my hands shake (medicine side effect) and cramp up at times. Need to be realistic and pass things on
Initial target of 2025 items. 
Keep on top of rubbish and recycling.
Ideal target DS3 and Beloved (+ chinchillas) settled in their own place

suzeesu2000

2026 here at last! That week between Christmas and new year was never ending.

So happy that DH and I decided not to buy for each other at Christmas. We both have everything we need so it would have just been clutter. And what a difference it’s made to the wheely bin contents, collection is on Monday and - including the bag I put out today - we have only got half a bin full.
Dinner for both was different but from freezer and kitchen.
Not as cold today as yesterday but ready for the threatened big freeze.
I was going to start the laundry today but, after reading MrsSDs warnings, I’m glad I didn’t! That’s on the agenda for tomorrow.
Have a good night all, sleep tight xx

Brie

@grandmanerd
That's a h3ll of a time to get through.  Welcome back.

QueenJess

A gentle kick off today.  I did have a browse through a second hand/antiques type shop and thought you'd all appreciate the budget saving device I saw in there:

1 - DD paperwork recycled 
1 - DD pen used up

New decluttering total 2
Use it up total 1

Brambling

Queen Jess I remember my dad sitting at the table on a Friday night in the early 70s with a gold colour tin like this and his wage packet dividing up his money, emergency money (if any left from previous week) was put in a jam jar and popped inside the loft hatch just I case there were mice!

The only decluttering done today was 24 paper clips to my sister who was going home to do her taxes. I also sold her the hoodie I brought half price in FFsale and decided I didn't really need it, the trousers go back tomorrow as I don't need those either. Half price bargains are only bargains if you need it 🤔

A elderly friend is in hospital so I spent a couple of hours with her mainly reading the book I picked up on the way through the hospital (one will need to go out of the house) whilst she dozed.  She's really confused today I'm hoping it's something like a uti as it's a steep mental downturn following a fall on Boxing Day if not I'll have to clear her flat as she can't go home like she is, she's 88.