2020 Decluttering Thread

[disneysteve]

I just listed a pair of porcelain figurines on FB Marketplace. They sell for about $40 each (plus shipping) on eBay. I listed the pair for $60 which I think is pretty reasonable but I'm willing to negotiate a bit if somebody expresses interest.

[disneysteve]

Cleared the 2019 bills out of the file drawer.

[disneysteve]

I sold a large lot of baseball cards on FB Marketplace in December. I just realized I have about 100 more cards to get rid of so I messaged the woman who bought that last batch to see if she might like them.

[disneysteve]

I sold a large lot of baseball cards on FB Marketplace in December. I just realized I have about 100 more cards to get rid of so I messaged the woman who bought that last batch to see if she might like them.

I contacted her and she did want them. I met her at a Dunkin' around the corner from me on Wednesday and she bought them. $10 quick cash and one more little pile of things out of the house.

[disneysteve]

I sold an item on ebay yesterday. Just a magazine but it's one more thing out of the house.

My wife spent some time cleaning her sewing stuff this morning. She came across 2 pairs of my pants I had given her to try and fix the pockets. It just wasn't something she was able to tackle so I'm tossing them. She's had them for months and clearly I've lived just fine without them.

In the process of putting away laundry this morning, I tossed one shirt that was really worn out. I had been keeping it for sentimental reasons but I never wear it anymore so out it goes.

How many of you are using unexpected at home time to declutter? I'm still working full time so I don't have extra time but I am finding that with work being so stressful and draining now due to the virus outbreak, I am spending more down time doing domestic stuff. It's kind of grounding for me.

[kork13]

Any suggestions on how to convince my wife to help declutter, and to stop buying MORE clutter?

Neither of us are hoarders by any stretch, but she is emotionally attached to things that she's just had for a while, or that she thinks we'll have an amorphous need for in the future, or simply because she bought it and now doesn't want to just throw/give it away so as not to be wasteful (ignoring the fact that it was a wasteful purchase in the first place.......)

We're in the process of getting our house sold, and preparing to move away from Alaska for my next assignment. This is definitely one of our best opportunities to clear things out, if only we can actually separate the needed from the meaningless. I just keep hitting a brick wall (lined with barbed wire...and land mines... and dogs with bees in their mouths....) anytime I even broach the topic of decluttering. In the meantime, she's simply organizing all of the clutter into more and more plastic bins of all shapes & sizes.

Any ideas?

[disneysteve]

Any suggestions on how to convince my wife to help declutter, and to stop buying MORE clutter?

I'd suggest both of you reading Marie Kondo's book and, if you have Netflix, watching the series she did.

Do you have to pay your moving expenses or is that covered for you? If it's on you, you can talk about how the less you have to move, the less it will cost.

There is a big mindset shift that has to happen to change from "organizing" to "decluttering". Once that switch flips in your brain, you very soon realize that you have a whole bunch of extra storage containers, shelf space, drawer space, closet space, etc. I remember not all that long ago we were seriously thinking about getting a shed built in our yard. Thankfully we didn't because once I got serious about cleaning out the garage, we magically no longer needed that extra storage space.

[disneysteve]

I sold an item on ebay yesterday. Just a magazine but it's one more thing out of the house.

I sold 2 more the next day, and 9 more yesterday - all to the same buyer. I just packed up the 9 and will ship them tomorrow.

[SavingBucks]

I am definitely using down time to declutter. However, most of the items I set aside are for local donations -- library bookstore and women's shelter. Both of these places are closed until the end of April! But I am planning to list a few kid craft items for free on Nextdoor -- I can leave them at the front door for pickup. Hopefully, someone with bored kids will be interested. I can leave some books and magazines at the many little free libraries in the neighborhood when I go for my many walks throughout the day.

[cypher1]

Gave my older HP laser jet printer and old ride on mower to a friend. Tossed out some old or close to empty car products, and re-organized all my cleaning/auto supplies, disposed of 5 gal used oil.

[disneysteve]

I had 2 items sell on ebay this week. I just packed them and will get them mailed today or tomorrow when I get out.

A few days ago, I threw out a stack of socks. They were ones that I never really wear because I don't like them. I happened to pick up a pair and the elastic on all of them was dried out.

[disneysteve]

I was wondering about an old tax issue so I pulled out my file box with our returns dating back to the mid 90s. As I started going through the files, I realized not only did I have the returns themselves, which I like to keep, but all of the supporting documents. I double checked with our accountant who confirmed that I don't need to save any of that stuff. It's way too old to ever be involved in an audit. So I've started to go through and recycle or shred all of the extraneous paperwork.

Since I'm talking about 25 years of returns, it should be a pretty good pile of stuff going out which will free up a nice amount of filing space.

[bjl584]

I just took in some new clutter in the form of my GF's storage unit.
I've been telling her for months to get that stuff out of there and save the $60 a month.
Its contents are now in my garage.
She'll be sorting through everything shortly to see what can be sold, donated, or pitched.

[Like2Plan]

I have liquidated about 5 Tee shirts so far. 4 of them were brand new. Two of the three were set aside to be thrown away because they had shrunk after one washing--but, being the thrifty sort that I am I couldn't bear to do it. Fast forward to covid-19. It turned out to be very fortunate that I didn't throw them away because I don't have a lot of fabric on hand and getting more has been a challenge. Anyway, I made face masks out of the tee shirts.

[disneysteve]

I've done a couple more rounds of cleaning out files from past year's tax returns. The recycling bin and shredding pile have grown a lot as a result. So much of what is in those old files isn't needed anymore. Once I'm done, the file drawer where most of our old tax returns are will have a lot of open space so I'll be able to move additional files into that drawer, freeing up space elsewhere.