2018 Decluttering Thread

[disneysteve]

I did a bit in our computer room and some in the basement today. Nothing major but definitely in the “every little bit helps” category.

[scfr]

The pre-move purge has begun!
Listed 15 items on the local FB garage sale page today. 4 items were picked up today, and 2 more are scheduled for pickup in the next 2 days.
Made a last-minute decision to have a garage sale next Saturday, so started piling stuff up to sell at that after sorting through a couple rooms.

We're moving from a house to an apartment. The last time we moved to an apartment, it was a temporary thing (until we bought a house) and only DH was working from home. This time it will not be just a temporary thing, and both DH & I will be working from home so we'll need work space for both of us. This time, I won't be happy to have boxes stacked in a corner, and I won't be happy using a side table in the corner for eating. We'll be looking at making a real home out of a place that will be less than half size of what we have now. And we want to make this happen as quickly as possible. Fortunately, I feel ready and I've done this drill before.

As positive as I am about this move, I will add that it is harder physically than it was the last time. In fact, I'm about to go soak in an epsom salt bath to ease my aching muscles ... and the process has just begun!

We've wrapped up the garage sale we had today. Between the things I sold via Facebook and the garage sale, we've brought in $439 so far. We haven't sold any furniture yet; that will come after our house sells.
This isn't a "money making endeavor" by any means, but it's a step towards getting the house ready to list and it allowed us to recoup some of the money we spent on the items (just a fraction, but better than nothing). Yard/garage sales are a lot of work, but they are great because you can give yourself a very short, self-imposed deadline. It forced me to really keep at it, every day. I will be taking another epsom salt soak tonight!!

P.S. - I'm learning that the FB "commerce policy" has either gotten stricter or is being more strictly enforced. I wanted to sell a gift card, but it's not allowed and my listing was rejected.

[MooseBucks]

My goal for September is to get the house put away and then tackle getting rid of clutter in closets, the garage and basement in October.

Made a huge dent in getting rid of
clutter in the closets etc but didn’t hit my goal of getting it completed by the end of October. Still tons of work to do in the garage. Here’s to continuing in November and December and finishing everything by the end of the year.

[disneysteve]

Our decluttering is on hold as we are on vacation for 2 weeks. However, the goal during this period is to not come home with any new clutter. So far, so good. We're doing a runDisney race while we're here so there will be a couple of t-shirts and medals coming home but that's relatively minor.

[scfr]

On Monday I made a Goodwill run with leftovers from the garage sale. After Goodwill I swung by the post office to mail some items to family members who want them.
I listed 4 items that didn't sell at the garage sale on FB (choosing only items that I think will fetch $5 or more); 2 have sold and 1 has several interested potential buyers.

Yesterday I dropped off some old electronics at Best Buy for recycling. They had been in the garage gathering dust.

I went through 2 banker's boxes of paperwork in the garage, kept a small handful and put the rest in the recycle bin or shred pile. The shred pile is growing and my home shredder is very small, so I did an internet search for community shred events. There is one on Saturday that I might go to.

I have started stashing things in a tote bin for a possible final "moving/garage" sale that we may hold when/if our house sells, during the time we are waiting for our house to close. During that time we will also be selling furniture and decor that we need while the house is listed but that won't be coming with us. Right now I don't feel much enthusiasm for having another sale, but DH wants to have one, and I may regain my willingness as time since our garage sale increases.

Several books have been mentioned in this thread. I want to recommend another: "Let It Go: Downsizing Your Way to a Richer, Happier Life" by Peter Walsh (he appears frequently on TV). It is an excellent read. For anyone going through a downsizing process, thinking they should/want to downsize but don't think it's manageable or know how to start, helping their parents downsize, or dealing with a parent's estate, I highly recommend it.

P.S. - Edited to add that another item sold via FB, pushing to just over $500 what we have brought in during our pre-move/downsize purge. DH was a bit bemused when I started selling - I told him I was going to bring in enough to cover the cost of the moving truck and he laughed at me - but now he's totally on board and believes it can happen.

[scfr]

Decluttering/downsizing accomplishments in the past week:
1 banker's box full of papers destroyed at the shred day event
3 burned out fluorescent bulbs and a small box of old household chemicals and paint delivered to the local hazardous waste disposal site
3 items no longer needed sold via Facebook - Pre-move sales total is at $538
5 vintage magazines and 2 plants given away
1 small box of items dropped off at Goodwill
a few items put in the "Moving Sale" bin out in the garage

I am pretty much done purging for now. Round 2 will begin when/if our house sells. Just a few more days until we list.
Earlier today DH looked around and said "Our house is so spacious!" Yup, that was the goal.

[snafu]

scfr, well done! I wondered if you've Googled any of the articles on 'staging.' It's an interesting topic to discuss with RE agents you may be interviewing. They often have suggestions that are particularly appropriate in your specific community.

[scfr]

scfr, well done! I wondered if you've Googled any of the articles on 'staging.' It's an interesting topic to discuss with RE agents you may be interviewing. They often have suggestions that are particularly appropriate in your specific community.

Yes, thank you.

[disneysteve]

Our decluttering is on hold as we are on vacation for 2 weeks. However, the goal during this period is to not come home with any new clutter. So far, so good. We're doing a runDisney race while we're here so there will be a couple of t-shirts and medals coming home but that's relatively minor.

We are back home and settled. We succeeded in not bringing home much new stuff. I think we got 5 race/running shirts between the 2 of us, 3 pins, 2 race medals and I think that might be it.

As usual, after spending 2 weeks in a clutter-free rental home, my clutter tolerance is low and I've started attacking the problem with renewed energy. So far today, I cleaned a bunch of papers and items off the computer desk. I have a pile of electronics to recycle: one laptop, 2 cell phones, 1 iPod, and 2 portable phone chargers. Yes, I checked if any of them were worth selling and they just aren't. They're all old models and not in demand at this point. And I just want them gone. Staples accepts all of that stuff so I'm going to take a trip over there this weekend sometime.

I went through the whole shelf of computer paper (photo paper, business card stock, regular card stock, iron on transfers, etc.) and cleaned out a slew of stuff from there. A bunch of stuff went in the recycling bin. Several unopened packages will go to Goodwill. A few old manuals got tossed.

Taking a break now for dinner but hopefully I'll do more later. If not, I'm off all weekend and DW is sick so she probably won't be up for much this weekend leaving me free to work on this.

[disneysteve]

I've done some more after dinner. I cleaned off the shelf with all of our travel guides. I basically got rid of all of them, either recycled the magazine type or put the books in the Goodwill pile.

I found a couple of still-sealed packs of note paper or Post-Its that will go to Goodwill. We have more of that stuff in the house than we will use in our lifetime.

I realized I had 5 staplers on my desk, and there is only one that I use regularly. I didn't get rid of the others quite yet but I did get them off of my desk into a storage drawer. I know that's only delaying dealing with them but it's helping the visual clutter right now. I'm not sure that I want to get rid of all of them.

I tossed an old air duster that was empty.

I have a 4-inch tall stack of old annual reports from Disney. I always figured they'd be worth something and I'd sell them but they just aren't of value. They only sell online for a few dollars each, sometimes with free shipping, which makes the profit extremely low. It's time to recycle them.

Time for a break.

[james.hendrickson]

I've done some more after dinner. I cleaned off the shelf with all of our travel guides. I basically got rid of all of them, either recycled the magazine type or put the books in the Goodwill pile.

I found a couple of still-sealed packs of note paper or Post-Its that will go to Goodwill. We have more of that stuff in the house than we will use in our lifetime.

I realized I had 5 staplers on my desk, and there is only one that I use regularly. I didn't get rid of the others quite yet but I did get them off of my desk into a storage drawer. I know that's only delaying dealing with them but it's helping the visual clutter right now. I'm not sure that I want to get rid of all of them.

I tossed an old air duster that was empty.

I have a 4-inch tall stack of old annual reports from Disney. I always figured they'd be worth something and I'd sell them but they just aren't of value. They only sell online for a few dollars each, sometimes with free shipping, which makes the profit extremely low. It's time to recycle them.

Time for a break.

Five staplers?

[disneysteve]

Five staplers?

Yeah. One was my regular one until I bought one of those one handed ones. One or two were DD’s at school and came home with her. I think one used to be in the basement with my eBay stuff.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

in the past month I dumped at the consignment store 100+ items for sale. I've had 3 appointments where they take 35 items a time a week apart. I've then donated about 10 bags of stuff that I knew weren't worth it or they were passed over by the consignment store. So now my DH and I went through a ton of boxes in the garage. We cleared out enough space he put up some hanging space for our bikes Our garage is finally coming together.

[disneysteve]

I didn't do as much today as yesterday but I did do a little more work in the computer room. I went through the shelf with binders, notebooks, folders, and such. I got rid of all but a couple of empty folders. We always save them and virtually never use them. I also tossed a bunch of scraps of construction paper and just saved the full sheets. We do use those periodically for various craft projects.

I had an idea regarding all of the notebooks. At work, I use a legal pad to log my patient visits but there's no reason why I can't use a notebook to do the same thing. That way, I won't have to buy more legal pads for a long time as we have plenty of notebooks. I'll start doing that on Monday.

The electronics from yesterday (laptop, phones, etc.) got taken to Staples today for recycling. I even got a $10 coupon for doing so which I wasn't expecting so we'll go there this week and pick up an ink cartridge.

[Thrif-t]

I did a lot of decluttering today and it feels GREAT!! I had 5, 18 gal bins in the attic of old Christmas decorations (hand-me-downs from various family members) that we haven't used in years! I went through them all, donated some, trashed some and kept 1 bin of Christmas Greenery.

Since I had 4 empty bins I used them to organize some items in the garage that were stored in boxes. Looks a lot better out there too!

I still want to go through my regular use Christmas decor and donate some of them, but they're in the basement and I haven't started decorating yet. But after Thanksgiving I plan to get rid of a lot of that out of style stuff too!

This is a great thread for motivation, every time I read about you guys getting rid of stuff, it spurs me to get moving too, so thanks.