Decluttering - How are you doing in February?

[Bastelmutti]

How is everyone doing with their decluttering in Feb.? At the last minute this morning, I remembered I needed to put out my bags and boxes for the charity pickup - 3x books and 4x clothes/household misc. out the door.

[Rose_]

We're in the process of selling our home, so decluttering has been my middle name this month. We've brought two truckloads to the local Sally Ann and have more ready to go!

[Tradd]

I'm doing fabulous! Getting toys of so much stuff - books, CDs, papers. And I thought I'd had gotten toys of a lot of stuff before I had to get out of my apartment due to the renovations.

[Bastelmutti]

I don't envy you having to move, Rose, but that's cool that it's enabling you do downsize like that! Tradd, school papers? :-) Congrats on completing your program BTW. I am in school, too, and trying not to accumulate too much! I am seriously thinking of giving up one of my volunteering gigs next school year, and if someone takes over from me, hopefully that means I can give them a bunch of papers and clutter from the curriculum I have developed.

[Tradd]

Bastel, yes, a lot is school papers, now that I'm done with my program. But also some other stuff. School stuff is all in digital form, anyway.

[folkypoet]

We're moving again in a little over a week. Kiddo (14) and the pets will be staying with my family in north Texas for a few months (this is just tearing me up - ugh), and hubby and I will be staying in my parents' empty house that's on the market in Austin. We'll have only the basics and will have to make it look like no one is living there when we go to work each morning.

I'm thinking this will be a perfect way to declutter. Almost everything we own will be in storage for a couple of months, and I'll see what - if much of anything - we actually miss. When we have our own place, I'll only bring into it those things we'll love and use.

[lhamo]

I had some progress on this front over the past couple of weeks. I reorganized and decluttered the linens -- sheets are now sorted into separate drawers under DD's bed according to bed size. I moved some extra pillows that were in some of those drawers to another storage area, threw out some yucky old polyfill ones (HATE HATE HATE polyester pillows -- make my head sweaty!), and got rid of some sheets that had huge holes in them. DH tried to convince me to keep them for scrap, but I wasn't having it. Realistically I am not going to take up quilting any time soon, and these were large king sized fitted sheets with rips across the middle from being too worn and loose elastic, so not much worth salvaging. I did agree to keep some stained pillowcases that he promised to try to bleach. That will probably happen in oh, 10-20 years. they are in the laundry room now. If he doesn't act on that promise in a reasonable time, they may just "disappear".

I also sorted through my "stuff" drawer where I keep all paperwork pending action/filing, etc. Couldn't bring myself to do the filing, that is backed up for about a year -- thankfully now when I do get to it I can shred all the quarterly statement stuff as we now have annual statements for all accounts. But it is better sorted and ready when I decide to tackle it. Went quickly through medical insurance stuff and discovered they overcharged us on the family deductible in 2011 (deducted for 3 people when they should have stopped at 2), so that should get us $100 back. Pretty good return for a few minutes of checking claims!

DH is gone this week so I MAY try to rope the kids into sorting/decluttering their old art and school work. Not sure if I have the energy to take that on, though. Have to do taxes, which might be enough.

lhamo

[leslieann]

I took the empty print cartridges to Staples last weekend. Took a garbage bag full of patchwork and ruffled pillows to the thrift store. These were from DH's mother's house and have been bagged up in the basement for 2.5 years. He just ummed when I asked what to do with them. I bet he doesn't even notice that they are gone.

This afternoon I posted empty cardboard boxes for free on kijiji and within ONE minute I had a taker via email; she came and gathered them up and I now have some space where they were in the basement. I am thinking about taking a day off from work to declutter.

There is much more to do, especially in the basement but every little bit deserves celebration IMHO. Yay!

[Zemma]

It is very inspiring to read your decluttering progress everyone.

I got a BIG scare visiting a close relative's house last week and realising they had definitely fallen from messy to hoarder. We share genes!!

Really the only difference between us is that I have learnt as an adult to undo 'messy' but seeing my relly made me realise that I need to pay more attention to my own tendencies ie not just tidy but keep up the decluttering to keep alive my willingness to let go and my awareness of what needs to go.

So I have recycled the third of my clothes that no longer fit me and a couple of piles of magazines that have been ready for recycling for a couple of months to the library. Whew!!

[Jemima]

I still have a long way to go and I've been handicapped this month by some kind of viral bug that came back for a second visit Monday morning. Forget heaving stuff around when I feel like I may hurl at any moment.

Made some progress with the files, but haven't sorted through them yet. There is a lot of stuff in there that's either obsolete or should never have been kept in the first place. I'm really itching to get rid of this big, hulking, useless-for-computer-work desk. One bonus of having taken so long to clean it out is that I found a local guy who removes saleable items for free, and this desk is pretty and in good condition. I was going to call 1-800-GOT JUNK and I'm guessing they would have charged me somewhere between one and two hundred to take it away. Sometimes procrastination pays!

Got through some of my backlog of magazines and am now filing articles I want to keep in plastic sleeves that are punched for noteboooks. I've even gotten some of them into the notebooks.

Still have a car trunkful of books to take to Paperback Trader. SIGH. I don't have nearly as much free time as I expected when I retired!