View Full Version : June Purge
Magazines & catalogs! DW's Talbots, Lands end, Macy's, etc. Plus we only subscribe to one monthly magazine, but it tends to pile up on the end table in the living room.
Old Mail - i.e., Christmas cards, birthday cards, wedding announcements, etc that also tends to pile up. It's supposed to be a rainy weekend, so hopefully I can tackle the hall closets. ;)
Good start Gregg. I often think if I didn't read or write my house would be a lot tidier.
happystuff
6-3-22, 11:40am
I need to do the same with the huge pile of magazines on our coffee table. Problem is, they aren't mine and I also haven't read a lot of them yet. LOL
Purse that was wearing out.
Had our town-wide yard sale today. While I didn't make a whole lot of money, I managed to get rid of about 1/3+ of what I took out to sell. The remnants will be picked up in about 2.5 weeks by donation.
Happy: I think that's still pretty good if you made at least something and got rid of some stuff. Didn't you say before that the town yard sale also had kind of a fun social aspect to it?
A yard waste barrel that is splitting open. I am down to 5 barrels now but I've slowed down on yardwork as I've gotten older and heavier so I won't replace it.
happystuff
6-5-22, 10:40am
Happy: I think that's still pretty good if you made at least something and got rid of some stuff. Didn't you say before that the town yard sale also had kind of a fun social aspect to it?
Yes! Some of my siblings showed up to participate so, once things were all set up, we just visited, talked and generally had fun. It was a nice day.
Paid the company doing the furnace cleaning to haul away my old water heater. I could have paid the city to take it as bulk pickup for less, but if an inspector saw it on the curb it could have raised questions. The guy who had installed the new one is a plumber, but semi-retired and let his license lapse.
Teacher Terry
6-7-22, 12:15pm
Happy, making some money and getting rid of stuff is definitely a win!!
iris lilies
6-7-22, 9:27pm
We finished up selling our household crap for the park conservancy, and I totaled up our sales for the year from January
2022:
$1,700 in stuff and plants.
The plants were not clutter, but neither did it hurt my yard to divide many of these. We donated all of this money to the Lafayette Park Conservancy.
DH is still gathering metal stuff and taking it to the scrap dealer, but he gets to keep all that money because it’s a lot of work on his end to haul it there.
Last year I sold some stuff and we donated $332.
The year before that 2020, I sold my book collection and various items of costume jewelry and small things easy to ship, and that year got $1,085 that we donated. Nearly $700 of that was a set of glassware I sold to a friend.
If this sounds like bragging, sorry! I’m posting to talk about the psychology of getting rid of crap.
I’m not terribly motivated to carefully dispose of items in which I’ve lost interest. So that’s why I tried to focus on the principles 1) Put these items in the hands of people who want them and 2) get some cash for the park Conservancy 3) keep items out of the landfill. Those were the motivating factors that kept me going.
That said, I did donate lots of books to the local used bookstore and she was happy to get them because they were children’s books in very nice condition. A couple of car loads of stuff went to the thrift store too, but honestly not tons went to the thrift store. And sadly, the landfill dumpsters got lots of stuff.
iris lilies
6-7-22, 9:37pm
DH has several pieces of furniture that apparently he’s going to get rid of, but I’m not sure what he thinks he’s gonna do with them. That is entirely up to him. He learned in the past few weeks how Squirrely and unreliable people are when they say they’re going to come and buy something.
Teacher Terry
6-7-22, 10:45pm
IL, I didn’t take it as bragging but merely reporting how much you got rid of. I think it’s great! The less to the landfill the better. Last year at my sale a young couple bought a few items and I could tell they were on a budget. They were furnishing a apartment and I gave them some furniture. It feels good to help people and glad you could help the conservatory. We ended up taking 2 big trailer loads to the dump also.
IL, again I think we all were relatives in a past life. Hubby and I have spent the last year selling our stuff on Ebay and donating the proceeds to our favorite organizations. DO NOT MISS anything that went out the door. Almost every month I find a box of something to go. Right now it is sweater sets I will never wear again and a couple have tags. I just signed up for a retreat that will have a swap table and am pulling all kinds of swap things to donate to the table.
With each item out the door, life feels just a little lighter.
I even have a neighbor that knows we will sell or just donate to the right organization something she might not want. She just gave me a little German child's toy sewing machine. Mostly a shelf decoration due to condition but some sewer will love it. Going to give it to Habitat Restore for their display case of interesting items to buy. She just wanted it gone and to not have to do any work.
Nice work, IL. I didn't take it as bragging either, but rather as very motivational for me to continue trying to do the same. It's nice hearing about people's successes.
Stickers (Sanders, Warren, I voted) off my bulletin board.
A Tupperware lid. I always seem to accumulate more lids than containers.
rosarugosa
6-19-22, 7:17am
We did a quick shed cleanout yesterday and got rid of a bit of stuff, a pile of metal items to the curb for scrappers and a bag of miscellaneous for trash or donation. It's crazy how those promiscuous nursery pots breed and multiply in the shed when we aren't looking! I do reuse a lot when I'm dividing plants and giving them away, but there are still too many. I'm pleased that my favorite nursery (Bluestone Perennials) uses biodegradable pots.
I also did some rearranging so that DH will be able to get the mower in and out more easily.
iris lilies
6-19-22, 10:17am
We did a quick shed cleanout yesterday and got rid of a bit of stuff, a pile of metal items to the curb for scrappers and a bag of miscellaneous for trash or donation. It's crazy how those promiscuous nursery pots breed and multiply in the shed when we aren't looking! I do reuse a lot when I'm dividing plants and giving them away, but there are still too many. I'm pleased that my favorite nursery (Bluestone Perennials) uses biodegradable pots.
I also did some rearranging so that DH will be able to get the mower in and out more easily.
The black plastic pots are a problem indeed. Missouri Botanical Gardens used to take them and do what with them, I don’t know. But they’re no longer doing that and so conscientious gardeners are lamenting the fact that they no longer have a place to take the black plastic pots.
I didn’t know that Bluestone used recyclable material.
A pair of cleaning gloves.
rosarugosa
6-19-22, 11:58am
The black plastic pots are a problem indeed. Missouri Botanical Gardens used to take them and do what with them, I don’t know. But they’re no longer doing that and so conscientious gardeners are lamenting the fact that they no longer have a place to take the black plastic pots.
I didn’t know that Bluestone used recyclable material.
IL: This explains about their pots: https://www.bluestoneperennials.com/cocopot.html
Removed and discarded the thick, crooked bases of my cacti. I read that you can cut off the tops, let the cut dry, then replant them. I am going to try this.
iris lilies
6-19-22, 5:48pm
Removed and discarded the thick, crooked bases of my cacti. I read that you can cut off the tops, let the cut dry, then replant them. I am going to try this.
DH has a very tall, ungainly cacti that has lived here for 32 years and pre-dates me because it lived with DH before I entered the picture. It grows in a 3” pot and is 42” in height. I do not see how it will survive our move.
He is going to cut it …perhaps…and try to root it.
See this thing?
4540
It looks very spindly IL.
Simplemind
6-20-22, 12:02pm
We are getting ready to have our second garage sale of the season this weekend. We did an abbreviated one Memorial weekend, but the rain dampened the buz. The second one is more to support a couple of neighbors who have lost spouses recently and are going through things and downsizing. It is a hard thing to do and easier with the support of others. They were tentative with the first one but now feeling better about it and are ready for round two. We will finally be going into summer weather in a big jump this week so I'm really looking forward to the crowds we are used to. We'll put our feet up and have a big BBQ in celebration on the last day.
happystuff
6-20-22, 6:24pm
We are getting ready to have our second garage sale of the season this weekend. We did an abbreviated one Memorial weekend, but the rain dampened the buz. The second one is more to support a couple of neighbors who have lost spouses recently and are going through things and downsizing. It is a hard thing to do and easier with the support of others. They were tentative with the first one but now feeling better about it and are ready for round two. We will finally be going into summer weather in a big jump this week so I'm really looking forward to the crowds we are used to. We'll put our feet up and have a big BBQ in celebration on the last day.
Good luck! I hope all goes well.
Two cardigans have worn out. One is now in my yardwork clothing section and one I threw out.
Put two more shirts that I really like in the garage sale pile. alas, they are now too big.
frugal-one
6-21-22, 3:34pm
Put two more shirts that I really like in the garage sale pile. alas, they are now too big.
I wish I had that problem... Good for you!
rosarugosa
6-22-22, 7:19am
Scrappers picked up the pile of metal stuff we put by the curb. All gone and into the recycling stream rather than the waste stream!
happystuff
6-24-22, 9:33am
Donation pickup was yesterday so the entire donation corner of the house is empty (with the exception of a new empty box to start collecting donations - LOL). Guess, as I didn't take a count, is around 50-75 items (big and small).
Sold a blouse, a bag and a necklace on Poshmark. 3 more things out of the house.
iris lilies
6-27-22, 3:42pm
DH sold two pieces of furniture that I thought were pretty worthless for a total of $85. So that’s good and he gets to keep all of that because we’re done donating money to the Park Conservancy because I close the books on that. He’s also been selling things here and there like his drywall lift, various bundles of construction things, a box of electrical breakers, stuff like that.
Twistie ties. Rather than having purge sessions as I run across things I don't need I've been tossing them right away before I forget.
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