A couple of days ago I added my bicycle to the things that are to go to charity. I have owned a bike since I was about nine years old. I rode a bike to school almost every day from that age. I bought my first new bike when I was about sixteen and when I started working for my parents' business at the age of nineteen I used the bike to deliver the monthly accounts. The use of the bicycle got less and less once I was married and had children but it has been one of those thing that I have always owned and relied on during a long period of my life. I have never not owned one since the age of Continue reading
Archives for March 2010
Day 79 Use ‘m or lose ‘m
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Another place that I have found lots of the same thing tends to accumulate over time is in the bathroom cabinet. Bottles of moisturiser in particular have this tendency. Someone gives you one as a gift, you pick up a couple at a motel you stayed at or a friend has a Body Shop party and you feel obliged to buy something and so on until there are five slightly used bottles/tubes you use on a rotational basis taking up a lot of space. My solution is to chose one today use it and only it until it is empty then move on to the next one until you are down to one and only buy another when that one is Continue reading
Day 78 The gift that just keeps giving???
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Rule number one of de-cluttering... Just because you have something that was given to you as a gift doesn't mean you can't get rid of it. A quick story to emphasise this point. When moving house once when I was a teenager we were packing up a clock that had hung on the kitchen wall for as long as I could remember and for just as long it had been 10 minutes fast. One of us said to Mum "Isn't is time we got rid of that stupid clock it has never kept time properly" and my Mum's response was "I can't get rid of it, it was a wedding present". While carrying the box the clock was sitting in up Continue reading
Day 77 Too much of a good thing
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How many of you have all the following cleaning products cluttering up that space in the laundry cupboard, under the kitchen sink or in the garage. Microfibre Cloth & Water • Window Cleaner • Car Wash • Floor Cleaner Toilet Cleaner • Drain Cleaner • Mould Spray • Bleach Cream Cleanser • Metal Cleaner • Stove Top Cleaner All Purpose Spray • Shower Cleaner Carpet Spot Cleaner • Pre-Wash Spray In my experience you only need the four products hi-lighted to do most of the cleaning jobs around the home. Toilet cleaner with bleach will do the job of all of the Continue reading
Day 76 Sometimes we need help
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Lets face it, we all have clothes in our closet we haven't worn for some time that for one reason or another we are reluctant to part with. Well, today I have a plan to help you sort out your closet and at the same time take away the difficult part of that task, choosing. Pick a friend someone you have known for a least a couple of years who you trust and value their opinion. Ask them to help you go through your closet and decide for you the items that they feel need to go. Since they have known you for a reasonable amount of time they will know what clothes they have never or rarely seen you Continue reading
Day 75 Little by Little
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Today I would just like to revisit the idea behind 365 Less Things. There are times when we all look at our living space and think it really is time I went through everything and got rid of all the clutter around here. The problem is that when we stand back and look at the job as a whole it becomes very daunting and quite frankly we give up on the task before we even begin. The better approach is to tackle one small task at a time, in my case one task per day. I don't even concentrate on one area at a time I might just see something during my daily routine and think "I don't need that" or "I Continue reading
Day 74 Some Stuff is Just Unnecessary
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Lets face it, how much does one really need oven mitts to match the season or tea-towels or aprons or door mats for that matter. All these things are purely designed for wasting peoples money. I know you are probably thinking "Bah Humbug" but really, isn't Christmas supposed to be a religious holiday to celebrate the birth of Jesus not a retail sell fest to empty our pockets. I just hope someone gave me these oven mitts and that I didn't waste money on them myself, either way they are doing into the donation box. Continue reading
Day 73 Downsizing
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Sometimes to de-clutter can mean downsizing. Today's item is a set of speakers and a tuner that have been taking up an un-necessary amount of space in our lounge room for some time. Even though we have replaced these items we still have ended up with "Less Things" because we have replaced two speakers and one tuner with one small i-Pod Docking station. This is an example where de-cluttering is costing money, even though we did sell the old items on eBay for $50 it cost $399 for the new item. Taking into account that my husband bought the speakers and tuner before we were married 23 years Continue reading
Day 72 Accumulation + Laziness = Loss of Space & Dollars
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Sometimes we can end up with multiples of certain things hiding in several places around the house. The Allen Keys that are today's discard are a perfect example. They seem to have bred like rabbits throughout our house, some in the garage, some in the office desk, some in the kitchen drawer and some in that useful tool kit we keep in the laundry. This causes a two part problem, firstly- that there are just too many of them and secondly- that when you do need one you may forget some of the places they are hiding and end up having to buy another because you can't find the size you need. This Continue reading
Day 71 Dematerialise
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The idea behind 365 less things is not only to rid our home of clutter but also not to replace that clutter with new clutter. I like to refer to it as "dematerialise", that is to stop being a victim to the constant materialistic urge to keep up with the Jones or use "retail therapy" to put joy into my life. I am now getting lots of joy sending things out to other homes that might need it more than I do and saving my hard earned cash to use where I feel I get more satisfaction, like travelling or going out for a nice meal somewhere special or paying off the mortgage quickly. These things may Continue reading
