Willow asked me to explore with my readers whether there is anything that you have decluttered that you wish you hadn’t. She asked if I had such a story from my own experience.

This isn’t the first time this subject has come up for me and I have not addressed it before because I could not think of any time that I have thought “I wish I still had such and such”. Then it occurred to me that that is my answer.

No I have not encountered this problem yet.

Not in the last 192 days or for any other time over the years. I fully expect it might happen one day but of all the things I have decluttered over the years if this is the average for regret then I am not concerned if the demon eventually rears it’s ugly head.

As the saying goes there’s no point crying over spilt milk.

If you didn’t care about it when you gave it away then there is a good chance the desire to have it back shall also pass and in no time you won’t care again.

Please share with us in comments if you have a declutter regret story, we would love to hear about it.

My husband just reminded me that at one point years ago I convinced him to throw away some old letters from his cousin when they were younger. Personal stuff about what was going on in their lives at the time. Stuff that they could only talk to each other about. Unfortunately this beloved cousin died a couple of years ago when she was just 43 leaving behind two young girls and a new husband. That is the one thing he certainly regrets, it would be nice to have those letters to look back on now. So be careful with the really personal sentimental stuff, more importantly spend more time with the people you love because you just never know how long they will be in your life. I think that is the real regret here.

ITEM 192 OF 365 LESS THINGS

I may one day regret getting rid of this ironing arm but I bought it at a garage sale for next to nothing for one specific purpose. There is a type of shirt my husband wears once every blue moon that is a real b**** to iron because the sleeves have to be ironed with the crease up the side not on the top. I figure it will save me a lot of bother if on the rare occasion that he needs it I’ll just send it to the dry cleaners and let them deal with it. Problem solved and it will be well worth the money spent. Getting rid of it will free up a great deal of space in my inadequate laundry cupboard.

I think I mentioned some time back that one of the areas of doom when it comes to decluttering my house is my daughters bedroom. It is mostly awkward because for now she is living elsewhere while going to university so that adds a degree of difficulty I didn’t really want to deal with. It is not for me to decide what she wants to keep and I cannot be bothered sending long convoluted emails or wasting precious phone minutes to have her decide long distance.

Luckily for me she came to visit the week before last and I warned her ahead of time that she was going to have to help me do some decluttering in her bedroom while she was here. She actually took it all with good grace and complied willingly if not too enthusiastically. That is she just did it and didn’t complain. We didn’t get through everything but I was happy with the progress we made and the rest can wait until her next visit.

She had fun reminiscing over some of the items we found but willingly let them go. Others she kept and we put back where we found them for now. I must admit I just dumped all the stuff out in the garage and had not been out there to sort through the piles until yesterday. All the extra hours I have been doing at work have left me a little short on time since she left.  Some of the items went into the recycling bin and the rest will be donated to charity.

ITEM 191 OF 365 LESS THINGS

A pile of old papers and Rolling Stone magazines that she would not part with previously have finally found their way to the recycling bin. Hooray this was the stuff I really wanted to see go.

I  had one of those days yesterday where things just weren’t going my way. I won’t go into the details but needless to say I achieved little and that was interspersed with unwanted interruptions and issues.

Last night I spent so much time trying to sensitively answer the comments to yesterday’s post that I really didn’t have much time to write a post for today. So I am going to share with you all a little story relayed from Cindy (one on my readers) to myself through emails yesterday that warmed my frazzled heart.

She went to Chucky Cheese yesterday with her girls. I have added the link in case people don’t know what Chucky Cheese is but to be brief it is a kids game/restaurant where the kids can play carnival type games and win tickets which they can exchange for prizes. Now Cindy’s girls have been involved in the decluttering process in their home and are really on board with the process. When they had finished playing the games and were ready to cash in their tickets for prizes they both couldn’t find anything they really wanted. When Cindy pointed out that they really didn’t need to bring something home they didn’t want they happily left empty handed.

How proud I would have been if I was their mother. Cindy you are doing a great job of raising those kids, congratulation.

ITEM 190 OF 365 LESS THINGS

Here are some items my darling daughter was willing to part with recently there is more to come on that subject but I will get to that in another post soon

One thing I have observed during the process of writing my posts, answering comments and emails, and reading other decluttering blogs is that lack of communication is a real problem when it comes to clutter. It causes clutter in the first place by people giving well meaning gifts that are not wanted by the receiver. Also because we try to protect others feelings people keep items they no longer want.

Although it is commendable to try to be thoughtful about others feelings, sometimes your own personal needs should take precedence when the result effects your new sustainable way of living. Sometimes we assume we know what the reception will be and give up on communicating before even trying. We fear what the reaction might be if we tried to assert our needs but often we underestimate how understanding others might be.

Taking into consideration what your motivation is behind decluttering and the passionate need you have to clear your space it would be very unreasonable for another person to reject your feelings. Even if the giver is a little disappointed I am sure they will forgive you this little indiscretion. If, however they are just totally unreasonable then I have to wonder if their selfish feelings are worth protecting.

Here are some examples of how you might go about refusing a gift or explaining the absence of one in your home on inspection by a giver etc.

• Refusing a gift: “Thank you so much, this is a really lovely gift but I really can not accept it. Please don’t be upset it is nothing personal. I have recently embarked on a more minimalist lifestyle and I am no longer bringing anything into my home that is not a necessity or consumable…”
• Inform friends and family you no longer wish to receive gifts: I just want to let you know that in future I would prefer that you no longer send/give me gifts for birthdays, Christmas etc as I have recently embarked on a more minimalist lifestyle and I am no longer bringing anything into my home that is not a necessity. If you would like to give consumable gifts or donate to a charity on my behalf I will be happy to accept.”
• When someone asks about a previous gift that no long resides in your home. “I am sorry please don’t be offended but I have recently embarked on a more minimalist lifestyle and I am greatly reducing the number of non-functional items in my home. It was a lovely item that needed a new owner that would appreciate it  so I have…  1) donated it to charity 2) given it to a friend who has admired it for some time 3) sold it and used funds to…”
• When returning something to the giver that you no longer wish to keep. “I am sorry please don’t be offended but I have recently embarked on a more minimalist lifestyle and I am greatly reducing the number of non-functional items in my home. This was a such a lovely/expensive/thoughtful gift and I wanted to give you the option a taking it back rather than me giving it away. I have enjoyed it up to now but it no longer fits into my new way of living.

ITEM 189 OF 365 LESS THINGS

It has been a while but at last we have another ebay sale these Rugby League Football magazines sold for $20.00

How many of you have gone to the supermarket with the innocent intention just to buy something like a set of replacement blades for your razor. You get to the section of the store where the razors are stocked and discover that there is a product promotion offer where you can get a set of 4 replacement blades and a SHINY NEW handle for only $4.99 while a set of eight replacement blades are $9.99. It is so tempting to buy 2 packs with 4 blades which gets you 8 blades and 2 SHINY NEW handles for only one cent more than the 8 blade pack.

This is a very tempting offer for those of us who like SHINY NEW things, whether we need them or not. The problem is easy to spot though isn’t it. Now you have three razer handles when you only need one. At best you will throw away the old one, which really is still quite functional (which isn’t very environmentally friendly)and keep the two new ones (one to use and one to clutter up your vanity cabinet). Or you may use a new one and clutter up your vanity cabinet with the old one and the other new one.

There is no end of these types of promotions or even just bulk buy packs that, even though they can make economic scence, cause a great deal of clutter. Now don’t get me wrong I LOVE Costco it is bulk buy heaven but I have been back in Australia for three years now and I am still using up rolls of sticky tape that I bought at least a year before I left. And what is wrong with that you say, well nothing really except they have to be stored somewhere.

There can be so much environmental waste going on here. Take into account the resources necessary to produce these “complimentary” items in the first place and then you have the landfill created by trashing these items when you realize you don’t really need

• 5 laundry detergent power balls when you only have one washing machine
• 3 razor handles when you only use one hand to shave your legs
• a free wine glass with every two bottles of wine (I already have 2 extra sets of wine glasses I don’t use)
• a free plastic Coke cup with a big mac meal (like all that packaging isn’t harmful enough to the environment)
• $100 gift voucher (to buy unnecessary accessory items) when you buy a leather lounge suite ( just take the $100 of the price of the lounge instead please and I will be a whole lot happier)

My pet peave is… a free enviro bag with every purchase of $50 worth of groceries or some such offer (I don’t know if enviro bags are just an Australian phenomenon but I have twice as many as I need now because companies keep giving them away with purchases. They probably take much longer to break down than normal plastic shopping bags so you need to use them about 5,000 times for them to be really environmentally friendly.

And I sat down tonight wondering what I was going to write about. Where did all that come from.

ITEM 188 OF 365 LESS THINGS

No need to explain these items I think

Last week I decluttered my Tupperware cupboard. I didn’t actually get rid of any containers I just found a way to use them all. I had packets of pantry food sitting on shelves sealed up with sticky tap and clips while perfectly good Tupperware was going to waste in another cupboard. I am not sure why I had let my pantry get like that, I am usually a far more organised person. While I was at it I reorganised the cupboards beside my stove and the rest of the pantry as well. I now have one more empty cupboard in my kitchen and I have a mind to empty one ore two more.

This is a perfect example how disorganisation can cause clutter . Fortunately I wasn’t disorganised to the point where I had doubled up on items in the pantry but this can certainly happen when things get more out of hand. I have written about this before on day 72. There are several areas in a home that are particularly susceptible to this problem. The kitchen, the garage, the toiletries cabinet (vanity), wardrobes and deep drawers.

As I said on day 72, a little bit of sensible organisation can help cut down on clutter and save a few dollars simply by putting things back where they belong when you are done using them. You won’t be forced to replace an item when you can’t find it, therefore doubling up, if you always know where it is when you need it.

ITEM 187 OF 365 LESS THINGS

This toiletries bag hidden away in my wardrobe contained double ups of a few of items like dental floss, shaver handles and a hair brush. These items were either immediately useful or no longer necessary so I emptied it and it is not needed any more either.

Cindy recently sent me a list of subjects she would like me to cover in some posts. One of the subject was decluttering with friends. Although this sounds like a fun approach to decluttering I personally have had no experience  of it  aside from palming my unwanted stuff off onto them. Unfortunately my friends still love to shop and have not embraced my minimising lifestyle at all.

What I would like though, in order to satisfy Cindy’s desire for the subject, is to canvas my readers on any experience you have had with this. If you have a story to share with me please send me an email through CONTACT COLLEEN with “Helping Hand” in the subject line. I would rather you did that than leave a comment at the bottom of this post. This way I can collate the information and send it out in an upcoming post.

I did broach this subject once on day 76 in relation to getting a friend to help declutter your wardrobe. I suppose the advantages I wrote about in that post could relate just as well to other clutter not only clothes. Some of the benefits could be..

• Someone to help you choose what stays and what goes
• Someone to share the work load
• Someone to pick you up and keep you focused
• Someone to make you a good strong coffee when the strain gets you down
• Someone to share resources with (borrow rather than keep)
• Someone to have a good laugh with at the silly things you didn’t realise you still own.

I won’t add any more at this point I will leave the ideas up to you so please don’t disappoint Cindy and send in those emails.

ITEM 186 OF 365 LESS THINGS

These are the items that were thrown away from my son’s drawer from yesterday’s post

Imagine my surprise today when I went to put some clean laundry away in my son’s room and discovered he had decluttered one of his drawers. There was a big wad of shoe laces and other items in his trash can. I retrieved it of course and sorted it into donate and throw away piles but WOW!

If that isn’t amazing enough you will be surprised to know he had done this once before. I had just mentioned it today in a reply to a comment Loretta left on my Half way there post. At the end of high school last year he decluttered all the old school papers he no longer needed. There was no prompting from me he just did it. I think the inspiration was just to expel any evidence of a period of his life he would rather forget but that is another story.

I must remember to make a fuss about it and try to encourage him to start on another area of his room. I am sure there must be a number of clothing items hanging in the wardrobe that he no longer wears.

ITEM 185 OF 365 LESS THINGS

These are the items  my son decluttered that are going in the donation box (actually it is more of a donation pile at the moment I haven’t been to drop items off for a while). If you are wondering why so many shoe laces, he is a skateboarder and they go through a lot of shoes and the manufacturer usually supply more there one pair of laces with each pair.

For a long time now my husband and I have kept track of our savings and spending using budgeting programs on our computer. We record pretty much every cent we spend so we know where the money is going.

Recently we bought a new Apple Mac Mini so our old software is no longer compatible. We downloaded and tried out a couple of free software programs but have not been to happy with the performance of these. I have been persevering with one anyway just so we can keep track of things as usual but after today we have decided that we really don’t need to do this any more.

There are two reasons for this. One is that we have now paid off our home loan so we don’t need to keep track. Nor do we need to keep track our spending so much either since not having a home loan means we have a lot more disposable income. But the best reason is that today when I was inputting and balancing our spending against the online banking statement I noticed that there was very little to keep track of any more.

The input went a bit like this…

groceries, groceries, groceries, groceries,auto (gas/petrol), groceries, groceries, groceries, groceries,auto (gas/petrol), groceries, groceries, groceries, groceries,auto (gas/petrol).

As you can see, we really don’t do a lot of shopping these days except to buy groceries or fill up the car and motorbike. The bit of cash that goes in my wallet usually goes on having coffee with friends, more groceries and hand outs to our son for school supplies and other incidentals.

Most other things we buy replace an old favourite, so there isn’t any clutter coming into our house to take the place of the stuff heading out the door. This is the key to staying decluttered and it also means we have more savings to spend on the things that are more important to us like:

• A nice meal out together occasionally
• Travel
• Being able to get the car serviced without having to worry where the money is coming from
• If any unexpected medical expenses crop up we have nothing to worry about except our health

I am sure there are many more things but these are the few that jump into my head immediately.

With that accomplished the next target is to get my husband semi-retired by the time he turns fifty.

ITEM 184 OF 365 LESS THINGS

More personal clutter ready for the recycling bin

Guess what folks, we are halfway there 183 things down 182 to go

Thanks to all of you for joining us on our journey to declutter one thing a day for a whole year. Your support has kept me going with my blog when at times it would have been easier to continue on in silence. We all know that wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun though. Your comments have given food for thought on a number of subjects and have been a great help not only to me but your fellow readers as we all learn as we go. I hope you will stay with me as your company is greatly appreciated.

There are times when my husband has said we should be counting one book at a time or one cup at a time …because we might run out of things before the year is up. I don’t think that is going to happen. If anything there may still be some things left when we approach the end and we will have to extend the finish line. Either way I am happy with our progress and the world is a better place every time we recruit one more person to this way of thinking.

Buy LESS – Waste LESS – Produce LESS – Pollute LESS

I will leave you with this little gem from Tiny Buddha…

“When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.” -Lao Tzu

Somewhere along the lines, we’ve gotten it into our heads that a full life involves abundance. We’re told to visualise it, fixate on it, and open up to receiving it because we deserve it and we can have it.

The missing part of that equation is whether or not excess will actually make us happy. The answer is no–not if you weren’t already happy–because happiness is an inside job…Read more here

THANKS AGAIN MY FRIENDS

ITEM 183 OF 365 LESS THINGS

Just some old refillable pens that no longer get used so I will put them in the donation box. Hopefully someone may want them