In quick response to last Monday’s Mini Missions I received this comment from Annabelle explaining how she had mastered the weeks challenge in one day. Her quick decision to donate the seven things that she had chosen to charity then and there reminded me of something that happened on the Sunday before.

A friend of mine has been decluttering her house for a while and I have offered to show her how to go about using ebay and giving her suggestion on how she can get rid of some things. Her husband and mine work together and they have both used the online notice board at their work place to sell several things. This friend has also given some things away to friends.

On Sunday she asked if I could come over to see what she had left and give her suggestions on what was sellable and what she should just give away. There was no doubt that some of the things she had were worth trying to sell but there was also many things that would just be a waste of time to try to sell on ebay. Like the general retail situation at the moment, I have found that ebay is also in a bit of a selling slump. People just aren’t buying unless you are just about giving the stuff away, and sometimes not even then.

My friend did not want to waste her time sitting at the local flea-market for six hours to try to sell her stuff.  She didn’t want strangers at her home so a garage sale was out of the question. And she wasn’t keen to do the ebay thing and would rather give me a commission to do it for her. But as I said I didn’t think ebay was the answer right now.

In the end I pointed out some things that I thought were worth trying to sell on the work notice board. As for the rest of the stuff, I asked her whether she had made any charitable donations this year. Her reply was “Yes, but not that much.”  but she also donates her time by doing a little volunteer work. I said to her “Well here is your chance to make a donation that won’t affect your bank account directly and/or you can consider it a free pass from volunteer work for a little while. Just give all this stuff to charity. It will be worth cold hard cash to the thrift store and you will be doing yourself a favour by getting it out of here quickly and painlessly.”. I even offered to have her bring it to my house and I would deliver it to the thrift shop myself.

It is ironic that we have no qualms about wasting our money on all this stuff we probably didn’t need in the first place but then when it comes to getting rid of it we suddenly want to redeem ourselves. I have done this myself as I am sure you all have. I can tell you one thing for sure though, I will be very careful that it doesn’t happen in the future. Be wise about what you buy then you won’t need to be wise about how to sell it when you don’t get your money’s worth out of it. If the item has surved you well but you don’t need it any more then call it even and donate to charity. Donating is a feel good effective way to get rid of your stuff.

Today’s Declutter Item

If I have used this declutter item photo before please someone let me know. I declutter in advance of my blog posts because life happens sometimes and it would become easy to get behind. I think I have gone to pot this item a couple of times but changed my mind. Anyway it is a book I read some time ago and then I loaned it to a friend. Against normal convention she actually brought it back to me but I really didn’t want it back. I have donated it to the thrift store. It was quite a good book by the way.

Read it don't need to keep it

Something I Am Grateful For Today

My little girl contacted us from Seattle to say she got their safe and sound. She is so happy to be “home”. I hope she enjoys her time there and doesn’t spend all her money before she get back and be calling us for a loan. 😉 That would be funny if it hadn’t happened before. Love you precious girl! ❤

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow

The intention for this post is to help you choose the best way to dispose of the objects you are decluttering. Some objects will be just trash but for others you will be endeavouring to find new homes either by donating to a charity, giving them to someone else or selling them.

There are often emotions involved when it comes to clutter. Finding the right home for your things can make the decision to let go a lot easier. For example it feels easier to let go if you…

• Know that the procedes of donating your items to charity will help someone in need.
• Get a little money back by selling your items.
• Know your items will be appreciated when giving them to family or friends who have admired them.
• Doing the right thing for the environment by finding a way to recycle items you thought were good for nothing.

Donating to charity is simple. In some places it is as simple as making a phone call and the charity will come to you to collect your items. In some cases you just amass the objects until you have a car load and then drop them off to a charity near you.  I won’t go into specific details as to what charity to use because that will be different depending where you are in the world. I am sure everyone is aware of a charity in their area that you can either drop off or phone for a pickup.

Be mindful of what you send to charity. They will not accept certain item because of safety and/or hygiene reasons. They may or may not accept mattresses or sofas that are stained. Some won’t accept mattresses at all. They usually will not accept underpants, for obvious reasons, unless they are new with tags on. Also, please make sure any items that you send to a charity are clean and in useable condition (working order). Soiled and broken items will be rejected and the charities end up having to pay huge fees to send loads of these uncharitable donations to landfill. If in doubt about what the charity will accept just phone them and ask.

Selling is a great way to eleviate the guilt of having spent money on an object that you didn’t get good value out of. It is also a good way to redeem a little cash to help pay off credit card debt that you probably shouldn’t have racked up in the first place.

I mostly sell on eBay but there are also other world wide sites like Craiglist. These are not the only options though. My husband’s work place has a on-line community board where employees can post For Sale ads, maybe you have such a resource. Australia has Trading Post and Gun Tree and others I am sure. Most places will have newspapers that also have on-line classified. My daughter once sold some old clothes using Facebook as her advertising medium. Just use your imagination or google something like “Selling Online” and see what comes up.

It is important however when advertising items to give a detailed description of exactly what the item is you are selling and what that includes. Just as important is to be honest about the condition the item is in. Just because something doesn’t work or isn’t complete doesn’t mean someone won’t want it. Parts can be just is valuable to people as the whole. If you think an item is worth selling why not give it a go.

Giving to family and friends is can be a very satisfying way to pass things on. Particularly things that you have held dear for some time. Perhaps things that have been handed down to you from other family members. If someone you know admires something you have decided to declutter they would be a good candidate to offer this item too. Always make certain that the person you offer it to only takes it if they truly want it. Make sure you explain that there is no obligation and you won’t be upset if they turn down your offer.

Giving to family and friends isn’t always about precious objects it can also be about useful objects. My father recently gave my brother his ride-on mower because my father no longer lives on a large property but my brother has a vacant block of land to mow.

Other ways to give stuff away.

• Freecycle is a great resource for giving things away. Especially those odd things that aren’t suitable for charity or for selling.
• Putting stuff out on the footpath with a free sign on it has also worked well for me in the past.
• One of our readers occasionally leaves a box in the foyer of their apartment building with free items in. You could possibly do this at your place of work or at a community group that you visit like a children’s playgroup.
• When I lived in the US there was a homeless man that was often begging at my freeway exit who I used to give things to every now and again. One day I even brought him a hot meal, he was very happy about that.
• Rachel, one of our readers is having a give away morning on the 20th of August to reduce her stuff before moving into a smaller dwelling. Hows that for ingenuity.

The options are endless. Once again just use your imagination. Today I googled “Give stuff away” and came up with some sites I didn’t know about like ozrecycle.com, scoodi.com and altruists.org. I didn’t check to see how good they were but I did find those and many more.

Recycling is an important aspect to decluttering. Anything that can be recycled should be disposed of responsibly. There are several way I go about this….

1. I put any items, that are suitable, into my recycling bin. Your local government department in charge of the collection of these bins will most likely have a web site giving clear instruction as to what type of items are suitable to go in them.
2. Larger items that may have some potential for recycling get saved until our local council has a curbside pick-up day. This is where you put the bigger items that won’t go in the trash or recycling out on the street for pick-up. Old mattresses, furniture, televisions, building materials and many other items are suitable for this type of collection. Many of these items will have components for recycling. I find that, in my area, the piles of stuff awaiting pick-up are well picked over and deminished in volume by the time the actual collection day happens. What is collected is sorted into trash and recyclables and treated accordingly.
3. There are often designated drop off areas or special drop of days for the recycling of certain items. Batteries, paint, electrical goods, chemicals etc are often disposed of in this way. Once again you can utilise your search engine by typing something like “recycle batteries (name of your city)” and helpful information will likely pop up.
4. Once again Freecycle is also a good way to recycle or repurpose items that are no longer in working order. I have given away pieces of furniture  and electrical items on Freecycle. There are often folks out there who are happy to fix of use the parts for these items.

I hope this post has helped you find some ways to responsibly rehouse or recycle your unwanted items. You will have peace of mind knowing your once precious things are going to good homes. And I can not stress enough how important it is to do the right thing by the environment, by keeping perfectly good stuff out of landfill and by decreasing the demand for the production of new products.

Here is a link to a guide I am slowing adding to that gives you ideas and web sites that will help you find appropriate places to donate and recycle.

Today’s Declutter Item

Some more t-shirts off to the thrift store today when I go to do my volunteer work. 

My husbancs T-shirts

Something I Am Grateful For Today

I love how fast my donations leave the house now that I am volunteering at the thrift store where I drop them off. Last week I even dropped something off for my neighbour. I am grateful the the lovely people at the thrift store have made me feel so at home there already. I look forward to going each time. It is wonderful to see the stuff walking out the door to be reused by someone else.

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow

I received this comment from Janetta on June 3rd:

I have a question: I am a quilter and when I left South Africa in 2004 (to travel for two years and then settle in New Zealand) the little group I met up with every week gave me a lovely gift of a miniature quilt (A4 size) from each of them and a group one wishing me all the best. The work is lovely and very reminiscent of them and I have stored them in plastic sleeves in a folder. I practically never look at them and although I am very pleased to have been given them, I don’t really want them any more. I could take pics of them, but what would I do with them. They are so personal I can’t imagine anyone else wanting them. Any ideas?

And my my response was:

I would suggest that you go to a quilting shop near your home and ask for their advice. There is always the possibility that they may want to display them in the store or one of their customers might want them. It would be a shame to just throw them away. If this doesn’t work for you why not try advertising them on Freecycle where you would have a wide audience of people and maybe just one person among those would be happy to take these off your hands.

Then yesterday I got this comment fro Janetta:

Success! I took my mini quilts to our local quilt shop and Alison, the owner, was very pleased to take them, she said they are a perfect size for decorating and filling in corners in the shop!

I also donated the wooden file they were given to me in (I think intended for decoupage) and donated it to an opshop (together with 35 other items), so I am feeling very satisfied with the solution to the problem. Thanks for your advice.

I was so pleased for Janetta being able to pass on some items that she would have felt bad to throw away. Instead they are now being appreciated all over again. Her situation just goes to prove, that if you can identify your target audience you should have no problem handing your clutter on to someone who will get as much enjoyment out of them as you once did. No matter what it is you are getting rid of, if it is still useful in some way there will be someone happy to claim it. I have had success with this many times over the last eighteen months of my declutter mission…

• Craft items ~ Arranged a sale with a local craft group.
• Broken Amplifier ~ Freecycled to a man who likes to tinker with that sort of thing.
• Non functioning Kenwood mixer ~ I sold the accessories on ebay and when one man came to pick up his item I offered him the mixer as well and he was happy to take it.
• Excess Stationary & scrapbook paper~ Donated to the school up the street.
• Lamp that needed rewiring ~ Offered on freecycle and a lady whose son was an electrician was glad to take it from me. I am not so sure her son would have been so pleased but that’s not my problem. 😉

As you can see, with a little imagination it is possible to find home for all sorts of things. You may be thinking that Freecycle doesn’t target a specific audience but in a way it does because there are a lot of handy people browsing the offers looking for things they can repair, recycle or repurpose. Like the man that took the top of my entertainment unit. It would have been useless to a thrift store but the man that took it was a retired carpenter who was excited to reuse the leadlight doors and recycle the timber for other projects.

Below are some examples of specific items and who may want them:

• Perhaps you are no longer interested in camping and you have an old tent you no longer want. Why not offer it to a local Scout Troop, I am sure they would get great use out of it.
• Maybe your beloved dog passed away and you do not plan get another so you are free to travel in the future. I am sure a kennel or your local animal shelter would appreciate any equipment you have to offer like leads, kennel, beds, toys, bowls etc.
• You might have fishing gear that you no longer use, try offering them for sale or donate them to a local fishing club if you have such a thing in your area.

The variety of enthusiast, non-profit, sporting, craft… groups out there is almost limitless so use your imagination and I am sure you will find someone who would just love your stuff. Even google ~ the word donate and your item ~ and see what pops up on your screen, it may not give you the exact answer you are looking for but it will stimulate your imagination.

Today’s Declutter Item

I hate it when an item doesn’t work as well as it should. This thermal mug was hard to open and close and even harder to pull apart to clean. Needless to say it ended up in the back of a cupboard unused and unloved. Maybe a thrift store customer may have more patience for it than I did.

Thermal Mug

My Gratitude List

• Something that I appreciate ~ How fortunate I have been in the game of life so far.
• Something Awesome ~ Hot beef stew with veggies and dumplings for dinner on a cold windy day.
• Something to be grateful for ~ My warm woolly slippers. I love to have warm toes.
• Something that made me happy ~ Spending the day with a friend and getting out of the house for a while.
• Something I found fascinating ~ How many kitchen gadgets there are out there to choose from. My friend and I had coffee at a kitchen store yesterday and the range of products was insane.

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow

These photos are the result of a 10 minute clean up under my bathroom sink. It took me longer to actually get all the items to their new homes, but the decluttering itself was a breeze and look at the difference. I removed and found new homes for:

The before shot

• 12 bottles of nail polish (neighbor)
• a foot scrub brush (this was broken apart – some recycled, some trashed)
• 2 Aveda Be Curly hair products (neighbor)
• Color Me Beautiful color guide (Anyone else remember Color Me Beautiful? trash)
• a large box of latex gloves (moved to the paint supplies, which is where they’re more useful)
• 4 boxes of hair dye (returned to store)
• hair gel (friend)
• bag of cosmetic sponges (my mother)
• 2 nail files moved to the top drawer where they’d be more accessible
• while rearranging the cabinet, I realized that one of the bottles of hairspray was almost empty. I made sure that we used it on Easter, and now it’s been decluttered too.

How much progress can you make in just 10 minutes today?

One of my golden rules for decluttering is…

Don’t waste it just because you don’t want it.

There is no doubt that during the course of decluttering your home you are going to have to deal with what to do with all the items you are getting rid of.  We have spoken quite a lot over the last thirteen months on how to go about rehousing items but it never hurts to refresh our minds of these details.

On my page Give away-Throw away – Sell – Use up, I list what became of all the 365 items I decluttered from my home during 2010. I will use the info from that page here to explain what was involved in the disposal of these items and other methods that you could utilise to achieve the same result. The title of each topic speaks for itself but there is more to some of them than meets the eye…

Give Away (237 items)

Thrift Store – Most were taken to my local thrift shop where they were more than happy to take them off my hands. Now the thing with thrift shops is that they can’t take everything, and you really should speak to them first to make sure you aren’t just adding to their rubbish removal costs. Even when we think an item is still usable there maybe a health or safety reason why thrift stores can’t take these items for resale. Please click on this link to read about how some charities in my area are pulling their bins because of this problem and because some people just abuse the system.

Freecycle – Because of the inconvenience of having to arrange the pick up I generally only use Freecycle to offload the items that are not suitable to give to the thrift store. For example I have had three separate baseball card give-aways because baseball isn’t popular in Australia and these would just be a burden to the thrift store. I also had a lamp that required rewiring that one lovely lady was happy to take away because her son was an electrician. Once again this item would have been useless to the thrift store.  I have also given away a couple of American voltage electric appliances that people were happy to run from a step down transformer. As you can see these would not only have been useless to donate but also difficult to sell.

Friends – I have also given away about a dozen things to friends who were glad to have the use of them. In some cases the item would have had to be purchased new had I not been able to step in and help. My friends soon learned to see me before running off to the store.  We are doing each other a favour here and I thank them for taking the items off my hands.

Other Organisations – I managed to find homes for all of my 237 items just using the three avenues mentioned above but there are many other organisations out there that would be glad to accept donations. Scout groups I am sure would be happy to take camping equipment, schools would be glad of the generous donations of craft and stationary items, sporting clubs can always use extra equipment. Just use your imagination and I am sure you will find someone happy to re-purpose your unwanted stuff.

Sell (58  Items  sold on eBay at a total of $1533.65)

On-Line – Although all of the items I sold were sold on eBay there are other online selling options that you can chose from such as Craigslist.

Newspaper – You could advertise to sell in the classified section in your local newspaper. This is a good option if you have items that are too big or cumbersome to sell on eBay. Although eBay and the like do have a pick up only option that targets local shoppers I think you may find a bigger audience through using a non-online selling venue. In Australia, we have an online/local newspaper combo selling option called the Trading Post that I am going use to try to sell some musical instruments soon. I will let you know how that pans out.

Notice Boards – I don’t know if you have ever seen notice boards in your local shopping centres where people paste up photos and contact details to sell, rent or give-away items. I have seen a few in my area perhaps there is one in yours.

Garage Sale – I have had several garage sales in the past though none of my 365 things were sold this way because I was purging slowly and did not want to store the items until I had enough for a garage sale. One thing to remember with garage sales is that you have a very limited audience, and they are looking for a bargain but if you were only likely to donate the stuff anyway then you could end up with a few hundred dollars in your pocket instead.

Market Stall – This is much the same situation as a garage sale but you have a larger audience and have to haul the stuff to another location to sell. Like garage sales I have had great success in the past offloading my stuff this way.

Use Up (Only 3 items of my 365 were declutter this way)

Even though 3 is a very small quantity over the year there were many other items that were used up that I didn’t include. Items such as clothing that wore out that I didn’t replace and cleaning items that I didn’t like that I persevered with rather than cluttering up my cupboards with a duplicate in another brand. As you in know I call this Natural Progression Decluttering. I really hate waste and I would rather find a way to use something up rather than throw it away because that is a crime against the environment in my eyes.

Throw Away (67 Items)

To me this quantity (67) seems like far too many but it isn’t as bad as it looks. I scanned back through my records on my Google calendar to find out what was among these 67 items. Some of them were sent to be recycled such as paper products like old magazines, files and boxes while many of them were items that were simply used beyond there usefulness, just plain old worn out, rusty or perished in some way. There was nothing thrown in the trash just because I was too lazy to deal with it and that should never be the case for anyone. If an item still has use in it please please find it a new home.

Today’s Declutter Item

Today we have another mystery item which fetched $10 on ebay. Actually they are parts to an old wood plane.

Things I am grateful for today

• Getting through the housework quickly – So I could go out for a coffee with a friend.
• That it cooled down before we went for our afternoon walk – I would also be grateful if these 35°C plus days would go away for the year.
• Space in the freezer to put the water bottle for a quick cool down.
• Online product reviews – My stab blender is dying and I want to be sure to get a replacement that will perform admirably.
• Having fun with my guys – They are a pair of mischievous devils but lovable ones. (I speak of Steven my husband and Liam my son of course.)
  

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow.

I am satisfied with the fact that our garage is a work in progress. Certainly the step by step strategy is being employed in this area of our house more so than anywhere else.  Sometimes it may be one step forward, two steps back because it is the holding area for many things…

• Items awaiting their trip to the thrift store.
• Ebay auctions items that we haven’t dealt with yet.
• Things that belong to the children that will move on when they do.
• Things that we are not real sure we want to get rid of or not.
• And I dare say there are more than a few things that we just haven’t considered for decluttering yet.

What ever the reason, I am OK with that. One thing a day is all I have committed to do and I am happy to continue at that pace even if it takes longer than the 365 days. I am more than satisfied with the progress we have made, and with the benefits I discovered that came with going slow. Being calm and relaxed about the process and knowing that the lessons I learned along the way are now engrained into my psyche.

Now please join me for a tour of the garage before and after and keep in mind this isn’t the end of the garage declutter…

BEFORE

AFTER

Item 322 of 365 less things

We dismantled the wardrobe that took up valuable real estate in the garage and put it out on the street during bulk waste pick up week. You can see this item in the middle of the Before photo at the top of the page.  Most of the items removed from it were either disposed of during the pick up week or found a new home in the garage where once again something has been disposed of to make way for them. I featured some of the other items on Days 308 to 313 and Days 318 to 321.

5 Things I am grateful for today

1. Coffee with a friend.
2. Being able to play CD’s on the laptop – when you want to stay sitting next to your husband but don’t want to listen to the c**p on TV.
   
3. Music – I really don’t stop to listen to it often enough while my children can’t live without it.
4. My new little ebook – I hope everyone picks up a copy it is free to subscribers new and old.
5. A chance to show our gratitude – Liam, hubby and I went back to the ICU and Ward G2 today to thank the staff for taking care of Liam for the first two week after his accident. Liam didn’t recognise anyone but they sure remembered him and were glad he was doing so well. We hope they enjoy the cards and chocolates we delivered as a token of our gratitude.

A guest post by Cindy Bogard

The three Rs, reduce, reuse, recycle. In decluttering, sometimes it’s easy to overlook the three Rs, especially if you’re going quickly. There are a lot of reasons to like a-thing-a-day decluttering and proper consideration of the three Rs is one of them.

Notice that the first R is reduce. It’s the most important one of all, starting with only buying what you really need and using it completely. Or buy it used; then you’re not creating demand for another of the same. Consider the packaging of your purchases. Don’t buy single-serving items and buy in bulk – even better if you take your own baggie to fill in the bulk aisle. Say no to bags at the store and bring your own. Use durable items rather than disposables (cloth napkins instead of paper, etc.). Take your own mug into the coffee shop – some even give you a small discount. Bring your own totes to the store. I even bring home plastic forks and spoons from restaurants; a bit ironic since I hardly ever use plastic wear. Typically it gets donated to the school or church, and at least it gets used twice, rather than once.

Use your durable goods longer. All of my furniture was purchased used, and all has been reupholstered. My mother’s living room set has been upholstered three times. Good job Mom! Repair items rather than replacing them. It makes me crazy when someone says, “I can buy a new one for $100 more than it costs to fix this one.” Yes, but you already own this one, and it can be fixed, for $100 less than new.

Do something with your food waste other than throwing it away – compost, feed a pet, or simply throw it to the back fence like I used to. It either breaks down or the possums who were already visiting my yard have a treat. (No, I never noticed an increase in furry visitors when I did this, probably because my food waste is limited.) I take a container to restaurants for my leftovers, rather than accepting their throw away package, and I mark my leftovers clearly with a piece of masking tape that says what’s inside and what day it went in. Everyone eats lunches from home, and that minimizes food waste, too.

“Use it up and wear it out,” we’ve all heard that. Reuse is the next R. Don’t buy something just because it’s new, different, or cute. Drive your car until it goes its last mile and replace it with a used vehicle. I wash out the plastic baggies I use and reuse them many times, but I try to use them infrequently. I have plenty of containers for my family’s sack lunches. This is the third year that my children have used the same school backpacks. The PDA that I use used to be my husband’s; he got a fancier one, and I got his. Most children love hand-me-downs. I suppose their enthusiasm may wane at some point, but it hasn’t yet. We take anything that’s too soiled to be handed down and toss it into a fiber pile. The girls are free to pull out and cut up anything in this pile, which is used to make doll clothes, cat toys, baby blankets, and 100 other things that their clever minds can devise.

There is virtually nothing that you can’t buy used and that you can’t get rid of used. Try  Freecycle, Craigslist, eBay, Goodwill, Salvation Army, Replacements (china and dish ware), your church clothing closet, or literally thousands of other places that will take used goods off your hands. I think it’s important, too, to shop at these places. We all need to help close the circle of supply and demand.

Just about anything in your home can be Recycled. It seems to be the R that’s talked about the most, but I think sometimes the phrase “it can be recycled” leads to wasteful use. For example, I was shopping with someone, and she put every bit of her produce – even one grapefruit – into separate plastic sacks because “they can be recycled!” Yes, but by that time that truck comes through your neighborhood and hauls things to the recycling center, where they’re separated and trucked to a number of other facilities and that’s just the beginning, it’s not environmentally “free”.

Nonetheless, here is a list of things you should always recycle

My friends at The Clutter Consultants here in Austin, Texas tell me that sometimes the urge to recycle or reuse stymies people in their pursuit of less clutter and more organization. Decluttering nice and slow allows you to take proper consideration of each item and allows you to make the best choice about what should become of that item.

What did you declutter today, and how did you Reduce, Reuse, or Recycle?

Thanks to National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences for help with this article.

Today’s decluttered item from Cindy’s house: a dozen cans of V8, given to my parents, and two bottles of sparkling cider (too “carbalicious” for Clara), given to a friend who frequently entertains.

ITEM 310 OF 365 LESS THINGS

I have two other craft hammers and this one is not well weighted to do the job it is supposed to day maybe it will be more useful to someone else.

5 things I am grateful for today

1. The thrift shop for taking so many of my rejects – I took a much needed trip over there this morning and dropped off a load of stuff.
2. A roof over my head – I can’t imagine what it would be like living on the street in this rainy weather.
3. Liam scored a 12 out or 12 for his post traumatic Amnesia testing today which is great. If he scores 12 three days in a row he will be able to start his brain injury therapy. He is walking and talking better and I saw a lot of glimpses of the old Liam today. His sister will be pleased. He had also been doing some artwork (not on his sheets this time) and seems to be able to focus better and for longer periods on activities.
4. A hearty dinner – another of those things we so often take for granted that others in the world go without too often.
5. A good end to the day

With fear that lately I have started to sound like some of the nuns I remember from my school days, preaching hell and damnation day in day out, I thought I might write something a little more upbeat today.

I’d like to point out the joy that can be found in decluttering your home. This joy can be appreciated from day one, not just at the end of the journey. See if you can identify with the joy of…..

• A Fresh Start – It is never too late to begin a new phase in your life. Cut yourself some slack and don’t dwell on the past. Acknowledge the things you got right and learn the lesson of your follies but either way do not dwell on the regrets, just enjoy the fresh start you are making.

• More Space – It really does feel good as the clutter starts to disappear and you begin to feel the freedom of the empty space growing around you. This feeling can be appreciated from the very first item and increases over time. Take a moment to focus on that freedom with every little piece of clutter you choose to remove and the process will be one filled with joy rather than dread.
• Less Maintenance – It stands to reason that the fewer items cluttering up your home, the easier it is to keep your surroundings clean and tidy. Every item you remove is one less thing you need to maintain in any way whether dusting, cleaning or storing. Also house cleaning will be simpler if there are fewer items to be moved in order to access the surface under them such as benches and floors. And ya gotta love that!

• Guilt Relief – We generally carry a burden of guilt for every item associated with the waste of money involved with its acquisition and lack of use. For every one of these items that leaves our home there is a relief from that guilt so long as we have learned the lesson of needless waste.

• Giving Back – Whether we sell items to grateful buyers on eBay, donate items to charity, give items away to friends and family or find a way to recycle them there is an good feeling that accompanies that action. Focus on these good feelings and it will spur you on in your quest.

• Appreciation – You will find that you have a higher appreciation for the items you choose to keep and their role in your household.

• Being Environmentally Responsible – For every unnecessary item you don’t purchase and for every item that you liberate to someone who might need it, you are doing a small deed to save the environment. For every item that is manufactured there is a cost whether in natural resources or carbon emissions, so the less you contribute to the supply and demand of these products the better hope there is for our planet’s survival.

• Simplifying -There is more to this topic than the title implies. I will elaborate in a separate post tomorrow but rest assured there is plenty of joy to be found by simplifying.

ITEM 284 OF 365 LESS THINGS

A few more odds and ends for the donation box

5 Things I am grateful for today

1. Sick pay – I couldn’t work yesterday as it is a bit hard to sell furniture without a voice.
2. Freedom of choice – This is something we take for granted in Western society.
3. Roast dinner – They are so easy to make and so yummy to eat.
4. Art – This is something everyone in my family enjoys and can share the interest.
5. Kisses – They really are the cure for everything.

There has been one item in our home that has been there tormenting us for three years. This otherwise harmless item is pictured below for you amusement…

Like I said it looks harmless enough and yet it has been a constant source of clutter torture for far too long.

The lamp has been assembled then dismantled then all the wiring pulled out of it then assembled then dismantled then assembled again. Our intention, when we brought it home to Australia from the USA, was to rewire it and continue to use it in our new home. USA runs 120 volts while Australia runs 240 volts if you were wondering why there was a wiring issue but I digress. We got as far as pulling all the wire out of it and then decided we weren’t skilled enough or certified for that matter to rewire it.

It has occupied space in the living room, in the garage, under the camphor wood chest and finally the garage again where we see it every time we drive in. It has not been decluttered before now because I was still considering getting it professionally rewired. Needless to say that just hasn’t happened. I think I knew long ago that it would cost more to rewire it than it was worth and we don’t need it anyway.

Yesterday I decided to call a halt to the clutter torture and listed it on Freecycle. I honestly described it as needing rewiring but that I thought all the parts were still there, and hoped someone could use it rather sending it to the trash. It lasted about 10 minutes before someone claimed it and by lunch time today it was gone.

Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we hold on to the things that irritate us every time we look at them when it is that easy to be rid of them? I love Freecycle, it is a wonderful way to pass on our unwanted stuff.

5 things I am grateful for today

1. Neighbours – they are great for lots of things but especially for lending us their stuff to try before you buy our own.
2. More bang for your buck – A muffin and a cappuccino is one thing – a home cooked muffin dusted with icing sugar, butter on the side with a garnish of sliced strawberry with a cappuccino just seems like better value for your money even if it is the same food.
3. One pot meals – so simple yet so yummy.
4. Another glorious Spring day
5. Digital Kitchen Scales – mine are no bigger than a small paperback but so functional.

Decluttering Kid Birthday Parties

A guest post by Cindy Bogard

Last week on Day 252 I covered family birthday parties without clutter, but what about the crazy excess that comes from a big bash with a bunch of kids? There are so many gifts and so much waste generated by the average party. Most seem to end with a big Santa sack of gifts and an equally big one of trash.

The quickest way to cut down on waste is by restricting the number of kids. In my experience, though, the kids want to invite everyone in their class until second or third grade. (My parents restricted me to one guest per year of age, but I have not continued with this rule in my own parenting.)

My next idea requires buy-in from your kids, but I know it can be done because it’s common in my younger daughter’s class. Gifts are gathered at the birthday party for a charity, not for the birthday child. The animal shelter has been popular, but we’ve also collected gifts for the women’s and children’s shelters.

You could also have a wishing well where a gift of cash is put by each child and the money could be donated to the charity of their choice or kept to put in the child’s college fund. I have been to weddings where they have wishing wells and it is very convenient for both the giver and the receiver.

And what about those (often) junky, plastic-filled goodie bags that somehow have become a requirement at all parties? If your party involves a craft, decorate paper bags too, and let the craft go into the bag and be the party favor. Otherwise, I encourage you to either give something functional (we’ve given marker sets and pool noodles and have received socks) or skip this step completely. I honestly don’t think the kids will notice, and I think the parents will be grateful you haven’t added to their junk load.

As for the party trash itself, in many cities, gift wrap and tissue can be recycled. Gift bags, cute decorations and bows can always be saved for another go around.

I encourage the use of non-disposables at the party. I have two dozen glass plates I bought at thrift stores and another two dozen reusable plastic plates. I use my real silverware, and if I need more, I use the plasticware that will be washed and reused. I serve the kids’ beverages out of a large container and do not use bottled water or juice boxes. I use my own glasses, and if I need more, I use the sturdy plastic ones that restaurants give out with their kids’ meals. I put a piece of tape on the cup and write the child’s name with Sharpie. When I have to use paper plates or cups, I write the kids’ names on both the plate and cup.

Even if you’re having your party at a park or special venue, bringing your own reusable party wear and taking it away afterwards are not hard. An extra box or picnic basket will help you tote the load.

The first time my Mom saw me setting up a party like this she asked, “Is this what your friends do?” I replied, “I don’t have to follow my friends, Mom. I can lead them.”

From Colleen

One the subject of Children’s parties I have a little Aussie treat that has always been popular at kids parties in Australia since way back when. This treat is called Fairy Bread and all it is is pieces of bread butters with sprinkles on top. (the sprinkles you would put on a cake) so simple but always well received. Give it a try.

ITEM 257 OF 365 LESS THINGS

Just one more odd item that never finds it’s way to the top of the utensil drawer