Today’s word is…

C O N S I D E R A T E

Show respect for yourself, your fellow human beings and the environment…

Be CONSIDERATE when shopping

• Constantly buying items you do not need puts a strain on the world’s resources.

Be CONSIDERATE to the environment

• To process resources to produce the items we buy puts a strain on the environment. Also the more we own the more space we need to store these items the bigger the footprint we leave on this planet.

Be CONSIDERATE to family

• In order to purchase un-necessary items requires money that has to be earned. The more you buy the harder you have to work to provide the money for those excesses. That time working is time not spent with your family.

Be CONSIDERATE to those left behind

• Nobody lives for ever and there is always someone who has to take care of  the things left behind when we leave this world. This passing is sad enough on our loved ones without the added stress of sorting through excess possessions.

Be CONSIDERATE to those less fortunate than you

• Donate your excess items to a charity so they can help others who are less fortunate than you. Better still instead of buying un-necessary items make a cash donation to a charity it will help others and you will feel good about yourself as well.

I know I have been guilty in the past of not being considerate of all of these things but I vow to be better than this now and in the future.

ITEM 178 OF 365 LESS THINGS

My husband used this sheep skin on his motorbike seat but that was years ago

R E C Y C L E         R E C Y C L E

R E C Y C L E

The Word for Today  is so simple yet so important. If you are not using something then it is just taking up space. There are so many ways to RECYCLE your unwanted goods that very little should go to waste.

• RECYCLE by giving things you don’t want to a charity, friends, family or even a casual acquaintance.
• RECYCLE by selling your items on through web sites like ebay or advertise in you local newspaper or through you work Intranet.
• RECYCLE by putting all unwanted items made of cardboard, paper, metal or recyclable plastic in your recycle bin. All those old tax papers, storage boxes, school papers etc fall into this category.
• RECYCLE by sending your old computer components to companies that dismantle, recycle and dispose of this items responsibly.
• RECYCLE by re-purposing an object. I used the fabric out of an old pair of my husbands jeans to make a patchwork calendar holder. My mother-in-law uses old fabrics to make handbags. You know I use old cardboard boxes to make my ebay packaging. An old teapot makes a lovely planter pot. This is just a drop in the bucket of ideas for re-purposing.
• RECYCLE by repairing items rather than throwing them away. Sew on a button, stitch up a hem, replace a hinge, put a new clasp on that old necklace you love, re-paint an object and give it a new lease on life. Take a class and learn a new skill you can use to carry out these tasks with ease. Hardware stores often offer free classes on household repairs and there are no end to the places in your local community where you can learn skills of all kinds.
• RECYCLE by googling. This may sound strange but there is so much you can learn with a little investigation on the Internet. Search for “How to repair…” or “Alternate use for…”  or “local charities” it is that easy.

So when it comes to RECYCLING your clutter the choices are endless so please don’t just send your unwanted items to landfill let someone else get the most out of them if you aren’t.

ITEM 177 OF 365 LESS THINGS

One more for the donation box

The word for today is…

DOWNSIZE

Sometimes decluttering doesn’t mean getting rid of things altogether sometimes you just need to DOWNSIZE. For example here are a list of the items we have DOWNSIZED since the start of our decluttering process…

• We replaced a twenty something year old bulky stereo system with a new iPod docking station.
• We replaced an old laptop with an iPod touch so we don’t have to carry such a heavy item around with us when we are on vacation.
• We replaced our old computer tower with a new Apple Mac Mini which takes up so much less space.
• We replaced a big bulky computer desk with a lovely hardwood 1500 x 900 table. (The room looks so much less cluttered now).
• We have given away and sold a big chunk of our baseball souvenir collection to get it down to  a more manageable size.
• We have digitised several old LP records and sold the physical copies on ebay reducing the collection.
• We have digitised a bunch of sentimental papers too so that pile is also significantly smaller.

I look at this list and I think we have made great inroads into the decluttering but I also know that we still have a long way to go. We will no doubt DOWNSIZE in some of these areas a lot more before we are finished.

You may be thinking that for someone who preaches about buying less stuff you sure have made some expensive purchases on that list. You would be correct and I sometimes feel guilty about that but it is all in the line of decluttering. Most of the items that were replaced had been used extensively and were sold on or passed on the someone else who needed them and may not have been able to afford them otherwise.  I am OK with that.

ITEM 174 OF 365 LESS THINGS

My plan is to eliminate enough items out of the kitchen so I can move items from my display cabinet into the empty spaces so I can eliminate the need for the display cabinet or at least downsize it.

When we first returned to Australia after living overseas for some years there were a few household appliances that need replacing. As luck would have there was a Homemakers Expo on in our new location soon after we arrived so we attended hoping to get educated on what were the best appliances to suit our needs. To cut a long story short the only thing we came out of it with was a membership to the Wine Selectors Club.

As a result every three months a dozen bottles of wine, six red and six white, would appear on our doorstep. this isn’t a large quantity to keep up with but we don’t drink much only on social occasions and maybe a bottle every now and again together just as a treat. Then my husband moved 500km away for eleven months due to work commitments. Needless to say the wine started to build up with only one person at home to drink it and less social events to attend at weekends because we took the time to enjoy each others company as it was in short supply.

We decided to cancel our membership but at that point we had accumulated at least a few dozen bottles mostly red. Life being as it is my husband then went to work overseas for four months and that just left me at home to take care of things. When I decided to make a start on the decluttering quest one of the things that soon caught my eye was this stash of wine. So I took it upon myself to make an effort to slowly but surely reduce the number.

There was the odd social events to attend to which I took along a bottle or two and I gave a few bottles as gifts. However the stockpile was still quite large so I felt it was my duty to make the sacrifice to polish off several myself all in the line of duty of course. Yes I know, it’s was a tough job but someone had to do it. Sometimes decluttering is far from being a chore and in my defence I didn’t include any of the wine in the 365 less things.

Now there are just four bottles in the cabinet, quite a manageable number and when they run out we will just buy wine as we want it so it doesn’t accumulate again.

ITEM 147 OF 365 LESS THINGS

We dug up another snowboard from the murky depths of the garage cupboard and sold it on eBay for $33.00. Our son was very happy as we gave him the proceeds because it was his board and he is a poor art student.

Ingredients:

1 Kitchen cupboard                                   40 Recipe Books

1 plastic crate                                               1 Pinch of Common Sense

Method:

1. Open the kitchen cupboard where you keep you recipe books.
2. Take all of the recipe books out of the cupboard.
3. Use your common sense to determine whether you actually ever use these books or are ever likely to. Keep in mind that you can Google any recipe you could possible want and or borrow recipe books from the library.
4. Take the plastic crate and load all the books you have determined you don’t need into it.
5. Put the crate into your car and take it to your local charity.
6. Celebrate the space you have just liberated in your kitchen cupboard.

I still have about a dozen books that I want to take a closer look at before adding them to the 365 less things but once again that can wait for another day after all there are still 220 left.

ITEM 145 OF 365 LESS THINGS

Here is the pile of cookbooks that I ruthlessly decluttered and I don’t imagine I will ever miss them.

While going on my morning walk today I was outraged to see some of the stuff people have put out on the street for Bulk Waste Collection Day in our neighbourhood. I would rather not dwell on it at the moment because it put me in a rather negative frame of mind and I am trying to get something positive out of it. I will be sure to explain my outrage in an upcoming post just in case I have tweaked your interest.

Rather than be negative I decided to get on my computer and Google subjects to see how much information I could find on charities and recycling opportunies in my local area.

It was no challenge! Here are the [subjects] I searched for and how successful these searches were.

*I have substituted the name of the town I live in with [my town] because I don’t want to give away to much private information about myself. The links I have added are Australian but I am sure you will similar sites in your country.

• [my town charities] the list was extensive.

• [my town  recycle centre] and among the many options I found this little gem. Recycle Centre
• some well known charities eg. [salvation army] which gave me phone numbers for info and donation pick up hot line and also a search option for where a local drop off is nearest to me.
• [my town computer recycling] amoung others I found a web site Byteback who take care of these types of unwanted items.
• [my town green waste] and again a long list of option in my area for taking care of garden clean up.
• [my town city council] had a whole section dedicated to waste with this little gem, recyclingnearyou.

There is a charge for some of these services but it is better than the alternative of them just going to waste.

So really there is no excuse for throwing away perfectly good items or even broken items for that matter because there are all sorts of ways to re-use and recycle that  you may never have even thought was possible.If people are puting computer parts and desks on the street they obviously must know how to use one so I wish they would just Google their stuff away instead of leaving it out in the rain to be ruined.

I was amused by the irony of a sticker I saw stuck on the side of an old TV on the curbside, it read…

DON’T BE A TOSSER EVERY PIECE OF LITTER IS HARMING THE ENVIRONMENT

My Give Away-Thow Away-Sell count just goes to prove you don’t have to be wasteful.

ITEM 140 OF 365 LESS THINGS

The last of the eBay ski gear auctions this pair make $20.60

I may have mentioned before that I have a note book that I use to keep track of things to do. Whether that be decluttering and daily chores, subjects for my blog or duties I intend to get around to eventually. I find it handy to be able to jot down ideas as they come to me because I have a tendency to forget ten minutes later and that is very unproductive.

Lately I have had this back-up of eBay stuff to list, mail and await pick-up so I haven’t had to do much else to keep up with the one item a day approach so I have been exploring my home finding projects for the upcoming weeks and that is where my trusty note book has been very useful for storing ideas for the future.

Today I thought I would at least do one thing on the list and the item I picked was…

One less pair of shoes

This was an easy enough challenge and the aim was to fit all my shoe boxes on one shelf in my wardrobe. These boxes are clear plastic which made it easy to see what I had to choose from. The pair I chose turned out to be a prime example of if you don’t use it you can loose it because when I opened the box I noticed they were slightly mouldy and when I took them from the box  it became apparent that the glue holding them together had perished and the shoes felt crunchy in my hand . So instead donating them to charity they ended up in the trash can.

With that task accomplished I can move on to the next task on the list…Pare down the cookbooks again. With the ability to look up anything on the Internet these days there are so many recipes available on-line that I see no point in cluttering up one kitchen cupboard with cookbooks I rarely look at. I can borrow recipe books from the library as well if I want. But this is a job for another day.

ITEM 139 OF 365 LESS THINGS

The shoes mentioned above

One of the most important lessons I have learned since taking on this challenge of 365 less things is that resisting the temptation from retail assault is not a futile exercise, it can be done. As I have mentioned before I hardly ever go shopping anymore except to buy my groceries and I am fine with that in fact I feel that I have the upper hand in some kind of battle of wills.

I did have a little head start or incentive if you like before I made the conscious decision stop spending on things that might ultimately become clutter. After living in the United States for seven years, I just couldn’t bring myself to pay the prices that the same products command here in Australia so I had already cut back.

When we took on the decluttering challenge one of the rules we made for ourselves was that if something new came into the house something else had to leave.  Since we are already busy picking and choosing what stays and what goes we really don’t want to make any more work for ourselves.

We have however upgraded our computer (a half tower for a mac mini) replaced a big stereo system with a new iPod docking station and bought an iPod touch so we don’t have to lug a laptop around with us on our next vacation but that is about it for the shopping this year. Even though this sounds like a big outlay the purpose behind these purchases aside from keeping up with technology, was to downsize the amount of space the old items were taking up in our home or our backpacks.

I have not bought any clothes,  accessory items, books, useless knick knacks, craft supplies, even birthday cards (I am using up my stocks or making them myself) or numerous other things that I used to buy that I have already forgotten I ever wanted.  It is amazing to realize how easy the transition was and although my friends might all think I am a scrooge I am very happy with the situation and don’t plan on changing back (I will not be assimilated).

ITEM 135 OF 365 LESS THINGS

Another pair of ski pants sold on eBay for $19.50

Think about it for a minute, all the stuff in your home that you thought you needed at one point or another and never used to its potential (AKA Clutter)  is likely to become landfill prematurely  if you don’t pass it on now to a good home where it will no doubt at least fulfill another person’s needs for a period of time before either being used to it’s true potential or get passed on again until it does.

I was so please with all my eBay sales last week not only because they put a little bit of cash back into my pocket but also the items I sold are now being used by someone else. There are two benefits to this 1.) the items are not going to waste 2.) the people who bought them are not contributing to landfill or production pollution by having to buy these items new.

While reading through the posts at Sanity In Simplicity I came across a link to a thought provoking video (The Story of Stuff) which is worth a look if you want to scare yourself into recycling what you no longer use and reducing what you buy in the future.

ITEM 130 OF 365 LESS THINGS

I received $30.00 for these three items on eBay, not my best sale but they have now gone to a new home where they will be reused and that is the most rewarding result of this exercise.

Remember my blog way back on Day 86 when I decided to find a way to use up all my gift wrap items that seemed to be multiplying rather than diminishing in the linen closet.

Well this weekend I attended a lovely get-together in the wine region of the Hunter Valley to celebrate a friend’s 40th birthday. The weekend which included wine and cheese tastings, a lovely lunch, a bus to take us to all our destinations  and overnight accommodation, cost us all $270 each.

I felt inclined to provide a gift even though I was sure one wasn’t expected due to the financial outlay for the event. So I decided to find something within my home rather than resort to outlaying more funds. I had a few bottles of red wine that we had been cellaring for a couple of years and a lovely decorated  cylinder for the purpose of giving wine as a gift. I have had the cylinder for about five years, it was one of those items I bought but found were too nice to give away (How silly, I know). I also had an extra pashmina my husband had picked up when buying gifts for my work friends while on a recent trip to the Middle East.

I put the wine in the lovely cylinder and the pashmina in a small gift bag from my collection of recyclable gift wrap items and felt quite satisfied with the present I had to offer and at the same time had removed 4 items from my home that had just been lying around waiting for someone to appreciate. To top it off I printed a copy of a secret family recipe she had been wanting for years ( I may be in trouble with my Mum for that) and put it in with the handmade birthday card my mother had made for her.

Needless to say it was a wonderful weekend. She was happy just to have all her friends around her and as I thought she wasn’t expecting any gifts and she enjoyed a little too much making a phone call to my mother dobbing me in for giving her the secret family recipe which she was more impressed with receiving than any other part of the gift. I am happy to have had the wonderful experience and to be four items lighter in the quest to clear my house.

ITEM 124 OF 365 LESS THINGS

It doesn’t seem to matter how many times I check the bathroom cupboards I always come up with one more thing that (or in this case three more things) that are for some reason of no use to us or past their used by date.