A Guest post by Doodle

Some of things we tend to hang on to for long after they are no longer needed is an excess of crockery and towels and bed linen.

An older member of my extended family still has enough pots, pans and crockery to feed an army, yet hasn’t fed anyone other than her husband and herself at home for years. The excess means she can’t keep the things she uses regularly in the most easy to reach place for her with her increasing lack of agility and will make moving should they need to for health reasons a lot more work and bring a lot more decision making at a difficult time.

I see this in other households I visit too.

Hanging on to how things ‘used to be’ can happen very easily. It’s worth taking time to regularly review your life and how you really live it rather than aspire to live it.

Perhaps it is time for you to review the life you actually have now?

 A few years ago I did this with crockery and came to the following conclusions that were right for us:

1. We don’t entertain at home and it was time to acknowledge we don’t, and that is ok. I think I still felt entertaining was something that ‘normal’ people did and therefore I aspired to it without any heart for it. The reality is, I meet my girlfriends in town for lunch, family are too far away and we have defaulted to friends who don’t do dinner parties either. Offering tea and cake is enough, or soup and bread.

2. We default to being a bit lazy and the more dishes we have, the larger the pile of dirty dishes can become (we don’t own a dishwasher) because we just select the next clean plate.

3. Our lodger has their own supply of crockery and doesn’t need to be considered in our equation.

So I drastically downsized two years ago and we haven’t missed any of it and we are forced to keep on top of our washing up which pleases me very much 

This is our entire supply of crockery for me and my husband and can be seen in the photo:

2 large plates 2 small plates 2 pudding/soup bowls 2 pasta bowls 2 spare mugs for visitors 2 mugs each (when we break one each they won’t be replaced) I also use the smallest one as a rice measure) 2 beer glasses (when 1 breaks it won’t be replaced), 1 wine glass (I don’t drink alcohol) 2 medium glasses and 2 small 200ml glasses. 2 small wooden serving bowls made from local woodland by a friend as a wedding gift.

On the very rare occasions I may need to offer a visitor or two a small meal, they can use our dinner plates an we’ll use the pasta bowls (or if it is a pasta meal, the other way round)

This is our entire towel and bed linen collection:

Towels: Tiny travel towel (about the size of a face cloth that absorbs all the water when you wipe your self down after a shower) 2 bath towels each 2 hand towels 2 towel turbans for hair drying for me. (One of each above in use, one in the weekly wash. Spare set when dry kept folded on shelf in bathroom)

Bed linen: One spare set of duvets covers (we have a single duvet each rather than share a double duvet – this makes for a much better night’s sleep for our individual sleeping styles),

One spare super king fitted sheet and one set of spare pillow cases.

Kept in little wheeled storage unit under our bed with a spare double duvet for occasional extreme cold weather.

One spare set, for a visitor, kept in sealed bag in attic along with duvet, 2 pillows & single folding visitor’s bed. Last used 3 years ago. I am thinking of downsizing this to just the bed and borrowing linen in the extremely unlike event we have an overnight visitor.

I love this simplicity and our space saving choices. They suit us. They will not suit everyone.

Are there any changes you can make to how many spares you have? And if you are saving excess spares for ‘once a year’ events, is it possible to borrow for those occasions?

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter a few magazines from you collection that you haven’t returned to in a long while.

Eco Tip for the Day

 Create a pocket in the day to witch off the technology devises and television for a while. Not just for the peace and quiet but also to cut down on your electricity usage.

For a full list of my eco tips so far click here

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

You might be wondering what could Colleen possibly have left to declutter after three and a half years of downsizing. Well let me tell you, the decision making becomes a lot easier when limited space is immanent.

With only two bedrooms it becomes easy to decide to let go of a few more towels and a couple of pillows. Visitor space is limited therefore catering for them requires less stuff.

With only a single car space and a small lock up cage what used to be stored in our spacious two car garage also needs to be limited. Couple that with no yard to care for and I was able to declutter most of my gardening tools. Leaving only enough to dig around in the odd potted plant. Also as this move is intended to be more permanent we no longer feel it necessary to store the original boxes and packing for our large electrical items. That will make a big gap post moving day.

There a some items of furniture that are too big or just won’t have a place in the new apartment. They are going to my daughter.  These are items that we would have kept under different circumstances.

We also have limited closet space so in future will be storing the winter items in plastic storage bins on high shelving in the laundry. While packing up my winter clothes I decided to declutter a few less-loved items from my closet. Along the same lines I also decluttered a couple of pairs of shoes. One to the thrift shop the other to the bin as they had so little sole left that water was starting to seep through on wet days. I got a good eight years out of those shoes so I have got my money’s worth.

There has also been the odd thing that belonged to the children show up during my move prep. These items have or will soon be returned to them.

I have also been doing a use it up challenge on items in the pantry and fridge. I stock far fewer items in both places these days but still there was a few things that I no longer have a need for now that the kids aren’t living at home. I have been having fun improvising and exploring new recipes to use these items up. Taste.com has been visited by me several times recently.

My point is that even though many of the items mentioned above have survived the cut in the past there is no space for them in my future. This has made the decision to finally let them go easier. The goal to fit into a smaller dwelling has been my inspiration from the start. However anyone can create their own goals to help them make the decision to let go of items easier. Here are a few to think about…

1. Having a guest room the is always ready to receive guests.
2. To clear enough room in a garage where all vehicles can be parked out of the weather. This is better for the car and to lowers insurance premiums.
3. Wanting your kitchen to be more user friendly.
4. You have been through the arduous task of sorting out after a lost loved one and don’t want to inflict the same torment on your loved ones.
5. Simply to make your home less oppressive…

Basically give yourself a greater goal than I might need it someday.

Today’s Mini Mission

Question: Do I need to waste space storing these salad dressings (mixed spices, sauces etc) or could I quickly and easily whip up delicious fresh alternatives when needed from ingredients that I usually stock in my pantry anyway.

Mission: Don’t double stock your pantry. Get on line and find simple easy recipes for spice mixes, salad dressing etc and do a use it up challenge on items you have no need to stock.

Eco Tip for the Day

Keep a jug in your kitchen sink to save the water that would otherwise go to waste when waiting for the hot water to come through. This water can be used as drinking water, to fill the kettle, rinse dishes, water plants, rinse the sink etc.

For a full list of my eco tips so far click here

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

My organised craft room ~ Circa June 2011

As you can imagine this blog post title ~ You don’t have to declutter to own fewer things ~ caught my eye in my inbox last week. It is a recent post by Mohamed Tohami @ Midway Simplicity. You can read it here. In fact please do read it before going further.

My response was this ~ “Having your stuff organised can no doubt make your home appear decluttered, tidy and less oppressive. I know this because my home has always been that way. Nevertheless it has taken me over three years of slow and gradual decluttering to get it to a point where we don’t have a lot of unused and unloved stuff neatly organised into closets, drawers, cupboards, storage containers and pieces of furniture all over the house.

Being organised and tidy afforded me the lengthy time I used to declutter while still being comfortable in my home. So, organise by all means but at the same time question your need of stuff and especially any desire to acquire more of it.”

Other thoughts I had after reading the post were these –

• You do have to declutter to own fewer things but you can create the illusion of fewer things by being organised. However the more you own the more difficult it is to organise efficiently what you have.
• Getting organised doesn’t require any special talent. Anyone who keeps their cooking utensils in their kitchen, their toiletries in their bathroom, washing powder in their laundry and their clothes in their closets can manage to arrange anything to be in its most logical place within their homes. Not doing so creates more wasted effort than the effort they think they are saving by being untidy.
• Learning to discern what stuff is necessary and/or important in your life also teaches you to be more discerning about what you bring in. Wasting money on the unnecessary makes it necessary for you to work harder to earn the money to pay for it.

As you can see, by comparing the photo above with the one below, there is a big difference between neatly organising your excesses and decluttering them. But Tahomi is correct about the fact that grouping and organising your stuff, while coming to terms with the idea of decluttering it, sure does make your home look a whole lot more neat and tranquil.

My organised and decluttering craft room ~ Circa 2013

Today’s Mini Mission

Begin a use up challenge on, or simply throw or give away items cluttering up the space where you store your toiletries.

Eco Tip for the Day

Save electricity by not turning on electrical appliances, like irons, hair straighteners etc, too long before you use them and by not leaving them on while you decide to take a break during the task.

For a full list of my eco tips so far click here

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

Cindy

There is such potential for waste in the kitchen! I am certainly not perfect, but I really try to keep it to a minimum. Here are some of my tricks and tips:

Don’t buy in bulk except for items that you know, for sure, you and your family make good use of it. Toilet paper I buy in bulk. Paper towels (which, per Colleen’s suggestion below, I almost completely eliminated years ago), I buy one roll at a time, and I always buy the “select a size” towels, so I can pull of just a small amount.

Use substitutions in the kitchen. For reasons I won’t go into, I ended up with a cheap jar of “meat flavored” spaghetti sauce in my pantry. The likelihood of every serving this plain on pasta was almost nil. However, one day I was making my good spaghetti sauce recipe, which calls for lots of jars of tomatoes. I used the meat-flavored sauce as one of my jars, and it was perfect mixed with so many other ingredients.

Use a recipe website to find uses for lost and forgotten things in your pantry. I had hominy, used in Mexican cooking, in my pantry. I’m sure I was inspired when I purchased it last year. I went to my favorite recipe site, typed in hominy as my ingredient, and made a great soup with it. As a bonus, the recipe happened to use another orphan from my pantry – a double success!

I put badly damaged fruit or veggies in the back yard to feed the wild animals that visit. Trust me, they’re coming to my yard anyway – we call our back fence the animal highway; feeding them isn’t an invitation, but it does help me get rid of watermelon rinds and the three bites of apple that my daughter didn’t eat in her lunch.

Make stock. At all times in my freezer I have a gallon freezer bag in which I put onion peels, ends of carrots or other veggies, garlic peel and tiny cloves, apple and pear cores, and the skin and bones of a chicken. When my bag is full, I dump the frozen scraps into my biggest pot, add water, and let it simmer for an hour or two. When it’s finished, then the bones and trimmings go into the trash (not the compost pile because of the meat). I run the stock through a cheese cloth, cool it in the refrigerator so that I can skim the fat, and then it’s ready to freeze.

Don’t buy too many fresh fruits and veggies. Yes, we all want to eat more of these, but having a fresh, every-changing selection of produce is more appealing and less likely to go bad, than just buying produce once a week.

Snack foods. Yes, my house has snack foods it in, but I typically just buy one or maybe two of these treat foods a week. We don’t always have chips and other chips and three kinds of crackers and packaged cookies and chocolate-covered nuts. Just one or two is enough. Eat those and then get something different. That way, it’s truly a treat and not a pantry staple. Same with cereal. Unless you’re like my cousin who truly loves cereal and enjoys mixing several different kinds together on a daily basis, two or maybe three boxes is all you need.

Eat your leftovers! I once worked with a woman who cooked fresh every night and threw everything that was left at the end of the meal away. She and her husband refused to eat leftovers. I’m still shocked by this. When we are cleaning up after dinner, we immediately package up lunches for Dan or I to take to work. (Today – leftover grilled chicken, leftover salad, and a small handful of whole grain pretzel sticks that the kids turned their noses up at. [They are pretty twig-like.]) If needed, we have a leftover lunch on Sundays. I just pull everything out, and anybody can help themselves to anything.

What system do you have to reduce waste in your kitchen?

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter disposable items from your home and your shopping list. For example ~ Cling film, aluminium foil, paper napkins, paper towel, dryer sheets, wet wipes. Utilise other items in your home that can easily take their place. The environment and your bank account will be all the healthier for it. I haven’t eliminated all of these things from my home but I use so little of the ones I do still keep (paper towel and aluminium foil) that I buy them in small quantities and only replace them when they totally run out. And before anyone tells me that these things are cheaper in large quantities, think for a minute about how easy it is to be wasteful with stuff when there is plenty on hand.

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

CiI read this great little

I read this great little post the other day – 46 ways to increase your happiness. Of course, I wasn’t surprised at all to find that reducing clutter was on the list (number 31). I followed the link to the summary of a University of California Los Angeles study about “crushing”number of possessions in the households of 32 Los Angeles families. I highly recommend you read the whole article and examine the photos. I’m going to highlight some of the portions that struck me as particularly important.

First of all, only we know what goes on it our home; only we can tell (or hide) the truth about our clutter and excessive purchases. “Marketers and credit card companies record and analyze every nuance of consumer purchasing patterns, but once people shuttle shopping bags into their homes, the information flow grinds to a halt.”

“Managing the volume of possessions was such a crushing problem in many homes that it actually elevated levels of stress hormones for mothers.” Later in the article, it says that men do not  see or respond to mess like women do.

Today’s Mini Mission

Eco Tip For The Day

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

Deb J

I’ve been taking an inventory of what we own. I’ve never done this to the extent I am doing it right now. It’s for insurance purposes but also because I really want to know. What do we own? Do we need to own it?

I’m not listing every little thing. For instance, I listed things like 8 place settings of Corelle dishes rather than each individual one. I listed 8 place settings of Oneida stainless. I made sure to take pictures so that I could “show” what we own. I have a long way to go to finish the list as we still own lots of things.

When I started this list I took pictures first, pictures of the big pieces of furniture, shelving units, behind doors and inside drawers in cupboards, and in closets. Now I am in the listing portion. I’m excited to say that we have two empty cupboards—over the refrigerator and the stove. Then it gets complicated. We have all these other cupboards that are full. Not full to the brim but well populated.

As I was taking pictures I realized that we still had too much. That’s when I began decluttering more from the scrapbook supplies, the books, and the shed. But still we need to declutter more. Where do I see the issues? Books. Ribbon. Plastic food storage containers. Specialty dishes we haven’t used in the 20 years my father has been gone. Clothes in Mom’s closets. “Stuff” in the two bathroom closets. Stuff, stuff and more stuff.

I am glad to report that my mother is beginning to see that we have too much. It helps to have the pictures and all the pages and pages of inventory. I realized something. Anyone can see what needs to still be done in their home without going to the time and stress of making an inventory. You don’t even need to take pictures. Oh, I admit both help. But, the big thing is just looking. Really looking.

If you open a door and something at the back of the shelf has you wondering what it is, you probably don’t need it. If the only time you open a drawer is to see what is in it, you probably don’t need that stuff either. If you were to sit down and just list the hiding spots (drawers, cupboards, other storage) in a room and you don’t know what is in each one, you might need to declutter. Think about it a while. Go through your house and do a mental inventory by taking quick mental pictures. How many new things do you see that you can work on? Good luck!!

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

One thing is for sure, as my home has become more and more decluttered, taking care of it has become easier and easier. Having a place for everything and everything in its place is a cinch. Here are the basic rules I follow to keep my stuff, neat, convenient and under control.

Keep things in the most logical location for your needs.

Store items near to where they are going to be used so they are handy when you need them. Baking pans near the oven, cups and mugs near the kettle,printer paper near the printer, your keys by the door you usually enter and leave from, with your wallet or handbag close by etc.. And remember I did say your needs, you don’t have to follow convention, you do what works best for you.

Allocate the prime position in a location to those items that are used most frequently.

It is natural instinct to follow this strategy. If something is being used often you will want to get at it quickly and easily, so store it in the easiest to reach place. When I say this I of course mean ~ away neatly unless you are actually using it. For example ~ If your kitchen cupboards are deep put the most used stuff to the front of the shelf (on leave it on the bench).

Centralise the storage of items that are used in multiple locations.

To make it easy to know when you need to purchase certain supplies,that are used in more than one location in your home, store the bulk of them in one location and meter them out as needed. For example, keep the bulk of your toilet rolls in the most logical location while only have two or three rolls in each toilet area. Keep the bulk of spare toiletries in one bathroom and share them out as necessary. Keep the bulk of office supplies in the office while only having the minimum basic items in their most used areas in the house.

Don’t overbuy.

Following on from the previous suggestions, don’t over stock items. It is my experience that the more of something that there is in the home the less care and frugality is lavished upon them. For Example, if items like office supplies appear to be in reasonably low quantities (one stapler, one whole punch, a half dozen spare pens, two erasers… for example) they are more likely to be returned to their rightful place when finished being used. And they are more likely to be used less generously or cherished, for want of a better word, making them less likely to be wasted or swallowed up somewhere in the house, car, school bags, messy desk, breakfast bar etc. . I use this tactic when it comes to hair elastics. The less of them I own the more careful I am not to lose them.

Not to mention the fact that the less spares of things you have the smaller the storage space they will take up. Of course what is a reasonable supply of anything will vary from one family to another.

Declutter unnecessary items on a regular basis.

It is always easier to get at what you need, store everything neatly and keep things tidy, if you don’t have a home full of stuff that is nothing more than just in the way. This is especially so for those items that keep coming in, such as paperwork and anything child related. Weed out the out dated and out grown as the new stuff comes in, as well as doing a regular declutter in these areas.

Put things back when you are finished with them.

All the storage planning in the world is not going to help you if you don’t put things back where they belong when you are done using them. One only needs logic to plan storage but it takes effort to stay organised. Many people who think they have no organisational skills may simply be neglecting this important part of the cycle of organisation.

So if you wish to be organised start by making space to manoeuvre your stuff. Then, once there is room, rearrange your stuff to what is most convenient to you. Make a habit of returning items to their place once done with. Maintain or continue with your decluttering and tweak the arrangement as desired. Following this regime you will soon realise that you are an organiser after all, and that it doesn’t take some special talent.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter something that came free with something else but you have never used it. My son’s current motorbike came with a touring bag which he has never used nor expressed any desire to use. My daughters partner however has a need for one of these, so it seems logical and practical to pass it on to him since he will get good use out of it.

Eco Tip for the Day

Take care of the things you do own so that they may last and last and not have to be replaced prematurely.

For a full list of my eco tips so far click here

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

I mentioned yesterday that I have been doing some more decluttering in my garage. I had gathered, in one corner, a pile of stuff that belonged to my son. There was his battered old bicycle frame from his accident when he was nineteen, various bicycle parts, a pile of 24 used skateboard decks, a box with spray paint cans, a pile of used core-board for mounting photos from his university days, a sports bag (all shown in the photo below) along with a couple of small tables and a large sheet of chipboard ~ all out of shot.

Some of my son’s stuff in the corner of the garage.

He came over last week and together we went through the items and he decided what he wanted to keep and what I could donate or Freecycle.

Keep in mind that the skateboard decks (some visible in the photo, some in the black bag) are every one that he has used since he first began skating at about the age of thirteen. Being an artist he had aspirations of using them for an art project one day. Well one day has not yet come and he and his partner have been doing a little decluttering at their home lately so he decided to let them go. I put them up on Freecycle, six went to a man wanting them for an art project. Ten more are awaiting pickup by a woman who wants to use them to decorate her autistic son’s bedroom. While the last six have, appropriately, been claimed by a woman for her nineteen year old son to use for an art project while he recovers from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident. (Mothers of nineteen year old boys, let this be a warning for you.)

He has, for now, decided to keep the bent bike frame with ideas of either using it in an art project or displaying it as a reminder of his lucky escape from what could easily have been a debilitating brain injury. He kept the bicycle parts that belong to his replacement bike but allowed me to donate, to the local bicycle rescue project, the undamaged wheel, seat and handlebars from the damaged bike.

He is also going to take the two tables and sheet of chipboard to use as work surfaces for artistic purposes in the future. He also kept the sports bag and the spray paint cans, but the core-board will be offered to the thrift store for merchandising purposes.

Skateboard decks awaiting pick-up.

Sixteen of the skateboard decks are awaiting pick-up with plenty of other Freecyclers happy to claim them if this round of claimers don’t turn up. The bike parts have already been delivered to The Newcastle Bike Ecology Centre and all the things my son wanted to keep, bar the chipboard, has already been taken to his home. The core-board will be offered to the thrift shop this week (weather pending).

Both my children have been very good about being responsible for taking all their stuff once they settled into their own homes. I guess I made it clear that leaving it behind wasn’t an option. Which  proves that parents don’t have to hold on to their kids stuff forever. In fact I was talking to a friend of a friend last week who gave her son a ultimatum of pick up your stuff or I’m getting rid of it. She wasn’t popular at first but he got over it and she is no longer housing his clutter.

Today’s Mini Mission

Reassess and possibly declutter a little more stuff from a storage space in your home. I have been working on my garage again, which is my launching place for everything that leaves my home. This time around I have been focused on clearing it of items that belong to my son, who has left home. We achieved a lot in that area this week which I will tell you more about in a post tomorrow.

Eco Tip for the Day

Just like my decluttering approach you can gradually improve your carbon footprint by implementing a new environmentally friendly routine into your life on a regular basis. It doesn’t have to be a chore but a fun challenge to not only help the planet but quite often it turns out will also save you money.

For a full list of my eco tips so far click here

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

Cindy

This post first appeared in September 2012. Since I am in the thick of plowing through the Lost and Found and checking the cleanliness of all the uniforms from the uniform exchange closet, it seemed like a good time to reprint it.

At the end of every school year, I volunteer to take home all the lost and found from my daughters’ school. I look through it, sort it, wash it, fold it, and give it to charity. The amount of lost and found (or as the Head of School calls it, “Lost and Sometimes Found”) is absolutely amazing.  At the end of this school year, I had 20 expensive metal water bottles (one still had a clear $25 price tag on it), a dozen lunch bags in good condition, probably 50 items of clothing worthy of the thrift store, and 5 or 6 coats, including one very nice Columbia brand coat.

Such waste!

Colleen once wrote a post, which I cannot locate, about “What if I had just one?” Just one pencil, just one coat, just one pair of scissors, just one water bottle and one lunch sack?

Overbuying has to be part of the explanation for this phenomena. In my house, the girls have two water bottles each – one large and one small, and they each have one lunch bag. If the bag doesn’t come home, they take their lunch in a plastic sack, which in itself is a reminder to check the lost and found. But if you overbuy, then each item has less value and less chance of staying with its owner.

When my daughters first starting attending school where they had to provide their own supplies, I was absolutely horrified by the list: 2 boxes of 8 markers, 6 glue sticks, 4 packs of post-it notes, and my winner for most ridiculous: 48 pencils. 48 pencils times 15 girls equals 720 pencils per school year per classroom! How many third-world classrooms could be outfitted with 720 pencils? I thought it was because the girls went to private school, but my public school friends told me that their lists were similarly excessive.

Why would you value a single pencil when there are 719 more in your classroom?

It’s so easy to overbuy when things are “2 for 1″ or “Buy 1, get 1 at half price”? I know I used to do it too. But it’s just not necessary. It’s bad for the environment, bad for your check book, and devalues each and every item, making each one more likely to be lost, discarded, or shoved to the back of the cabinet.

Today’s Mini Mission

 Declutter something in an area that is overcrowded to the point of causing disfunction.

Eco Tip For The Day

As adults it is our job to teach our children to conserve power and water. If you raise your children with good habits now conservation will come naturally to them when they become the adults themselves.

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

In Cindy’s post yesterday she talked a little about staging a home for selling purposes. This got me thinking two things ~ 1.) Why wait until you are about to sell before making your home look good. 2.) A home can look good without being impersonal such as they suggest in this staging process.

How nice would it be were your home in a state where it looks good enough to show people through at the drop of a hat while still having those personal touches that make it feel like home? Keeping in mind that people viewing a home, with the intent to buy, will look in your storage areas to see how they are configured.

Why wait to make your home look good for complete strangers while you live day to day in the inferior version of what your home could be? Don’t you deserve that much from yourself?

I have viewed a lot of homes in the last year with the intension that if we found one that was just right we would consider taking the plunge into actually buying a home to live in. Some of these homes have had occupants  whether owners or renters, who clearly weren’t too house proud, and I can tell you that among these I have seen some pretty scary examples of how not to present a home to the public eye.* There have also been some examples of homes that don’t appear to have been professionally staged but are uncluttered with enough personal possessions on display to give the property a peaceful homely feel. And we have also viewed homes that have been newly renovated and not lived in but have clearly been professionally staged for the viewing public.

What I have notice about these three examples is that one has to look past the mess to see the potential in the unkempt homes, while with the professionally staged homes it is very easy to see any shoddy workmanship in such a sterile environment. The homely, uncluttered, lived in, homes give you such an feeling of warmth that it is easy to miss the little imperfections because you could so see yourself living there. Which says to me that a uncluttered home with a reasonable amount of personal items is the ideal atmosphere for any family.

Does this kind of home sound like something you can aspire to? If so why not make that your ultimate declutter goal.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter small hardware items that have accumulated. Excess screws, nails, drywall plugs, used sandpaper, multiple allen keys, washers… .

Eco Tip for the Day

Get familiar with your local bus timetable because it is cheaper and better for the environment to take a bus rather than a taxi when necessary.

For a full list of my eco tips so far click here

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