2013 Destash- this is the year!

[donac]

On my list for today, I went through the guest bathroom cupboard, cleaned out 18 towels, which was the tip of the iceberg. Really, why did I have so many anyways? Going to look for a place to donate, maybe pet shelter?
I also cleared 31 stuffed animals out of kids rooms while DS was at friend's house & didn't see what was going. Hoping to keep going tomorrow- grandma & grandpa are visiting, so maybe they will watch kids while I have the urge to purge!!

I can beat you about the towels. When ds1 was a senior in college he lived off campus. His place had a washer and dryer but they broke. So instead of going to a laundry mat or coming home (only 1 hour away) to do laundry whenever he needed something clean he bought something off the sale rack at the place he worked (jcpennys). When he come home he had towels in every color. Now my ds2 has moved into his own apartment and took some and when ds1 moves into his own apartment he will take same.

 

[foreUT]

Love reading everyone's de-stash posts. Have done a little stuff since Christmas, but not enough. Got rid of several things in storage, but need to do much more. Please keep those good tips coming!

 

[breammom]

Haven't done much lately, going to work on the kitchen today.

 

[mrsklamc]

Sherry7- if you are putting in new floors does that mean you don't have to move? Or is it in preparation to sell?

Been busy w/ illness and family emergencies and haven't gotten much done, but took 3 boxes and a large bag to Goodwill this morning. Doing more cleaning and purging while 'watching' movies that we know so well we don't have to pay attention.

 

[Robbi]

I can beat you about the towels. When ds1 was a senior in college he lived off campus. His place had a washer and dryer but they broke. So instead of going to a laundry mat or coming home (only 1 hour away) to do laundry whenever he needed something clean he bought something off the sale rack at the place he worked (jcpennys). When he come home he had towels in every color. Now my ds2 has moved into his own apartment and took some and when ds1 moves into his own apartment he will take same.

This kind of applies to de cluttering and is a long the the same line as donac's post. The daughter's of some of my friends were in college and their w/d broke. They were not as wise as your son, they threw away their dirty panties and bought new ones! The girls could not even imagine hand washing their undies.

 

[sherry7]

Sherry7- if you are putting in new floors does that mean you don't have to move? Or is it in preparation to sell?

Been busy w/ illness and family emergencies and haven't gotten much done, but took 3 boxes and a large bag to Goodwill this morning. Doing more cleaning and purging while 'watching' movies that we know so well we don't have to pay attention.

The job transfer hasn't happened yet, but I am planning on "trying" the commute before we make the big decision to move. In the meantime, I enrolled my daughter in a different (local) daycare that has somewhat longer hours, so the hours will work with the longer commute.

We decided to go ahead and get the floors done for a couple of reasons. Number one, we had already signed the contract and paid 50% down to the flooring place. Number two, the old carpet was positively dreadful, and would have been a big turnoff to prospective buyers.

Only the downstairs is done so far (upstairs is in 2 weeks, to give me time to get stuff packed/unpacked). It looks lovely. I'll have to post some pics once I get all od the boxes unpacked and the rooms put back together.

 

[mrsbornkuntry]

I've been slacking off this week and haven't done that much and instead have just been catching up on some cleaning. Today I worked on my 8 and 11 year olds room. They still had toy wrappers on their floors and under their beds from Christmas. I didn't find any toys to get rid of, but their room doesn't get that cluttered because I stopped buying toys that they don't play with for the most part, just Legos. Everything else is outside toys for my 8yo and video games for my 11yo. They get a few smaller things in their stocking, but that's usually it.

I also cleaned out their craft area in their room, we have one of those shelves with the different sized bins on them for their supplies and it was overrun with things that were used up or they had outgrown. I recycled a stack of coloring and educational workbooks and threw out some other odds and ends.

When I cleaned their closet I did a quick run through and pulled out some shorts, t-shirts and pajamas that didn't fit. The ones I won't throw out will go to my neighbor who has boys younger than mine. My 8 and 11yo are about the same size.

It looks nice in there now.

 

[mykidslovesdisney]

New to the thread. I've been cleaning house the last few months. I'm home alone for the first time in 14 yrs since by baby started kindergarten.

I have managed to clean out the cedar closet- small walk in that held bedding, linens and stuff. Gave a bunch of it to my dn that moved into her own apt. Gave away the rest. I was able to remove a small shelf unit too !! It is so nice to walk in there and b able to see everything. Someday the rest of the house will look like that.

I cleaned put the master walk in. Out went 5 huge bags of clothing. Stuff I haven't worn in 12+ yrs. stuff that didn't fit. A bunch of DH shirts and thermals that had built in air conditioning. Plus a huge bag of hangers went out too.

I tackled the basement. Out went fabric and craft supplies that have been sitting for 12 years. Christmas stuff was cleaned out when it got packed up. In all we made 5 trips to good will to donate everything. I still have more work down there but with the extreme cold weather it's just too cold to be down there for long. I found a box of duplicate checks and bank statements dating back to 92-06. They were all shredded yesterday. Filled a leaf bag full of shredded paper . Going in the recycle bin on Tuesday.

I do a twice yearly consignment sale for outgrown children clothing and toys. Last year I made $600 on the October sale.. That was a 60% cut of total sales. I have quite a bit for the may sale. Hoping to do as well.

Slowly but surely I will get this house decluttered. Reading there is inspiration as is watching the hoarders tv shows.

 

[C_leen]

Spent one wash cycle straightening up the basement today. Also wiped out and cleaned our large kitchen drawer. Put in new shelf paper too.

 

[TI double-GUH ER]

I haven't done much this month, I hate to admit.

We did get rid of some broken xmas things, and burned out lights before we put things away, but that wasn;t much.

I have continued working through my closet. I am trying to get all of my clothes to fit in that one closet - so I started going through the stuff that got pushed into the spare room closet. I got rid of 3 pairs of pants, 2 shirts, and a purse I think I used once.

I want to try to go through more clothes this week, and get rid of a dozen more pieces. Right now I have twice that amount in the spare room - but it would be a huge step forward.

 

[susanv]

Haven't gotten much done at all. I seem to spend all my time cleaning up messes that get made while I am cleaning up messes! Have managed to get one bag of garbage gone, and a bag full of clothes to donate. Got the girls Princess toddler bed and mattress out of the house and in the dump pile without too much fanfare. Course it was completely broken from all four using it like a trampoline, so they probably didn't mind so much. One more bag of clothes ready to either try and sell or donate. Mens size 3XT - not sure if it is worth the hassle of keeping it stored in the house until it sells, or just getting rid of it!

Running total:
Bags donated -2
Bags of garbage - 1
recycled - 0
$ made - 0

 

[MAJPLO]

Haven't gotten much done at all. I seem to spend all my time cleaning up messes that get made while I am cleaning up messes! Have managed to get one bag of garbage gone, and a bag full of clothes to donate. Got the girls Princess toddler bed and mattress out of the house and in the dump pile without too much fanfare. Course it was completely broken from all four using it like a trampoline, so they probably didn't mind so much. One more bag of clothes ready to either try and sell or donate. Mens size 3XT - not sure if it is worth the hassle of keeping it stored in the house until it sells, or just getting rid of it!

Running total:
Bags donated -2
Bags of garbage - 1
recycled - 0
$ made - 0

Yes!!! Cleaning up the day to day stuff and folding laundry constantly eats up my time and motivation for decluttering!

 

[dreamin_disney]

After reading this thread earlier I ended up going through one of my paper binay stubs, medical papers, dental, dd's school papers test scores, misc and bills.
I ended up getting rid of a grocery size bag of the envelopes all the papers came in. I have a lot to shred and will hopefully work on that tomorrow.

I want to file my stuff and put together a folder of all my medical paperwork and procedures I've had done the last 2 months. Keep a log of my annual physicals, mammograms,etc.

I have a small file cabinet that is full of stuff from the last 10 years medical paper, dd's glasses recipts, bank statments and pay stubs(i've been at my job for 18 years and I kept about the last 14 years. I really want to shred the old pay stubs but not sure if I should just keep the last years , last 5 years etc. any suggestions?

I'm so tired of having to shred papers-lol! Hopefully this year will be the last since my goal is to pay off my debt this year.

 

[LiamandMaeve]

I'm joining in! We've had our house on the market since last March and now we're finally under contract with a buyer! I have massive amounts of stuff to purge before our move. Since the weekend began I have been working furiously. 14 years of stuff to go through! My husband and I both work F/T and we have 2 children 7 &9. I'm going to have to find some creative ways to make time to do this! The kids are busy with activities throughout the week and weekends too. I'm in serious power mode today as I'm determined to get through a few more rooms!

Totals:
7 bags clothing donated
2 bags trash
2 bags to mom's for her to keep until her spring yard sale
1 bag eBay items- already sold 3!!
4 bags paper shredded

 

[mrsbornkuntry]

On my list for today, I went through the guest bathroom cupboard, cleaned out 18 towels, which was the tip of the iceberg. Really, why did I have so many anyways? Going to look for a place to donate, maybe pet shelter?
I also cleared 31 stuffed animals out of kids rooms while DS was at friend's house & didn't see what was going. Hoping to keep going tomorrow- grandma & grandpa are visiting, so maybe they will watch kids while I have the urge to purge!!

My DS wouldn't part with any of his stuffed animals so I dumped out the smooshed styrofoam stuff in his beanbag chair and put his animals and an indoor sleeping bag in it. He was pretty happy with that. We saved out a couple favorites for him to sleep with still.

 

[carebee21]

DH spent a good portion of his day off on Thursday working on the garage. He got about three large trash bags of junk and garbage thrown away.

I've been working on smaller projects every night. I finished going through all of the drawers and cabinets in our bathroom and went through mine and DS's bookshelf and put together a donation bag full of books.

Today both DH and I have been working on decluttering. DH has been focusing on the garage. I haven't gone out there yet to see what kind of progress he has made. And I've focused on more things in the house. I spent a decent amount of time in DS's closet and got rid of a large garbage bag of more old shoes I found, random little junk toys, a few more stuffed animals and other little odds and ends. Then I went through the drawers and cupboards in the kitchen and looked to see if there was anything else I could toss and got rid of a small bit.

I really need to go through all of our DVDs so that may be what we do tonight and DSs room still needs so much work. It feels like the bottomless pit of toys, but we are definitely making progress and you can really see a difference in how much space the house and closets now have.

Happy De-Cluttering Everyone!!!

 

[mrsbornkuntry]

I worked on my older two boys' room today, I'm really happy with it now! I got a box of outgrown/unwanted toys and electronics out of there that I'm going to go through later to decide what to try to sell and what to donate. I also got some other toys out of there, but they went to the youngest two boys' room so not out of the house, but they did have room for most of them, their room is bigger than the older boys'.

 

[carebee21]

Yesterday ended up being a great de-cluttering day for us. We ended up getting a lot done.

As I mentioned earlier, I spent a lot of time in DSs room. I got a bag of trash out of the closet and I put together a box of old toys that is either going to the garage sale or being donated. And then I went through my master bedroom closet again, and pulled out another bag of clothes to be donated. I have so many clothes, so every time I pull some out, I started hanging up ones that are sitting on the shelf in the closet, sitting on top of my dresser, thrown in a tote in the corner of my room, or piled on the chest. My chest is finally cleared off, the dresser is cleared off and the tote and shelf are both about halfway cleared off. So I still have a bit more work, but a lot is getting done.

DH spent his day in the garage again. He didn't get out as much trash this time, but he did manage to get things organized and consolidate things. He has a sports card and comic shop, so when he doesn't have room at his store, things make their way into the garage. So he's slowly going to start taking it all back there.

We finished up our night by going through our DVDs. We haven't ever done that so we had DVDs that we bought and only watched one time and would never watch again, movies that just don't interest us anymore and tons of toddler dvds that my son will never watch again. Those all went in a box and if DH has a yard sale, we'll throw them out then, if not, they'll be donated.

And then, I had two people from Craigslist show up and buy things, which helped to clear out more space. And two new items were listed in there place.

My goal this week is to get through the medicine cupboard and cabinets, and then Sunday, I have a couple of boxes of old paperwork DH found in the garage to shred while we're watching the Superbowl.

Goals Accomplished So Far in 2013:
Decluttering All of the Christmas Decorations: Got everything down to 1 large tote
DH and My Closet and Dressers: 5 bag of trash; 9 large bags of clothing donated
DH and My Bathroom: One bag of garbage donated
Coat Closet: Got rid of old jackets and consolidated hats/gloves/scarves
Kitchen: Organized container cupboard: 1 bag of garbage removed
Organized Cup Cupboard: 1 bag of garbage removed
Linen Closets: 2 large bags of linens donated
1 bag of garbage gone
DS's Room: Two large bags of stuffed animals gone
Board Games Missing Pieces Gone/All other board games sorted
Two large bag of junk toys gone
One large bag of toys donated
One large box for Garage Sale
DS's Bathroom Drawers and Cabinet: 1 bag of garbage removed
Backyard: 1 bag of old garden decorations thrown away
Garage: 4 large bags of garbage gone

 

[ah1126]

After reading this thread earlier I ended up going through one of my paper binay stubs, medical papers, dental, dd's school papers test scores, misc and bills.
I ended up getting rid of a grocery size bag of the envelopes all the papers came in. I have a lot to shred and will hopefully work on that tomorrow.

I want to file my stuff and put together a folder of all my medical paperwork and procedures I've had done the last 2 months. Keep a log of my annual physicals, mammograms,etc.

I have a small file cabinet that is full of stuff from the last 10 years medical paper, dd's glasses recipts, bank statments and pay stubs(i've been at my job for 18 years and I kept about the last 14 years. I really want to shred the old pay stubs but not sure if I should just keep the last years , last 5 years etc. any suggestions?

I'm so tired of having to shred papers-lol! Hopefully this year will be the last since my goal is to pay off my debt this year.

I try and put the years pay stubs in the envelope with all our tax info. I never know when to throw stuff out either.

 

[C_leen]

This weekend I was a little overwhelmed by all the laundry that had to be done in my house! Yikes! But yesterday I did consolidate all the recent Goodwill bags and put them all into one place for a donation trip. I also went through my pajama drawer yesterday. Totally emptied it out, wiped it out, replaced the drawer liner, and then sorted everything out. Putting away laundry should now get easier...