I'm not sure I should have read the last half dozen pages to catch up. Now I feel like a lazy slouch.
OK so summer is his end date. Make a deal, it's not gone by July 31, you get the right to take it to Goodwill. At least you know in 6 months it will be gone forever. Does he have another space to store them besides the basement?
He says he will store them in the shed, but actually I would rather he put them in the basement. He spent days cleaning out the shed in the summer so it would finally fit the kids' bikes, skateboards, scooters, tobagoons, newspaper cart, etc - like it should! I do not want him to start cluttering that up again over winter.
But if he does not melt them down by summer's end, I think they will just disappear over winter.
Heaven knows enough items have disappeared in this house.
Involve your kids in the process. That way they learn to deal with the 'stuff' in a healthy way and won't end up where we are! Plus, it can be really devastating if something happens to be 'treasured' and you didn't know it.
I'm saving my kids' rooms until last. One, I'm afraid of going in there
and two, hopefully by that point they understand the purpose of destashing and actually work with me instead of trying to hide everything.
Goals Accomplished So Far in 2013:
Decluttering All of the Christmas Decorations
My Closet: 1 bag of trash; 2 large bags of clothing removed so far
Love your accomplished list. Great way to keep motivated by seeing a reminder how much you have done. I just might copy it if you don't mind?
I have never sold on Craigslist how does it work? Photos? Do you meet in a public place? Thanks for the info!!
I just wanted to add that I have sold & bought on Craigslist & Kijijii (plus donated on freecycle) for years now. I have never felt threatened or unsafe. It's a great way of making some money and getting rid of items. I mostly have buyers come to my house. Sometimes my husband will drop off (or purchase) stuff at someone else's house on his way back from work. Freecyclers come here as well and I just leave the items on the porch for the most part.
Every year, I make the same excuse: I'll put it in a yard sale.
We are having our entire house flooring redone with hardwood,
I'm not a big fan of yard sales. At least from the selling point of view! I finally caved into the kids' demands and had a yard sale one year when my street did. Never again! I found I made at least double by selling everything online. At yard sales people expected to get everything really very very cheap. Of course, I have to admit I go to yard sales with an eye cast the same way, but I do not haggle like buyers did at mine.
On the other hand, I'm guilty of hanging onto certain things for a particular season before selling. Ie, clothing. Sell summer clothes in mid-spring, winter in mid-fall or early winter. Outdoor toys in late spring, etc. Drives my husband nuts but I'll get more money that way then selling them out-of-season.
BTW, that would be so nice having hardwood everywhere! Once it is complete and everything back in order, I'll bet it will look amazing and worth the chaos.
Can someone give a brief summary of what day one was? I hate watching videos online- so much prefer to read!
Me too! When I click on a newslink, I will usually quit it if it turns out to be a video. It's quicker for me to read the story than wait for a newscaster to tell it.
Anyone have any ideas on what to do with old books? (Library won't take them) Can I put them in a Goodwill box?
What about freecycle? Our Goodwill will not take a lot of stuff, so I joined a bunch of local freecycle groups. I love posting everything that is junk to me, but someone else is thrilled to find and pick up! Saves so much stuff from being added to the dump.
For some odd reason, I thought it would be cool to have a personal library. Many many moves taught me that my back disagrees! I still have about 200 more to go through and I am setting a goal of only keeping 75--the rest go on my Kindle!
But it is cool!!!
At least until moving time and a couple of unexpected floods...
Ohh the books I use to have. Problem is (well, not really a problem for me) but I love to re-read my favorite stories and once they go out of print and even libaries no longer have them...
And then a year ago my mom gave me a Kobo for my birthday. I was skeptical but discovered I loved the weight advantage! Or should I say no weight advantage. I can now walk & read without having my wrist hurting a bit and no more eye-strain or holding the book close-up as I can increase the font! Course, this only works in the warmer months. During winter I'm back to carrying paperbacks.
And of course storage is no longer a problem. I can download & save thousands of books. The only downside is I need backup drives for my backup drives. I dread if I ever lose my audio/video/ebook collection however. And if the electronic world as we know it ended tomorrow, I would not have my beloved favorite books anymore.
Ok, sorry... enough about books. I could go on for pages. I do intend to weed my collection out, but ONLY as I find electronic copies to replace them. And I have a couple hundred that I do not think I can ever give up their paper form entirely. Gotta have at least one obessive collection, right?
My main goal for today is to pack up all of the Christmas stuff so DH can put it in the attic tomorrow. I've been trying to collect the odds and ends into piles so I don't forget anything.
Tonight my goal is to go through a pile of papers that I have not addressed over the holidays. I should be able to throw out most of it but I need to sort through it. *sigh* I hate dealing with papers!
Christmas stuff! And here I thought I could not destash anything else until the kids went back to school. Ok, that's my goal this afternoon and tomorrow. We need to take down the Christmas decorations and tree. I will go through all the decorations and clear stuff out that we have no intention of using, instead of shoving them into containers until next December.
And papers piles. Sigh... I guess I'm a procrastinator at heart. I could have been working on this bunch by the computer desk that I KNOW I need to go through. Thanks Steph.
I told him I'd go donate them tomorrow if he can get it done. He doesn't really have much stuff other than his clothes and tons of CDs. All the CDs are in a big cabinet so I leave those alone.
