2014 - destash thread The Year of the Great Purge

[pjlla]

Although it didn't take up a lot of space my address book is gone. I typed it up, saved it in 2 places and then pulled out each page and shredded it.
Am I the only one whom still had a paper address book? DH had said more than once I should get rid of it.
So, its gone...

Still got mine.... and it is old and still has my grandparent's address in it, despite the fact that they have been gone for 18+ and 14+ years and their house hasn't been "theirs" in nearly 16 years.... DH created an Excel spreadsheet for the family a few years ago with everyone's address, home numbers, cell numbers, etc. It was a great idea, but I still pull out my address book occasionally.

I am tired of living in a clutter house. I declutter but my DF brings in stuff faster than I can get rid of it. How is everyone getting their family onboard?

Sometimes you just need to lead by example. Declutter what you can and where you can and hopefully the example of a CLEANER, LIGHTER, BRIGHTER space will translate!

*******************

Anyone have declutter plans for the weekend??........................P

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

Took a load to the dump today.

2 bunk bed frames
2 AC units
3 -55 gallon trash bags of various things
a tank of old kerosene
5 or 6 containers of used motor oil
a broken chair
2 old sewing table tops
mouse eaten moving blanket

I now have room in the building to put the snow blower.

 

[dpswift]

Took a load to the dump today.

2 bunk bed frames
2 AC units
3 -55 gallon trash bags of various things
a tank of old kerosene
5 or 6 containers of used motor oil
a broken chair
2 old sewing table tops
mouse eaten moving blanket

I now have room in the building to put the snow blower.

Good work. I am trying to get motivated but as minnie mickey said it is hard if you do not have your family onboard. I have gotten a few grocery bags of garbage pulled out and in the main garbage.

DD has to cancel the consignment shop appt because we made it so long ago she forgot about her college classes and I have to work. I am going to have her sister list some items on Craigs list or Facebook.

My kids are excited that they go to Disney in 18 days. I am taking 4 days off then and DH will be away for 2 of them so I hope to get a lot accomplished.

I have tomorrow off as well so I am trying to get motivated.

 

[Minnie-Mickey]

I have boxes and boxes of photos. What do people do with them. Shredded 20 so it is a start but I. Still have thousands I never put in books or anything. I stopped the year my family member was Recovering from cva then darling hubby and on and on til I am overwhelmed.

 

[4 Ears]

Wow Bernard, good job!

Pictures- when we moved I put them all on a flash drive/memory stick and tossed the pictures. Saved SO much room! I did it by son 1, son 2, if they were together, family, friends, pre wedding, wedding and there after...

Good luck!

 

[Minnie-Mickey]

Don't laugh, how do you take a print photo and put it on a flash drive? Boxes and boxes of prints of all sizes. I would love to throw some out. I just threw out about 200 tonight that were out of focus or just meh. I just bought a flash drive.16gb. DS said my computer is not long for this world. It is too old to go to the cloud (he said the os is too old) only way is to download the pictures one at a time.http://www.wdwinfo.com/images/smilies/headache.gif

 

[4 Ears]

Minnie, not laughing from me.

I (OK) DS scanned them and saved them to it.

Plug the flash drive into the computer (usb port), scan, computer, save to removal device. Maybe I did leave that part out that you would need a scanner. You can purchase them fairly inexpensively.

This should be fairly simple for your son

Feel free to PM me if you need real step by steps.

Yes, I threw TONS of them away as well. Duplicates, out of focus, back of heads....

Good luck! You can do it! Might be good Mom and son time

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

I follow the ABC's of photo sorting and purging


A Photos: Your most important and cherished photos; to be displayed in an album, frame, and/or shared online with others;
B Photos: Important enough to keep, but not worthy of displaying necessarily; to be stored in archival quality boxes;
C Photos: Not worthy of keeping; to be thrown away (blurry, unflattering) or given to others (duplicates).

Here is site to another ABCs tip

http://yourmemoriesathand.com/abcs-print-photo-organization/

 

[StephMK]

I follow the ABC's of photo sorting and purging


A Photos: Your most important and cherished photos; to be displayed in an album, frame, and/or shared online with others;
B Photos: Important enough to keep, but not worthy of displaying necessarily; to be stored in archival quality boxes;
C Photos: Not worthy of keeping; to be thrown away (blurry, unflattering) or given to others (duplicates).

Here is site to another ABCs tip

http://yourmemoriesathand.com/abcs-print-photo-organization/

Great idea, thanks! I struggle with pics too and have totes full. I'm sorting them by kid & will eventually get them into books. The ones not in books will be tossed.

When my gma died years ago, my mom threw away tons of old family pics that no one really knew who anyone was. I wish she'd kept some because I think they would have been neat to see.

I am trying to get back into de-cluttering now that the school routine is underway again. DD20 moved back to school and left some odds and ends all over her floor. I threw out a bag of trash she just had sitting in her room , recycled a bag of bags & paper, and have another bag of old clothes she had gathered to donate. I swear next year I am charging her a security deposit fee if she leaves a mess!

Then I threw out a bunch of almost used up products and old makeup from the kids' bathroom. A pair of my old shoes is getting tossed and I went through my old school bag and recycled a bunch of those old papers too. Today I also filed a bunch of papers that I had sorted awhile ago.

I hate how I can declutter an area and then it gets all wrecked and out of shape again. *sigh* We are getting better but it's still a battle that I get tired of fighting! Here's hoping to get & keep it under control so we're ready for the holidays and all that busyness.

 

[Ephany]

Last weekend we did good, but this weekend not so much. To be fair, it's dark and rainy and no one seems to have much energy. Last weekend we collected 2 large black trashbags full of clothes and 2-3 boxes of frames and other misc. stuff. One bag and the boxes went to goodwill, the other bag went to a friend. I'm kinda peeved about the friend because we arranged to meet at her house at a specific time and when I got there she wouldn't answer the door. She was definitely home and didn't even text a thank you afterwards. Told DH if she's going to be like that I'm sure the local battered woman's shelter would be glad to take DD's outgrown clothes from now on.

We also cleaned out the pantry and both downstairs closets. One just needed organizing, while the other was a hot mess. We moved further south last year and I highly doubt we'll need heavy winter coats from now on. We managed to get rid of most of the extra jackets, tossed all of the shoes that don't fit and bought a small organizer for the bottom of the closet. It's really a shoe organizer. I'm hoping I can store shoes underneath and use the top to store our beach bags and grocery bags as that closet is right next to the front door.

DH also bought some extra shelves for DD's room. Now we just have to convince her to keep her stuff picked up so he can install them. I swear, the stuff on her floor multiplies overnight when no one is looking. Oh, and speaking of address books I finally went digital today. I went kicking and screaming but DH and I found a way to link our calenders through our phones. It'll be easier to see everything, especially with him traveling. I loved my little pocket calender though; I'll miss it.

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

Oh I totally forgot, went through DD's closet as we put away laundry and got rid of a big bag of clothes that were to small. Granted all the long sleeves will need to be replaced when it gets colder, but it's way more organized.

DH also went through and got rid of undershirts that were dingy and to big.

 

[Minnie-Mickey]

Thanks for the suggestions. I will try out your ideas and report back.
Decluttered 2 bags this weekend..mainly papers.
Cleared off 5 bookcase shelfs. Goal is Christmastime to have photos without junk in the background. I know it is possible. When sorting photos of when kiddos were small, we seemed to have so much less stuff OR I was better at hiding it.http://www.disboards.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

 

[4 Ears]

Minnie, looking forward to hearing.

Was talking about Halloween with my DIL. I have 4 costumes I made for DH and myself, offered them to her (Mr and Mrs Flintstone and Mr and Mrs Potato Head) and she is taking them

Hmm, what else can I pawn off onto her...

 

[AmyAnne]

Photos really are hard to declutter. I am trying to make one album for each kid, getting less and less picky about who gets what photos as I go along. I expect that I will keep most of the leftovers, though, in a photo-safe box. Who knows what the next generations will find interesting? I am thinking of, for example, my children's grandchildren -- they might like to see their grandparents' baby pictures but they might also just like to see what appliances we had in the background in our kitchen. I can't see digital photos working the same way. As long as the spare photos are pared down (we don't need 10 or even 5 of the same birthday cake) and stored neatly in a photo box, I am going to consider that job done.

 

[4 Ears]

For the last 3 years we have been paying our oldest DS internet as we moved out of that house and didn't want to change email addresses.
Well for what ever reason he wanted to change providers... so we no longer have that bill.

Also, we had been paying food/vet bills for a cat he had. Yup, long story. Well, he finally found a new home for her. So, we don't have those expenses any longer either.

I would say without those it will save us just under $100 a month.

I think those are GREAT destashes!!

What were you able to destash over the weekend?

 

[4 Ears]

Just closed a checking account from out of state.

We moved 3 years ago and I finally did it. Think it was bit of a safety net in case things didn't work out here.

I am considering it destashing as one less thing to think about, wont be getting (e)mail's concerning it anymore.

 

[thebeesknees]

Went through 3 of the closets over the weekend and got them destashed/organized. Found a few more miscellaneous baby gear items and took them down to my SIL to use with her new grandbaby (my baby is 6 now - no need for diaper changing pads!). I got my bedroom fairly organized, just have 2 totes of the kids' off-season clothes to get put down to the crawl space next time I'm down there. My grandmother is coming to visit in a couple weeks and I'm trying to get my room/bathroom/closet area finished up so she has a quiet place to stay, as it gets kind of loud and crazy around here when all 3 kids are home.

DH has a final interview with a place in CA in a couple weeks, so I'm starting to think more seriously about a possible move. He's trying not to get his hopes up too much, but I don't want to leave too much until the last minute in case we end up putting the house on the market, so this week I went and got some shelving units and put them out in the garage. Now all our gear out there is sorted and it looks so much better.

 

[sarahk0204]

DS, DD, and DH finished cleaning out DS's room. We removed the top bunk from his bunk bed and pitched the mattress (I think it was from my bed originally, and likely over 30 years old )

Today I took 4 boxes of toys from his room to the thrift store.

 

[4 Ears]

Found out today that a church group is having a Tag Sale in our Rec Hall here in the park we live in 2 weekends. Yahoo!

I have a grocery bag full of breakables that are wrapped up for protection until the sale.

Cleaned out the desk area. I don't know if anyone will want them but I have a whole baggie full of elastics, paper clips, paper holder (stand of sorts)... If no one buys it I am sure the church can use them. I had elastics galore from Tie-dying one time...

On to the craft bin and then the storage closet.

I don't want to sell the stuff and hate to throw it away, but if it will be going to a church, yea I can do that.

You got anything going out the door today?

 

[4 Ears]

Ended up with a trash bag full of stuff. Didn't think I had any thing close to that amount.

Also found a few items to send to the grandson. Win win!