2015 destash - Purge Purge Purge, Purge is the word

[verleniahall]

I am in!

We moved almost 4 years ago (!!!!!) from a 2 story town hose on a military post to a small two bedroom home from the 1920's (so the rooms are SUPER SMALL) and we are trying to downsize the stuff we have that we haven't even unpacked yet.

I think its time for a HUGE purge of the house - minus my scrapbooking area.

 

[michelleh1]

Thanks so much for the cabinet organizing recommendations! I'm going to see if I can find a lazy susan and go from there.

I went through my coat/game closet today. I really didn't throw anything out, but I did re-locate some of our old games and put in our new ones. Plus, I organized the closet. It didn't take too long, but I needed to feel like I did something today.

 

[michelleh1]

I think its time for a HUGE purge of the house - minus my scrapbooking area.

LOL, I think that way too. I went through all of my scrapbook stuff last year and got it organized. I do need to work on my craft closet eventually, lots of stuff in there that can go, but I don't think I'll toss any of my paper supplies.

 

[Dashzap]

I'll join in. I've been purging like crazy for four years.

Due to a car accident and divorce, we went from 4100 sq ft to 1500 sq ft, so that required a huge reduction of things.

This year I edited our Christmas decorations. I have two boxes now with all the decorations, and three empty plastic tubs.

I always have 10 things listed for sale on craigslist and bookoo.com. I've had a lot of luck selling. For less expensive items I give buyers my address and tell them to pick up the item at their leisure from a box bench on my front steps. I've never had anyone rip me off...they've all left their $ in the bench when they took the item. When something sells I find something else to list to take its place.

We don't buy a lot, so the clutter is us still struggling to adapt to our new circumstances: less space, less money, disabled son not able to use his toys/sports equip anymore, ex-husband's household choices not mine, etc.

I'd like to declutter my brain this year. And I definitely only want to do the things I have to do and the things I want to do, but nothing that is neither.

 

[powellrj]

I am joining your group! I am so overwhelmed with everything I am not even sure where to start!

We are moving my parents out of state to be closer to my brother so not only do I need to declutter my house, I have everything they aren't taking with them to find a home for.

I have my oldest DSs things from the army and middle DSs things from college, plus youngest DD is in college now and still has lots of lots of things still here, plus she wants to bring home things she isn't using, but wants to save for her townhouse next year. This is all in an older 1200 sq foot house!!!!

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

I am joining your group! I am so overwhelmed with everything I am not even sure where to start! We are moving my parents out of state to be closer to my brother so not only do I need to declutter my house, I have everything they aren't taking with them to find a home for. I have my oldest DSs things from the army and middle DSs things from college, plus youngest DD is in college now and still has lots of lots of things still here, plus she wants to bring home things she isn't using, but wants to save for her townhouse next year. This is all in an older 1200 sq foot house!!!!

First things first.
Do your DS's have homes of their own? If so, their stuff needs to go to them.
Then I would tackle your parents stuff. You do not need to bring extra stuff to your house.
Then you can start working on your things.

 

[Dawnlight]

Joining in, too!

I've been selling my kids' outgrown clothing and unused books and toys on ebay. I'm also donating items that we no longer need. With 8 people in the family, things add up quickly, and I'm in desperate need to pare down our belongings.

 

[verleniahall]

OK - I will admit that I am one that stil has a ton of stuff at her parents.

SORRY MOM AND DAD!!!


OK. Got that off my chest!

Today when I get off work (in about 30 minutes) I will head home and start inventorying our pantries (we have 2 cupboards and a free standing space) and get everything noted and leave a list taped inside.

Then I will start in the master bedroom - if you don't hear from me in a couple days, send the search parties!

 

[Deffenm]

Kids are home today due to extreme cold so I told me DH to make sure they clean their rooms and anything they no longer want put into a pile so I can go through and determine if needs to be trashed or can be placed in Garage Sale. So hopefully they actually did it. If not when I get home I will be working with them to get it done.

Once the weather warms up I want to tackle the garage. At this point it won't be until May!

 

[hulagirl87]

I'm in! The other night I went through my side table next to the couch that I just throw papers and other miscellaneous stuff in. I threw out a whole bag of trash and shredded a bunch of stuff. It felt good!

I feel motivated to do a lot, but with 2 small kids, I find it hard to find the time to devote to tasks that take a few hours. I don't want to get into something and not be able to finish it. And it's hard at the end of the day after I put them to bed to want to get involved in a big task too. Tips or suggestions are welcome!

My next goals are the kitchen cupboards, the closet in the bathroom, and the laundry room. That ones a biggie!

 

[dpswift]

I'm in! The other night I went through my side table next to the couch that I just throw papers and other miscellaneous stuff in. I threw out a whole bag of trash and shredded a bunch of stuff. It felt good!

I feel motivated to do a lot, but with 2 small kids, I find it hard to find the time to devote to tasks that take a few hours. I don't want to get into something and not be able to finish it. And it's hard at the end of the day after I put them to bed to want to get involved in a big task too. Tips or suggestions are welcome!

My next goals are the kitchen cupboards, the closet in the bathroom, and the laundry room. That ones a biggie!

Little bits can add up. Do one shelf in your closet and move on to the next if you have more time. Also you can do a one foot section at a time.

With small kids try to make an effort to keep up with what you have done. It helps keep the momentum up.

 

[verleniahall]

Almost done with the xupbiqrds - threw out two bags of expired stuff. I feel so wasteful. Oh well. This is what happens when u done shop ur pantry fist I guess. Have about 30 min left in the kitchen, then I'm taking a break. The cupboards were a bigger job than I original thought

 

[Luvdancink]

I'm joining in! We just returned from spending Christmas in florida and now we have vacation and Christmas explosion in the house. When my dad passed away this year, I purged his things. However, I didn't purge enough and brought a lot of his boxes to my place and need to continue to go through them. It's so much tougher getting rid of his things than my own. This will be the year.

 

[dpswift]

I had 2 days off from work I got somethings done but as usual not as much as I had hoped. I got 2 bags of trash and papers out. DD listed 6 things on Facebook to sell. I like the idea of always having 10 items up for sale. We plan to list a few more items tomorrow. I also found a few items for Goodwill.

 

[Nztara]

So far this year, we've taken two boxes to Goodwill, cleaned out the pantry, shipped a box of unwanted scrapbook supplies to a young lady who makes cards for kids with cancer and made $15 selling 5 bolts of tulle on a mom swap Facebook page.

Every small step is progress. It is so freeing to "Let It Go." I'll be posting more things for sale on the mom swap this weekend as I continue the process. One thing I already know will be going is the small fax machine we haven't used in five years.

My rule for selling things is that if I post them on the mom swap page on two consecutive weekends and they do not sell, the item goes to Goodwill.

One note about the pantry- I, too, forget to shop the pantry first and that great deal I got on 3 bottles of salad dressing becomes not so great when it is expired.

 

[3boymthr]

I'm in! The other night I went through my side table next to the couch that I just throw papers and other miscellaneous stuff in. I threw out a whole bag of trash and shredded a bunch of stuff. It felt good!

I feel motivated to do a lot, but with 2 small kids, I find it hard to find the time to devote to tasks that take a few hours. I don't want to get into something and not be able to finish it. And it's hard at the end of the day after I put them to bed to want to get involved in a big task too. Tips or suggestions are welcome!

My next goals are the kitchen cupboards, the closet in the bathroom, and the laundry room. That ones a biggie!

Last year for Lent I decided to purge one drawer or shelf or container per day. So one day I did the pencil drawer - big job took an hour. One day I was busy so it was the bucket of craft paint - I spent only 15 minutes going thru and finding all the containers that had dried out and threw them away. Next time I was busy I went thru the drawer of batteries and pulled out all the stuff that didn't belong in there - like empty packages and pencils. I never tried to tackle an entire storage area or room in a day unless it was a saturday. By taking it in small chunks I was able to do a clean out every day for 40 days. There is still a lot to be done and of course with some of the drawers and shelves I have to do them again as they just build up again and again.

 

[pjlla]

Wowza! How did this thread get to 14 pages before I got a chance to join for the year??!!

Well, anyhow.... HOWDY ALL! Ready to get back to the cleaning and purging! I think my progress last year in some respects was good..... and in other respects deplorable! Those stupid FB yardsale groups!! I am going to "un-join" from a few.... they take up too much time and make it too tempting to fill my house with "bargains" that I don't really need!!

As far as the decluttering for the start of 2015 goes.... I sorted out my Christmas decor as I was decorating back in December and filled a box with stuff I've had since the 1980's and single. Most of that is going, along with a few other assorted Christmas things. And when I pulled out my "special Christmas dishes" I found several item in the dining room buffet that I can live without. So I have several boxes ready to be donated. May go this weekend to do that if the weather is decent.

My main late winter declutter goal is to reduce my scrapbook supplies by at least 30%. I have TOO MUCH and I don't get around to scrapping nearly as much as I would like to nor as much as I used to.... plus scrapping supplies are like fashion.... they go out of date after a while.

My Christmas gift for DH was the promise of a new workshop in the basement. I plan to do most of it myself (I'll probably get some help with the wiring and installing the plywood walls).... but first that area needs a serious cleaning and decluttering! I am seriously considering either renting a dumpster or getting one of those "fill and we pick up" dumpster type bags they have at Home Depot.

Off to grab my students! I'll pop on tonight to check in with everyone!......P

 

[Minnie-Mickey]

I did the mail box challenge this month. I was able to fill and donate 5 large boxes of stuff. Goal is to set up vet pick up every other week even if just a few items.

 

[Teresa Pitman]

My problem is after I do one of these drawers, I then like to open the drawer, admire the newly-organized contents, close the drawer, open it again to admire how good it looks now, close the drawer, walk away....walk back, open the drawer, and so on. It just feels so good to see things purged and re-organized!

TP

 

[dtr_angel]

Well we finally tackled something that I've wanted to do for a while. My closet is done!!!! The biggest thing was the side (my closet is not a huge walk in closet but it's big and odd shaped, house is old!) where I was storing DS's clothes. I had a cardboard box or 2 for each size. It was nice and organized but taking up too much room. I got 4 boxes of space bags and tackled them with DH's help. One of the boxes were the jumbo and wow, are they big! In one bag I put in all the blankets, crib bumpers and misc baby linens and easily filled it up. The other one I filled with my maternity clothes and some pillows. The rest are large size bags which worked out well for everything. The only size I left in a box was 18m because we don't have very many. I'll probably add them when I space bag the 24m stuff. We did all the bags except 3 last week. The two biggest ones already had air filled in them so we re-vaccumed them. I hope now that ziploc took over they work better. My dad always bought space bags for my stuff when I was younger but they always seemed to leak fairly quickly. Even if the air doesn't stay out, they store so much better in my closet than the cardboard boxes.

Over the past week or so I've done the other areas of my closet too so it's all done. DH for the first time since we've been married (almost 7 years, moved twice) went through his clothes hanging in his closet. He still had dress shirts from high school (we're 30) Needless to say his closet looks pretty empty now and we have a bunch of mens clothes to donate. I've donated a ton of my clothes but could still probably get rid of more. I'm afraid if I took out the stuff that I probably won't wear I seriously wouldn't have anything in there. I wear basically the same few tops all the time. I think I might do the backwards hanger thing and see where I'm at with wearing things at the end of the year. Maybe it will motivate me to wear some different things. DH and I also added some more clothes to the "make these into an awesome t-shirt when I learn to sew and get a sewing machine someday" bag. I can dream can't I?

Not really sure what my next area of focus is going to be. Usually in January I start with office type stuff - shredding, organizing the desk, going through the filing cabinet, etc. Maybe I'll start that area tomorrow. I haven't shredded since this time last year but the bin isn't full. It still will make probably 3 garbage bags full of shredding and take a week. That always amazes me...

I did move some stuff around in the bathroom cabinet today and get rid of a few empty bottles. Not much but it's something.

Anyway, hope everyone is off to a great start for the year!