Thursday 26 February 2015

Getting Tough on Stuff in 2015 - February

At the beginning of the year, I decided to set myself the quite challenging task of decluttering and donating at least 1000 items from our home in 2015. January got me off to a great start and I managed to find 168 items to donate to the local charity shop.

As the month of February draws to a close I am pleased to announce that I've managed to find even more things this month, 178 to be exact, so my running total two months in is now 346 items.

This month, the items gathered for donation, came mostly from my wardrobe, some of the drawers in our bedroom, a thorough sort out of the book shelves in our bedroom and a declutter of the summer clothes storage bags, which I needed to get out on account of us going away for a week of winter sun.

I have to admit that some of the things that were donated due to having been grown out of, were subsequently replaced by new purchases, but not excessively so. There has still been a definite and noticeable reduction of items in our home and it feels great.

In addition to the donated items, some other items have finally left our home for good by way of waste disposal, namely an old small analogue TV and digibox that we didn't use and some old and damaged clothes/miscellaneous items.  I now have three bags and two boxes of donations to take to the charity shop and thereby clear some space in the spare room for next month's round of decluttering.

I didn't get around to listing the few things I intended on eBay. I may decide to just donate them after all next month, as they are currently just sat on the end of my bed awaiting action.

There may be a bit of a slowing off of items to donate from here on in, as the major areas that needed tackling have now been tackled.  I will, however, still persevere in pursuing the goal of 1000 items this year and will keep you posted on progress.

8 comments:

  1. Feels good to get rid of the unwanted stuff, our local charity shop has done well in the past few years. Each spring I declutter, which helps in two ways, I get rid of stuff I could not part with the previous year, and I don't buy so much, knowing I am going to sort the following spring. Good luck with your challenge.

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    1. Hi, thanks for your comment. I think doing this kind of thing on a regular basis is a really good idea, for both of the reasons you suggest.

      I'm currently dealing with a back log from a number of years of accumulating and hanging onto stuff. I think I will probably follow your example in the future and do it more regularly.

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  2. I agree with Marlene. For me, decluttering is like peeling the layers of an onion, first getting of the obvious, the going back time and again remove another layer.

    I take my hat off to anyone who has the discipline to sell things, when I need something to leave, it needs to just be out of the house. Having things hanging around while I sold them would be too much for me.

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    1. I'm beginning to think along the same lines on the selling front, although if something is virtually new and a good quality item I have done it in the past.

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  3. Busy cleaning cupboards and such here, I will post my total for the month closer to the end on my blog.

    I think there just may be a slow down here as well once the cupboards and our room are done.

    God bless.

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    1. Good luck with your cupboard cleaning. I look forward to reading about your monthly totals.

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  4. Another great haul out of the way. Well done.
    xx

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    1. Thanks mum. Just need to keep focus and keep purging for next month now.

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