Not quite a horder - decluttering

I have kept two large containers of pictires. My plan was to take them out and organize them periodically. Unfortunately, they are stuck behind a wall of large furniture in the storage unit, along with a few other things that I meant to leave accessible. Oops!

It would kill me to know that my husband and children had accidentally read my darkest inner thoughts. Those journals would probably inflict a lot of unnecessary pain on everyone. I'm really glad I took care to dispose of my writings while I'm still able to do so.

Poodles, I shredded all my old journals for the same reason you did yours. Turns out I only wrote when in a major depressive episode, so no one else ever needs to see that.

My mother died when I was 4. Her mother and brother saved her letters and gave them to me when I became an adult. I typed them up in date order and printed a copy for me and one for each of my children. It's fascinating from a history point of view. She was a single mother during WWII with all the rationing and shortages. She wrote letters to men in the service so they would get mail from the US. Some were brothers of friends, and some were part of a campaign to make sure all servicemen received mail from home.

Dh and I are finishing up a bathroom renovation, we've been at it about six weeks. It's our upstairs bathroom, now used mostly by just us two, and was severely outdated not to mention how much dirtier we realized it was once we started the demo part of it. The process has been stressful, tho the effort's been well worth the trouble. I pitched a bunch of stuff from the closet and it just feels good to get rid of all those old fixtures which haven't seen a good day since sometime back in the 1980's! Since we used the first floor bathroom to shower during the reno, I also cleared junk out of the cupboards in there. We can't wait to finally get things back to normal, but right after the holidays and in the winter was just the right time to attack the project.

On another note, here's a screenshot of a page from the book I recently mentioned, "what is your clutter trying to tell you?" It offers good advice about setting boundaries so we don't get overwhelmed with life in general. I used to tolerate too much, dread talking to certain people and do stuff out of obligatin rather than do what really mattered to me. I've since learned to do right by myself, and it went a long way to helping me lose the cutter!

Mrs. M--thanks for sharing the info from the book. It's something I need to think about right now

Teka- working on that here too, glad DH is doing his part.

I am working on de-cluttering my phone and related service expenses. I happened to notice my bills for telephone, internet, and TV are going up, Up, UP and looking for some ways to reduce expenses. I started with my home phone line company and noticed my voice mail service cost is now up to almost $40 a month. My home phone is not a primary number anymore, but now just a back up to my cell which I use for business as well as all other important calls. I keep my home phone number for a resource for my business, it's tied to my alarm system, as well as have an extra line for a biz fax.

When I set up my home phone 14 years ago when I built this house, the voice mail featured costed like $10 a month. Now it is close to 4X that amount in that period of time. Not like anything great has changed with that either to justify the cost increase? So I bought an answering machine and set that up and tested it today, and cancelled the VM which will be done by end of business today. Going in shortly to remove any old message info from that VM before it shuts down and goes away. That change alone will save me close to $500 a year.

Next is my cable and DSL bill. That has gone very high too and need to determine if I can save money there as well. I am debating about removing my HBO/Cinemax to see if I miss it. That is another one that started out with a special deal at $9.99 a month and is now up to $25 a month. I told myself if I shut it off and want to turn it on later, I can. I have yet to use Netflix but think that may be a better option (cheaper too). I worked to get my Verizon bill for my phone and tablet (also for business) down last year and that has been much better and saved myself a bunch of money in the process.

These phone, internet and TV companies tend to do this, jack up the prices through time, plus there are a thousand taxes that get added on for these services (my home phone lines alone have $20 in taxes and fees) and don't have control over that, but can decide if it is time to let go of some of the services.

Check your bills when you can and you may find you can de-clutter some things that are not bringing you value and costing you $$$$ you can use for other things.

A longtime lurker checking in…

Jazzy, I call my cable provider periodically when rates increase & they typically offer some kind of concession. I'll sometimes have a competitor's ad and ask, "Can you help me so I can stay with your company?" A pleasant inquiry is much more welcome to the customer service rep than the usual grumpy complaints. Also, my provider (ATT Uverse) offers free HBO weekends periodically. It means some binge watching if you follow a series, but you can usually record movies since they air on multiple HBO channels. I did that with "Wonder Woman" with the free promo this past weekend. Free is my favorite price. :-)

Lyn

Jazzy--I went through something similar, ended up dropping the home phone and cable/satellite TV entirely. I do use Netflix and Hulu, as well as Amazon Prime video services, bought an HD antenna and get the local channels over the air for free now. My phone, internet and cable was bundled, which saved me a bunch of money several years ago, and was over $200 a month. Now I'm paying $25 for internet, $45 for the cell phone, Amazon Prime, Netflix and Hulu come to less than $20 per month, less than half what it was before. It really does make sense to look at these things from time to time. Savings will change as circumstances and billing patterns change.

Mrs. M--Ah, the monthly clubs, that's an area I need to look at!

VLH--good advice!

Happy hunting, Wren! 😀

Lyn

misty, glad you are inspired! I find it helps to make a list. Just a short one. It helps to focus my thoughts. You are smart to get the yard work done while weather permits. You could put that tops on your list, then put "declutter bedroom" next. That way, when yard work starts wrapping up, you know where to direct your energy next, so there is a flow to the process. When you get around to the bedroom, Remember to take frequent breaks. Its easiest for most people to start with decluttering clothes. Keep only what you love.

Marie Kondo's book The Magic of Tidying Up gives excellent tips and I've adapted many to help me. For example, I pulled all my clothes out of the closet and drawers in my room and put them on the bed. Then I went item by item. A lot did not go back in the closet and drawers. I watched TV while I did this and treated myself to Diet Coke thru the process. No need to make it a grueling effort. Some days I did this for 30 minutes. Other days I spent an hour or two. Even cleaning out one drawer of miscellaneous clutter before bedtime moved the process along.

Dh and I are finishing the bathroom renovating, and I was going for a more zen feel, too. It turned out nice, a bit bare bones just yet but we wil add wall decor as we find what speaks to both of us, rather than fill the space with anything. Right now it is so clean, I am loving it.

Best wishes to you!

Juniper, you really can't get rid of someone else's stuff. Is it possible to move those things to another room in the house or create a space for the equipment by cleaning another area of house, basement or garage? Would your dh allow you to at least put some of the things in boxes that you could stack or store in the corner of the room? And you could always promise him something like a month of Sunday dinners of his favorite foods at the dining room table if he would clean out the place.

I've recently learned to phrase questions this way: "Do you think we could find a way to clean up this area (room)? " "What do you think is the best way to do that?" "How do you think we can go about using this room more often for meals? Asking my dh what he thinks, rather than tell him what to do really seems to get better results. And everything may not go exactly how I want, but there is usually progress and it becomes more of a joint effort rather than one sided.

Yes Mrs M - I find it works so much better when my DH thinks his idea.

edited to add:  I am going to the library to look for that book.

Juniper, If your dh doesnt do anything with his stuff, move on and just take care of your stuff. You might go weeks and months clearing things, and maybe he eventually sees it has a nice effect around the house and will clear some stuff out. My own dh sometimes takes note after awhile and tosses old stuff out or puts it in the Goodwill pile. But he holds on to lots more stuff than me, and even with mentioning to him numerous times something like "all the clothes in the spare bedroom closet are yours; I got rid of my old clothes out of there." he doesn't get the hint that he could go thru it and purge. I can only do so much and move on to my own miscellany.

Jazzygirl, what a great post!

I send congratulations on your five year cancer-free anniversary! It is a terrific milestone.

The questions you ask yourself about your stuff are good ones, does it bring value to my life? Serve a purpose? I am learning to pay attention to how I feel around stuff. In re-doing our bathrooom, I picked a certain blue color rug because it felt cheerful and calming. A metal medallion for the wall gave me a joyful feeling. I fell in love with a small, narrow table just right for a long wall in the room. I didn't feel guilty buying any of these items because of how I knew I'd feel each time I saw them.

Dh and I viewed a wonderful collection of artwork on display at a local gallery. It was all different artist's renditions of the old steel mill town where dh once worked, oil paintings, watercolor, acrylic, mixed media. Fabulous, fabulous. Brought so much of what is no longer there back to life. We could have purchased a print of any picture we liked. But for us, there is a melancholy of days gone by attached to this artwork. Those vibrant hey days of our community living large because of thousands of steel mill jobs are gone, never to return. I don't want a sad reminder of that in my house. We have moved on.

The article you shared about decluttering friendships was excellent. It's true, sometimes it is better to move on. I liked that it mentiond being kind about it. We all change over the years as life brings us so many changes. Some times people are only in our lives for a season or two. Learning to let go of unnecessary relationships opens up room for the new. Since mbc, I have learned to do more of what I like and want to do with people I want to spend time with and do less out of obligation.

MrsM- I went to the library and got  Marie Kondo's book,  I went through and took out  of it what helps me.  I did redo the clothes in my dresser and I love it!  And a lot of little things in the book got me re-thinking a lot of what I hang on to.

Twelve pair of shoes went to my trunk yesterday to go to the battered woman's home. Most have only been worn a few times. And I haven't done the sandals yet. I still have hope that my big toenails will eventually recover from the detachment of chemo & resultant fungus & severe cutting off by the podiatrist. Six more months before I find out if i can ever wear sandals in public again. Also pulled out 6 pair of pants. I lost 60 lbs with chemo so have various sizes in the closet. More to come.

In the mean time, lots of kitchen stuff going. The compressor on my garage freezer blew out last week & the only new freezer that would fit in the space was about 1/2 the size. While searching for cupboard space, I've set out a number of things to donate - a crock pot, a kitchen aid chopper, 4 sets of glasses, and more. Since the entire kitchen & garage is up-ended anyway, I hope to continue this week.