Let it GO! Decluttering (simplifying) your life of (people, places or things) success stories?

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Replies

  • NewLIFEstyle4ME
    NewLIFEstyle4ME Posts: 4,440 Member
    Grnhouse wrote: »
    I’ve started getting rid of things that don’t bring me joy any more. As as result I have clothes I like wearing vs clothes just hanging in my closet year after year. More to come. Stay tuned.

    YAY YOU and we'll be glad to "stay tuned" too. Here's to cheering you on, big time...BOOM!

    snoo61 wrote: »
    Today's task was to declutter the food storage dishes, I threw some things out. There's a cute little Tupperware container that was my mom's, I've never used it. I put it in the dishwasher, so I have time to talk myself into giving it up.

    Good job today Snoo! Ya know what's funny? I LOVE throwing things away now, so much--makes me feel "powerful (full of power) or something. How things change...I remember this time last year, throwing stuff away was like getting rid of one of my children or one of my body parts or something. Now, when I see junk/stuff that's just hanging around, collecting dust--it's ON and out it goes, one way or another...it's outta here, period. I LOVE that!
  • snoo61
    snoo61 Posts: 549 Member
    Grnhouse wrote: »
    I’ve started getting rid of things that don’t bring me joy any more. As as result I have clothes I like wearing vs clothes just hanging in my closet year after year. More to come. Stay tuned.

    YAY YOU and we'll be glad to "stay tuned" too. Here's to cheering you on, big time...BOOM!

    snoo61 wrote: »
    Today's task was to declutter the food storage dishes, I threw some things out. There's a cute little Tupperware container that was my mom's, I've never used it. I put it in the dishwasher, so I have time to talk myself into giving it up.

    Good job today Snoo! Ya know what's funny? I LOVE throwing things away now, so much--makes me feel "powerful (full of power) or something. How things change...I remember this time last year, throwing stuff away was like getting rid of one of my children or one of my body parts or something. Now, when I see junk/stuff that's just hanging around, collecting dust--it's ON and out it goes, one way or another...it's outta here, period. I LOVE that!

    NewLifestyle4me I'm usually the same way. I love getting things out, and getting things organized. I think I'm having trouble with this 1 little thing because it was my mom's. :neutral:
  • NewLIFEstyle4ME
    NewLIFEstyle4ME Posts: 4,440 Member
    snoo61 wrote: »
    Grnhouse wrote: »
    I’ve started getting rid of things that don’t bring me joy any more. As as result I have clothes I like wearing vs clothes just hanging in my closet year after year. More to come. Stay tuned.

    YAY YOU and we'll be glad to "stay tuned" too. Here's to cheering you on, big time...BOOM!

    snoo61 wrote: »
    Today's task was to declutter the food storage dishes, I threw some things out. There's a cute little Tupperware container that was my mom's, I've never used it. I put it in the dishwasher, so I have time to talk myself into giving it up.

    Good job today Snoo! Ya know what's funny? I LOVE throwing things away now, so much--makes me feel "powerful (full of power) or something. How things change...I remember this time last year, throwing stuff away was like getting rid of one of my children or one of my body parts or something. Now, when I see junk/stuff that's just hanging around, collecting dust--it's ON and out it goes, one way or another...it's outta here, period. I LOVE that!

    NewLifestyle4me I'm usually the same way. I love getting things out, and getting things organized. I think I'm having trouble with this 1 little thing because it was my mom's. :neutral:

    Girllllll...you BETTER keep Momma's container and USE it and think of that darling mother of yours everytime you do, period. I know it's definitely something you can find a regular use for, for sure! <3<3o:)<3<3
  • snoo61
    snoo61 Posts: 549 Member
    snoo61 wrote: »
    Grnhouse wrote: »
    I’ve started getting rid of things that don’t bring me joy any more. As as result I have clothes I like wearing vs clothes just hanging in my closet year after year. More to come. Stay tuned.

    YAY YOU and we'll be glad to "stay tuned" too. Here's to cheering you on, big time...BOOM!

    snoo61 wrote: »
    Today's task was to declutter the food storage dishes, I threw some things out. There's a cute little Tupperware container that was my mom's, I've never used it. I put it in the dishwasher, so I have time to talk myself into giving it up.

    Good job today Snoo! Ya know what's funny? I LOVE throwing things away now, so much--makes me feel "powerful (full of power) or something. How things change...I remember this time last year, throwing stuff away was like getting rid of one of my children or one of my body parts or something. Now, when I see junk/stuff that's just hanging around, collecting dust--it's ON and out it goes, one way or another...it's outta here, period. I LOVE that!

    NewLifestyle4me I'm usually the same way. I love getting things out, and getting things organized. I think I'm having trouble with this 1 little thing because it was my mom's. :neutral:

    Girllllll...you BETTER keep Momma's container and USE it and think of that darling mother of yours everytime you do, period. I know it's definitely something you can find a regular use for, for sure! <3<3o:)<3<3

    I love you! I'm keeping it, if I'm tearing up trying to get rid of it, I have to.
    Hubby thought of a way we can use it, I love him too.
    Thanks my friend :smiley:
  • NewLIFEstyle4ME
    NewLIFEstyle4ME Posts: 4,440 Member
    snoo61 wrote: »
    snoo61 wrote: »
    Grnhouse wrote: »
    I’ve started getting rid of things that don’t bring me joy any more. As as result I have clothes I like wearing vs clothes just hanging in my closet year after year. More to come. Stay tuned.

    YAY YOU and we'll be glad to "stay tuned" too. Here's to cheering you on, big time...BOOM!

    snoo61 wrote: »
    Today's task was to declutter the food storage dishes, I threw some things out. There's a cute little Tupperware container that was my mom's, I've never used it. I put it in the dishwasher, so I have time to talk myself into giving it up.

    Good job today Snoo! Ya know what's funny? I LOVE throwing things away now, so much--makes me feel "powerful (full of power) or something. How things change...I remember this time last year, throwing stuff away was like getting rid of one of my children or one of my body parts or something. Now, when I see junk/stuff that's just hanging around, collecting dust--it's ON and out it goes, one way or another...it's outta here, period. I LOVE that!

    NewLifestyle4me I'm usually the same way. I love getting things out, and getting things organized. I think I'm having trouble with this 1 little thing because it was my mom's. :neutral:

    Girllllll...you BETTER keep Momma's container and USE it and think of that darling mother of yours everytime you do, period. I know it's definitely something you can find a regular use for, for sure! <3<3o:)<3<3

    I love you! I'm keeping it, if I'm tearing up trying to get rid of it, I have to.
    Hubby thought of a way we can use it, I love him too.
    Thanks my friend :smiley:

    My absolute pleasure my friend. <3o:)<3 This post brings such joy and smiles to/for me. I super love you too!
    {{{{ Hugs and High Fives to you and your good/wonderful hubby }}}}
  • NewLIFEstyle4ME
    NewLIFEstyle4ME Posts: 4,440 Member
    edited January 2019
    I'm sorry to repost this pic again...but this is ME now:
    Help me and THANK YOU LORD, I LOVE this pic of me sooooo much--this is thrilling to finally be slim/trim--I LOVE seeing/BEING this pic! Size 8
    4hjhd8tb92nv.jpg

    these pics below are me in October 2018/size 12/14--wow what a difference taking your time makes
    6a3s2xacj1gp.jpg
    tduseftye5qh.jpg

    FROM THIS (below): (This wasn't even my heaviest, squeezing into a size 20w summer 2017)--one of the ONLY pics I allowed to be taken of me, I was so, ummmm..ashamed of getting photos of myself. I usually "hid" behind people or put kids or things in front of me for pics taken...I did this (avoided the camera like the plague for YEARS and YEARS :'( )
    BEFORE: I was somewhere around 208/210-215lbs

    2qd1bzuib793.jpg

    Gang, PLEASE NOTE: during ALL this time, the scale barely moved and though the scale weight "turtled" off of me(because I'm eating WHATEVER and WHENEVER I want to...my "want to's have changed though, 100% from when I was obese and overweight ( o:) THANK YOU JESUS o:) )--the inches and fat/excess were blasting off of/out of my mind/spirit/BODY something wonderful and amazingly terrifc ( I've got nice muscles in my arms and legs and no excess/loose skin at all)--without ANY exercising besides daily N.E.A.T./Decluttering and dancing while I cleaned/decluttered, that's all...it's utterly tremendous being down to size (in decluttering AND weight blastification) at LONG last B)
  • laurenq1991
    laurenq1991 Posts: 384 Member
    On the "success" train, I have had some decluttering successes in the past few days. Every few months I go through everything I own and get rid of anything extraneous. I have been doing that a bit at a time over the past few days. Our room has been a huge mess for the past few days with all the stuff I'm sorting through but now I am tackling the mess and it's diminishing. I was putting stuff to be donated in the closet but I decided to take it out so that I would actually deal with it instead of forgetting about it, and it actually worked.

    On Saturday I mailed a box of cleaned and flattened milk and plant milk cartons to a recycling center in Virginia (the addresses of carton mail-in centers around the country are available from the Carton Council website), because they aren't recyclable in my area. I save them up and once I have a full box or shipping envelope I mail them in. Not sure if that really counts as decluttering. But it kind of does because I wasn't able to mail it out in December because the lines at the post office were too long, so the box was sitting in the hallway for about three weeks. I also mailed out an item from Etsy that was sent to me by mistake and had to be sent to the intended recipient, which again isn't really decluttering, but it was taking up unnecessary space in the apartment (I also reused a shipping envelope to send it).

    Yesterday I donated two bags of clothes that aren't my style anymore, are not comfortable enough to wear all day without getting annoyed (bye four pairs of jeans from my failed attempt to feel comfortable in jeans), or don't fit properly (the perils of buying secondhand clothing online). I also recycled or shredded a bunch of mail (the mail that was shredded will be composted in my town's community garden...they have a compost bin for food scraps and any non-laminated paper products can go in there as well).

    Today I also recycled the pages from last year's planner and from a bunch of old notebooks filled with notes for my certification exams, which I know I will not look at again (the writing of notes was just to help memorization but if I need to look something up it is way easier to look it up in the textbooks which are in my Google Books library). I have also collected a few more clothing items for donation. I still have another huge bag of clothes that are not in good enough condition to resell but have to be donated to a clothing recycler (socks with holes in them and so on). Those can be recycled at H&M but since I don't drive I have to wait until we happen to be going to a mall that has one or something like that. I also have a bag of random items to be donated to Goodwill from when we cleaned out my husband's closet several weeks ago, but the Goodwill is about a 20 minute drive away so we haven't had the opportunity to go there yet either.
  • NewLIFEstyle4ME
    NewLIFEstyle4ME Posts: 4,440 Member
    On the "success" train, I have had some decluttering successes in the past few days. Every few months I go through everything I own and get rid of anything extraneous. I have been doing that a bit at a time over the past few days. Our room has been a huge mess for the past few days with all the stuff I'm sorting through but now I am tackling the mess and it's diminishing. I was putting stuff to be donated in the closet but I decided to take it out so that I would actually deal with it instead of forgetting about it, and it actually worked.

    On Saturday I mailed a box of cleaned and flattened milk and plant milk cartons to a recycling center in Virginia (the addresses of carton mail-in centers around the country are available from the Carton Council website), because they aren't recyclable in my area. I save them up and once I have a full box or shipping envelope I mail them in. Not sure if that really counts as decluttering. But it kind of does because I wasn't able to mail it out in December because the lines at the post office were too long, so the box was sitting in the hallway for about three weeks. I also mailed out an item from Etsy that was sent to me by mistake and had to be sent to the intended recipient, which again isn't really decluttering, but it was taking up unnecessary space in the apartment (I also reused a shipping envelope to send it).

    Yesterday I donated two bags of clothes that aren't my style anymore, are not comfortable enough to wear all day without getting annoyed (bye four pairs of jeans from my failed attempt to feel comfortable in jeans), or don't fit properly (the perils of buying secondhand clothing online). I also recycled or shredded a bunch of mail (the mail that was shredded will be composted in my town's community garden...they have a compost bin for food scraps and any non-laminated paper products can go in there as well).

    Today I also recycled the pages from last year's planner and from a bunch of old notebooks filled with notes for my certification exams, which I know I will not look at again (the writing of notes was just to help memorization but if I need to look something up it is way easier to look it up in the textbooks which are in my Google Books library). I have also collected a few more clothing items for donation. I still have another huge bag of clothes that are not in good enough condition to resell but have to be donated to a clothing recycler (socks with holes in them and so on). Those can be recycled at H&M but since I don't drive I have to wait until we happen to be going to a mall that has one or something like that. I also have a bag of random items to be donated to Goodwill from when we cleaned out my husband's closet several weeks ago, but the Goodwill is about a 20 minute drive away so we haven't had the opportunity to go there yet either.

    Wow, you're doing an excellent job at this business of decluttering and getting a TON of N.E.A.T exercising too. Keep up the terrific job and super YAY YOU!!!!! <3o:)<3
  • snoo61
    snoo61 Posts: 549 Member
    Today's task is to go through pots, pans and the lids. I have 1 cupboard to do. Have a great day!
  • NewLIFEstyle4ME
    NewLIFEstyle4ME Posts: 4,440 Member
    edited January 2019
    i lost EVERYTHING in the Calif Camp Fire (4 uninsured rental units and my home). i am now coming to terms with living in poverty, which is a whole new perception. i THINK i don't have enough stuff, yet daily the Universe provides --and i can't believe how sacred this all feels. It sucks, don't get me wrong--but there is a divinity to it too. Out of fear i want to hoard, thinking i will never have another yam, bottle of clean water, or pair or shoes. That is because my BRAIN is broken and sometimes falls into darkness. As i honestly confront the grief i am growing more compassionate, powerful, and dependent on God over things. i am truly aware of how fragile is the human experience--but in this experience there is so much grace and goodness <3
    o:)<3<3<3o:)

    {{{{{{ <3 HUGS <3 }}}}}}} and Absolutely WOW--talk about "The Grace/Power of God" you are FILLED with it! For you to lose EVERYTHING, and turn around and praise, give thanks, glorify and embraced The Only True and Living God in the midst of such a huge tragedy is the stuff His "saints" (bible saints--The God of the bible calls His people saints--it's not from some religion/church doctrine, not religious at all) are truly made of. I am THANKING you and The Lord for this major contribution to this thread. I wanted to highlight the entire thread, but chose a few things that The Lord would have me hide in my heart and "follow" you, as you follow God. WOW!!!! Your attitude, your spirit is so utterly selfless, so very humble and real. I LOVE you and please let me know if there is ANYTHING I can do to help you. You have taught me lessons in your post that I will never forget. Thank you again saint for posting. {{{{{{{{ Super ultra HUGS again }}}}}}}

    P.S. Please know that MANY people will be tremendously blessed by your posting...people you will not hear from. You have blessed others as well as God Himself--YES and Amen and Amen!

    <3o:)o:)o:)<3
  • NewLIFEstyle4ME
    NewLIFEstyle4ME Posts: 4,440 Member
    Aine8046 wrote: »
    I move for work every 5-6 years. And when I say move, I mean it. Not with a huge truck, but usually with 2 suitcases of clothes/shoes and 2 cardboard boxes of bedding/kitchen utensils. Last move happened 6 months ago, USA -> Europe. I must admit every move is rejuvenating :)

    You're fabulous, period. o:)<3o:)
  • snoo61
    snoo61 Posts: 549 Member
    snoo61 wrote: »
    Today's task is to go through pots, pans and the lids. I have 1 cupboard to do. Have a great day!

    I've decided that I need slide out shelves for my pots and pans cupboard. There is a lot of wasted space!
  • snoo61
    snoo61 Posts: 549 Member
    Today's task is the bakeware cupboard. I am getting rid of a bundt pan. Since I was washing that, I pulled out some wine glasses I'm getting rid of, and washed them too. Making progress! Hoping to find a church in the area that is still collecting home goods for hurricane Florence victims.
  • cory17
    cory17 Posts: 1,496 Member
    This thread is making me want to do something with the disaster in my house. I have sold on ebay for 20 years, so always have "ebay stuff" sitting around on every flat surface. We have 3 long-haired housecats, who are our children, but do they shed.... My husband and I own the tavern in our small town. I work a minimum of 13 hours a day. On top of all these factors, my husband and I are both "collectors". I won't use the word "hoarders", as I don't think we are quite there. Yet. So, needless to say, my house is a freaking mess. I don't even know where to start. When I do try to start, I get overwhelmed and give up or get a bad case of the "squirrels" and don't accomplish anything. Any suggestions where or what to start with so my head doesn't just blow up????

    Check out the flylady site. It's all about just starting out with one spot, maintaining that and then building upon it. For example, in the kitchen - keeping the sink clean.
  • laurenq1991
    laurenq1991 Posts: 384 Member
    edited January 2019
    Today there was a bit of a plumbing disaster with the bathroom sink and it ruined some things that we really didn't need, a box of 100 giant gauze pads and a box of 100 rubber gloves (my husband bought them when he had minor surgery last year but he didn't need THAT many). I don't like stuff getting wasted and I was planning to donate the gauze pads somewhere, but at least they got "decluttered" instead of just sitting there forever?

    Yesterday I also recycled an old plastic pitcher (I would have donated it but it was discolored) and dumped out and recycled an old emergency gallon of water that was past the date. I'm going to replace it with a smaller bottle since the main unforeseen emergency is when we have water repairs in our building and a gallon of water is excessive for that. I also put a couple of unused kitchen items into the Goodwill donation bag. Today I also reorganized a few things in our bedroom. My husband has a cart where he puts everything that he needs for the day except it had some items on there that he hasn't used in months, so I moved them to his closet (he has a lot of hobbies so he has a closet where he keeps all his hobby stuff, sentimental stuff, and random other stuff). I also moved our mail baskets to the shelves underneath our nightstands so instead of seeing bills that have to be paid and junk mail that my husband didn't recycle, all you see is a nice decorative basket. It looks so much better now.
    smantha32 wrote: »
    My mom is one.. The problem with hoarders is they will never seek help. They don't believe they have a problem and they're comforted by all the filth around themselves. Empathy only goes so far, because like this lady discovered, you give them an inch and they will hoard you right out of your own house.

    Update on that situation, she actually had to go to the hospital on Monday and Tuesday since she had atrial fibrillation/heart attack symptoms but they couldn't find anything wrong with her. My theory is it was dehydration but who knows. Meanwhile apparently my husband discovered that Staples does bulk shredding so he took one of the bins of papers from her closet to be shredded. He also told me the papers were sorted already and he was just storing it to shred it later. Of course she could have shredded it with our home shredder but at least it's not that much work for him to get rid of it. He said the majority of the crap in the room is just papers which is good news because a) those are easier to get rid of, and b) I can say "if your room is filled with foot-high piles of highly flammable material, do you think you or the parrot will have any time to get out if there is ever a fire?" (I even said this to my husband and he agrees).

    Honestly I'm not really sure what percentage of her problem is hoarding and what percentage is just squalor. Because she has no idea how to keep things clean either. Her dishes always have bits of food on them because she doesn't wash them properly (I made her get her own dishes for that reason and I have no idea how she didn't get food poisoning by now). When she lived on her own she would never clean up after her pet birds and they would fly freely around the house and *kitten* everywhere and she wouldn't care. Currently she only cleans the floor of her room which the bird poops on once a week, and it has never been washed. She definitely had a shopping addiction at one point but she cut back on that after she started going to the senior center every day (although they keep giving the seniors free items there which annoys me). But does she have foot-high piles of papers everywhere because she's too lazy to go through them, because she wants to be dependent on my husband and lets it get to the point where he will have to go through them, because she likes having piles of crap everywhere, or some combination of those? It's a mystery.
  • cory17
    cory17 Posts: 1,496 Member
    My mother is also a paper hoarder. Because she donates to charities, she's now on virtually every mission, charity, whatever mailing list out there. The solicitations come in bunches and she's so afraid of identity theft (nevermind that her info is ALREADY being sold and resold) that insists on cutting out name & address from every one of those solicitations and shredding it. So the amount of time involved to actually do what she wants is horrific and overwhelming and her desk has mounds of this trash piled and falling off. (She was hospitalized last year and I stole piles of this junk mail and disposed of it.)
  • Allgaun
    Allgaun Posts: 222 Member
    cory17 wrote: »
    My mother is also a paper hoarder. Because she donates to charities, she's now on virtually every mission, charity, whatever mailing list out there. The solicitations come in bunches and she's so afraid of identity theft (nevermind that her info is ALREADY being sold and resold) that insists on cutting out name & address from every one of those solicitations and shredding it. So the amount of time involved to actually do what she wants is horrific and overwhelming and her desk has mounds of this trash piled and falling off. (She was hospitalized last year and I stole piles of this junk mail and disposed of it.)

    If you have access to her banking records you should check up on her. My MIL was on a ton of political mailing lists, she's in her 90's, a few years ago her son finally caught on and checked. She had given away almost $40,000 to different political charities.

    Most of them weren't legit, I had checked them out for her a few years before. It didn't stop her. I had warned her kids for years but they assumed she was sending out $5 checks.

    A co-workers mother was sending money to a bunch of "lottery" and contest mailings. She was also almost broke when she died. The elderly are easy money for this kind of crap.
  • snoo61
    snoo61 Posts: 549 Member
    I'm sorry to repost this pic again...but this is ME now:
    Help me and THANK YOU LORD, I LOVE this pic of me sooooo much--this is thrilling to finally be slim/trim--I LOVE seeing/BEING this pic! Size 8
    4hjhd8tb92nv.jpg

    these pics below are me in October 2018/size 12/14--wow what a difference taking your time makes
    6a3s2xacj1gp.jpg
    tduseftye5qh.jpg

    FROM THIS (below): (This wasn't even my heaviest, squeezing into a size 20w summer 2017)--one of the ONLY pics I allowed to be taken of me, I was so, ummmm..ashamed of getting photos of myself. I usually "hid" behind people or put kids or things in front of me for pics taken...I did this (avoided the camera like the plague for YEARS and YEARS :'( )
    BEFORE: I was somewhere around 208/210-215lbs

    2qd1bzuib793.jpg

    Gang, PLEASE NOTE: during ALL this time, the scale barely moved and though the scale weight "turtled" off of me(because I'm eating WHATEVER and WHENEVER I want to...my "want to's have changed though, 100% from when I was obese and overweight ( o:) THANK YOU JESUS o:) )--the inches and fat/excess were blasting off of/out of my mind/spirit/BODY something wonderful and amazingly terrifc ( I've got nice muscles in my arms and legs and no excess/loose skin at all)--without ANY exercising besides daily N.E.A.T./Decluttering and dancing while I cleaned/decluttered, that's all...it's utterly tremendous being down to size (in decluttering AND weight blastification) at LONG last B)

    The change is amazing! The work you've put into your home, and the stress free time because of it, you decided to give yourself, has paid off.
  • cory17
    cory17 Posts: 1,496 Member
    Allgaun wrote: »
    cory17 wrote: »
    My mother is also a paper hoarder. Because she donates to charities, she's now on virtually every mission, charity, whatever mailing list out there. The solicitations come in bunches and she's so afraid of identity theft (nevermind that her info is ALREADY being sold and resold) that insists on cutting out name & address from every one of those solicitations and shredding it. So the amount of time involved to actually do what she wants is horrific and overwhelming and her desk has mounds of this trash piled and falling off. (She was hospitalized last year and I stole piles of this junk mail and disposed of it.)

    If you have access to her banking records you should check up on her. My MIL was on a ton of political mailing lists, she's in her 90's, a few years ago her son finally caught on and checked. She had given away almost $40,000 to different political charities.

    Most of them weren't legit, I had checked them out for her a few years before. It didn't stop her. I had warned her kids for years but they assumed she was sending out $5 checks.

    A co-workers mother was sending money to a bunch of "lottery" and contest mailings. She was also almost broke when she died. The elderly are easy money for this kind of crap.

    It is worrisome! It's a fine balance between her independence & my reality. She's 89 and just stopped driving (was only local BUT TWO recent minor accidents) - was going to sell her vehicle for her (don't want her taken advantage of but she now says her friend wants to buy, mind you this friend needs to sell her vehicle first). Trying to get access to bank accounts partly to plan ahead and keep track of this kind of thing. She has zero interest in doing anything electronically. Thanks for listening!
  • snoo61
    snoo61 Posts: 549 Member
    cory17 wrote: »
    Took another box out of my office!
    Going through old rolodex and tossing cards. Threw out an address book I used before my first marriage. That was 30+ years ago. Faced reality - hadn't needed or used it all this time, it can go.

    Congratulations on getting rid of a box! It might not seem like much, but it adds up, believe me. I'm kind of shocked sometimes by the difference such little things make.
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