You can spend literally hours sorting stuff, and it looks no different afterwards. I'm seriously considering just getting a skip and chucking everything away.
I'm getting too old to be dealing with all this **** now, it's depressing.
Decluttering your house.
- Thread starter Mysterae_
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I'm getting too old to be dealing with all this **** now, it's depressing.
Soldato
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Might help to think differently about the value of stuff.
Stuff isn't free to keep - it takes up space, has some mental costs of being aware it's there, and weighs on you because you'd rather not have it.
Sentimental stuff isn't inherently valuable. What is the value of a photograph you never look at? (answer: zero)
Stuff that "might be useful one day" probably won't be needed, and can be replaced if needed. If you throw away 20 things you don't need, and end up having to buy 1 again, that's worth it. If something hasn't been used in a couple of years then it has zero utility, get rid.
Forget about trying to track everything with software, that's procrastination. The goal is to have sufficiently less stuff that you don't need to become a librarian.
My plan for you:
Allocate an amount of space for stuff. e.g. 10 large clear plastic storage containers.
If it fits in there, you can keep it, otherwise you must get rid.
Do a tip run quickly so the excess stuff is gone before you change your mind.
Once you're on top of it, you can do a maintenance clear out each year, always making sure you aren't going over your allocated storage capacity.
That's no good, the wife's Christmas Lemax stuff takes up those boxes let alone my things and then our family paraphernalia
Soldato
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sounds like a serious problem, worth hiring someone to help you
edit: had never heard of lemax before. perfect example of something you don't need to keep, get rid of it all. become a person who gets a tree and that's it.
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Soldato
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Moving house soon too!
It does feel good chucking/selling/giving a lot of stuff I never use away.
We have 2 trees (7ft) aswell as about 4 boxes of baubles, the wife loves Xmas. Me I just like electronics and then there's the tools you buy to do the work you don't get on with because you can't find anything in the big piles of clutter you move from one room to another.
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Soldato
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This is the decluttering thread though. Not a "justifying your clutter" thread.
Been trying to do this for years, as always the problem is how do I get rid of the clutter, I would hire a skip, but cant with where my home is located. Struggle to get family to agree to take stuff to tip, and can only put so much in wheelie bin.
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Soldato
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Feels like an excuse, there must be solutions that allow you to take control of it without depending on family.
How about hiring a van for a day, or paying a company to take care of it e.g. https://www.clearabee.co.uk/
That's not an excuse it's reality
I know that, but the wife is worse than me for collecting things. If we go to a garden centre she will normally come back with something she likes not what we need.This is the decluttering thread though. Not a "justifying your clutter" thread.
Soldato
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The problem with two hoarders is they use each other as a way to avoid dealing with the problem.
It might be helpful to have it pointed out that it's just a different way of justifying your clutter.
I don't really want to pick on you anymore, so that's it for today.
We're not hoarders in the sense of keeping everything but overtime(42yrs of marriage, 2 house moves, a flood and an extention built around the same time, renovating the house you just accumulate things. This is just reality for us, I'm trying to get rooms sorted but get very little help from her, that I can't be bothered. Health issues also slows me down.
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Still this.
Used to think we were fine but 6 months into parenthood and it's a different story. My main hoard-ish behaviour is boxes for products/electronics (y'know, for selling or warranty issues) and my wife keeps a lot of sentimental "stuff" in all categories. Add all that the the baby stuff you accumulate, it quickly escalates.
We're lucky to have a decent size house for just the 2 adults + 1 infant but I foresee the want to build a garden room + shed + office type thing in the coming years.
We're lucky to have a decent size house for just the 2 adults + 1 infant but I foresee the want to build a garden room + shed + office type thing in the coming years.
Soldato
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The way I see things is that because living space is so expensive, either renting or paying a mortgage, do I really want to be shelling out all that money to simply store stuff? Or do I want a comfortable, roomy, living space?
One thing that annoys me about people with clutter is that if they have something that is actually useful, it's such a job to retrieve it that they either take ages retrieving said object or they lose their enthusiasm in retrieving it, or they simply decline because it's too much bother.
What's the point of having it then???
One thing that annoys me about people with clutter is that if they have something that is actually useful, it's such a job to retrieve it that they either take ages retrieving said object or they lose their enthusiasm in retrieving it, or they simply decline because it's too much bother.
What's the point of having it then???
We go through bouts of de-cluttering. Usually around new year and when we get fed up living with all our rubbish! I usually try and do as much as I can over 2 days to make it worth it. First day is a high level sort of things i know I can chuck quickly and stuff i'll need to sort through (moved into a new house so there is still a cupboard full of boxes). I put them in piles of recycling, throwing away, charity shop. I got rid of 4 boxes which were filled with old paper bills etc from 2016! Was fun running them through a shredder.
Other stuff goes through the question - 'does it bring you joy?' and if it does, keep it, if not get rid of it.
Other stuff goes through the question - 'does it bring you joy?' and if it does, keep it, if not get rid of it.
That's a bit harsh, she must have good points.
Been attempting to declutter for a while and there is a decent noticeable difference which makes me feel good! We mostly focussed on the loft (Stuff that we boxed up and moved house with that never got unboxed 
) and our spare room that became a bit of a dumping ground for anything that didn't fit anywhere else. Having had a couple of relatively big structural projects happen in the house over the last couple of years really kicked us into getting it done because we were getting fed up with moving tat between rooms repeatedly.
For me at least, the main thing that helped is that I'm not doing this to make money which saves a lot of time and mental stress. If I think something has some value then I will list it at a reasonably low price to try and ensure it sells and am always open to offers to help facilitate a sale. For everything else I'm more than happy listing up for free as I'd rather it went to a good home to be reused. If someone wants to try and flip it for cash, then good for them as it still means the item is being re-used and it achieves our primary goal which is to get the stuff out of the house without taking anything to the tip which I try to avoid as much as possible. eBay, Facebook marketplace, Freecycle, charity shops and other charities that specialise in things like baby clothes are great and always incredibly thankful to have donations of good usable items. Overall the biggest challenge we've had is trying to get rid of brick-a-brack type stuff as a lot of our local charity shops have too much of it already, but checking with them in advance often helps so it's not a complete surprise when we turn up with bags of it on their door
) and our spare room that became a bit of a dumping ground for anything that didn't fit anywhere else. Having had a couple of relatively big structural projects happen in the house over the last couple of years really kicked us into getting it done because we were getting fed up with moving tat between rooms repeatedly.For me at least, the main thing that helped is that I'm not doing this to make money which saves a lot of time and mental stress. If I think something has some value then I will list it at a reasonably low price to try and ensure it sells and am always open to offers to help facilitate a sale. For everything else I'm more than happy listing up for free as I'd rather it went to a good home to be reused. If someone wants to try and flip it for cash, then good for them as it still means the item is being re-used and it achieves our primary goal which is to get the stuff out of the house without taking anything to the tip which I try to avoid as much as possible. eBay, Facebook marketplace, Freecycle, charity shops and other charities that specialise in things like baby clothes are great and always incredibly thankful to have donations of good usable items. Overall the biggest challenge we've had is trying to get rid of brick-a-brack type stuff as a lot of our local charity shops have too much of it already, but checking with them in advance often helps so it's not a complete surprise when we turn up with bags of it on their door