It’s Friday at 365 Less Things, and since Colleen is still in the U.S. (Seattle, Washington now) I’m sharing with you my favourite comments from our wonderful and chatty readers and my best web finds of the week. I hope you will enjoy them as much as I did. -Cindy
Favourite Comments. Enjoy!
Dizzy made short work of the process of decluttering here.
Wendy gives hope to those to those who live with reluctant declutterers.
Faith made us all laugh with her bold retort to givers of unwanted gifts.
Favourite Web Finds. Happy reading!
I’ve always enjoyed the Minimalist Packrat, although this is a guest post, which combines Feng Shui and decluttering.Â
Another post from the Minimalist Packrat, this one on collections and use-it-up decluttering.
In case you needed more motivation to buy less and think more about your choices, check out this montage of pictures  from someone who refers to his garage sale hobby as “junk in my trunk.” You got that right buddy! (Originally, this link did not work. Scroll down one entry, and you’ll see the photo collage.)
On the other hand, I liked Mr. Junk’s take on selling goods. Yeah, he says it harshly, but he tells it true.
Frequently Colleen and I are asked how to sell on Ebay. Here’s how they say it should be done.
Today’s Mini Mission
Take a quick look in the garage and find something to declutter. It’s that simple. Don’t fuss don’t hesitate just find that one thing and get it our of there.
Today’s Declutter Item
Yes there is still craft clutter to declutter but I am on track to get it all under control by June like I promised Lena. Here is my latest offering.
More Craft Items (Brads & Eyelets)
Great I just gave a load of brads and eyelets away, but now I want yours!!!!
I was in the garage this morning and found another pair of balls, these were defuzzed too!! AND I found another GOLF BALL, or rather it found me, I knocked into the shelving unit with the costume rack and it came off the shelf and bounced over to me so I bounced in straight into the bin. I am so over golf balls!! AND tennis balls. My new house will be a BALL FREE ZONE!! 🙂 🙂 🙂
Hey Dizzy – still working on the garage? I’m going to spend time in mine too tomorrow.
Pretty well finished, I just had the spare costume rack in there from the studio to hold the other costumes, that’s how I found more BALLS!!! I got rid of another few small boxes of bits and threw out a bag of well used rags. All gone, now just waiting for the house to sell and I’ll do the final heave-ho then!!
Good luck with your garage, hope you get rid of whatever pains you! 🙂 🙂 🙂
Used to love reading minimalist packrat, but it doesn’t seem as if she posts much anymore. I especially liked the article about her incense collection and focusing on using it up, which is what I try to do with most of my “collections”.
I agree, I found 365 by blog hopping about through Min Packrat, maybe she has minimised her stuff so much the computer went as well 🙂 🙂 🙂 I loved the photos her hubby posted for her 🙂 so serene and joyful at the same time 🙂 🙂 🙂
Decluttered this week – along with the bowl on Monday I found a packet of cleaning wipes that were free to us and not my favourite product. Decided to use them up and my 8 yearold decided cleaning the kitchen cabinets looked like fun and took over from me! Packet three quarters used up – result! Tuesday a load of crafting books gone to a friend tohopefully raise money for a cancer charity, Wednesday cleared out one of the four drawers under my bed – now it’s a completely empty space – wow, this could get addictive! Mostly outgrown toys given as gifts a long time ago. Thursday – a big cobweb from the corner does that count? (Our bathroom is one of our least cluttered rooms) Friday strong wire garden netting to my daughter’s school for the small garden area. Reporting back has certainly kept me focused this week, so thanks for mini mission Mondays Colleen look forward to next week’s
Dizzy in reply to where am I? North east England right on the North Sea coast
Good job Kay. You got rid of a lot.
Hi Kay, great de-cluttering you go girl!! North East England, Whitby way? Too far or not far enough? Or have I flipped my mind map the wrong way!!!!
I’m from Manchester, heading back at the end of the year to visit family. Is your weather starting to warm a little or is the North Sea breeze still chilly 🙂 🙂 🙂 Billy Connolly refers to it as ‘brisk’ 🙂 🙂 🙂
Very close! Redcar mean anything to you? Not as picturesque as Whitby but home all the same. The North Sea breeze is ALWAYS brisk! Thanks for the encouragement much appreciated.
Ooohh yes I remember Redcar vaguely (I was tiddly) heehee remember Whitby better because we had breakfast there and the fugue had lifted hahaha, I was visiting Stockton at the time and travelled about. One thing I definitely remember is the way the breeze would snap you to it!!!! I must admit I just loved travelling about the top of England and stepping over the line into ‘Billy Country’ so beautiful.
If you ever get to West Australia I can promise our breezes aren’t as bracing! 🙂 🙂 🙂 more like a hairdryer on low!! hahaha have a lovely day 🙂
Cindy, these are good replies and good links.
Took 3 days but we decluttered a never used 12 cup Gevalia coffee unit and two pounds of coffee, 2 institution sized never used stock pots, two loaf pans, a never used Pampered Chef cooking stone pie plate, and a cookie gadget. From the living room nothing because it is really, really decluttered so I picked my bedroom and got rid of a sun hat and a carry-all bag. All this went to the yard sale that starts tomorrow. Wednesday Mom dug out a couple of pieces of clothes. Today it is some barely used toothpaste squeezers and never used toe spacers. I already took care of the rest of the week because of the yard sale. From the shed (we have no garage) 3 large storage containers. From the dining space some more storage containers that were in the hutch. And from my office/craft room a bag of books to take to the book store for store credit. It’s really fun to do this. I love the Mini-Monday posts.
Wow! Oh my goodness! Fantastic! That’s some great decluttering. The big stock pots alone must be buying you a lot of free-up space.
I was so excited. There are still a number of things I think could go but I have to let Mom do things in her own time. Still. We now have one entire cupboard by the stove that is empty. Love it.
Love having the mini mission listed each day. It really helps. Even when I think there’s nothing else to declutter in a particular part of the house, I can still find something. This week I decluttered a cookbook, a curling iron, a bottle of perfume, a music CD, and a Buns of Steel workout video from 1990. Best of all, when I got home from work, my husband had decluttered our entire garden shed!
Some great links – I don’t have incense, but the article isn’t really about incense! Might be a good plan for other ‘use-it-up’ items, like deodorant (I’m solely using one to get it done), moisturiser (need to use it more regularly to lessen from 3 to maybe 2 (one face, one body)), tea…
I also love the beads all laid out like that.
This weekend, I need to work on my ‘decluttered’ box getting empty. Things are going ‘in’ the box, now I need them ‘out’ of the box/house!
tea!! thanks snosie – I was wondering what I could declutter this week again, after going a bit over the top crazy last week, and I didnt think of tea! I have sooooo much, and a lot of little rests from here and there. I will make myself more tea now! thanks for the reminder!
Hi ladies. Thanks for putting me and the Reluctant Declutterer in your Friday post. It seems Ian and Deb J’s mom have both caught the bug, proving that the non-confrontational lead-by-example approach can work wonders. Keep up the good work, everyone!
Hi ladies! I’m back from 7 days in Auckland – picked my daughter up from the airport last Friday, we went to the Reece Mastin concert on Saturday (I think I am now hearing impaired after all the screaming of 10,000 girls) and this week just gone my younger daughter was at a ballet workshop for exam prep. Last night, the younger one and I went to How To Train Your Dragon show. It has started out it’s world tour here and it was AWESOME!!!!!!! If it comes to a town near you, it is worth the ticket. I thought it wouldntt really my thing but Courtney was determined to go, but now I’ve seen it I’d go again if I got the chance.
OK, spent the week in a camping ground tourist cabin with 4 girls – 2 mine, 2 extras also attending the ballet workshop. I admit I missed my creature comforts, but quickly realised how much stuff we don’t need in a kitchen to turn out a meal. Obviously had to improvise, and wouldn’t like to do it long term with quite that few tools, implements, etc. And when one doesn’t have a dishwasher, and must do it all by hand, it is surprising how few tools one uses!!!!!
My favourite moment of improvisation was the three older girls were roasting marshmellows in the gas flame on the stove. Obviously I wasn’t there at the time, but it made me laugh when I heard about it. Here’s hoping it wasn’t noxious or anything! (we have electric stoves where we live)
I was very pleased with how this week’s mini-missions spurred me on.
Kitchen – 14 stained or frayed hand towels donated to the Humane Society
Living room – 2 CDs donated to the thrift store
Master bedroom – Scrabble book that’s been in my bedside table for a year donated to the library
Bathroom – Battery operated toothbrush (gift from a b-day party). The batteries went in the battery recycling, and the body went into the trash
Dining room – I listed a fancy candle holder on Craigslist
Other room – 2 DVDs donated to the thrift store
Garage – Trail-a-Bike listed on Craigslist
Wa-hoo!
this week was different. but I found a bra thats too big, two packs of tea (caramel tea – “what the…”), and I decluttered the browser and my internet in general. I deleted half of those bookmarks that I just saved for certain occasions (recipies, articles, reminders), and kept the ones I am using regularly. and biggest step in decluttering the internet: I deactivated facebook. yay.
Lean, I’m proud of you for deactivating Facebook. I’m in the process of making that possible. I’m letting everyone know and asking them if they want access to my monthly updates. Once I hear back from everyone I will be shutting it down. I can’t wait to get rid of it. I’m tired of all of the junk on it.
Thanks Deb J, I was thinking about doing this for a loooooong time and now I needed a decluttering of the internet (and because I am in the hot phase of my final project). So I made it easy and short. I posted a status saying, I will switch of facebook for a indefinite amount of time, so if you want to contact me, send me an email via… or call or text me OR and thats my favourite solution: come by and bring ice cream. 2 days later I was gone. tomorrow the first friend is coming over with ice cream. 🙂
Deactivate Facebook???? No…………!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Ok, apparently I’m not ready for that transition!)
I love the ice cream idea. Unfortunately, most of the people I’m in contact with on FB are people from other areas of the country/world. they can’t come over. Rats!! Too bad. You have a great idea there.
I am a little confused by your logic…The junk in the trunk photos are motivating in an entirely different way for me. They encourage me to be smarter with my money and always consider buying used before buying new. Think of all of the junk they are keeping from landfills! I clicked through and read their blog for a few minutes – the authors sell their “junk” at their own yard sales when it is time to de-clutter their homes. A smart idea all-around, something you would have found by spending two minutes reading their blog.
First of all, Yakima, welcome to 365 Less Things. I’m delighted that you found Junk-in-my-trunk man’s photos motivating. Since 60 – 75% of the things I buy (besides food & consumables) are used, I didn’t find his second-hand shopping habit inspiring; In fact, I genuinely found his photos nauseating, and my feelings did not change despite the 15 or 20 minutes I spent reading his blog. In terms of living a more decluttered life, there’s no way to justify regularly buying trunk-loads full of junk. Even HE calls it junk. Although he says that he sells his stuff when he feels that it’s getting out-of-control, he clearly owns and buys a lot of stuff, which is incompatible with a decluttered life. Decluttering, that is removing items from your home, is only one step in the decluttering process. Resisting purchasing, and therefore resisting re-cluttering, is just as important. Otherwise, you’re just churning stuff through your home, which is what Mr. Junk is doing.
Hi Yakima,
That was an interesting reaction to Cindy’s lead in. I thought that what she was saying was – Be mindful if what you purchase or you may just find yourself wanting to declutter it soon enough. We are afterall addressing an audience of people here who are focused on minimising these possessions and reducing their purchasing habits. I feel sure Cindy read the blog post before linking to it.
Two things struck me about this habit of buying and reselling
1. If they are holding garage/lawn sales to resell this stuff, how often do they do that? And if the answer is often I wonder what their neighbours feel about having their street invaded on a regular basis.
2. They really must love the thrill of the chase and the selling process to be bothered going to all the trouble and not even make a profit.
I did love her opinions on the way and why people price things or neglect to price things at garage sales in a subsequent post. I also do not like garage sales where the holder is too lazy to price things leaving the buying in the awkward position of making an offer. Like her I used to just walk away unless I was really keen. I no longer go to garage sales so this isn’t a problem anymore. Quite a bit of the clutter I had was acquired at these sales and I am now past that habit.
I am glad at least that they are keeping things out of landfill although it would probably better if a charity was receiving the items to raise funs for worthwhile causes.
Yakima I have to disagree. I dont consider buying clutter and reselling clutter a smart idea all-around. at all.
It made me also in the opposite motivated to be careful if you buy second-hand, because temptation is higher if you know its “second-hand and they will probably throw it away if I dont buy it”. I need to remind myself to not rescue items for the items sake – I think they call it “catch and release” or so – but to get items only if I really need and want them. conscious shopping is important I find.
if you try the search bar at this blog here, you will see what kind of motivation I got here for buying, selling, buying second hand, thinking about product packaging, organizing, reconsidering shopping habits, reconsider household habits, cleaning, etc. and “decluttering” as the umbrella topic.
I find it difficult to believe that you spent 15 minutes reading our blog. “Mr. Junk†or YSBB is 2 woman with surprisingly uncluttered homes. I buy very few items new and probably recycle, re-use and am more responsible than the average person living in the US, where most new items come into the home for only 1 full year.
Your efforts would be far more effective by asking people to commit to a personal compact of not shopping for anything new for a year.
I find people buying items new and then tossing them into the thrift store 6 months later in a purge to declutter to be far more nauseating.
There have been many news stories about charity and donated items not even ending up in the thrifts stores, but are in turn shipped across the world, still having the possibility of ending up in a land fill.
The US has 5% of the world’s population, but we’re using 30% of the world’s resources and creating 30% of the world’s waste.
Hi Meghan,
I have to agree with you that buying things and then sending them to the thrift store after one year is nauseating. And it is sad to see the amount of waste going on out there. It happens all too much in Australia as well. I am glad to say that leading up to starting my blog had me checking out what others were saying on the subject and I have become greener and greener ever since. I have also found it liberating to leave the desire to shop behind me even when it comes to secondhand stuff. I used to love garage sales, going to them and holding them myself but these days I spend my spare time helping people here at my blog and volunteering at my local thrift store and I find that far more rewarding than buying things.
I think it is admirable that you chose to buy secondhand rather than new and then send the items back out there into the world when you are done with them. I on the other hand prefer not to buy stuff at all. Either way neither of us are adding to supply and demand and that is a good thing.
This approach of doing a little daily works so much better than the usual one of getting organized–even if a little decluttering is advised, it always seems more about organizing.. I did have to go overboard when it came to fabrics and sewing supplies, since I had to get it sorted out to know how much I had. A lot of it is now in the car and going to the thrift shop, and a much smaller amount to teenager granddaughter. So far I have emptied and removed 2 large office boxes the stuff was stored in, and it is now much better organized. But that was just the first trip through and I know it needs more culling. I had taken a lot of books and cookbooks to the thrift shop, and am making a second pass through the cookbooks left and may end up with just the one compiled over the years with favorite family recipes. Books are leaving as they are read, unless it is something my husband would also read. I agree using the library is better, but we live in the country and sometimes it feels like there is a lot of pressure to get a book read before it is due, since we only make a trip in when we have to and read when we have time. I do daily bookkeeping for one son and have been using the inventory program to keep track–not a lot of detail, just changing the current number. Decluttering does seem to catch hold, and by starting small you begin to see more and more stuff that can go. So keep up the good work. We all appreciate it–and most of all we need it.