The #1 Way to Declutter 35 Years of "Stuff" 

I feel the same way. I started to declutter during Covid. So at peace now.

AMEN, this allows for more room for abundance to enter into your life.🎉

I missed mine for 2-3 years, now, I don't want it back. It would just be a big old house to clean and maintenance.

We tried calling one for the mother in law house....they asked if the value of items was over $10,000....we laughed.....junk and more junk. We had a garage sale and seriously sold NOTHING....wasted $5 for the city garage sale permit.

@@jimv77We had a similar problem with my in-law’s house…. They inherited a house, took what they wanted there (8 blocks away) and left the rest sit FOR TEN YEARS. Yes, double bills and maintenance for no reason. Vagrants were starting to get in it etc. Finally got them to sell the original house that was full of crap we mostly threw out. It sold in one week. Such a waste of energy and money all because they didn’t feel like dealing with it. Now they are filling up their current house with crap. Broken chair? To the basement it goes!!

Our first experience tackling this in earnest came when my Mother-in-law passed away. She had a small home that was packed to the rafters and presented what seemed like a monumental (and emotional) task. My wife, as Executor wisely invited friends/family in to take what they wanted, then we had an estate sale company come in and liquidate all the rest! It inspired us to start tackling what has variously been called a "Danish cleanse" (amongst others) with the idea to declutter as a gift to our kids and spare them the pain when our final day comes.

​@@13noman1actually I'm mad about my mother's decluttering. She got rid of the good stuff and kept the garbage. She was going to sell her wedding china - first year edition of Old English Roses - but my husband insisted on buying it from her for $200. She didn't need the money.

Yes, this is exactly what I mean. Good on you!

Great idea!

This is excellent 👏

😊you are an Angel 😇 for folding neatly your clothes to a good cause ❤thank you 😊

Thank you for your service.

Thank you for your service.

Awesome !!🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

Ikr? There's nothing like watching the crew uncover rat carcasses under the piles to get a person in the mood to declutter!

My buddy could qualify for that show! When he moved from one house to a larger one (to hold all his junk - Not ALL of it is junk, I guess), he also moved something like 200 old, unread newspapers that he intended to read "some day". When we all told him moving was the PERFECT opportunity to get rid of (at least) the newspapers, he got angry with us. I think he STILL has those papers in his spare room! 🙂

The way I busted out laughing. You’re speaking facts!

OMG Made me sick to watch one episode.

Always makes me declutter, lol

I have to fight my hoarder tendencies, and my parents were not hoarders. When I empty out a nice, large and well-shaped plastic container with a great lid, like a dishwasher tabs container, I cannot avoid thinking, "what could I do with this?" I have to talk myself out of saving it. Meanwhile I have Tupperware type containers falling out of my cabinets. I have made peace with the fact that one always has to maintain diligence in getting rid of clutter by not giving it an invitation in the first place.

Yes, our dear depression Era parents taught us how to hold on to everything but not how to let anything go. This applies to mental as well as physical things.

​@@alexstokowsky6360there is a very creative person inside you if you're thinking of alternate uses for everyday objects. You are a latent environmental artist!

​@@sheilaabrahams1322they went through a lot of painful deprivation and were hoping to spare their children that trauma

Thank goodness my mother isn’t a “ collector “.. she lives in a 15 room house, nicely furnished, well kept…no jam packed drawers, closets or cupboards…She was born in 1930 so I guess depression. Just not a stuff collector.

Yes! I read that! I was not one to follow her. I knew it would not work.

Keep a picture of it instead? You must be kidding.

@@kevinh5349 Holding onto the past is largely a negative experience. Live for today, and tomorrow my friend!

@@kevinh5349 that’s what I do? I was briefly an author (of two small books) in my 20s, and I met all kinds of other authors who gave me their signed books. 20 years later, I took pictures of the books and the signed title pages, then threw them out. I also took digital pictures of original artwork I’d bought or received as gifts, and sold it all.

I can feel good in a messy home. 😆

Well done!

I have the same story as you explain! I ask myself, “When you move, do you want to take that with you? Do you want to pay someone to move that into a new house?” A lot of times, the answer is “No,” and out it goes!

I'm in the same boat! I've inherited pictures of people I don't know! Trinkets and various notebooks and such that if something happens to me (& it's going to hapoen to all of us) it will end up in the trash anyway. Why am I delaying the inevitable? 💁‍♀️

@@maximac222 YES! I have six boxes of “stuff” from when my mom died in 2009. I started scanning and taking photos of the interesting stuff for me and my siblings but it’s slow going. My kids don’t care about these things so need to get rid of it, plus my own stuff, before I cash in my chips, too! Good luck getting it done!

I found my tribe!! You all are my mirrors; I’ve been left to deal with a storage of my mother’s who was storing personal belongings of my father, brother, and uncle - all who’ve passed. It’s so overwhelming and all that keeps running through my head is, please don’t let me die and leave all my clutter for own two sons to deal with.

@@Crymeariver227 For a while I was taking a manageable “pile” from a box to “handle” for the week. I have a PowerPoint slide deck started with scans of stuff of interest (then throw it out). I have large envelopes for each of my siblings and when I see them they get whatever’s in there (art projects from school, report cards, their own photos, etc). Whatever I decide they get, then it’s gone! I’ve thrown a lot. Now I’m taking a break from it. If you have any family, I’d suggest inviting them over for lunch and spend 2-3 hours going through one box or something manageable. It would be more fun with a partner. What do I do with my grandma’s art project/report about pilgrims in perfect condition dated 1910???? 😳 I might have to put that in a sibling’s envelope for them to save!!!

I had one at one point and just got a dumpster and purged. Then I did it two more times. It’s amazing how junk creep happens. I know I normally talk about finances, but this is near and dear to my heart.

@@HolySchmidtjunk creep. Good term. And the fact it happens to you too makes me feel better. Well here’s to decluttering . Best of luck to us both.

My father lives in another state that he moved to about 17 years ago when he remarried. I believe he has a storage locker there as well as one or two in the state he relocated from. It's concerning, and it's eating up money that he really needs for other things right now. It's his stuff though, important (to him) pieces of his life.

Me too......been putting it off for ten years.@@kathysheeran6589

If you haven't traveled much, take some of your money and do that. When my dad was talking about taking another trip out West and how much more value he and my stepmother and he found in that than in the stuff in their house, I said sell it all and just keep going. Enjoy your lives and leave less for me and my stepsister to have to clear out when you're gone. He passed away a few weeks ago, but they did make 4 trips out West, loving every one of them. And we can find happiness in the memory of their happiness in all their trips. Same thing with my mother and stepfather: he retired and she quit her job and they went out West and did mission work for 6 months. Years later, when he had dementia and had suffered a massive stroke, he could still look at the pictures of that trip and remember where they had been and it made him happy. And my mother and I are happy to remember it.

Feel you on that. But where I’m at with my “”abundance of possibility” is that I actually achieve very little. I’m pulled in so many directions that nothing gets enough attention to truly create a finished project. I have also had to execute the estate of an aunt. She didn’t have a bunch of excess stuff, she bought high quality stuff, and she took good care of it. It was educational to see how much of that stuff was barely good enough for donation to charity. Ultimately it is just used stuff. All of the creative potential that you see is probably unmitigated junk. Pick a couple of things that you really want to focus on and jettison the rest. A friend helped me by telling me that if I do need a new project in the future, she was sure I’d be able to find one. That was a major truth, and it helped me get rid of a lot of projects that I don’t miss. I’m still thinning the herd. Start getting rid of that “possibility pile” and find real peace by being able to focus.

UG! The dreaded, “That’s probably worth a lot of money” comment!! Then they do nothing to find a buyer, just tell YOU about it. It’s exhausting. I’ve been through that three times.

I told my kids that when I go, everything can go in a dumpster but the precious metals. I love my stuff, but I don't expect anyone else to.

I just did this same thing. My mom (house to 700sf apartment) wanted me to sell everything “valuable “ and I said I’d just give her the cash for the small amount it would actually sell for and that if she wanted to hire an estate sale person on top of that she could do it. Lol she dumped it all with an estate agent. ❤

I did that, too...only, I was particular about only spending time selling something that would net me at least $75 after any fees, because reclaiming my time was a big part of my minimizing goals.

How did your move work out?

We’re about s did u retire to? Do you like living there? What is the quality of healthcare there?

I had my children when I was 40. My kids kindergarten teacher would photograph my kids 'art' with them as they did it and then again on the wall with all the other kids things. at the end of the school year she gave me a CD with each kids precious memories of their first year. This way we could put on the fridge and keep the truly memorable pieces. I was so impressed with her dedication to her students and thinking like a Mum. I think I will do this for all my old fashioned slides. Im sure I can find a company that can scan my hundreds of missionary 'slides'.

Well done!

It's fairly rare that hoarders have saved much of value. It's usually junk.

@@edennis8578 2 Hoosier Hutches, an 1860's steamer truck and alot of souvenirs from the 1933 Chicago worlds Fair was what we got. Along with ALL the family photos going back to the 1890's. There was more but we had no room.

​@@cloistereneHow valuable are you talking about? I know people who are spending years of their lives sifting through dead relatives' belongings, plus paying tens of thousands of dollars in storage fees while they do it. Is the stuff you find worth that much time and money out of the inheritor's life?

​@@clbcl5My point was that your case is a statistical anomaly. Most people's piles aren't worth the cost to store them; huge wads of cash in those figures are pretty rare. I'm 68 so most of the people I knew growing up have died, and nobody left anything that valuable in the house except my late mother-in-law, who had a box full of thousands of old silver certificate bills in the basement. But it wasn't hidden. She wasn't a hoarder by any means. Rather Spartan.

​@@cloistereneThat isn't a dollar value. Do you really think that most people are hiding Rembrandts in between their piles of old magazines? That most people have diamond necklaces stashed in their sock drawers? You ARE funny.

There is a professional cleaner named Dana K White whose first step of decluttering is this: walk around with a garbage bag and ask, “is it trash?” I do this every 10 days or so, and it’s usually all the decluttering that I need to do!

I had to clean out a house I sold- buyer refused to close unless everything was removed. I ran across a letter written in 1954 from her cousin that was complaining about all the junk an aunt had left and how she hoped neither of them ever left that kind of mess for anyone else! Twilight zone moment. 😮

Ssh....the IRS is reading the comments.

snap

yes they aee @@vinyl1Earthlink

are

I’m your 27th thumbs up. We have eBay, Poshmark, Mercari stores; sell on Marketplace the big heavy stuff. We make well over 6 figures as a full time fun hobby income. I’m retired at 63 never going back to the grind, slaving for the man, my wife is 20 yrs younger has never HAD to find out 1st hand (she saw me do it for 17 of our 18 yrs of marriage) work outside the home.. our minor daughter & I get the guvmint funny money every month and have made significant investments in her family & properties in her Philippine homeland for after my mom is gone…

Nice. BTW, do you watch the military train? My father went through flight training in Pensacola. Super proud of him.

@@HolySchmidt A sincere Bravo Zulu for your dad. I'm retired military. Have not been in Pensacola in years, though..

My Dad, Uncle Sam, shipped out of Pensa cola, on his way to the Pacific - during WWII.

Yes cause decluttering is forever!!!🍸

I love that!

Yea! I love that book so much.

True

A 30 mile drive to the grocery store tends to encourage "stocking up" and sometimes that spreads to more than groceries, I'm afraid. I also have seen this a lot in Country folk. Isolated people also tend to be more depressed, so a situational hoarder is born. Then there are the "crafters" and the "preppers" (prepping is sort of a hobby). You craft because there's nothing to do, and prep because it keeps you busy canning and dehydrating and learning survival skills. All this means crafting supplies and jars and cans all over the place. Yes, this is Country living.

Some people don't have trash service in my county. They burn and recycle and the rest is stacked somewhere.

@@YSLRD That's too bad your county doesn't help people who can't afford the trash bill. We all know that metal objects don't burn and that glass takes extreme heat beyond a fire to turn back into sand. Let me guess...do you live in Kentucky?

Digitalize everything! A double sided scanner does 35 pages par minute, takes up little space, and costs $400. It produces machine readable .pdf files that can be indexed and searched, in English or Japanese. (I don't know about other languages.) Nowadays a digital copy is as good as the original for most legal purposes. Scan all paperwork. Keep tax related stuff for at least 7 years. It takes up no space in a computer. As I mentioned above, I scanned two file cabinets full of papers in a few weeks. I sent 100 books to a scanning service.

@@JedRothwell Check to make sure that your Social Security wage history agrees with your tax returns before disposing of tax returns. In principle, I agree with the digitizing - although I don't know that it's as easy as you found it - but once you destroy the tax return, you're dependent on Social Security's records and they do miss years (especially for the self employed.) And you're dependent on the media you used to save those files. Keep in mind that HOW you store that info may not be accessible in ten years. I have multiple boxes of small discs with previous info saved. Made a lot of sense at the time but I don't have a computer that will read those any more. If I need them, I'll have to pay someone else to access them.

@@bridgetcollins7969 I never "destroy" the tax return. I scan it and save it. I have returns going back decades. I toss out the paper copy, but my accountant says the IRS will accept a digital copy if there is a dispute. For the past several years the accountant has sent me the returns on paper and in .pdf format. There is never any need to throw away scanned documents, and no need to keep the original printed versions. A 1 TB disk will hold a lifetime of scanned documents. I have more than 12,000 documents, plus ~100 books and plenty of space left. I have documents and programs going back to the 1970s. It is important to organize the documents into folders, and to use software such as Everything and FileLocatorPro to find them. I recommend you not store data on small disks, CDs or any older media. CDs are not stable. Transfer everything to hard disks, with at least three removable hard disks for backup, and one offsite cloud storage copy. Refresh one backup once a month. A hard disk that is seldom used will last for 20 or 30 years with no problem. You can run various diskcheck and compare programs to be sure the data is not corrupted. Computer data is as fragile as a soap bubble, but when you have three backups and an offsite backup, it is extremely unlikely you will lose the data. It is much more likely you will lose a paper copy, to a fire or flood. Obsolete file formats are a problem. I am a programmer, so I can write utility programs and batch files to convert them en mass into a modern format such as .pdf. If you cannot do that, I recommend you have someone do it. I have not had to do that much since the 1990s. Formats have been stable and backward compatible for the last 25 years.

@@bridgetcollins7969 Exactly! I still prefer hard copies of almost everything, I don't trust the digital world to provide for future needs.

If you’ve made major home improvements, keep/scan those receipts for your basis on your house. Be careful in dumping any insurance info so long as you have the policy.

Lighter and lighter😊

I’m guessing the couple must’ve been depressed because they couldn’t have children for some reason and they really wanted them so maybe it was hard to do the crib for themselves. I hope they treated him to a nice dinner or something.

Wow, a lot of responsibility. I hear you on the difficulty.

Perhaps you could let them go to a vocational school. That's what I did with many of my husbands wood working tools when he passed away. The instructor for the program was thrilled. The donation helps continue something my husband was passionate about. I also got a tax break, that I really needed, as that second Social Security check was gone but the income for the year, for tax purposes, wasn't.

@@M.Campbell That’s a great idea! Thank you.

There are a lot of young apprentices that would give their eye teeth for a good deal on tools. More than pennies on the dollar, they appreciate the quality and would be willing to pay a fair price for good used tools.

Good job, keep it up!

Wise move :)

I really like the way you did it! I agree it would be easier for me to take 25% of my household and invite the public in to pay for their gain and haul it away for you - Win Win! My husband would have to go thru every item and keep 75% but I would do your process easily 😊 stuff can keep us stuck in so many ways.

@@anavigil7603 That's very true. There is a real inertia to physical objects. It's like they don't want to be moved..haha. I"m so glad I made the decision to lighten my life.

🤩

Very true.

How would they know?

And how would they value it unless it’s an antique with a known value?

Wouldn’t it be that most of the things you’re giving as gifts to people are worth practically nothing?

I have a storage facility out of necessity as well (extended traveling for work), nothing to feel guilty about. I did have to move a lot of stuff in there though and I plan on taking inventory & doing a thorough declutter before I settle back into my new place. Will be glad to stop paying the monthly storage bill, he said the average was $89. I wish that was all I had to pay!

It’s worth having a few regrets to be rid of the clutter. Hopefully you’ll soon forget the regrets!

Her book was incredible!!

Are you tracking expenses for business or personal reasons?

This is a great idea- hope he does this.

@@TisDana Personal. Like what used to be taught in school, Home Economics but in this century...

Good strategy

Very good question to ask 👍

I wait a day or two, even a week or even a month to decide, sometimes I forget all about it. Waiting lets me do more research & decide if I really do want it.

I'm single and I ask myself this exact question.