^ I often get myself to donate things because I know I have probably at least 24 hours to change my mind and go back and buy the thing back. So far, I’ve never done it, but it’s helped me get a few things out the door.
Actually, H bought back a mug I had donated to the church garage sale. He came home with it and said now we will have a set! He couldn’t find it, so I had to tell him I had donated the one he bought and there was only one. It went back into the sale several years later…and I didn’t tell him the date.
Now I use Goodwill, my office dumpster, and our can on trash day after he goes to work. But we still have way too much stuff.
We had to take everything out of our house last year due to a remodel, interior painting, etc. and got rid of a lot of things then but I Marie Kondo’d (is that a verb now?) my dresser and the shelves in my closet today and now have a bag for goodwill. Always a happy feeling for me when I have things to donate.
My daughter made a surprise trip home this weekend so I didn’t do much cleaning. I just wanted to laugh about how many of us are using the office dumpster to quietly make things disappear. It’s one of my favorite tricks! Although, sometimes when I’m driving to work with one of my bags of garbage I feel like I’m just asking for car trouble. I can see myself tipping the tow truck driver to just take it for me!
^Perhaps my only regret about retiring is that I can’t bring things to the office dumpster anymore. I have to drive things to the dump instead when my husband is at work. If he retires at the end of the year, that’s a whole lot more driving to the dump in the next 10 months. The tricky part is not making it look as if I’m getting rid of something he might someday maybe just possibly want (no matter how many years it’s been unused).
Found in my photo organizing project: five instant cameras waiting to be developed (since at least 2008, maybe longer). Apparently CVS will still develop them. It takes 7-10 days, so not onsite. Does anyone know what it costs to develop an ancient instant camera?
@frazzled1 I found 12 instant cameras. Since I haven’t used one in over 15 years…I chucked them all. I figure I lived without those prints all these years…why get them now?
I’m also tossing every single duplicate photo print I have. Waste of space until I get around to scanning them.
Gave a couple of cubic yards’ worth of corrugated a ride to the dump yesterday afternoon. Tote bags meant for Goodwill are still up in the attic, those are next.
Amazed that you can get film and instant cameras developed today, other than at a specialty store. If it’s reasonable, I might develop them on the chance that my grandparents or FIL may be in the photos. But it’s true that I haven’t missed prints I never knew I had. After a month organizing photos, I’m done with prints anyway. Give me the digital age.
I hear you on tossing the duplicates, @thumper1. I estimate I’ve tossed between 10 and 12 thousand prints this month - because I still have more than 8000 photos. (8 photo boxes, each of which holds 1000 prints; a separate box of oversized and studio prints; a small box for each of my kids.) I tossed the duplicates except for ones that went to the kids. I also chucked both copies of all the too dark, too light, finger over the lens, eyes closed, and who the hell is that photos.
It was a huge job but I’m glad I did it.
I figure I pay rent for my office and that includes the dumpster. If it goes to the dumpster, H won’t see it and he would have to get inside to retrieve anything. My other office had a smaller dumpster and he was known to pick through it if he thought I had dumped something he thought he might need.
2 bags to goodwill and 1 to the dumpster today.
I’m not sure if I should post here or in the Say It Here thread, but I have gone from ten large bags of bills, receipts and account statements down to half a bag. We (read: I) put everything in Quicken and had gotten terribly behind (think early 2016) and too stressed about it to actually dig in. I have a separate file for all tax stuff, so that is always in good shape. I toss stuff in there as the year goes, so I can always get my hands on charitables, year-end stuff, etc.
At this point it’s purely recordkeeping/data entry, as we follow much of this stuff online. Nothing has bounced, bills are paid, but DH would be pretty hot if he knew how far behind I am. After sorting everything into piles, tossing old receipts and filing insurance docs and other statements, I’m almost done settling the checking account. Still need to enter mutual fund deposits and debating if I REALLY want to enter three year’s worth of credit card charges…except that is how I can immediately figure out which restaurant we went to in City X, which tour we took in Y, or when we last changed the tires/got an oil change on Car A or B.
I think once I have things current, he and I should have a conversation about whether it’s worth it to keep doing this. We don’t download financial stuff to Quicken, preferring to keep it offline. (Luddite, I know. Even worse, our version of Quicken is 2004 and the data is not exportable to a newer version.) OTOH, it tells us where we’re spending and will give us good baseline numbers when/if DH decides to retire.
I packed a box of hotel toiletries for donation and DH saw it and wanted to “review” what I was giving away. Mind you, we still have months of toiletries still in the vanity! Happily he didn’t come back to look for the box, and I have since delivered it. This is why I do these things when he’s out of town – it’s much easier to send things to “Chuck!” when he’s away (as in chuck them out the door!).
“debating if I REALLY want to enter three year’s worth of credit card charges…except that is how I can immediately figure out which restaurant we went to in City X, which tour we took in Y, or when we last changed the tires/got an oil change on Car A or B.”
???. You can just search your CC online for that. Your cc company has that info already online so it’s not a matter of you deciding to keep it online or not. In any event the year end summaries almost every cc company provides a pretty quick way to look at spending.
@CountingDown we used Quicken way back in the day, didn’t want to spring for a new version, and went to GnuCash a few years ago. It’s working out very well for us and the price is right. 
https://www.gnucash.org/
Good luck getting out from under!
Maya54, we drill down on expenses to the point where we know how much we spend on Metro, books, etc. The credit card statements are only online for 18 mo, which is not far enough back for some of my searches. The summaries aren’t detailed enough. It’s a pain, to be sure.
@CountingDown, it sounds as though this collection of detailed information is more important to your husband than to you. I think that, as with other types of stuff, the person to whom the stuff (the detailed information) is more important should be responsible for taking care of the stuff.
My husband is more into keeping receipts and paper trail stuff than I am. But, it has not taken over things. Is it you that feels the need to drill down to that level, or is it your husband? That is unclear as you said “we.” And why do you/and or your husband feel that level of detail is necessary? Just curious.
I got rid of two bags of stuff this week on garbage day. It really did feel good.
First trip in a while today to the Rescue Mission - donated two boxes of clothing and miscellaneous stuff, and a Playmobil set from 30 years ago that’s still in great condition. I’ve spent the last week sorting through our gazillion Playmobil sets, putting some aside for each kid, keeping two beloved sets for grandchildren to play with when they visit, and organizing to rest to donate to our senior center’s annual tag sale.
It’s the most fun I’ve ever had decluttering. The hard part is figuring out what to donate the sets in - the boxes are long gone. Some fit easily into zip-lock plastic bags, but some really need a plastic bin, and the right sizes are hard to find.
I took two grocery bags of books to Half Price Books and got $57, a new record for me. So my son and I bought $36 worth of books and had a $20 lunch.
Did a Goodwill run this afternoon: two tote bags of household goods, and a huge cardboard box of Fisher Price Little People.
cleaning out the pantry. H states arguing about a product that expired in 2016. No it will not kill you but then chances are that recipe that I just spent 2 hours on will not turn out the same. Wondering where everyone offs an old expiration date? Not what is recommended but what do you choose to do?
Depends on the product. At this point in my life, though, I rarely have foods that are past their expiration date. I regularly go through my small stock of food and if I have something that I know I bought more than a month or two earlier and it’s still sealed and not past its date, I will give it to the food pantry. If I had something with an expiration date of 2016, I’d probably dump it.