My Accidental Decluttering Strategy

[katieb12]

I moved in with my fiance this past weekend. I'm 52 and never-married, so it's quite an adventure. I mentioned in a recent post that I have a condo that I'm planning to rent. He has a house in which he has lived for 30+ years and which is crammed with 30+ years of possessions. Because we both have some work to do on our houses (repairs, organizing, decluttering) and because there is no real need to rush, I'm going through my stuff, getting rid of some, and moving somewhat gradually. So I moved my everyday stuff, my seasonal clothes, toiletries, a few books, the food. The clothes I moved are the 20% that I wear 80% of the time. He made a fair amount of space for me in the bedroom, so it's surprisingly comfortable, or at least as comfortable as it can be when I moved from a walk-in closet into half of a smallish sliding door closet.

Anyway, I started to think that maybe I will just get rid of the 80% once and for all. If I didn't bother to move it, am I EVER going to wear it? So what if I just bagged it up and stopped by Goodwill and took a nice tax deduction? I think this might really work to finally free myself of the "perfectly good, and I paid so much money for this" stuff.

Anybody ever use similar strategies?

[Fawn]

Sort of.

I moved out of the farmhouse with 4 kids and a weeks worth of clothing for us each. For various reasons, did not go back to get the rest of the stuff and a year later the house burned to the ground. Melted-refrigerator-in-the-basement-burned-to-the-ground. Nothing left.

Your way is probably better. You get a tax deduction.

[redfox]

... the house burned to the ground. Melted-refrigerator-in-the-basement-burned-to-the-ground. Nothing left.

I went through this ordeal too... a rental on the south end of the island I lived in had a faulty wood stove. Luckily, we did not die. Easiest move I've ever made, but definitely not recommended, for stress reasons. We did get a decent settlement from the landlord's insurance company, after 18 months of back-and-forth.

[BayouGirl]

I'm having flashbacks. I remember almost 3 years ago when we bought our new little wood-frame house and BayouBoy moved it to our property. Well, he moved it just about 3 feet in front of the old trailer he had been living in on the property. He had originally planned to move the trailer a few days later.

But alas, 3 years have passed and that danged trailer is STILL there. The worst part? BayouBoy didn't consider how the heck he was going to get the fridge out of the trailer since the new little house is blocking the front door. So we had to get a new fridge. We can get in the trailer thru the back door but because of the narrow hallway, but we can't get the fridge out that way.

He still has stuff in that trailer and 2 of his kids have decided it makes a nice storage place for stuff that they don't want cluttering their places. If the danged thing wasn't so close to our house, I'd be tempted to set a match to it. I am hoping that this will be the year we get it moved, now that the weather is cooler. We need to get wheels on it, rally some friends to help and get the kids to get their stuff out of it (Yeah, it ain't looking too promising, I know).

Feel free to laugh at us and mock us. The only reason I haven't gotten madder at him about the whole thing is because it's too much fun laughing at him over it. I thank God daily for giving me a sense of humor and loved ones who give me so much to laugh about.

[Spoony]

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[katieb12]

Wow. Glad I'm doing this voluntarily rather than the way y'all did it.

Spoony - My family is having a tag sale next weekend and I'm going to try to sell some of the stuff. Here's hoping.