Decluttering

[mpeirce]

Quote:

Originally Posted by samclem Disposing stuff through garage sales: Not my cup of tea. Just too much time to collect the stuff until I have enough, tag it, advertise, hope there's no rain, then sit there all day and end up with a few bucks for my efforts, and still have most of the junk I started with (regardless of the price I set, so it seems).

Our neighborhood has a yearly garage/yard sale day each spring. It's nice for a couple of reasons: people don't junk up the neighborhood on other days; because there are so many people with stuff for sale, it attracts a very good turnout; and it makes it easy to get rid of a few items without having to go through the effort of advertising a sale yourself.

We often put out maybe a dozen items and it's surprising how much you can get from some items. I've gotten rid of ice skates (my size!), a car roof pod, a lawn mower, and lots more minor items.

The only real mistake I see people making is asking too much for items. My DF does this and gets all frustrated - "I know it's worth more than people are offering!" - and he ends up keeping the item and then eventually throwing it out. Oh well.

[daylatedollarshort]

Quote:

Originally Posted by samclem Firewood logs are cylindrical because that's the way the tree grows, it's not necessarily the ideal shape for using wood as fuel. I've always wondered if rolling paper into cylindrical shapes really changes the burning characteristics in a favorable way, or if it is just marketing ("Make your own logs!"). Paper tends to burn "dirty", but I'd imagine there's some way to optimize the shape of it (surface to volume ratio, etc) to make it more suitable for home heating while also making use of the "flat stacking" format in which we tend to store waste paper.

This is what I was interested in -

Amazon.com: Paper Log Maker: Industrial & Scientific

They actually come out brick shaped. It is just for the fire pit for now. I don't have a wood burning stove (yet). A box of wood is ~$8 and our kids and their friends can go through a box pretty fast having a cook out and sitting out on the patio around the fire pit afterwards.

[daylatedollarshort]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mpeirce Our neighborhood has a yearly garage/yard sale day each spring. It's nice for a couple of reasons: people don't junk up the neighborhood on other days; because there are so many people with stuff for sale, it attracts a very good turnout; and it makes it easy to get rid of a few items without having to go through the effort of advertising a sale yourself. We often put out maybe a dozen items and it's surprising how much you can get from some items. I've gotten rid of ice skates (my size!), a car roof pod, a lawn mower, and lots more minor items. The only real mistake I see people making is asking too much for items. My DF does this and gets all frustrated - "I know it's worth more than people are offering!" - and he ends up keeping the item and then eventually throwing it out. Oh well.

We participate in our neighborhood garage sale some years and just keep marking stuff down until it sells.

We sell everything in a couple of hours and then walk around. We always see many of the neighbors end up with everything they started with because they price it too high. I tried to buy a hammer at a different garage sale once and the woman priced it high because it had sentimental value and belonged to her late husband. I don't think she quite understood the market rate for used hammers.

[photoguy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by daylatedollarshort I am going to buy a paper log maker from Amazon and give it a try.

Do you need to be careful about what types of papers are burned? I'm thinking about fumes and or dust particles.

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[Music Lover]

I rarely have enough stuff for garage sales, but every now and then I'll just give stuff to my neighbors who have 1 or 2 garage sales every summer and let them do the work for a percentage.

[ampeep]

Saw a TV show about people looking for houseboats to live in. That would require getting of virtually everything you have! Dunno if I'd be able to go that far! Wonder what percentage of folks would be able to 'Declutter' to that extent.

[Jay_Gatsby]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ampeep Saw a TV show about people looking for houseboats to live in. That would require getting of virtually everything you have! Dunno if I'd be able to go that far! Wonder what percentage of folks would be able to 'Declutter' to that extent.

Same could be said about people living 75% of their time in RVs. Most folks with RVs have a home base, but in many cases it is a very small domicile with minimal upkeep required.

As for decluttering, I recall someone telling me that if you haven't used something in a year, you probably don't need it. Naturally, this doesn't apply to pictures, family heirlooms (that you want to keep), and other sentimental objects. Keeping something just because you "might need it someday" is a recipe for hoarding.

[harley]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jay_Gatsby Same could be said about people living 75% of their time in RVs. Most folks with RVs have a home base, but in many cases it is a very small domicile with minimal upkeep required. As for decluttering, I recall someone telling me that if you haven't used something in a year, you probably don't need it. Naturally, this doesn't apply to pictures, family heirlooms (that you want to keep), and other sentimental objects. Keeping something just because you "might need it someday" is a recipe for hoarding.

My problem is DW is VERY sentimental! Probably one bay of our garage worth, total.

[ProspectiveBum]

Quote:

Originally Posted by harley My problem is DW is VERY sentimental! Probably one bay of our garage worth, total.

My DW is, too. On the flip side, she has 2 sisters with Hoarders-level OCD, and she doesn't want to follow their example.

I'm not at all sentimental, so I have a tough time understanding her reluctance to purge certain things.

[daylatedollarshort]

Quote:

Originally Posted by photoguy Do you need to be careful about what types of papers are burned? I'm thinking about fumes and or dust particles.

Most of the sites I have looked at say newspaper with soy ink is okay. Glossy magazines maybe not so much. The paper log ideas are on sites like treehugger and Mother Earth News, which usually favor environmentally friendly projects.

Any posters with an environmental background here know for sure?

[ampeep]

My wife says I'm the sentimental hoarder. On the other hand, she has no problems dumping anything!

Seems like burning paper logs wouldn't take the place of burning real wood, but not certain about that. Unlike when I was growing up, we can no longer burn our trash.

I'm no environmentalist, but I do have a Can O' Worms (stackable vermicomposting) setup. Just thought it would be cool to have a few thousand skinny little pets! In addition to veggies, worms also eat paper. So I bank statements, bills, junk mail, and newspapers get fed to my little friends.

[athena53]

We have the realtor coming with a photographer for our listing on Monday so it's down to the wire. After the home stager left, DH wryly observed that the house is supposed to look as if no one eats, sleeps, cooks or uses the bathroom. Yeah, he's right!


We have Junk King picking up discards tomorrow AM but I decided to try Craigslist where, presumably, things would go to people who would use them and not into landfills. I listed everything under Free Stuff and put it at the end of the driveway after listing it, noting that first to arrive gets it and I'd delete the ad after the item was picked up.


Wow. In the last 3 days I've gotten rid of:


1. Six large saltwater fishing flies in a plastic case.
2. A pine chest with no back (had been used as a TV stand).
3. An almost-full tub of grout.
4. Five sheets of 2" square floor tiles plus a partial sheet.
5. The remainder of a roll of Ditra underlayment.
(The above 5 were all picked up by one person. Greedy.)
6. A tin of vintage buttons accumulated by my late MIL. I got about a dozen e-mails on that one.
7. 22 canisters from very good scotch whisky (EMPTY!) from major distillers plus a metal 3-bottle carrying case for wine.
8. The ugly black chest DS used in military school, which looked like someone's shop class project.
9. A set of poolside/lawn chairs, aluminum from the 1960s, so very high quality, but badly in need of new webbing.
10. A set of dining room chairs, same vintage, caning in back all ripped up and upholstery on seats badly worn. I watched a guy come up with a truck, carefully take pictures of each, then pack them up and leave. I like to think he was consulting with someone who was planning to refinish them.


Items 7 through 10 disappeared within an hour of listing.


I feel SO much better. I hate throwing things out and the pile to be picked up by Junk King is a whole lot smaller. What a great way to pass things on to people who can use them!

[Chuckanut]

Quote:

Originally Posted by athena53 7. 22 canisters from very good scotch whisky (EMPTY!) from major distillers

Warning!! Be on the lookout for cheap booze selling as premium Scotch in your area.

[marko]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuckanut Warning!! Be on the lookout for cheap booze selling as premium Scotch in your area.

When my grand dad passed away, he left 11 GALLONS (yep, that's right) of Maker's Mark bourbon. One of those guys who always worried that "they won't make it anymore someday"

26 years later and I still have a gallon and a half left.

[Chuckanut]

Quote:

Originally Posted by marko When my grand dad passed away, he left 11 GALLONS (yep, that's right) of Maker's Mark bourbon. One of those guys who always worried that "they won't make it anymore someday"

Some guys have all the luck.