CLUTTER, CLUTTER, CLUTTER

• Our clutter awakening
• Why extra possessions take up valuable time
• The clutter journey continues

I want to tell the story of our original de-cluttering experience, now a number of years ago.  The reason I am revisiting history is that Life has moved on and we are again ‘cluttered up’, despite a ‘one in, one out’ policy for all our possessions. 

In other words, for every thing that enters our lives, something was supposed to go out.  A cunning plan to ensure the clutter does not build up and the cupboard doors still close.  Well it would have been if it had worked.

So, by writing the story of our original de-clutter, I am reminding myself why I need to do it again and why we moved to this lovely, simple, energy efficient house in the first place. 

Life changes but belongings, habits and routines do not always change with it.  So getting rid of clutter is one way to move into the present.

Once upon a time, 12 years ago, our previous house got too small for the five of us.  We were going to have to move...

Then, a book called ‘Freedom From Clutter’ by Don Aslett changed all that. 

When I first read that book (given to me by my sister, who ironically still has two of everything), I laughed until I cried.  He has a real knack of using humour to make a point.  (See fun quiz on clutter).

I loaned the book to a friend.  Actually I left it in her front porch and wondered if she would guess who it was from.  She did of course and phoned a couple of days later to say she and her husband had sat reading it to each other in bed and giggled throughout.  Both households then rolled up their sleeves and began to clear out.  It was fun doing it at the same time, as we could share our clutter horror stories.

Clutter is anything you no longer need, have not used for a long time, do not have room for (yes even if it could be useful!) or anything that is broken and is waiting to be fixed (but never will be).  It can be clothes that are out of date or do not fit, unfinished craft projects, empty containers that may come in handy (if you can find them), extra dishes that don’t match and anything else that is surplus to requirements.

And before you get holier than thou and think you do not have clutter, let me ask whether you have any empty margarine tubs, old flower pots in the garage, enough used Jiffy bags to last you till the next millennium, spare parts for a car you no longer own, some of those nifty carpet sample squares, or paint to touch up the bedroom from before you changed the colour.  Oh and yes – what exactly is in your loft?

Many of us end up buying bigger houses or garages to put it all in, or even pay for storage facilities. So the extra belongings actually cost money.  Yet we convince ourselves we are saving money and being frugal by hanging onto things.  But the money has gone.  You already spent it on the stuff.

Getting rid of the excess makes cleaning easier.  There is more space in the cupboards so they stay tidy.  It is easier to find things.  Stuff does not get broken or crushed and you do not end up buying another one by mistake because you forgot you had it (heaven forbid).

Only you can say what you want to get rid of but there are usually hidden benefits that only become obvious once some clutter has gone as you will see… 

In the beginning, we threw away some things that just needed throwing away, such as old paperwork.  With rare exceptions, like a passport or birth certificate, there is little paperwork that needs to be kept for longer than seven years.

Having saved every bank statement and pay slip for our entire adult lives just in case, plus lots of old correspondence, catalogues and other things that might come in handy, the filing cabinets were filled to bursting.  Everything was filed neatly, there was just too much of it.  With business as well as personal paperwork to look after, we had three bulging cabinets. 

After burning several bin bags full of papers (great fun outside on a winter’s day) we got rid of a whole filing cabinet.  There was now plenty of space in the remaining cabinets, so it was easier to find things.   I was no longer damaging my cuticles on the hanging file pockets.

Without the third cabinet, there was more room in the office, so we added an easy chair.  The office looked much better and was nicer to work in.  With the addition of the comfy chair, we began to use it as a quiet retreat as well as an office.  So the unexpected bonus was being able to use the room more flexibly, effectively expanding our living space.   

So that was three results that improved our lifestyle, just from cleaning out the filing cabinets. 

• It was easier to find things
• No more damaged cuticles
• Having a quiet retreat and more living space

Now I try and throw something out every time I open the cabinet.  The paperwork still builds up, so in addition I have a New Year purge.

The garage was next.  There was much more room in the garage without the tins of old paint, car spares, and extra plant pots.  Hubby bought metal shelving and re-organised the remaining stuff. 

Wonder of wonders, THE CAR FITTED IN THE GARAGE.  So on frosty mornings, life just got easier. Again, a massive result from a relatively small action. There was no need to spend money on a shed, which had been the original plan.  So we just saved the price of a shed – our first financial result from de-cluttering.

So that’s two improvements in our lifestyle just from cleaning out the garage.

·         The car fitted in the garage.

·         We did not need a shed.

The kids, enthused by our efforts, relegated three bin bags full of cuddly toys to the loft.  The idea was to bring a few out at a time on rotation but once they realised how much easier it was to find their toys and how much more space there was to play, they were happy to leave them there.  Whoever invented the giant teddy bear should be locked away…

After that first de-clutter, we went through the whole process again a few months later.  It turned out to be a three stage process.  (And we have been re-visiting it ever since!)

Stage one involved getting rid of rubbish such as old paperwork, cuddly toys, old jam jars and garage junk.

Stage two was getting rid of stuff that still had some life in it but was not worth much, such as clothes that did not fit, surplus plastic food containers and mis-matched crockery.  This all went to charity.

 Stage three was awesome! This was good stuff but we no longer needed it due to lifestyle changes and kids growing up. 

It had stayed before because, although it was never used, it had cost quite a bit of money.  Then, whilst at a car boot sale with my sister, I realised that almost everything we had ever bought new was at the boot sale for a fraction of the cost.  A sobering thought.

That meant that we could earn money for our unwanted stuff but it also meant that if ever we regretted getting rid of something, it could be bought again for the same price we would get by selling it!

 With that safety net, on we went with the de-cluttering.  In fact there are only two things we have ever bought again and both cost LESS than we had sold the original one for.  In other words we made a profit.

Selling the stuff raised over £1,000 and that money paid off some of the mortgage.  We also bought a few new things that we really wanted, for instance we got African drums and went off to drumming camp – a really cheap and totally excellent holiday.

Now, if we buy something then find it is not useful after all, out it goes.  Remember the mantra – the money’s gone. It really helps if you bought it second hand to start with of course.

After a whole year of organising and getting rid of stuff, the truth was revealed. 

We did not need a bigger house at all.  It was the STUFF that had been taking up all the space. 

In fact, a smaller house would do just fine and we moved to a house that cost us a lot less money.  The remaining money went to pay off some of the mortgage.

The de-cluttering has therefore saved us many thousands of pounds.  It was a major factor in enabling us to pay off the mortgage early. 

It is now 12 years since we paid that mortgage off. In fact, it would have finally been paid off in December 2012 if we had allowed it to go full term.  Paying it off early meant we have never had to work full time again.  That is a big financial result, and a lot of it was due to de-cluttering.

After we moved, guess what? There was more.  ‘Why did we take that with us’ we wondered and sighed at the thought of all those boxes we had carried.

The table was just a little too big for the kitchen, so we sold it and bought a new (second hand) one that cost less money than we got for the old one.

The bookcases Hubby had made for the old house looked too big in the new, light and airy sitting room.  This was hard.  But we did not want our living room to be dominated by stuff and we liked that airy spacious feeling. 

So I went to the library armed with a list.  If a book was in the library, we sold our copy or sent it to charity.  Out went all those ‘high brow’ ones I meant to read one day, such as James Joyce (never got past chapter one), and Dickens (gave up when I was 12).  The library has them all, if ever I do want to read them.  And I never have.  Interestingly I then felt freed up to get some nice new books.   

And yes, you COULD get in the front door of our house before all this began.  It is amazing just how much stuff a house will hold before it begins to groan at the seams.

Pre de-clutter our home was reasonably tidy and actually looked quite normal. 

In part two of this article there will be more information on how to go about de-cluttering. For the time being, try making a small pile of things to get rid of.  Start with one drawer or cupboard.

Tesco syndrome

The Tesco Syndrome

6 weeks ago I went into Tesco to return a dented tin of tomatoes which cost me 29p (45c) and also to buy 3 things – decaffeinated coffee, a stain removal bar and some wheat free rolls, for which I thought I had a money off voucher.

I got my 29p/45cents back but managed to spend £40.50/$60 while I was there.  It went as follows:

·         Half a salmon that was on offer at half price

·         A dress that was in the sale for £7/$10.50

·         2 heads of broccoli – because they were on a buy one get one half price offer

·         Peaches – they were a bargain at 5 for 59p/90c but this was more than neutralised by the other impulse buys, and actually Lidl had 9 for £1/$1.50

·         I cannot remember what else I bought.  I go into Tesco and I get hypnotised, rarely getting out without spending £40/$60.  I try to avoid going there but every so often there is something I need that the other supermarkets don’t stock

1.       We have a freezer full of lovely, delicious trout.

2.       I have enough dresses and don’t really wear them. This one looked like a corporate bank or shop uniform and was uncomfortable.  Why didn’t I try it on?

3.       I have unpicked Kale and spinach in the garden and 2 packets of broccoli in the freezer.

4.       It turns out my voucher for wheat free rolls was for a different brand and I narrowly escaped without buying another wheat free product that I did not need.

5.       Then I went to the café and spent another £3.50/$4.75.  if I hadn’t gone to Tesco I would have cooked my own baked potato with baked beans, using the potatoes from the garden and bargain baked beans with home grown salad for a total of 50p/75c.  what’s more the Tesco one was not very nice and the salad was tasteless.

6.       I could have spent the time out in the garden instead of in Tesco.

Inflation of our needs, wants and desires

Our food bill had crept to £200/$300 per month for two of us when this happened.

Probably not excessive to a lot of people but I know I can feed us for a lot less – a maximum £100/$150 a month even taking inflationary food prices into account. 

Not all food has gone up actually, though some has, and bananas have gone down.  It depends what you want to buy and I suspect much though not all of the food price inflation is really inflation of our needs, wants and desires as the good old book Your Money or Your life calls it.

So how do you reduce the food bill?

many (all?) of us buy bagged salad and rocket (arugula) instead of a loose lettuce, vine tomatoes instead of ordinary tomatoes and fancy mash from the chill cabinet  or ‘specially selected’ baking potatoes instead of an ordinary bag of spuds. 

You can still get a sack of spuds for £5-7/$7.50-10.50 and it makes an awful lot of mashed potato, chips or baked potatoes. 

You can make a lot of soup with a humble £1/$1.50 bag of lentils, a few spuds, stock cube and an onion.   Or you can buy a 1 litre carton of ready-made lentil soup – no doubt special, luxury soup in some way – for £2.50/$3.75.

 And rocket is just about the easiest thing to grow.

Marrows Free to Good Home please help yourself.

The other day on the way home, I passed this sign at the side of the road.  Next to it was a veritable mountain of marrows.

I gratefully gave two of them a good home but once I got them home, they were getting ignored and I couldn’t quite bear to cut into them.  In fact they were in danger of never being used.

After the Tesco debacle that had to change. 

The left over curry and pasta sauce in the fridge were duly transformed into stuffed marrow, marrow soup and marrow and potato curry and we had several effectively free and very tasty meals as a result.  I was inspired and back on track!

The leftover tub

This is a plastic tub that you keep in the freezer.  All those little bits of things that go off in the fridge get put into the tub and frozen instead.  Not stuff off people’s plates, just the bits left in the saucepan etc.  This idea came from the Tightwad Gazette many years ago and we have used it ever since. 

When the tub is full, I make a curry or stuff pasties with whatever is in it, plus a few herbs and spices.

No matter what goes in there it is always delicious. 

However, the recent tub had been full for ages and because it was full, little bits of leftovers were going off in the fridge again.

So Hubby made leftover curry which was yummy and I made leftover pasties, with the remaining curry, adding some grated cheese and a slice of tomato to each pasty.

And Tesco?

Well to be fair I was impulse buying in other supermarkets too, Tesco just tempted me more.  For the last 6 weeks I have had a rule of one impulse buy of up to 50p/75c per shopping trip, and stuck to it.  What fun I have had spending that 50p/75c.

And the dress went back and was exchanged for 2 large packs of nappies (2 for 1 offer) as a gift for a new baby.

THE BICARB DEODORANT AND OTHER CHEMICALS

Just try it …

As you may know from previous entries, I enjoyed the cd recording of the book No Impact Man very much. 

Sometimes when you read a book you pick up just one tip that makes it worth buying the whole book, even if you learn nothing else. 

In this case, the tip was to use bicarbonate of soda as a deodorant.

No Impact Man was using bicarb as a deodorant in an attempt to reduce his impact on the planet and therefore cut down on his use of chemicals.  He just happened to mention that bicarb is the ‘world’s most effective deodorant so I decided to try it. 

Well it is.  Bicarbonate of soda is more effective than any deodorant I have ever used.  Two friends tried it and found the same.  Totally smell free all day, except when it was really hot and I was on a train or something. WOW!  Just carry a little pot and top it up in really sweaty conditions, or do what I do and carry a little Weleda pump action deodorant just for such a purpose.  These are the next best deodorant I have ever tried by the way.  They do a hand bag size but it works out more expensive so I bought it once and now refill it from the larger size.  (I used to get through a lot more of them before discovering bicarb!)

Well the bicarb thing got me thinking.  What is happening here?   How come we spend all that money and put a cocktail of chemicals and perfume onto our skin when bicarb works better?   (At least for some people - I wouldn’t like to say this was universal on the basis of the three of us plus No Impact Man.)

How to use bicarb deodorant

Just tip a bit onto your fingers and rub onto a freshly washed arm pit.  Voila.  Do not use too much though, or you will get a tide mark on black clothes.  It will wash (or even rub) out if you do.  Use just a little and it is as effective as a larger quantity and there is no tide mark.  As a side benefit there is no staining on white clothes under the arms either.  Turns out it is the deodorant that causes that not the sweat.

So no worries about aluminium or any chemicals in the deodorant any more and more money in my pocket. 

Just a wee note here.  The solid crystal deodorants I looked at in the health shop are crystallised alum.  In other words aluminium.  They didn’t work for me at all, along with every other deodorant I have ever bought in a health shop apart from the Weleda one which is alcohol based.  I am quite a sweaty person and always have been, so was amazed when the bicarb actually worked. 

It made me think about the nature of marketing – which is after all designed to make us want to buy things, and not necessarily about finding out what works best. 

If there is little profit in it who is going to market it to us?  A 250g packet of bicarb cost me £1/$1.50 and lasts for over a year. I bought it in the local Pound Shop (discount store).  It is increasingly available in this larger quantity as opposed to the wee tubs for baking which are also good value but more expensive if you are going to use it long term. 

 One year on I am not even half way through the packet and have been using it in baking as well. 

Other uses for Bicarb

Bicarb was what my Mum used to get rid of the smell in things like thermos flasks, and hopefully some of you already know about that. 

But just in case…Bicarb gets rid of the coffee smell out of a thermos flask, plastic smell out of your lunch box and just about any other smell.  Just half fill with warm or hot water, add a teaspoon of bicarb and top up with some more water.  Leave it for a couple of hours and the smell is gone. 

Why didn’t I try this before?. 

Marketing is such a subtle art and I believe it affects us all, often without us even registering that it is happening.  Just remember that ANY product is on the market simply because the folks selling it WANT TO MAKE MONEY.  So how do you make money when the world’s most effective deodorant costs no more than 50p/75c per person per year?  Maybe you make a new product.

It made me wonder if we forget what we once knew was good, just because something else has a higher profile.

Well, washing powder/laundry detergent. I have to make an admission here.  I have never really believed those things about vinegar and lemon juice etc being better cleaners. 

But I am carrying out my own experiments and finding that I am wrong. 

Mainly the things our great grannies used to use but have now been superseded by so-called better ones.  The thing is that for us, quite a few are not better - not even as good, cost more money and are full of chemicals that we would rather not have in our bodies, food chain and water supply.  (Yeah if you flush them down the loo that is where they may end up.)  You may disagree of course, we are all different.

Washing soda.

I always wondered what this was for and had a vague notion it would help unblock drains.  (That is caustic soda actually and is a different thing).

Turns out it is for doing laundry – hence the name, huh.  There is nothing in it except washing soda.  No additives, colours or other chemicals.  Great if you have babies or sensitive skin and better for the environment. 

It costs £1/$1.50 per packet and is easy to buy.  It works better than many laundry products we had tried and does not bring hubby’s sensitive skin out in a rash.  We had been using an eco friendly laundry detergent – washing soda is much cheaper and has no additives - and even the eco friendly ones have some.  It is fine for our automatic washing machine as it does not froth up.  If you are unsure about your machine be sensible and try a small quantity first to make sure but we have had no problems at all.

An added bonus?  All our whites got whiter.

Incidentally if I had a dishwasher I would try it in that too.  I don’t though.  So if you have one and want to try it do give feed back.

And the smell…

You get used to the smell of your own laundry detergent.  What we have come to realise now we use the washing soda is that to us, laundry detergent now has a strong  smell and i a highly scented product.

Fabric conditioner?

Turns out that if you do not use a commercial washing powder, there is no need for fabric conditioner.  The clothes just do not feel stiff and rough any more. 

20 years ago hardly anyone used it. 

If you do use laundry detergent and fabric conditioner or dishwasher detergent get the cheapest ‘form’ of it.

Loose laundry and dishwasher powder works out the cheapest.  Cheaper than the liquid, the tablet and most of all cheaper than the little sachets.  it is all the same stuff, why pay more for fancy packaging?  Try the cheaper version and see if you can tell the difference…

Liquid fabric conditioner added to the wash tends to work out less expensive than tumble dryer fabric conditioner sheets. And anyway you can dry the laundry outside or on a clothes horse or pulley most of the time…

What about wipes?  There seems to be a wipe for everything.  Maybe marketing geniuses had sessions to think of how many different wipes could be marketed so that we all buy lots of them.  They do not break down, being polypropylene or something like that and many get washed up on the beach or swallowed by sea life because people flush them down the toilet.

When our kids were small we just used tissues or paper towel when we were out if they got sticky.  It worked fine and at least it was biodegradable.  My mum used to carry a damp flannel (face cloth) in a plastic bag.  Now you have a packet of wipes. 

So the humble duster is now a disposable wipe. The mop has a wipe to attach to it.  The dog no longer has an old towel to dry its feet with but has special doggy wipes.

The thing is the paper towel just had water on it.   The wipes have all sorts of things on them.  Just look at the ingredients.  Then decide whether some paper towel or cotton wool and water would do the job.

And so to Borax

This comes as a powder and yes, you guessed it, costs £1/$1.50 a packet. It is anti bacterial and is amazing at getting marks off things.  We make it up with water in a spray bottle and use it as we used to use commercially available anti bacterial spray.  

 If we had a highly infectious disease in the house I may buy the other kind as a one off – but there is probably no need. And anyway, household bleach is the most effective thing against bacteria like the Noro virus and ordinary, thin household bleach costs about 30p/50c a litre so I would probably dilute that and use it instead. 

NB bleach can be damaging to the waterways.  If you want to use it, use it sparingly.  There is, for instance no point in bleaching a floor which does not need to be sterile and will not stay so for more than a minute anyway.  And do not mix it with detergent as it can cause a chemical reaction that gives off chlorine gas. Just stick to a simple floor soap - or of course washing soda.

Vinegar

Want to get the stains or stuck-on crud off the inside of the toilet?  Leave vinegar in it overnight.  Works a treat.  And then use the borax solution to clean it in future. We bought a commercial eco friendly toilet cleaner but it rusted the bolts that held the loo seat on.  Guess it was vinegar based, but it was a lot more expensive than vinegar. 

Do not use the vinegar to clean the seat or outside of the toilet though for the same reason.