After nearly 16 years of marriage, I’ve finally accepted that my husband and I take a very different view about the storage capacity of our home. It’s not a deal-breaker, but I can’t tell you how frustrated I get by his ‘depression mentality’, which he doesn’t apply to money as I’m yet to find any under the bed. Rather, it’s ‘things’, he’s reluctant to relinquish.
Who knows what’s lurking under the stairs?
If anything can be patched, hidden away or ‘saved for future generations’; you’ll find it lurking somewhere in our house. For all I know, we could have a House Elf trapped under our stairs, as I can no longer get in there.
Scarily, my husband applies this thinking to food and will quite happily ignore use-by dates munching on all manner of things from the back of the fridge, while the kids and I opt for take-out rather than salmonella. In our garage, seven, yes seven sad little toasters sit, waiting for the day they might be used again. They have accompanied us through 4 houses now. My husband is convinced our children might find them useful when they are ready to leave home. Really? The kids will probably be able to toast bread using their iPhone by the time they’re ready to fly from the nest. Meantime, the box the toasters sit in takes up a stupid amount of space and I bang into it every time I pull in with my car. Sigh.
More ‘goodies’ hidden behind the front door
I am of the firm view that if something hasn’t been used for a period of one year, it has outlived its usefulness to the Websters, and should be either donated to a charity or sold online. I’ve had great success in the past, selling all manner of things including kid’s games, black and white goods, a set of French doors, a BBQ and a set of old but beautiful crockery. Once, I even sold a dog lead, a dog bed and a packet of dog chews. Clearly someone was in the market for a puppy.
Some parents reading this might be horrified but I also apply this method of de-cluttering to our kid’s school artwork. I ruthlessly toss the bulk of my kid’s offerings, instead saving only a precious few to be framed and popped up onto our Rogue’s Gallery.
Precious artworks
Someone once did a piece of research that showed, despite how many clothes and shoes we might have, we will always return to the same seven items in our wardrobe, wearing them over and over until they fall to bits, happily ignoring new items still hanging in plastic.
So, rather than hang onto things that you know you’re never going to use again, why not try your hand at selling them? It’s incredibly liberating and one can always do with a little extra cash right? If your kids are old enough, give them the task of selling your unwanted items. My son loves the challenge, especially as he charges me 10% commission on any item sold. My favoured site for this is Gumtree. It’s user friendly and my success rates are always high. You can check out their blog here which gives some handy tips on how to declutter if you have similar tendencies to my husband.
Oh, and does anyone need a toaster?
Until next time…
This post was bought to you in partnership with Gumtree Australia.
Gumtree is awesome and paying kids comish to get them involved is inspired work. As for all the toasters, ugh. I feel your pain x
Darn and I just bought a toaster…..and a kettle!