Help me to throw out...

I save everything - I am from the "waste no want not" generation and this litany was repeated endlessly by my Dad.

The plastic tubs are great when the GC want to do painting or make a space rocket or doll's bed.

Cardboard boxes and shopping bags can be recycled - really and honestly you do not need to keep them!

My downfall is teabags - believe it or not I make one last all day!!

We are 'clearing' clutter ready to make a move. We started in garage 1. After a 15 minute discussion on how to proceed and a cup of tea, we managed two bags of rubbish for the tip and 6 boxes for the charity shop.

I think it's going to take a long time! x

I agree re the shopping bags and small boxes. I really need to not have a "hesititate and keep" mentality going on. They look so useful though! Whereas in reality they are cluttering.

Tubs. For some reason I had more than 20. I culled them by half a while back and thought I had got somewhere. But I havent used a single one in 8 months, so more should go. Ouch.

[I am still warning people that this is all very lighthearted!]

Your teabags - boy you must like your tea weak! Though I have nothing against frugality.

I have a drawer full of boxes that originally contained Ebay jewellery. I keep thinking they will be useful at Christmas, but if I buy jewellery as gifts, each piece has its own box. Otherwise, our local 'silver box' recycling scheme takes just about everything.

I've just had a HUGE clear out of a whole black bin bag of carrier bags, I had a bonfire of cardboard boxes, and today am about to clear out yet more 'useful plastic tubs'. I have already emptied one cupboard full of them, then remembered that my lean-to greenhouse where I have a freezer and tumble-dryer also has a huge stash. So it's lean-to clear-out day today.

Yes they are useful, but not THAT much. It's hard to know when enough is enough. I've also sorted out all the used jiffy bags and dumped most of them, I had a whole crate full.

I have two shelves full of plastic containers with lids. I do use the boxes for storing portions of vegetables and salad. I keep plastic tubs for storing home made soup but they seem to disappear, probably because I take them to DS's and forget to collect them.
Cardboard boxes, from household appliances are stored in attic until DH feels sure they are in working order. Large cardboard boxes are usually required a few days after we take them to the municipal tip

Ooh heck. You have made me realise that my jiffy bag collection is growing. I have about 15 of them of various sizes. I do use a few but not that many.
We seem to "collect" the same things janerowena.

I nearly went down the jewellery box route. But realised in time that I dont have that much to require keeping lots of the little boxes.

I often have a carrier bag cull soontobe or else the little blighters would take over my pantry. I have one of those blue Ikea storage boxes full and as soon as they start overflowing then "out they go". DGC always need one to take stuff backwards and forwards but they are so picky and only go for the best ones. Their particular favourites are the Percy Pig ones from Marks and Spencer.

Nice thread.

Oh, this is such a reassuring thread! I thought it was just me . I learned a valuable lesson when I cleared out my Aunt and Uncle's flat. I could not believe how many black sacks I filled with 'stuff'. The entire bottom of one wardrobe was filled with carrier bags. There were receipts for things that were donkeys years old and they no longer even had the items they related to. Leaflets, thousands of them, for things they were never going to buy, enough shoes to keep half the planet shod . . . I swore that I would never go down that route I, too, come from a long line of 'make-do-and-menders' and find it so difficult to part with anything that might come in useful. I even used to wash used plastic food bags and re-use them , but I gave that up years ago.

The hardest thing for me is actually deciding what really will be useful - how long do you have to keep something before you decide that it can go? Is there a law for this?

Here we can recycle plastic shopping bags , it does feel more virtuous than storing them

Left over balls of wool!

I too have a jiffy bag collection soontobe and an over flowing plastic bag holder and a stack of tubs and various sized pieces of bubble wrap and........

A collection of cables that I can't remember what they're for and probably don't even have the device anymore.

I dont knit. Go dispose Anya?!

Thanks gillybob

Charity shops will often take oddments of wool/yarn. It's worth asking. I have taken a lot of duplicate knitting needles to one of ours.

I don't think there is an actual law MiniMouse but there should be. It would make things so much easier.

I did get rid of loads of old shoes when we moved house a couple of years back. I now notice that the shops are full of those flat brogue styles very similar to a couple of pairs I got rid of.

Note to self: Keep all shoes and clothes for at least 30 years as they will no doubt come back into fashion. although I might not be around to see it

I'm terrible for hoarding make-up and have loads of old stuff that I can't bear to throw out. Half used tubes of foundation, used lipsticks, old blushers etc. What I would really like to do is throw the whole lot away and start again with just a few posh selective products. Chance would be a fine thing.

Plastic bags I use as bin liners- they are so thin nowadays they barely do that job.

Carboard boxes are stripped of sellotape, folded and placed in the recycling bin. Tubs are washed if they can be recycled if notm put in the bin for rubbish.

Yes Anno the Blue Cross, when I used to volunteer, does take odds and ends of wool. Now I just have to convince myself I'll NEVER knit those dolls clothes.

SIL is an awful hoarder, I have to hide things I am putting out to the rubbish in case he sees them. DD going mad, in their store room there are 7 printers, some not working and most very old, he keeps them, 'just in case', in case of what for goodness sake.

I dont think that household stuff in general is as useful as it used to be. Partly because replacements, if needed, can be bought so cheaply.
My daughter got married recently. Their house was empty when they started. It took no time at all to be given some larger items that other people no longer needed, be given some wedding presents, use the cash that some people gave instead of presents to buy the small stuff they didnt have, and all of a sudden, to have a fully functioning house.

Here in mid Essex the Council provide every home with containers for reclycling paper, cardboard, tins, bottles, tinfoil and plastic and collect every two weeks so there is no excuse for hoarding. We are a two person household but have two large bags of plastic every two weeks.

My great grandson loves bubblewrap which makes very satisfying POPs when he jumps on it so I save that. I also save those bags you put wine in when you receive one for a present and re-use them.

Apart from this I am not a hoarder by nature though DH is. We used to move around a lot in the early years of our marriage and I soon learned to be ruthless about throwing things out regularly.

I want to declutter, really want to, have even made a list, will the cables in the cable drawer from computers long gone really come in useful one day? will I watch again the DVD's I didn't enjoy the first time I watched, do I need single bed sheets when I haven't a single bed , do I need three printers? And so it goes on,

I'm not a hoarder of anything but I have been keeping some clothes that are too big for me because they were nearly new. this week I have tried them all on and having seen that they are too floppy have popped them all in the Sally Ann bag which came this week.