When decluttering we regularly have conversations with clients about the fact that they can’t give an item away because someone gave it to them. I understand. You worry that the person will know what you’ve done. But actually, will they? And more importantly, will they mind?
You know they thought of you when they gave you the item, and you were grateful when you received it. But you don’t have to keep it for ever.
If when you get the item from them in the first place, you put it on show in an ostentatious way and they regularly come to your house, then it may be obvious when you get rid of it. But if you were to start to move things around in your home, in anticipation of decluttering or downsizing, would they know? And would they mind?
If you anticipate that they really would mind, then ahead of your decluttering you can discuss with them how you’re going to take photographs of the special things you have that you sadly need to move on; then they’ll at least know that their gift to you was ‘special’. You can’t be held hostage to someone’s gift for ever!
If you give without expectation, then you should hope that other people do too. Once the item is yours, you are free to do whatever you want with it. And if that means giving it to someone else who will get pleasure from it, then that’s a good thing to do! Especially if that item is years and years old.
And of course you can always say it got lost in the move…
Food waste is caused because the vast majority of people don’t plan their food consumption and so much therefore is left over. There will always be those times when we buy something that spoils before we expected it to. That’s not your fault, so don’t worry about that. But we will all find that we buy, say, coriander, and have some left, or a large pot of Greek yoghurt (because it’s cheaper than small). We need to train ourselves to think about a menu that will use these ingredients up more quickly in ultiple recipes before they go off. So these are our tips:
Meal plan for a week to two weeks at a time.
You may wish to keep a list of dishes you like so that you can refer to it when doing the meal plan. Get your kids invested in this list, especially the older teenage ones!
Write down your breakfast, lunch and dinner plans for the week. Sometimes with a family you’ll have different food likes / dislikes / allergies to cater for, so you can use this plan to help cater for that.
If you have put something down on your meal plan that needs a small amount of something fresh, see if you can make more of that dish to freeze, or use it in another dish during the week. For instance recently we bought coriander and used it in 5 dishes: pho noodle soup, onion bhajis (some we froze), lentil dahl (lots was frozen), onion salad to serve with poppadoms, and avocado bruschetta. We also use coriander in rice salads.
If you notice something in your fridge might be looking past its best, make a soup, or roast or toast or steam it. Anything that will cook it to help preserve its life!
Keep jars, tins and pickled things as well as nuts to add to fresh stuff to create a salad. Then, when you have fresh stuff left over to use up (as for point 5), you can make a meal from something that is in your cupboard anyway. You can use it for lunch or a side for a meat dish, or add more protein (plant or animal based) to make a bigger meal.
Inspect your fridge on a regular basis, and definitely before you go shopping!
Did you know that food can be clutter too? 70% of UK food waste comes from households, that’s 6.7million tonnes.* The average household spends £470 on food each year that is thrown away. These statistics are crazy!
During declutter sessions we are regularly identifying unwanted food which we are giving and throwing away. We give to foodbanks where we can, give away on Olio where we can’t, and throw when it is no longer possible to rehome it.
But could we get to a point where there is less to have to throw?
The biggest food waste we see is when people buy an ingredient for a new recipe that they only ever make once. It’s so easy to do. So if the recipe is delicious, we recommend making it again really soon, and yet again so it becomes part of your repertoire. That way, the strange-sounding spice or sauce will not be relegated to the back of your cupboard and forgotten about. Didn’t like the dish you made? Then give that item away there and then on Olio, or to a friend who cooks a lot, then it won’t be wasted.
If you’re like me you also probably have ingredients you bought for a recipe you saw, liked the look of, and then couldn’t find again. In this case, google for recipes and just start to use it in something! It will be worth doing that!
Spices in general are a problem as often they’re only used for one thing or they are hard to see in your cupboard and get forgotten about. We regularly see multiples of the same herb or spice because people didn’t know they had it already. If this is the case, you need to think about making your spice storage more accessible! We can help here!
The most common food waste is fresh food. We are going to cover this in next week’s blog, so do come back and have a read then!
If you are downsizing or just feel that your home is a bit overcrowded with possessions, one of the great ways to get started is to set yourself a schedule which can be popped into your diary. This way you are setting time aside for it and you are also holding yourself accountable to do it. It is okay to do something else instead in that time, but you must help yourself by rearranging it for another time before the next one is scheduled. If something like ill health gets in the way, don’t be too hard on yourself, you can still catch up.
If you are just starting your journey to decluttering, you might want to start with short sessions and have them just once a week. If you have a looming deadline, such as a house sale, or the need to clear a property after probate, then you will need to do more and for longer each time. Remember that it can be physically tiring if you are not used to it, and it can also be emotionally draining too. We suggest four hours is the most amount of time you’ll want to do in one go. If you are doing it with someone else who is likely to be emotionally attached to the items as well, then you might find it difficult to progress very fast. (Actually in this instance, we suggest one person does a pre-sort, and leaves piles for the other to say if they agree with the decision or not).
Each person takes a different amount of time, depending on how long the decision-making process takes. To find out how long it will take you, time how long it will take you to do one cupboard in one room, and then multiply up from there. Once you know how many hours you think you need, you can then put 1 to 4-hour sessions in your diary.
If you need help with setting a schedule, or in fact doing the decluttering, then do get in touch with us. We also have our declutter guide which you can download free from the website (with an optional donation to Trinity Hospice). https://mailchi.mp/e4a7c0ab3aef/30day-clutter-clear
This month’s guest blog is written by Rosalind Furlong, a professional photographer, who captures people and memories for a living and shares here how she wishes she had dealt with her children’s memories.
My name is Rosalind and I am a hoarder. I’m not quite sure how it started. Perhaps it was being brought up by parents who lived through the deprivation of the second world war and who took the attitude that something might just come in useful someday. Maybe it was watching Blue Peter as a child and realising that an empty box or toilet roll tube might turn into some beautiful and functional object that would last a lifetime, if only I had some sticky-backed plastic. Or perhaps it was just a desire to hold onto things as I grew up, so that I could remember the past better.
If I hadn’t married and had children I think I would have been a prime candidate for ’Britain’s Worst Hoarder’ but as it is, all my clutter gets shoved into my study and friends always comment on how tidy my house is; the study door is firmly shut. Fortunately, my now-adult children have not inherited my hoarding tendencies, although I am aghast when they want to throw out what had once been treasures. However, as my husband so helpfully says, if you keep everything, you keep nothing. I have boxes of assorted memorabilia from my life but have not inspected them for years. They just sit, cluttering up the giant cupboard he gifted me to accommodate my hoard.
Some years ago when the children were little I realised I simply couldn’t manage to keep every last babygro, every little dress, every toy train. It became clear that it was not the object per se that I needed, but just the memory of the object, and so before any of their childhood possessions left the house for the great charity shop in the sky (OK, high street), I photographed them.
This obviously became its own chore – bags of clothes would sit for months before I summoned up the energy to go through them and photograph them. But this I did and now, nestled somewhere on assorted hard drives which house my professional photography, is a ton of photos of their clothes, their teddies and the rest of their toys. The photos aren’t artful – I didn’t have time for that. They are just a record. Incidentally, while I was typing that last sentence my husband came into my study and picked up a couple of badges I’d saved from a recent throw-out by the kids. ‘Why are you keeping this Team GB badge?’ he asked. ‘Why are you keeping the junior ranger badge?’ I don’t know, but perhaps they will become treasured possessions of our great-great-grandchildren. Although I suspect our kids will have chucked them out long before then. Anyway, back to the photos…
So there they are, sitting on the hard drives; someday, some day in the future when I have simply nothing else to do, when my endless to-do list is finally all done, I will go through the photos and make a book of each of my children’s possessions, and hopefully that will be the thing that their great-great-grandchildren will treasure.
Now, of course, I realise that this wasn’t the best way to record the objects – just a toy or a dress sitting on the ground. I should have taken more photographs of the children – of them in their clothes, of them playing with their toys, of them snuggled in their beds with their teddies. When children are little it’s hard to imagine a day when they won’t still be little. There’s always tomorrow to take the photos. Or the day after that. But suddenly they’re grown up and even I, a professional photographer, realise that I didn’t take nearly enough photos of them. Their toys and teddies and dresses are gone, their bedrooms are adult bedrooms, their childhood is over, packed away into the cupboards of our memories. Photos are all we have. Take photos. Lots of them. Not just of your children, but your partner, your parents, your friends, anyone you love. Anyone you might lose. Those photos will be your great-great-grandchildren’s treasured possessions. And if you don’t know how to take good photos, ask me and I’ll do it for you.
If you would like to find out how Rosalind can capture all your memories, you can find her at https://www.rosalindfurlong.com/ and 07786 512492.
When I was 10 years old, my parents got divorced. My dad, like many men, kept many screws, nuts, bolts, etc, ‘because they might be useful’. We moved to a more suitable home and I suggested to my mum that the shed-full of these items wasn’t needed – my father had moved abroad, so wasn’t going to take them himself. She insisted they came with us. 20 years later, she downsized, to a flat. No shed. How many times had those screws come in useful? Although I can’t tell you exactly, I’m pretty sure it was fewer than the number of fingers on one hand. And so out they went.
Everyone keeps things ‘because they might be useful’. But it is good to really think about how often that might actually be the case, or whether really, especially as you get older, you wouldn’t use so many DIY items; maybe you would be more likely to get someone in to do the work for you, who would bring their own tools, etc. It might be worth questioning your use of dinner services, tea sets and other items for entertaining. As you downsize you are less likely to have people round for dinner, and you are already at a point where you prefer others to do the catering for you.
If you need help deciding how many milk jugs and vases you should keep in your downsize, do get in touch with us and we’d be glad to help.
On Thursday 1st May, 5-7pm, why not join us at Kyn Bickley. We will be part of an informative session with Katherine Carroll from Peacock & Co, Claire Edwards owner of Claire Edwards Eldercare Consultant and Mark Barnett from Providence Care.
The talk will cover making LPAs and Wills and what happens if you don’t have them, financial support, assessments, triggers and personal wishes related to care as well as the practicalities and life admin of moving into care.
Kyn, Bickley Park Road, Bromley, BR1 2AZ
Please email KYNBickley@kyn.co.uk to reserve your place.
Getting older can be a bit annoying. If you have osteoarthritis, you can lose your grip; if you have declining eye sight, you can’t see things as clearly; and your balance may have started to falter. So here are some easy things that might help you:
Get a small rubber mat or a plastic gripper tool to help you open jars and things. Often turning it is still hard but if you push a little to the right with the gripper and to the left with your other hand, it can become really easy.
Use a lazy susan in a cupboard so you can get to all your bottles and jars when it becomes harder to reach for things.
If you use shower gel in the shower but handling the bottle is tricky, get a pump action top. Or if you still like soap, put it in a thin sock, which will make it much easier to grip.
Shower caddies that hang over the taps or levers might save you from slipping if that stops you reaching for stuff. Even better, if balance is an issue do make sure you have grip handles installed and also a shower seat.
If you can’t always see remote control buttons then you can put a dot of nail varnish on the ones you want to use. In fact, nail varnish is great for marking keys too, so if you are always fumbling between two that look similar, use nail varnish on one of the keys.
Another thing that works for the remote control is to get someone to put masking tape over all the buttons you don’t use, and you can then see the ones you need much more easily.
Get rid of all your rugs – they are the worst trip hazard ever!
If you have an Alexa you can set medication and other reminders. If you don’t, you can use your smartphone. I’ve done these for years!
We hope you’ve found these useful, and if you need a hand with setting up any of the above, let us know, we can help.
I’ve found it necessary to rent an office twice during the 21 years of having my own business. On the first occasion I needed space for staff, and on the second my home just didn’t have room for a desk. However, much more of my work now is done at my clients’ homes, and my own home can now accommodate a desk.
Having an office at home, whether you work for yourself, are employed, or need a dedicated office space when you are retired, can become a dumping ground for papers and such like. I find I become unproductive if I have too much around me. It can be hard to keep on top of as I’m constantly bringing things back that I am sorting for other people, but it is totally worth being on top of it, for the ‘zen’ feeling it gives you.
The lovely people at Brother (who make printers and who have very good customer service I may add!) have come up with a list of five things to help you be more comfortable and productive, so have a read here:
