Olio is an app (yes, sorry, it’s only available as an app, which we know is not much good if you don’t have a mobile phone or tablet). The app was originally designed to stop food going to waste, but it is used for lots of additional things now like toiletries, household cleaning products, toys, small bits of furniture and other things the charity shops don’t want but that can still be used by others.
These are the reasons we love it:
One man’s trash is another man’s treasure – someone out there always wants what you have
You can also pick up things that you are looking for if you are quick
If you have things languishing in your freezer, you can even list those, people will come and get them
If you bought a cleaning product then decided you didn’t like it, someone will come and collect it
If you are looking for a volunteer role you can be a Food Waste Hero and collect food from businesses for distribution
You can save things from landfill and help the environment
You can save money by getting things you might have otherwise spent money on You can read more on www.Olioapp.com or download the app from the app store or google play store.
Decluttering, organising and supporting clients with downsizing means they share a lot of personal information with me. It’s important that we have a mutual respect and trust to get the most out of every session. During our time together I find out a lot about clients and their families and friends and how they live their lives, and I often see very personal things.
I ALWAYS ask if we can look in drawers and cupboards before we do, and we NEVER take it for granted that clients want us to see everything in their home. Your home is your sanctuary and a private place for you and your family and loved ones. What we see in your home, stays between us. What you tell us, stays between us. We treat you as we would wish to be treated.
So if you thought you were going to read some scandalous things we’ve seen and heard, then you will leave this post disappointed, as we won’t be divulging or sharing anything.
This month’s guest blog is written by David Lyons Whyte from Switched On London.
As we get older, comfort, safety, saving money, and environmental considerations become more important in our homes. That’s why more and more older adults are turning to heat pumps as a modern solution for heating. Heat pumps are energy-efficient systems that keep your home warm when you need it, without the high costs or hassle of traditional heating systems. They work by extracting ‘free’ heat from the ambient air outside, using a small amount of electricity to amplify it and warm your home. This makes them highly efficient and much cleaner than traditional fossil fuel systems and will contribute to the country meeting the Government’s net zero targets and future proof your home as natural gas is phased out.
Another big advantage is that heat pumps maintain a more stable indoor temperature. Instead of the highs and lows you might get with older systems—where it’s too hot one moment and chilly the next—heat pumps provide gentle, steady warmth throughout the day. This not only improves comfort but also uses energy more efficiently, helping you save on bills over time.
Unlike gas boilers or electric heaters, heat pumps are safer—no risk of gas leaks or carbon monoxide—and much quieter, creating a more peaceful home environment. Once installed, they require very little maintenance, which is ideal for anyone who prefers simple living.
Here are some examples of why people decided a heat pump was the right choice for their home and situation:
George and Linda, 68 & 70 (downsized to a smaller home): “We moved to a smaller home after retirement. The heat pump keeps it warm without any fuss. It’s quiet and easy to use, and the temperature stays just right.”
Anita, 75 (living alone): “I wanted something reliable. With my new heat pump, I feel safe – no gas, no open flames – and it works even on cold days. The heat stays constant and comfortable.”
Ron, 80 (environmental concerns): “I wanted to reduce my carbon footprint for my grandchildren’s future. The heat pump helps me do that, and I still stay warm.”
Heat pumps are not just for new homes – they can be a fantastic upgrade for those looking for comfort, safety, steady warmth, and savings. They also help reduce carbon emissions, making them a cleaner alternative that helps protect the environment for future generations. And with £7,500 in grants available through the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, it’s now more affordable than ever to make the switch. It’s well worth exploring whether a heat pump could make life easier and more sustainable in your home.
Spoofing is a deceptive practice where an attacker disguises their identity or the source of a communication to appear as a trusted entity, often to gain access to sensitive information, steal money, or spread malware. It involves impersonating someone or something else to mislead victims and gain their trust. This can happen through various channels like email, phone calls, and even network protocols.
The most common is calls from someone pretending to be your bank. Thanks to Martin Lewis, I found out about the 159 service. If you suspect that you are the victim of spoofing and you want to call your bank to check, you can use the 159 service. Simply dial 159 from a handset when you’re in the UK and the service asks which bank you want to speak to. You can read more here: https://stopscamsuk.org.uk/our-work/159-phone-number/
Crucially, 159 will never call you, so if you receive a call from 159, it won’t be someone from your bank.
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!
This week’s guest blog is written by Richard Fincher from Room 101.
For the last 700 years, at the Tower of London, at around 10pm, something similar to the following refrain is heard during the changing of the watchman’s shift:
“Halt! Who goes there?’ ‘The keys.’ ‘Whose keys?’ ‘Queen Elizabeth’s keys.’ ‘Pass Queen Elizabeth’s keys, all is well.’
What’s the point of a tradition like that? Most traditions can seem pretty pointless and quaint, but they may have served a useful purpose hundreds of years ago, and there was a time when the Tower of London really did keep a silent watch and ward o’er London Town and its Golden Hoard (as W. S. Gilbert once put it.)
Today, the last line of defence over each of our personal finances, tends to be a password. These things go with us everywhere, just like the keys on our key rings, and so it’s quite natural for us to personalise them further with keychains, maybe a Toyota one, or a Tenerife one, or a Trinity College one or even a Tottenham one. But there’s a big difference here, whilst stealing your key ring requires physical access to it, stealing (or guessing) your password can be done by any of the billions of people in the world with internet access.
So, rather than look at passwords like a car number plate (and who wouldn’t want a personalised car number plate rather than a random one), it’s very important to treat them more like biros. In our lives, we probably use thousands of biros. They come and go all the time, we’re always losing them, being given new ones, sometimes branded ones, but we seldom get upset upon needing to suddenly switch to using a new biro when we can’t find our present one (unless we’re King Charles of course, but it seems many things irritate him!)
When was the last time you changed your passwords? A year ago? Ten years ago? Even if you told no one your password, if it’s more than 3 or 4 years old, there’s a good chance it’s appeared on one of the many lists of 300 million stolen passwords which hackers have access to. There are also now automated password-guessing robots which labour night and day to try all combinations one by one, starting with the obvious ones (such as sports team names, popular children’s names, and so on.
So on World Password Day, here is my tip for coming up with a password which is suitably random, but which you can easily remember.
First, think of a line from a song, poem, book or movie that you like. It should be a line containing more than 10 words, for example: “God Save Our Gracious King, Long Live Our Noble King”. Next, try picking the first letter of each word as follows: gsogkllonk – there’s your random password. Try inserting a capital letter or two, or changing one of the characters if you like, for example g$ogklloNK.
Richard is an internet guru and knows more about the internet and internet security than most of Silicon Valley put together. If you need help with DNS, web hosting, email hosting or any other question that is baffling you, he’s your man. Find him at www.Room101.co.uk
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.
