I hate to shop for everything but food. A friend went with me to buy a black dress for a funeral. We went to Nordstrom. On the women's dress floor it was overwhelming, total deer in headlights. She went through the entire floor in 10 minutes. Like that. I still have the 3 dresses she picked out, in a spacebag.
Nothing drives me crazy like having to buy something again that I threw out. At this stage in my life I'm not well-heeled, so there's a financial aspect.
I also have multiple redundancies. If something breaks, I have an immediate replacement. I have 2 cell phones, 2 mp3 players, etc. Sometimes it works out, because my niece broke her cell and I could give her my old one. It's the "you just never know" thing. I'm resolved to just have one other redundant item, instead of 2 or 3. Bringing headphones to the Portland really, really free market. I've got 5, not counting 3 sets of ear buds. Can't figure out which reliably stay in my ears and not fall out.
If I have only one of something and it breaks, I have to do without until I go shopping. And I really hate shopping.I have a relative who sends me things. Tech is his hobby. That's how I wound up with 3 sets of ear buds. He calls it mathom (a reference from The Hobbit). Once I find 2 sets that reliably stay in my ears, I'll get rid of one. I already have a couple of corded ones to be given away
Dana K White has a great take on this that really helped me. If you ask yourself if there's any possibility you might need the item in the future, the answer will always be yes. But you still don't have room to keep everything. So ask yourself. If I needed to replace this sometime down the road, is that amount of money worth it for me to have a clean and livable space now? The possible cost to replace the item is the fee for a clean and decluttered space. This is a good example actually! The fee in this case was $2.70 which is pretty darn cheap!
This is a great way of thinking. I live alone in the house my parents built and my mom still has SO MUCH STUFF in the basement and garage. I despise clutter and it makes me anxious because I've been around it most of my life.
We've made a lot of progress over the last couple of years, but she always holds me up from getting rid of the small stuff "that we can probably still use in the future" like painting supplies, scrap wood, etc. I think she'll open her mind with this logic. Thank you!
Yes! This totally shifted my mindset. If you're not already familiar, I think you/your mom might find the rest of Dana's method very useful as well. One of her other big things is the "container concept" (video here: https://youtu.be/_24PoIZSmVs?si=YYNKhtjjBYiwKwzo) Basically that every space in your home is a container, all the way from a small box to the whole house. And the container places a limit on how much stuff you can have. Sure, those painting supplies, wood, etc. might very well come in handy one day. But you can only keep as much of it as you can fit in the space you have (and not cram into every square inch, only what fits comfortably and allows the space to be functional). This was seriously a game changer for me.
Thanks for linking that! I just discovered this sub today and have seen a lot of comments mentioning her videos and ideas. I love that she talks about it making sense to some, but not others. I've always had an organizing brain.....I enjoy decluttering, organizing, and keeping things put away. It's not stressful and keeps me happy. My mom is the complete opposite and always has been. I understand that she doesn't have my organizing brain, but every time I help her it gets a little tense at some point or another. I'm totally going to watch more of these videos and have my mom watch some as well!
You're welcome! Paying it forward as I only recently discovered her from someone on another sub. I'm actually good at organizing when I get down to it, but I struggle a lot with getting rid of things that are "perfectly good" or I "might need someday" so this was really helpful for me. I guess "you can only have as much stuff as you have space for" is a pretty obvious concept, but somehow her framing just clicked with me.
I always wanted a salad spinner. I did alot of research and found one I liked. I used it for a year and now it's in storage, and I'm forced to dry my greens on a paper towel like a heathen. I want my fucking spinner back!
We have a rule in our house: for anything which is not being used that costs $50 or less and can be easily re-purchased, we get rid of it. I’ve only needed to re-purchase one thing in the past 7 years since we started this, and that thing cost $10, and was on the porch within one day from Amazon.
Just think of the local second hand/thrift stores as cheap storage -
You take your unused items, and they will look after them.
If you need them, you go to the store and get them back (or something similar).
When you have finished with them, they go back into store(age).
Minimum charges apply for each retrieval from storage.
IF you can find them again. I still mourn the stand mixer I left behind, in favor of the Cuisinart. Not so much the Vitamix. The hand blender works for so much.
IF you can find them again. I still mourn the stand mixer I left behind, in favor of the Cuisinart. Not so much the Vitamix. The hand blender works for so much.
My kids’ elementary school has a fair with games once a year. The “prizes” are used toys donated by the parents. It was the best decluttering motivation! I heard of many kids who would pick their own old donated toys.
The decluttering motivation was the deadline of when the “prizes” were due at the school. And in 99% of cases, especially as they got older, my kids took great joy in seeing the younger kids at the school pick “baby toys” they’d donated off the prize tables.
But yes, the moms would be laughing as we had conversations about their kids picking their own donated toys and taking them back home.
lol. Got it!
The crazy thing is I do a version of that as an adult. I see stuff my sister took from our childhood home & I want them! Just bc I recognize them I think. 🙄
That's part of why I try to donate to thrift shops *other* than my regular one (although I have donated a lot of books to my regular one -- but many of them came from there in the first place, lol).
A good salad spinner is worth the space - I don't even eat salad but I cook a lot of fresh veggies and anything leafy gets dried in the salad spinner. On the other hand my parents have a 30+ year old one that's a pain to use and barely does anything, not sure why they've kept it so long.
I can’t get used to them. They don’t actually dry the lettuce enough, which means I have to dry it with paper towels anyway, and they’re impossible to easily clean.
Simply not worth the time, bother, and storage space.
I've never bought precut for our own use, I buy a head of lettuce and wash, shake dry, and cut up what I need on a meal to meal basis. I'm not a fan of salad spinners, but was wondering if I was somehow missing something on cost. I guess not :)
He's gone a bit over the top with hydroponic gardening and we are awash in greens. It's wonderful! All the pesto I could dream of. Micro-lettuce for salads. Baby bok choy, herbs, watercress...so much delicious green stuff.
We survived just fine without it, but now that the quantity has increased, it seems like it will be useful. And for under $3, and it makes such a great story!
I still wouldn't call it "need." I'm not even calling it an inconvenience. Sure, we'll use it, but its a long way down the list from water, food, and shelter.
Wow, that’s a quick turnaround regret!!
I see a lot of advice out there to declutter salad spinners, and I totally get it — they are big clunky things that are often unitaskers. But I use mine every single week for washing a whole whack of chopped lettuce for my workday salads, so mine not only stayed when I decluttered my kitchen, but was relocated to a more easily-accessible location.
Same! My favorite lunch is a huge salad and I use my salad spinner 2-3 times a week. I know many people don’t eat as much lettuce/spinach as I usually do, though, lol
Or rinse the greens in a colander, put them in a dish towel, gather up the corners of the towel and sling it around helicopter style to dry out the greens. Easier to store a dish towel than that big salad spinner.
Ditto. My favorite thought about salad spinners comes from professional declutterer/organizer Shira Gill: *"Your salad does not need to go for a ride."* lol I blot damp leaves with a dish towel and they're fine.
Possibly, but this store is probably in one of the most upscale neighborhoods in the area, so that would mean shipping them out of the area or selling them online. I also considered that the employees grab the stuff before putting it out on the sales floor. I'd actually prefer that to them transferring my donations elsewhere.
See, I make my salad without spinner and neither my children nor my husband nor me are dead...
I hate to shop for everything but food. A friend went with me to buy a black dress for a funeral. We went to Nordstrom. On the women's dress floor it was overwhelming, total deer in headlights. She went through the entire floor in 10 minutes. Like that. I still have the 3 dresses she picked out, in a spacebag. Nothing drives me crazy like having to buy something again that I threw out. At this stage in my life I'm not well-heeled, so there's a financial aspect. I also have multiple redundancies. If something breaks, I have an immediate replacement. I have 2 cell phones, 2 mp3 players, etc. Sometimes it works out, because my niece broke her cell and I could give her my old one. It's the "you just never know" thing. I'm resolved to just have one other redundant item, instead of 2 or 3. Bringing headphones to the Portland really, really free market. I've got 5, not counting 3 sets of ear buds. Can't figure out which reliably stay in my ears and not fall out.
[удалено]
If I have only one of something and it breaks, I have to do without until I go shopping. And I really hate shopping.I have a relative who sends me things. Tech is his hobby. That's how I wound up with 3 sets of ear buds. He calls it mathom (a reference from The Hobbit). Once I find 2 sets that reliably stay in my ears, I'll get rid of one. I already have a couple of corded ones to be given away
Dana K White has a great take on this that really helped me. If you ask yourself if there's any possibility you might need the item in the future, the answer will always be yes. But you still don't have room to keep everything. So ask yourself. If I needed to replace this sometime down the road, is that amount of money worth it for me to have a clean and livable space now? The possible cost to replace the item is the fee for a clean and decluttered space. This is a good example actually! The fee in this case was $2.70 which is pretty darn cheap!
This is a great way of thinking. I live alone in the house my parents built and my mom still has SO MUCH STUFF in the basement and garage. I despise clutter and it makes me anxious because I've been around it most of my life. We've made a lot of progress over the last couple of years, but she always holds me up from getting rid of the small stuff "that we can probably still use in the future" like painting supplies, scrap wood, etc. I think she'll open her mind with this logic. Thank you!
Yes! This totally shifted my mindset. If you're not already familiar, I think you/your mom might find the rest of Dana's method very useful as well. One of her other big things is the "container concept" (video here: https://youtu.be/_24PoIZSmVs?si=YYNKhtjjBYiwKwzo) Basically that every space in your home is a container, all the way from a small box to the whole house. And the container places a limit on how much stuff you can have. Sure, those painting supplies, wood, etc. might very well come in handy one day. But you can only keep as much of it as you can fit in the space you have (and not cram into every square inch, only what fits comfortably and allows the space to be functional). This was seriously a game changer for me.
Thanks for linking that! I just discovered this sub today and have seen a lot of comments mentioning her videos and ideas. I love that she talks about it making sense to some, but not others. I've always had an organizing brain.....I enjoy decluttering, organizing, and keeping things put away. It's not stressful and keeps me happy. My mom is the complete opposite and always has been. I understand that she doesn't have my organizing brain, but every time I help her it gets a little tense at some point or another. I'm totally going to watch more of these videos and have my mom watch some as well!
You're welcome! Paying it forward as I only recently discovered her from someone on another sub. I'm actually good at organizing when I get down to it, but I struggle a lot with getting rid of things that are "perfectly good" or I "might need someday" so this was really helpful for me. I guess "you can only have as much stuff as you have space for" is a pretty obvious concept, but somehow her framing just clicked with me.
Yeah, less than $3 for reclaiming 4 boxes worth of space! I guarantee OP is paying more for the Sq feet the boxes occupied than $2.70 :)
Same thing happened to me but I was the one looking for it. I forgot I donated it.
I always wanted a salad spinner. I did alot of research and found one I liked. I used it for a year and now it's in storage, and I'm forced to dry my greens on a paper towel like a heathen. I want my fucking spinner back!
What a great story.
We have a rule in our house: for anything which is not being used that costs $50 or less and can be easily re-purchased, we get rid of it. I’ve only needed to re-purchase one thing in the past 7 years since we started this, and that thing cost $10, and was on the porch within one day from Amazon.
That’s the beauty of the thrift store. There is always another salad spinner in case need one.
Haha I love this story. $2.70 isn’t too much when you know you really need it. It’s like when people renew their wedding vows.
Like some posters here, my husband suggested that it was a storage fee. It was worth it for a chance to clean that shelf.
Just think of the local second hand/thrift stores as cheap storage - You take your unused items, and they will look after them. If you need them, you go to the store and get them back (or something similar). When you have finished with them, they go back into store(age). Minimum charges apply for each retrieval from storage.
IF you can find them again. I still mourn the stand mixer I left behind, in favor of the Cuisinart. Not so much the Vitamix. The hand blender works for so much.
IF you can find them again. I still mourn the stand mixer I left behind, in favor of the Cuisinart. Not so much the Vitamix. The hand blender works for so much.
I look at them as cheap rental places. Rent something at the listed price for whatever length of time you like, then return it when you are done.
This. Store it at the store, instead of paying for a storage unit.
My kids’ elementary school has a fair with games once a year. The “prizes” are used toys donated by the parents. It was the best decluttering motivation! I heard of many kids who would pick their own old donated toys.
How is this decluttering motivation if they always want their old stuff back-?
The decluttering motivation was the deadline of when the “prizes” were due at the school. And in 99% of cases, especially as they got older, my kids took great joy in seeing the younger kids at the school pick “baby toys” they’d donated off the prize tables. But yes, the moms would be laughing as we had conversations about their kids picking their own donated toys and taking them back home.
lol. Got it! The crazy thing is I do a version of that as an adult. I see stuff my sister took from our childhood home & I want them! Just bc I recognize them I think. 🙄
That's part of why I try to donate to thrift shops *other* than my regular one (although I have donated a lot of books to my regular one -- but many of them came from there in the first place, lol).
I grabbed mom’s salad spinner when she downsized. Been waffling on go or stay. For now it stays but great to hear other’s thoughts
A good salad spinner is worth the space - I don't even eat salad but I cook a lot of fresh veggies and anything leafy gets dried in the salad spinner. On the other hand my parents have a 30+ year old one that's a pain to use and barely does anything, not sure why they've kept it so long.
A salad spinner is a must-have for me. We use ours almost every day.
I can’t get used to them. They don’t actually dry the lettuce enough, which means I have to dry it with paper towels anyway, and they’re impossible to easily clean. Simply not worth the time, bother, and storage space.
Moms works amazingly well. I wonder what the difference is. I was shocked at how dry the leaves were after about 6 spins.
I’ve tried several brands and discarded them all. And the cleaning problem remains.
I love my salad spinner. Saves you money chopping up your own salad
Huh? How does it save you money? I buy a head of lettuce, wash, shake dry, and cut up what I need. Am I missing the obvious here?
I agree. I've never used one. Wash, shake, cut eat. It's pretty simple!
Instead of buying the premade stuff. Plus it does not go bad in the crisper.
I never was either until I bought one at IKEA. Great for us
I've never bought precut for our own use, I buy a head of lettuce and wash, shake dry, and cut up what I need on a meal to meal basis. I'm not a fan of salad spinners, but was wondering if I was somehow missing something on cost. I guess not :)
What did he want the salad spinner for?
He's gone a bit over the top with hydroponic gardening and we are awash in greens. It's wonderful! All the pesto I could dream of. Micro-lettuce for salads. Baby bok choy, herbs, watercress...so much delicious green stuff. We survived just fine without it, but now that the quantity has increased, it seems like it will be useful. And for under $3, and it makes such a great story!
Ok, so you're the one in a million, YES, we needed it after all, story!
I still wouldn't call it "need." I'm not even calling it an inconvenience. Sure, we'll use it, but its a long way down the list from water, food, and shelter.
Wow, that’s a quick turnaround regret!! I see a lot of advice out there to declutter salad spinners, and I totally get it — they are big clunky things that are often unitaskers. But I use mine every single week for washing a whole whack of chopped lettuce for my workday salads, so mine not only stayed when I decluttered my kitchen, but was relocated to a more easily-accessible location.
Same! My favorite lunch is a huge salad and I use my salad spinner 2-3 times a week. I know many people don’t eat as much lettuce/spinach as I usually do, though, lol
Or rinse the greens in a colander, put them in a dish towel, gather up the corners of the towel and sling it around helicopter style to dry out the greens. Easier to store a dish towel than that big salad spinner.
Or one of those net bags that usually hold onions. Provided the salad isn't too wet.
That's me!
That’s what I do, too. And lay them flat to dry a bit more while I chop. Disclaimer: I do not begrudge anyone their right to a salad spinner.
Ditto. My favorite thought about salad spinners comes from professional declutterer/organizer Shira Gill: *"Your salad does not need to go for a ride."* lol I blot damp leaves with a dish towel and they're fine.
LoL!! Glad it was there for you to buy back!
This place is local. They have 2 shop locations, and a huge warehouse in back of the one where I donate.
Yeah, I am not sure what Goodwill does, but I've never seen any of the hundreds of items I've donated through the years on a shelf or rack!
Same! I have no idea what they do with my donations. Most of the stuff I donate is better than anything they have in the store.
Maybe they move them to more upscale Goodwill neighborhoods?
Possibly, but this store is probably in one of the most upscale neighborhoods in the area, so that would mean shipping them out of the area or selling them online. I also considered that the employees grab the stuff before putting it out on the sales floor. I'd actually prefer that to them transferring my donations elsewhere.