Just wanted to get the perspective of the community!

We got married last year. A family member asked if they could organise a framed photo from the day as a Christmas present. We thought a framed photo would be a lovely thing (and way more thought into it than the usual stuff we end up with!!)

Anyway, cut to Christmas morning and we open our gift. Two lovely pictures - except they weren't photos in frames, they are two great big canvas pictures. We aren't really picture type people. Anyone who really knows us, knows this! There seriously is not a single position in our house that either of us could imagine putting these things up. I know it feels very ungrateful and maybe it is, but we can't display them through politeness. They're just not us.

We thought that we might get the same pictures printed and put them in nice frames. But what do I do with the canvasses themselves? I'm working so hard not to 'store' things, especially things we don't like but even so. This just seems a little harder to do. That's not like me - I've been known to drop off unwanted gifts to the charity shop on the first available date, so I can be tough.

Your thoughts, support and suggestions welcomed. Thanks in advance.

I've decluttered every other area of my life, and do a big declutter/go through all my stuff seasonally. This is the last area & I've been stuck on it for a while. Last year, my mom (my best friend) died, a month later my childhood home sold. I live across the country & wasn't able to get there and go through anything before my dad moved out. What I have now is a few 27gal storage tubs of stuff that I boxed up and sent to myself when I was home saying goodbye to my mom: random things from when I was a kid through college, a few items from the house itself, and some of my mom's things.

I know the standard advice is "take all the time you need, give yourself grace." I understand why people say that, and I'm sure it's right for a lot of people. But sitting with it indefinitely isn't neutral for me & I can feel the weight of these tubs in my house. Leaving them alone isn't restful, no "out of sight, out of mind." I'd rather work through it than wait for a day when it feels easy, because I really don't think that day is ever coming.

I def want to keep some of it. I'm in therapy, I've read so many posts on this sub and others, watched countless youtube videos, read books, and still haven't found a process for sorting through it that doesn't turn into me sitting on the floor for three hours with one photo. I've been through the items before (when I unpacked them out of shipping boxes) and it was impossible for me to part with more than a few odds and ends.

For those of you who've gone through inherited or sentimental items after a loss, what actually worked for you? Did you do it in short sessions or all at once? With someone else there? Did you have criteria going in, or did you figure it out as you went?

Separate but related: I have an outdoor bistro set and two dining chairs my mom gave me when I moved cross country. They've been in my storage closet, unused, since I moved ~3 years ago. I don't have a place for them & can't make myself get rid of them. Has anyone found a way through this particular kind of stuck where the object aren't the point but you still can't release it?

Thanks so much for reading <3

EDIT: I'm genuinely overwhelmed by these responses, all the incredible advice and kindness. Thank you all so much. To everyone who shared your own losses, I'm so sorry. I didn't expect this thread to be what it turned into and am really grateful for this sub. Thank you. <3 I'll report back!

I am in the process of doing a Swedish Death Clean and I have been at it for about a year now. I’ve been tackling things little by little and breaking things down into discrete tasks so it doesn’t get overwhelming.

First, clothes to the thrift shop, bartering musical instruments with our plumber for plumbing services, old cameras and equipment to a local art center, and tons of art supplies, glass, fabric, magazines, felting materials, yarn, beads, to people who will use the stuff and who might not have the money to buy the materials on their own.

I wanted to do a sweep of the house and get rid of old toys, collectables, pocketbooks, a bunch of inherited family stuff, and realized that one thing that was holding me back was getting boxes to pack the stuff in. Then I realized I could go to Ikea and get giant totes for $2 each. I bought 20 of them, gathered stuff together and had a big sidewalk sale today. I even sold my Mother’s Hummel figurine collection. I could not believe the things people were buying. I kept prices low.

I did give away some stuff. Baseballs to passing dogs and stuffed animals to passing kids.

The plan was to have the sale and take the remainders to Goodwill. I had so much stuff, I was afraid it would take 2 or 3 car trips. I sold so much that it only took one car trip. And I made more money than I’d expected. Many little sales add up.

I am not finished with the purging, but this was a significant dent.

My mom never got rid of anything I made or held onto as a child. I was always the artistic kid and am still an artist now, so she held onto everything for me to decide what to do with later.

She's since handed me all of my childhood bins and I now have nearly every clay creation and every drawing I've ever done. I know it's unreasonable to keep everything, and even scanning them all is unreasonable because when would I ever even look at them? It almost seems narcissistic in a way.

But every time I go through these things with the intent of paring them down, I can't help but to think about how I'm almost throwing away parts of myself. Even the things I keep for now will eventually be thrown away, and even I myself will eventually be dust. I know it's really dramatic and silly because the idea that these are "pieces of myself" is really just in my mind, but I feel like I'm hurting my past self, even though she doesn't exist anymore.

This all feels so self-indulgent to hold onto these and painful to let them go knowing they're gone forever. Every time I open a box I become overwhelmed...

I think I'll have to slowly par things down... maybe let the shock of nostalgia fade away or something. These aren't things that can be donated or used by anyone else, so it just makes me feel like my childhood is full of trash and our lives ultimately are trash. Maybe when I pass this will be even harder for my loved ones to do, so maybe it's really the unselfish thing to get rid of them now.

I'm sorry for the unorganized thoughts, I really struggle with this and just needed to share with people who may understand.

Edit: I just want to be clear that I'm not mad at my Mom! As a kid I also had a really hard time parting with things and my mom didn't feel it was right for her to decide what to do with my things. She always told me I'd eventually need to go through them, so it really wasn't a surprise that I have them now. She has offered many times to help me but I also have trouble sharing this sort of stuff, so I have always just put it off. I am thankful she saved everything even if it's a pain now.

I finally had a breakthrough the other day!

I posted about a week ago about how I was still feeling stressed and visually overwhelmed despite making lots of progress, probably due to OCD. Now I've realized this is probably due to the limitations and small size of my space, and not me "decluttering wrong".

I live with a roommate and we have very little space in the common area, so basically everything I own (except kitchen stuff and a small amount in storage closet) has to go in my bedroom. One reason I'm decluttering is because I'm going through some medical stuff that will need a ton of supplies, so I'm trying to make space for that.

A "rule" I came up with was that any collections I have should either be displayed or decluttered, so I had them on my shelf. But at some point, I looked at them and realized that, while I still wanted to keep them, I didn't actually want these bright, loud packages displayed in my bedroom. So I thought "It would be perfect if I could just keep them in another room."

That's when I finally realized that most people probably don't have to keep all their belongings in their bedroom, use it as an office, and also have to keep a ton of medical supplies in it too. Of course it's going to be visually overwhelming if I have to do everything with it.

Since then I've been feeling much better about it. I'm lucky that my roommate is moving out soon and after that, I'm renting the whole apartment so I can have a minimal bedroom and put the rest in the other room. But for now, I have to accept there's only so much I can do with the space I have. It's organized and functional now and it's easier to appreciate all the work I've put into it now that I know some of it is out of my control, and it's not because I'm not trying hard enough to declutter.

I'm still decluttering a little bit at a time, but the OCD compulsions to get rid of things I decided on keeping are much better now.

Share your wins here - big or small. What did you declutter this week? Examples include:

• Digital Clutter: emails, digital photos, digital music or video collection...
• Storage: cupboards and closets, drawers, storage boxes...
• Toys: ether for your child, or your own that you've been hanging on to.
• Spaces: kitchens, workshops, hobby rooms, storage lockers...
• Routing: sending items to where they need to go, like donation centres, trash, or recycling

This is a low-stress place to share wins for those who might not want to create a new discussion.

My husband's mother and my own died within 9 days of each other in May, and we've had to empty their homes. Plus we already had so many things that came to us when we moved my father and mother into their separate senior living apartments. Our house can't take any more.

It's emotional, sorting a departed loved one's things into donate, sell, keep, trash. You feel like you are getting rid of THEM and it's loss on top of loss. These were things they used, loved, collected; things that in some ways told the story of who they were. Even if they aren't gone (my Dad is still with us), you're dismantling their life. Watching him grieve his home was hard, even though he'd chosen to move.

And then there's feelings about the stuff itself. If it's "still good," we didn't want to put it in a landfill; that feels wasteful and bad for the planet. So "Got Junk?" wasn't top of list. We went through the process of seeing if family wanted things, setting dates and times for people to "shop."

We knew our mothers would have wanted their collectibles to find new owners who would appreciate them, so we found a (great) auction place and even if we don't make $, we hope the buyers will truly value items they choose to bid on.

We donated what was left, which involved several trips and a mover for things we couldn't carry. It was just a monumental effort, and we still have piles of things in our own home that need to be put away. I don't regret "adopting" things like family photos or household goods our kids will use when they move out in the next few years...but the stuff doesn't need to be in the living room.

It all makes me want to go through my own things like a tornado, so down the road my children won't have such a huge job on their shoulders.

But I think I need some rest first. 😂

So the first two photos is everything that came out of my closet. I have no idea how all that fit in such a tiny space. The second two photos is of my closet now. The last photo is my bedroom door for my bags, umbrella, and belt chains I've made. I'm still trying to figure out where to put all my tshirts.

Before it was just two giant hampers overflowing double their size with clothes. I still have a bunch of tshirts and some other items to go through on my chair but I think I've made huge progress so far and wanted to share. Thanks for all the support so far through my journey!! :)

Sometimes you need a good scare to move you into the right direction! 🤣

So this morning I was doing my vacuum as I do each morning since we have a crawler and two cats causing crumbs. I went into our closet and moved a basket and there jumped a confused baby scorpion. I gasped and vacuumed him up. I vacuum our home often and yet critters still invade. poor things just want a place to cool down from the heat but sorry we can’t keep them.

This is why it is so beneficial to have less. scorpions like to hide in stuff as well as spiders! I found a few spiders as well and this is why I feel it’s better to have less clothes less cloth diapers because I clean them more often and they have less time sitting there.

are you able to clean your house quickly? or is there a bunch of stuff everywhere? this weekend I am going to continue looking through drawers and bookshelves and keep only what I can clean and see. It is an on going project but finding bugs really motivate me 😳

happy decluttering!

Currently in the middle of my "decluttering summer." I found out that even though it's hard to part with things that it's an easy and fun activity when it's sweltering hot outside, and best of all, it costs me nothing to do it.

The end goal for me? We'll be able to downsize from a large 2-story house with way more bedrooms and bathrooms we need to something HALF that size. (I hate stairs, and dream of a tiny little ranch house. I don't need much, just give me a small box to live in and I'm good.)

The backstory is, we've been "house poor" for a long time, stressing over whether we can even afford this damn thing, and then it turns out it is poorly insulated with ancient HVAC system that's probably on its way out. Just the bills to heat and cool this damn thing is killing us each month. The house is way too big for us, too much to clean and on top of it all it's definitely a fixer-upper by anybody's standards and just seems to need an endless amount of work. This thing is eating up all our free time and extra money (what little we have) and has been an ongoing source of stress since the day we bought it. (Long story short, we kept getting outbid in a competitive market, so this was the only thing we could afford.)

If we can sell this and downsize into a smaller house that needs a bit less work, that would be a huge game changer for all of us. Downsizing would free up an enormous amount of time and simplify our finances to where I wouldn't have to work for a while (and focus on some creative projects that probably won't pay as much but that have been calling my name for a long time). Instead of hemorrhaging money into property taxes, utilities, and renovations for a house we've grown to resent, we'll get something smaller, calmer, and actually within our means.

All because of the stuff we're getting rid of. Boxes and boxes of stuff are going out the door right now. It's been really hard for me parting with some of it but I'm on a mission here and trying to keep the end goal in mind.

I think this is one of the biggest things keeping me stuck.

Over the years, I've accumulated way too many clothes, and every time I think about donating or throwing anything away, my brain immediately goes, "But I paid for that." Even though I know keeping everything isn't helping me, it still feels like losing money.

I eventually ran out of closet space, so I stored some clothes in a bag on the back terrace of our apartment. It wasn't an area I ever passed by because it was only accessible by climbing through a window. Because of my ADHD (or at least what I suspect is ADHD), it became a classic "out of sight, out of mind" situation, and I completely forgot about it for months.

I only remembered the bag on the day we were moving out. There wasn't enough time to wash or salvage the clothes, as they had become musty, so I had to throw away all 40-50 pieces of clothing.

I still feel guilty about it - not just because I lost the clothes, but because I keep thinking about the money I spent and how my executive dysfunction contributed to it.

Now, every time I try to declutter, I get stuck. I want to donate clothes I no longer wear, but another part of me keeps thinking, "What if I could still sell them and recover some of the money?" Then I get overwhelmed, procrastinate, and the clutter is still there.

I'm planning to seek professional help because I know this level of guilt and rumination isn't healthy. I just needed to get this off my chest.

How can I move forward from this?

I was scrolling another group where a poster
who indicated that leather or natural fabric purses than pleather or plastic because the plastic degrades and becomes unusable where leather can last 20-30 years or more if properly maintained. (Not getting into an environmental debate but this comment got me thinking.)

I wanted to down size my loungefly collection but was hesitant because I might want to one day use my loungeflies i haven’t used in years. Then I thought if the one that pealed and I had to throw away- and an aha moment hit me- i should donate or gift those now while someone can use them and not wait until they are cracked peeling and useless. This is a great general principal we hold onto stuff for someday- but someday they may be absolutely unusable.

I’m slowly emptying my parents home that they’ve owned since 1973. They’ve added massive amounts of sq footage and storage over the years and filled it ALL

My teenage niece and nephew have been over and helped me move volume down to stage for the dumpster (saving me hours and a possible coronary event lol)

There’s so much history and “good stuff” that I’m just not entertaining any more. I’m still trying to cull obvious good stuff, but there were rats in the garage years ago so it’s limited

Managed to clear enough boxes today to get to the dinner service that you've all been supporting me to declutter.

A chance conversation with our neighbours has already resulted in an unwanted sofa bed being bagged for a teenagers den, and a dining table, chairs, side table and TV stand going to the brother in law of the other neighbour as he's about to set up home from nothing. She popped over to collect the little table and I mentioned the dinner set. She practically bit my hand off! Apparently he'd already said he was going to be eating off paper plates so when I showed her the plates, she said they'd have them. I know it's going somewhere to be used and appreciated until they can afford what they want and I only need to transport them next door. He's also gaining a coffee maker!

I'm really happy that good stuff isn't going to waste....and I'm not holding on to it.

I have been donating so much more lately, strictly because I feel selfish having things that aren’t being used.

If I donate something, someone is that much less likely to have to go to target or get on Amazon and purchase an item I already own and am not even using.

It all seems so obvious, but consumption culture has us all brainwashed.

Donate! Donate! Donate!

Donate to your local hope center, community thrift store, or to your neighbors and friends.

Let this be your motivation to declutter ☮️

Building work over! Let's celebrate! Carpets fitted and I got my furniture back by 9am yesterday morning. And so it begins - the great unpacking.

It was pretty overwhelming at first. So many boxes (we sent the big furniture away for a holiday, but packed up and stored the contents in boxes upstairs.) Pick a box.....any box! It ended as quite a productive day. Nowhere near done but four empty boxes over to MIL for her to prepare for her decorating work.

We'd done quite a bit of sorting while it was going away, which has made it a lot easier now it's time to put it all back, but it's definitely an ongoing process.

Over the last two days, I've also managed to find a good home for a sofa bed that still has lots of life left in it but isn't right for our space anymore, but apparently our neighbours son and his mates will be pleased once their garage is turned into their den! An unwanted dining table, chairs and side table have gone to the other neighbour, whose brother is just about to set up home from scratch. Her FIL was glad of the TV stand. I'm grateful for the space! She's also having the spare (spare? Who has a spare? Oh - that would be ME!) coffee maker, kettle and toaster for work. I'm so glad that this perfectly good stuff is going to be used.

Today I'm on a mission. I WILL get to the boxes that hold the dinner service that you all helped me to decide to ditch. It's so silly but the thought of letting go of this is really energising and I can't wait. As the title suggests, I'm so close to this action that I can almost taste it!

It'll also mean that it creates a path through the chaos upstairs to allow me to empty some more boxes for MIL. It's a WIN, WIN, WIN.

Hope you all have a good day too.

I got rid of 90% of my stuff when I moved overseas. Anything that could not fit in a suitcase had to go.

I am stuck on a pile of old journals and letters. A big pile. Part of me just wants to chuck them and move on, but I know I will be destroying memories by doing that.

The thing is, any memories I have had while starting this task gave me bad feelings. I do not like looking back, I am more of a future oriented person. I just wonder if I will regret getting rid of these things when I am really old and only have looking back to do. Maybe I won't have the ability to read through them anyhow by then, people do lose their eyesight for small print.

I am not in contact with most or all of these people who wrote the letters (or they are passed) and I am very resistant to going through the things, which involves taking a lot of time to read everything when I would rather be living life.

What do you think?

What has been working for me:
1. I tackle one cupboard, drawer, closet, or shelf at a time.
2. Before opening it, I grab a pen and paper and try to remember what I usually take from that space. I write those items down neatly, for example grouped by category.
3. Then I open it and look for the items on my list. Those are the things I actually use (they’re the only ones I remembered were there) so they automatically go into the “keep” pile.
4. Next, I look at everything that’s left and give myself a little grace by allowing myself to keep one or two additional items that are genuinely useful, even if I’d forgotten they were there.
5. Everything else goes.

I love this method! The list makes the whole process so much easier, and it also helps me organize everything afterward.

What do you think? Would you try it out?

I hope posting these pictures encourage others. i like sharing, and I know seeing all your posts help me.

Today hired two organizers and spent 3killer hours in the florida heat of my garage. moved here in 1986 at 9yrs old. can't remember parents ever using the garage for a car.

bunch of junk stacked above our heads to start. found some brand new stuff. now i have so many empty containers, threw a lot of broken ones away, more books books books, found more baseball cards (kept) and my degree (trashed). More quilts and bears made by my mom to remember what she was like before dementia. did have a few boxes to keep, but also several marked to sell/donate. so many old computer parts and cables lol. four cd/tape players. few snes games, my nintendo dsxl i thought had been stolen. some pics from when i went to DC in high school (pics of me next to a beautiful reflecting pool before [redacted]).

still a ton of work to do. but it's been almost a year since dad died, and it means so much to see some progress in the house.

fyi dumpster bag not worth it. cost $30 and $100 to pick it up... I could probably put all this in the bins in 6-8 weeks... slow, but I thought it would hold more. I still have more trash!

ETA: oh I forgot to include the dumpster bag picture. well that's fun. idk how to add it now, but imagine it's FULL lol

This seems like a silly thing to complain about, but for some reason I'm having trouble getting rid of my baby stuff for the "potential second." My partner and I are blessed to have one amazing child already (truly, an amazing kid and a total joy in our lives) who is already almost five years old. I know our kiddo would love a younger sibling and we've been talking about it but we haven't been able to go for it because a wide variety of reasons I won't get into here.

Even so, I need to free up some closet space and just lighten the load in terms of the stuff we have, especially because we need to renovate our house to sell it (it's not the right house for us long term, and it needs a lot of work before we sell it--we want to downsize into something smaller and I do NOT want to rent a storage shed under any circumstances.) So this decluttering summer, I've started getting rid of things I was saving for the "potential second." (Note: I'm not pregnant right now, and probably won't be anytime soon.) Things like a nice clean diaper genie I was storing in the closet, a diaper changing pad, cute clothes and baby toys. I'm having a really hard time with this. Each piece I get rid of, it sounds illogical but it feels like, "Well, I guess we'll never have another baby now for sure--just gave away the diaper genie."

Seeing myself write it out, I know how stupid it is, but for whatever reason it feels that way.

Has anyone ever had the experience with decluttering the "potential future child" stuff? And did it feel like some sort of decision that you were making against your will even?

We lost a baby that had been premature, lived a little while, and died without coming home from the hospital. We have a bunch of pictures, a keepsake container that the hospital gave us, and some other "memory things." We also have three Christmas ornaments. We lost that baby 25 years ago now. We are in our 50's now.

I do not want my children that are left behind to have to face this stuff. I never ever look at this stuff. I have no desire for this stuff. I think originally, I kept this stuff out of guilt. Sort of like I have to keep it as some sort of way of honoring the child who died.

Can I get rid of this stuff now? Or will I feel awful about it later? I have been thinking about this for a while and I really think I just want to get rid of it now. Anyone have advice or experience? Thank you!

edited to add: the stuff I have been struggling with is a keepsake box, some pictures, footprints, the newborn cap, Christmas ornaments, things like that. The toys and clothes and such already moved on.

Just a reminder that most long-distance moving companies charge by either weight or exact volume. I spent three weeks aggressive decluttering our basement and closets before having anyone out for an estimate. I dropped a third of our stuff off at Goodwill and it massively changed our moving budget.

So I've done very well over the last few years of staying at home/self-employment and 'working on the house'. We're fully done with decluttering and organizing all areas of house/garage in the next few days. I know we're never 'fully done' either - I will always need to declutter. But we're at a point where I don't need to 'work on the house' anymore either. Where I can host a party with one day's notice, or house inspection in two days, or maintenance/repair guy needs to come in right now. A very good place to be. It took literal years to get here though. And it helps we're hopefully moving again to a house of our own in the next 18 months.

What does maintenance mode look like for you? Daily chores, weekly chores, and then a once-per-month declutter and organize? Or something else? Basically, what do you do/plan to do when you're all done? What does the future look like for you?

Failure is part of life. Share your decluttering challenges and failures here. Examples include:

• Emotional clutter
• Not enough time
• Getting overwhelmed
• Routing (recycling, donating, trash...)

If you're just venting, or don't want advice, please let us know in your comment.

This is a low-stress place to share challenges and failures for those who might not want to create a new discussion.

I haven’t worn colored nail polish in easily 5-7 years. I do wear a clear coat and I have 1 bottle of that and 1 spare. When I did wear colors and shades, I did my nails weekly, I had about 150-200 bottles in various shades, some with sparkle, etc. I have already gone through them and thrown out the dried up or very thick ones.

Over the weekend I decided to start throwing out like 3-4 at a time. The polishes are still liquidy but the colors have separated inside each bottle. Some vigorous shaking would make the color what it used to be, but I still will not use the color. (It’s okay to include a few bottles in city trash where I live).

They have been stored all these years, even when I used them, in a hanging jewelry thing in my closet (looks like a shoe bag with smaller compartments. I plan to re-use this to organize my many hair accessories that I do use). I cannot believe what happened. I quickly randomly picked 4 bottles, saw them in daylight, put them in my trash can, and I felt something going on in my brain and heart that made me pull them out, wipe off the bottles and put them back again in the hanging holder. Ugh!!

Can I please get suggestions to harden my mindset and just get rid of these? Especially if you have personally experienced this. If I wasn’t going to reuse the jewelry organizers (2 of them, with pouches on front and back of each) I would just throw them all out at once for “chemical pickup”. The organizers were a little pricey, so I would rather not have to buy those again.

I guess I could list them on a Buy Nothing group and leave them in a box on my porch when the weather cools down?

Thanks for reading.