This weekend has been lovely as I finally seem to have shaken the lurgy that’s been following me around for the last few weeks.  I’m still not sleeping well though as my body seems to have forgotten that it’s supposed to go to sleep when it’s dark – this means that I don’t have that much energy through the day at the Minute so I’m trying to tackle everything I want to do in short sharp blasts.

I’ve had a list of areas at home that I’ve wanted to start de-cluttering since I read The Life Changing Magic of Tidying by Marie Kondo so I decided to tackle a few of the smaller areas over the last few days, sticking to 15 minutes per job.  You can do Longer which is fine but I managed to do quite a lot in my 15 minute sessions!

My Little Spice Cupboard

I started with my Spice Cupboard in the kitchen which has been annoying me because the door wouldn’t shut properly as it was so full.  I checked the use by dates on everything and threw away anything that was out of date by more than a few months.  I know they can still be used as it’s a best before date and not a use by date but some were out of date by a year or so and as I use them to flavour food then I want them to be at their best. You’d be surprised at the difference in smell between the same spices when one is in date and one is a year out of date and if there’s a difference in smell then I would imagine there would be a huge difference in taste too. The door now shuts and I no longer have four different jars of mixed herbs and three jars of dried mint (don’t ask as I have no idea).

My Wardrobe

I wrote about this a while ago when we had a huge clothes clear out and that’s probably the last time I had any sort of wardrobe clear out so I was well overdue doing this.  I don’t have as much as I had last time to get rid of but I added a Carrier Bag or so of clothes to the Car Boot sale pile in the garage. I also sorted through my underwear drawer which I’m not going to go into detail that much about as I think it speaks for itself but needless to say anything that doesn’t fit/looks old and a bit shabby/won’t be worn again has been banished.  I could have gone full on Marie Kondo on this and spent a LOT longer herebut my aim was just to get rid of things I knew I wouldn’t wear again.

My Junk Drawer

I have a drawer where everything that has no specific place seems to end up.  It was filled with everything from letters from the school to old batteries.  I got it all out and sorted through it throwing away things that I no longer needed (the letter about school trip in April 2015 for example) and I now have an almost empty drawer awaiting it’s next lot of junk.

My Make-up Bag

You’d think I wouldn’t have to worry much about this with Miss Frugal in the house but she only claims my newest and nicest make up and perfume so my make-up bag is probably fuller than you would expect.  I’ve sorted through it and got rid of the things I won’t wear, the things I’ve had for longer than I should have had and the random blue glitter eyeliner that I seem to have acquired.

My cookbook collection

I am slightly addicted to cookbooks although I rarely actually use them for cooking!  Even though I had a cookbook cull a year or so ago, they seem to have built up again and are threatening to take over the kitchen (I blame car boot sales for the increase in my collection) so this has been on my list for a while.  I managed to get rid of about two thirds of my cookbooks and if I’m honest, I know I’ll not miss the ones I’ve got rid of.  They’re all in a box in the back of the car now ready to be dropped off at the charity shop.

And as if that wasn’t enough, I’ve decided that I’m going to do a carrier bag de-clutter every day for the rest of the month which are a brilliant way to get rid of clutter without taking too much time or energy.

I will have a clutter free home.

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The post 5 Hotspots you can de-clutter in 15 minutes! appeared first on The Diary of a Frugal Family.