Thanks to the other events of last week, I didn't get as much decluttering done as I hoped. However, I did get some decluttering done in my kitchen......

So, about the equivalent of 4 grocery bags in 5 days. Not too bad, considering. Once I start decluttering my office, there will no doubt be lots more! 

What are YOU working on decluttering? Are you decluttering stuff from areas of your home, or other kinds of non-stuff clutter? The 40 bags in 40 days website has a list of suggestions for each HERE and HERE if you need something to help get you going. 

Feel free to comment on my Facebook 40 Bags posts (with pics if you like) of what you've decluttered. :-) It's more fun when we do it together. 

I came across the 40 Bags in 40 Days Decluttering Challenge today when a friend commented on something to do with it on Facebook. Decluttering is something I try to do fairly regularly, and find using some kind of challenge or tool very motivating. In 2014, I set myself a "Get Rid of 1000 Things" goal - and ended up getting rid of over 1200 in 6 weeks! In 2016, I played the Decluttering Game - a month in which one gets rid of 1 thing on day 1, 2 things on day 2, and so on right through the month, which if you stick to it will mean eliminating 465 things by the end of the month. I went a bit further - started off slowly but gained momentum and over the course of 17 days got rid of over 1000 items. And then my dad died suddenly and life turned in other directions. 

Over the past year or so, I've done some minor decluttering in patches, but it's really time I went over the house again. And so I'm going to take this challenge :-). 

The idea is simple - over the course of 40 days (officially starting from Feb 14th, so I'm one day behind, but can easily catch that up), declutter one (small) area a day and aim to eliminate one grocery bag of things per day. More or less is fine. Now, I don't actually have grocery bags as with no shopping since the beginning of the year (and using reuseable bags when I do shop) my limited stash has been pretty much used up and reused over and over with few remaining, so I'm going to be using one reusable grocery bag, which is a bit bigger than the single use supermarket bags, but no matter. I will aim to fill it each day with unneeded stuff from the area I'm working on, and then will take the items out and stack into boxes for giving away, recycling etc etc, and dispose of those when full. 

So, who needs to do some decluttering? Excess clutter is the enemy of living simply and frugally as it makes cleaning, cooking and everything else that much harder. Clutter also costs money - but more on that in future posts. 

​I'm off to declutter the surfaces in my kitchen......