Weeding out Possessions

This year I decided my big mission is reducing our surplus stuff. It's not Konmari style (tip - her blog is quite interesting) - more like Swedish Death Cleaning. This isn't really something new - I know, because my mother did it. 
It seems we get to our 60's and have just accumulated so much stuff ! Our kids aren't going to want it - it turns out we've both bred minimalists. 
So if we want our stuff to be disposed of appropriately we need to do it ourselves while we are fit and able and of sound mind. It takes a lot of effort.

So recently I have got rid of: - 
my vintage china collection and hollow stem champagne saucers and old bone handled knives (and made a tidy profit), a spare fridge/freezer and a lawnmower via Facebook Marketplace.

a huge carload (including daughters' x 2 clothes) at the local boot sale. What was left went to a charity shop, and the only thing they wouldn't take...an oil filled electric heater with a little rust, went to someone on the Pay it Forward page. When we found that person was raising her sister's four children and they had nothing..we threw in some old toys, balls and art supplies.

a bag full of books and CDs waiting to go off to the Zonta Booksale.

my silver cutlery set to my daughter;

a tray of plastic plant pots that went to a market plant grower - and there's still another tray to go. Most of these were found washed up in our river, or rescued from someone who was going to throw them out.

Some sets of snorkel gear are set aside to take to the people of Vanuatu. We are stopping there on a cruise later this year, and I want to make some use of that trip by taking supplies for the people there  - but more on that later in the year.

It has caught on with step-daughter Katie's - she's had a huge clear out too. A lot of glitter got put out to go...I considered throwing this out as it is a pollutant - microplastic - but after discussion with friends it's going to the local drama society. "They would be buying glitter anyway" was the comment - so it seemed like the best option.

glitter - being packed off

a lot of my material stash of small pieces has been cut into pennant shapes ready for a stand we're doing at our local Multucultural Family day, where we're helping people to make bunting and produce bags, plus promoting Boomerang Bags.

We even gave Derek's old caravan away - yes the one we did up. One of those pics has been repinned 3k times on Pinterest! It was getting run-down and we weren't using it. Our neighbours happily took it as they were living in a tent on their block of land. It was a mission to get it moving again!

This decluttering is going to go on all year! I can't tell you how good it feels.