Tag: transparency

honesty and transparency

~ Gillie ~ 2 Comments

I started this blog in order to be transparent about our decluttering journey.  It has grown to become a blog about living, or rather attempting to live a life with a smaller carbon footprint; to use what we have before we buy more; to repurpose; to make, grow and forage and to live in general with less.

Today is an honesty day, a transparent day.  We are planning building works to divide our house into two and we have been redecorating the half we will remain in.  Consequently we have had to move stuff, put stuff aside for donating/selling.  And this is what I am faced with today.IMG_2622

 

Not a pretty sight is it?

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The barn has been the dumping ground for the main house and the mezzanine has been the dumping ground for the study.

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So all you readers who think that I have a perfectly ordered and decluttered house.  I don’t.  I have a house that is a work in progress.  The redecoration is finished so there is no excuse for this mess.  The builders haven’t started yet and cannot until I empty the barn side of the house over absolutely everything including furniture.  Some will have to be stored to go back in when the work is complete but we can’t keep everything so fairly major work will be required there.

Tomorrow I promise photographs of the finished job 🙂

the next step

~ Gillie ~ 14 Comments

All the decluttering in the world is not going to have any effect if you don’t stop the stuff coming into your life in the first place.  We’ve all been there: cleared a cupboard or a room and then six months later it has reverted back to type.

Part of the reason for this blog was to encourage transparency and to make me change my mindset.  To think before I bought, to question the actual value of an item.  It has worked to a certain extent, I am certainly far more thoughtful about most purchases whether expensive or from the charity shop.  In fact charity shops used to be one of my downfalls.  Items that I would never have bought new I would happily buy from a charity shop.  I’m not saying that I haven’t had some fantastic buys but just because a dress is only £5 I should buy it.  If I don’t need it I shouldn’t buy it just because it is cheap and/or good value.  It is only good value if I need it.  I was going to insert a picture of a dress that came to mind as I wrote that.  However, said dress went back to the charity shop in the first purge 🙂

So this year I am recording all my expenditure.  Every single last penny.  I would like to see whether the expenditure in various areas matches up to the pleasure we got in those areas.  Groceries are essential, but at the end of the month if I have spent say £200 on groceries and yet we can’t recall more than a handful of lovely  meals then it was not money well spent and we need to work out why.  Our time here on earth is limited as are our funds.  I intend to make sure I get the best out of both of them.