Anyone else doing this?

I’ve had a couple of conversations with people recently who are going through a process of decluttering – basically getting rid of a load of stuff they no longer need. Not anti-consumerism per se but certainly a rationalisation of owning so much stuff…

I’m going through the same process myself – N-1 on bikes, thinking about ditching my hi-fi and all my CDs and going full digital (iTunes and Spotify). It’s freeing up a lot of space…

We got rid of loads before moving house 6 years ago, and moved to a bigger house. I’ve kept going, and have become quite minimalist.

I think its become more common because very few things are rare anymore, theres a hoarding instinct that came from collecting music, books, magazines etc because a lot of stuff was only available / findable quite fleetingly, so people (of a certain age) are sort of pre-programmed to keep stuff not because they consume it regularly but just in case they ever need to refer back to it. But you pretty much can’t ‘lose’ anything anymore and its usually quicker to google something than it is to look in a cupboard for it

thinking about ditching my hi-fi and all my CDs

My brother has developed quite a skill for living in small flats and house and making things space efficient. He couldn’t be bothered to rip all his CDs (and if you’re still going to listen to music you’ll still need some sort of hifi) so he just ditched all the cases and keeps the disks and the little booklet bits in folders. I’m about to do the same thing.

Trying to. I seem to have accumulated an awful lot of stuff, some of which I can’t remember the last time I used.

Huge amount gone to charity shops and I’m trying to shift some on here and Ebay.

Bit daft as I realized I had 3 camelbaks, one completely unused. 3 sets of road wheels all virtually the same. Phones and old tablets, DVDs, books etc.

Going to try and operate a one in one out policy and buy more expensive quality stuff that does exactly what I want rather than a couple of cheap items that aren’t quite right. Music went digital years ago but now thinking the same for movies and books I am only likely to read once.

Clothes: I own two pairs of jeans, five ‘work’ shirts, five T-shirts, two hoodies, plus pants and socks, and one pair of boots, one pair of Vans. For weddings, interviews, funerals, etc I have one pair of ‘formal’ trousers and a shirt and one pair of black shoes.

Music: Spotify and a Bluetooth speaker.

Yeah have never been one for accumulating stuff and collecting things

If I use it I keep it if not goodbye

decluttering (well tinkering at the edges) mostly via the recycling bins at the moment. next batch of cover CDs is about to go. IE3.0 anyone? Or Demon Internet Turnpike, for DOS 6.0?

I’m keeping all the wheels. I’ll sell the 26ers in a few years for a profit 😉

Problem is chucking stuff out just frees up more space to hoard things

What is everyone doing with their cds? Do the charity shops want them or do they just turn their nose up?

Sadly my attempts at de-cluttering are about to be more than accounted for by having a two and a half year old with eager to please grandparents and Christmas coming up……

I had a major clear out in the garage earlier this year, got rid of the ‘must keep this just in case’ junk. Loft is next when I get a free weekend.

Clothes: I own two pairs of jeans, five ‘work’ shirts, five T-shirts, two hoodies, plus pants and socks, and one pair of boots, one pair of Vans

Slightly limited wardrobe, no jackets, outdoor clothes, clothes for a meal out, etc?

I have a loft full of crap I need to get rid of, CDs, DVDs, old electronics etc.

I can’t really be arsed to scan it all and send it off to music magpie (or whoever) so it might well have to be a charity shop.

What is everyone doing with their cds?

Music Magpie

I’ll be doing that at the weekend to at least make a start on the loft.

What is everyone doing with their cds?

Boxed up and stored in the loft, I justify this hoarding because In theory they are a form of file backup.

Trying to house a ever growing family into a tiny house means I’ve been doing it for a while. I haven’t seen a CD in ages, in actual fact my only CD player is stored in my airing cupboard and hasn’t been used in more than 5 years, all my music is digital now. In fact for the last couple of months aside from the MP3 player in my car I’ve been using Apple Music for everything.

My Son has still got a pile of DVDs which he rarely uses, when we move in the New Year I’ll probably install a NAS and rip everything to that.

Our clutter now consists of my mid-90s spec Denon hi-fi ‘separates’ and floor standing speaking which I know deep down I don’t really need anymore but it’s pretty much ‘as new’ whilst being worthless at the same time but it cost me £2k in 1996 and was the first ‘big’ thing I bought when I started working, the rest is boxes of unopened stuff from the last time we moved 5 years ago – it all belongs to my late MIL, my Wife doesn’t want to open or look through it, nor throw it out – one of those things, but it’s everywhere.

regarding you denon hifi – if it is still good quality, sell all the sources and get a chromecast audio – mine has brought a new lease of life to my arcam setup!

well worth it

regarding you denon hifi – if it is still good quality, sell all the sources and get a chromecast audio – mine has brought a new lease of life to my arcam setup!

well worth it

I’ve been thinking about something like this but surely the quality is only as good as your MP3 source? Currently I have a good quality headphone-jack-to-audio lead running into the Aux input in my amp and running iTunes from my laptop through my hifi.

But it’s still MP3 quality, which isn’t really that good and the thing I like about my separates system is sound quality.

We are planning to extend our house next year (to create a separate dining room) and to complete a loft conversion.

One of Mrs North’s design stipulations has been to have storage. Apparently we don’t have enough. Which, of course, is rubbish: we have plenty and we also have plenty (too much) stuff.

Both of us – and therefore also our daughter – are “keepers” (I’m not sure we’re at the hoarding stage yet), so it’s easy to quickly accumulate items that have no real value. And with it the space and focus on the useful* items can easily become restricted.

Once it was a wrench to throw things away. These days I look forward to taking a car full of stuff to the dump or sending it on its way via eBay.

*not just practical things, but important ephemera like books, photos, pictures, CD, souvenirs.

But it’s still MP3 quality, which isn’t really that good and the thing I like about my separates system is sound quality.

Nothing to stop you ripping the discs in a high quality format. You could use .wav which is basically the same as the file stored on the original CD or one of the lossless compressed formats like apple lossless or .flac. These will all take up more room than a more highly compressed .mp3 file but with 3TB external drives available for around £80 the file size isn’t really an issue for home use unless your existing CD collection is absolutely vast.

But it’s still MP3 quality, which isn’t really that good and the thing I like about my separates system is sound quality.

Unless you head down the Devialet route, then there is inevitably lots of compromise between sound quality and minimising boxes.

I’ve got my hifi down to:
Turntable + phono stage (I use an MC cartridge)
iTunes streaming (ALAC* ripped CDs) to Airport Express
Integrated and power amps
Speakers

No more CD player, tuner or tape deck. CDs are all ripped into iTunes, I Airplay the radio from my iPhone and I no longer play cassettes.

What is everyone doing with their cds?

Currently neatly organised across a bookcase and some additional shelving. All quite neat in the (current) spare room. When we pack up to do the work to the house, I’ll ditch their jewel cases and get some JazzLoft sleeves.. They can then be boxed up in the new cupboards.

*Apple lossless – i.e. not compressed, so still CD quality.

I LOVE decluttering. To see spaces open up, and feel as if you can swing your arms after hardly being able to move is a great experience.

It makes me realise how little I actually need, and how much I just ‘want’.

Decluttering is fine, but…N-1???? Bonkers!

I wish I had enough stuff to declutter.

I have a van, two bikes, a box of camera gear, some casual clothes and a bucket full of riding clothes. Absolutely everything I own fits in the van with room for a camping bed and space to cook in.

It’s a blessing in disguise if you ruin your own life and end up between addresses for a while.

What about Spotify Premium? According to What Hifi you can stream it at 320kbps, which is supposed to be as good as CD. Saves me days of reripping all my CDs…

My dad’s got 2 VCR’s in his garage.. Why? I do not know.

I recently got brutal and chucked out a 90’s kenwood stacker system.. Full monty.. EQ, cds deck, mini disk deck (Yeh I know) twin cassette deck.

I kept the amp as I use it still.

Next thing is clothes.. I seriously must have 50kg of clothes I’ll never ever wear… What’s the deal with this? Can I just bag them up and dump them at a charity shop?

Just for an alternative view, I keep as much as I can, because I enjoy reading PC mags from the 1990’s, or Autocar with reviews of my favourite cars in. I enjoy looking at stuff I brought 40 years ago, and remembering when and where I was at the time.
And this is before I start moving stuff from my mums loft to mine. All those old toys and school books. (Just found some old drawings I did for Tech Drawing o level!)

Matty
My mum works in a charity shop, and gets all sorts of shite taken in.
The clothes you send are supposed to be worth something, that’s why it’s called a charity shop, it’s not a dumping ground

It’s a simple process…

Is it a bike or bike related item or tool?

If yes, keep.

If no, bin.

Aside from essentials like food and beer.

n-1 is never an option! 😯

What’s the deal with this? Can I just bag them up and dump them at a charity shop?

Even crappy clothes which can’t be sold have a value, as they are sold by weight to be recycled.
So dump away!

all clothes have value, even if it’s just rag bulk, but very little of it is shredded – most of it goes to Ghana

shoes also

This time 4 years ago I was decluttering to emigrate to Oz, 14 months ago the ex helped decanter a chunk of what was left so I have a lot less to deal with now. Just moved into a shared house for the first time in about 13 years and the rest is in storage which gets rationalised every so often. Next place I get to live I plan to move into properly and only let the good stuff in.

All my media is digital except singletrack, I listen to music and honestly having worked on a lot of noise hazard areas I don’t stress about compressed music files or pretend to hear the difference.

The buy nice buy once route is also where I’m going, the just about stuff never gets used, the right tool for the job does.

n-1 is never an option!

Depends how many you’ve got, of course. But I found having a minimum rather nice:

– you save the room surplus bikes take up
– you need fewer spares
– they have to be properly serviced because you don’t have another one to ride
– you get more room to work on them
– you look after them better

🙂

Clothes: I own two pairs of jeans, five ‘work’ shirts, five T-shirts, two hoodies, plus pants and socks, and one pair of boots, one pair of Vans

Slightly limited wardrobe, no jackets, outdoor clothes, clothes for a meal out, etc?[/quote]

Jackets: one primaloft warm/showerproof jacket; one non-bike waterproof jacket; one bike waterproof jacket; one bike waterproof that’s less waterproof but still windproof; one cotton ‘casual’ jacket.
Outdoor clothes: one ss baselayer; one ls baselayer; one ss bike jersey; one pair bike shorts; one pair ‘baggy’ running/bike shorts; one pair of running tights; one pair of trainers for riding; one pair of trainers for running.
Meal out clothes: covered by the first list.

n-1 is never an option!

I have four bikes: an Elephant bike for around town; an SS MTB for proper off-road; a geared cross bike for longer rides, road rides and mixed rides; another one that I’m trying to justify keeping but am struggling.

Anyone want a slightly battered fugly bike?

because I enjoy reading PC mags from the 1990’s

just binned mine. CDs still to be disposed, although half tempted to fire up VirtualBox VM and remind myself how shockingly bad IE3 was. Next shelf to process should have Windoze 95 CD.

Just found some old drawings I did for Tech Drawing o level!

Still have my old school books (at least those from secondary school). Uni thesis stuff from 1993 is currently in one of those archiving boxes, and is used as a doorstop.

And this is before I start moving stuff from my mums loft to mine

thanks for the reminder. i guess I really ought to sort out 3-4 removal boxes worth of stuff that I stashed in my parents loft when I quit the country in 1999. Pretty sure there’s still an Amstrad CPC464 in there too.

Anyone want a slightly battered fugly bike?

The Solitude-of-questionable-attractiveness?

😉

Ok,going digital, what do you mean? I have all my CDs in flip books,like I have thrown away the box but kept the cd and booklet thing. Can I rip these to something and get rid of them as well? Same with DVDs? What about minidiscs and all my vinyl ? No way can I get rid of the vinyl!?!?

No way can I get rid of the vinyl!?!?

Vinyl and de-cluttering are not compatible. And as for minidiscs….

😉

We’ve been doing a bit of decluttering, most stuff went the charity shop as stuff that still has a use but we don’t need or have more than 2 of 😳 we’ve still a couple more bits to run through.

I’ve been reading suffocation a book around living with less although I don’t subscribe to minimalism in so far as those that display they only have 60 items to their name, but more that what you do own should give you experiences and that memories are more valuable than the owning. Exception being days to day food shopping and stuff like that is this more around consumer items.

Therefore bikes are fine if you use them and have experiences and memories.

What it does though is just make you think when you buy some thing how will create an experience or will it just be clutter or not used in the future.

Decluttering is at least we find quite refreshing the key is to keep the space and resist the urge to fill it.

My advice is get a smaller house. When me and my girlfriend went to look at our current house, my first thought was “way too small, no way all my stuff’s going to fit in there.” But I got rid of a few bits (still need to get rid of more) and found space for stuff I really need/want. There’s not really room to have too much more without it getting cluttered, so I make a conscious effort not to buy stuff I don’t really need and don’t have room for.

Anyone want a slightly battered fugly bike?

The Solitude-of-questionable-attractiveness?[/quote]

That’s the one. I think it’s going to become a fixed gear droop barred monstercross, and thus fill an essential niche.