Where does all your loose change come from?   And what do you do with it when you have got it ?    Here’s yet another clutter challenge.

When I was young l collected it and saved up for something —sweets, foreign stamps, a book, records and finally a Dawes racing bike with derailleur gears.  It certainly got you in the habit of saving.

These days, after years of inflation, loose change accumulates to the point that it becomes too heavy to carry around in your pocket.    It’s value wouldn’t buy you a hard backed book or a record and you would need a wheelbarrow to carry enough change to purchase a racing bike.

So what do you do with it ?   Well in my case I empty the change from my pockets into a bedside drawer — and in a drawer in the lounge — and in the kitchen drawer — and in a compartment in the car.     When they are all full to overflowing I have a magic coin sorter. A gadget my wife bought me.     She loves gadgets.     So every few months I collect up all my change and the magic sorter sorts it into 1p’s, 2p’s, 5p’s, 10p’s, 20p’s, 50p’s, £1’s and £2’s.     Not that I consider £1 and £2 coins as loose change, but what about all the rest.   Nobody wants it.    Shop assistants tolerate it with an impatient look, while they wait for you to count it out and wobetide you if you dole out more than ‘the maximum’ allowed as legal tender.    The queue lined up behind you tut tuts and wonders why on earth you can’t use a credit card like everyone else.     Cash is so yesterday!

So here’s my dilemma.   Do I put it in charity boxes on pub and post office counters —- I already do that but it still builds up ?    Do I give it to beggars on the street —- not when you hear how much money they make ?     Do I put it in a change machine in supermarkets —- and pay them an exorbitant 10% fee for changing my money, or they give you a voucher to spend in their shop ?

There must be a better idea for dealing with this cash clutter.    Any inspiring ideas ?

There will be a copy of Walt Hopkins and George Simons’ book — “Seven Ways to Lighten Your Life Before You Kick the Bucket” — for the best ideas on de-cluttering.

After Christmas everyone ends up with lots and lots of wrapping paper.     If you were really an environmental champion, no doubt you would unwrap you presents carefully, then you could reuse the paper next Christmas.   Always providing you keep a note of who sent you what paper, so that you don’t send them back their own paper, otherwise they will know what a tight so and so you are.

Alternatively you can recycle  wrapping paper in the District Council’s red bin.    Not the green bin or the grey bin, nor the blue bin, that’s a cardinal sin bin.     But you must first remove all traces of sellotape and make sure there are no labels with string still attached, nor any ribbons or tinsel, definitely no tinsel.     Under no circumstances must there be be any glitter on the paper because apparently it gunges  up the Councils shredding machine and that could stop the massive effort the Council is making in 2017 to save the world.

Fortunatly, after my decluttering, I seem to have located rather a lot of scissors.   Strange that I could not find a single pair when I was wrapping up the presents !

That gave me a good idea from my time spent in Japan, perhaps I could do some Origami with the aid of all the scissors and scrap paper.  

There will be a copy of Walt Hopkins’ and George Simons’ book — “Seven Ways to Lighten Your Life Before You Kick the Bucket” — for the best ideas on de-cluttering.

My de-cluttering saga continues.  (You can see my other blogs on this theme by clicking on “Clutter” in the TAG CLOUD).

This time I am onto bank paperwork.    It merits special attention because there is so much of it and of course it is highly confidential.   It is also essential to keep it secure at all times. For this reason all the banks mentioned in my blog have had their names jumbled up, encoded and encrypted.

Bank papers always arrive in the post in plain A4 white envelopes, which look like letters from banks.    That’s not exactly secure — Oops!     They usually contain at least 5 pages, only 1 of which has any useful information.     The other four pages are incomprehensible, legalistic jargon and list all the things the bank is not responsible for —- including how they calculate their interest rates.  I think they put two fingers in the air and just think of a number 🙂

We have lots of banks and lots of bank accounts to spread the risk of losing all our disappearing savings in one go if one of our banks goes bust !    The problem with this approach is that we get lots of letters from banks.     In my office each bank has a separate box file and by the end of each year they are full of statements, financial reports and promotional literature — 90% of which I have not read.     Don’t let this mislead any burglar reading this blog into thinking we have loads of money, there is no money to be had —— just paper.

Here s a typical example, from let’s call it — the Worthless Paper Bank :-

• an opening page with sort codes, which I can’t sort out 😟 ; International account numbers with 16 digits which I will never be able to copy down correctly if I ever need it.   What’s more I did not know I had an international account.   And then the one thing that would be useful to see is a date but —– no date, definitely no date.
• a second page with all ONE of my transactions last month,  plus on the back a list of disclaimers designed to absolve the bank from any responsibility for anything.
• the final page is a summary of the fist two pages, just in case I didn’t read it,  plus another copy of the disclaimers.
• at one time I used to get two copies of all of this, but fortunately the bank ran out of trees and discontinued the extra copy some time ago.

All my other banks have similar variations of the above format but since there is not standardisation, you invariably struggle each time another set of paperwork turns up.  I now have a wall full of bulging box files.     All of this to look after my old age pension.      Seems a bit over the top, don’t you think?

It is all supposed to be kept for 7 years, so the tax man says, which makes storing it even more of a challenge.   The obvious solution is on-line banking, but with my computer skills that is about as secure as putting all my money under the mattress.    One wrong press of a key and I could be bankrupt !

Since this paperwork is all so hyper confidential, what the heck do I do with it ?    I could shred it but that would take days.      I could burn it but that would upset all my neighbours.      I could eat it like James Bond with a secret file, but that doesn’t sound like a very good Christmas dinner.

Has anybody got any good ideas on what to do with it all ?

There will be a copy of Walt Hopkins’ book — “Seven Ways to Lighten Your Life Before You Kick the Bucket” –— for the best ideas on de-cluttering.

Rain forests have been sacrificed, my office is clogged up, no interest is shown or paid !

I did all this on Christmas Eve and it was an incredibly boring and frustrating couple of hours.      I’m done with bank statements for now.

Merry Christmas!

My de-cluttering continues a day at a time and another small step towards clutter freedom.  (You can see my other blogs on this theme by clicking on “Clutter” in the TAG CLOUD).

Today I turn my attention to the top drawer of one of my office desks.    The one I can’t open without a fight.

At one time I must have been thinking of setting up a new branch of Staples the stationers, because I seem to have accumulated an awful lot of things I must have needed once.    But obviously not twice, or three times, or four times, or more.

I have five staplers and seven boxes of staples.  I think some of them came out of Christmas crackers a few years ago.     Most of the staples are the wrong size and don’t fit the stapler.    I also have three staple removers.    Gosh at one time I must have had a lot of fun with staples.    Now I need to go on a staple diet.

Then there are the hole punches, four of them.    Enough to make 10,000 holes in Blackburn Lancashire —— or bags of confetti for the next Royal wedding 😄

And pins  —- drawing pins, red round-headed pins, blue, green, yellow, white and black headed pins.    And paper clips by the box full.   And blue tack.   And  crocodile clips.   And glue in tubes and in bottles.   Oh and finally sellotape, rolls and rolls of it.    I could pin, stick, staple and clip for the European Parliament, although on second thoughts I would probably require even more pins for that !

Then I found a comb, goodness knows why it’s there since I haven’t needed a comb for years 🙂

Not quite finished yet.   I have got rulers —- several rulers, all of them in feet and inches, maybe I could export them to America?  At least somebody still uses imperial measures !

A locked combination lock, with a long forgotten combination.    Could be useful as a training aid for trainee safe-crackers.

Finally, still on my first office drawer,  I find two ivory chop sticks!   Not quite sure what they are doing there, but I think they are quite valuable, because along with a lot of writing in Chinese there is an English translation “Empress of China”.    I do not remember meeting her, perhaps it was when we had a Chinese take-away last week.

It looks like this could be another addition to the school box, although I think I’ll leave out the old comb and I still need a polite idea for the chopsticks.

There will be a copy of Walt Hopkins’ book — “Seven Ways to Lighten Your Life Before You Kick the Bucket” –— for the best ideas on de-cluttering.