Bring on Spring

It hasn´t been a good year for my family sickness wise- somehow none of us (even my usually never sick husband who succumbed to a bad sinus infection in January) seemed to be very strong this winter.

I was heartened today to have beautiful weather and notice the trees budding and crocuses and daffodils for sale in the local shops. When I picked my daughter up from school she took great delight in pointing out to me some snowdrops (Schneeglocken) she had found (her secret!) under some trees during the break.

However my son has a bad dry cough for over a week and I will finally take him to the doctor tomorow- I was really hoping it would get better on its own. I also have a sore throat since yesterday evening and am not feeling great even after a walk in the sun today. I think the late stage of pregnancy, my husband´s constant (but necessary) absence and sickness is just getting me down. There are some things about living in Germany that get me down too and today was one of those days.

I did however make it to the post office to post off my latest sales and am sitting down right now listing about 25 CDs that we never listen to and are in nearly new condition on Amazon. Its a rewarding feeling to keep listing things there as I get emails nearly everyday when things sell and there is a steady stream of small change going towards bills.

I am happy that even on a day like today, I can still make a small step towards uncluttering my life.

I just don´t want to have so many possessions anymore- and what I do have I want to be uplifting, useful and beautiful (or some combination thereof)

Filed under: Selling things

Storage Nightmare

Serious post today…

I´m so so appalled and disgusted with myself.

Today after a walk in the woods we drove over to our storage area. Its our second storage area as, as is typical in German apartments (and Swiss ones, after that I´m not sure), we also have a cellar storage area provided with our apartment- both areas are about 5 x 3 metres square.

About six months ago my husband got so sick and tired of the fact that he couldn´t get into our cellar storage area (which was piled up the roof) and also that “stuff” was piled up in our apartment, that he rented this storage area and took half of our excess belongings to the other side of town. I haven´t been there once…nor hardly down to the cellar, except to take some more things down there a few weeks ago. So, its now officially costing us a lot of money to store junk….

I got a real shock today when I saw all the things piled up in storage area No 2. We went there to look for things for the baby (which we found), but I was so shocked at all the bags of clothes, shoes and toys there as well as all the boxes of paperwork timebombs, memorabilia and photos that I had forgotten about… just mouldering. The only valid items that we were keeping there are all our camping equipment and a spare double bed.

I had another (yet another) sharp shock as to how wasteful and unorganised my life has been and also how I keep justifying everything to myself.

I always seen to have a reason why I am not organised and why I will get organised one day and why I have to keep things. All this stuff keeps getting dragged from continent to continent as well and never decluttered over the past 13 years and getting worse and worse each year, especially since we had children.

I realised today that I am never going to be able to “sell” these things as I keep thinking or even keep them for later use as its all too overwhelming. The only way to deal with all this stuff is going to be to go there alone with lots of big thick garbage bags and throw half the stuff out and give the other half to charity- take it straight to clothing bins.

I just can´t keep these things. I don´t even think I should be keeping my children´s old clothes for future use as we can´t pay to store these things, its just not worth it. My husband pointed out that we would be better off buying things as we need them instead of now paying for storage. And sadly he is right.

And he was right when he commented on my hoarding tendencies a week or so ago and I thought it was so funny. I have been fooling myself.

I feel very sad right now, feel like I am possibly mentally ill (!!) and really disgusted at myself. I keep telling myself I am not so bad and I am keeping these things for future use, however I actually feel now I am not so far removed from these people that end up on TV buried under their possessions.

I need to get rid of things now before it gets worse. For my husband and kid´s sakes and my sake. I have to stop being delusional and only keep what it relevant to my life now. I have to bear the financial loss of things I think might be worth money and just let them leave my life.

Filed under: Decluttering to get my life back, Selling things

Finding Motivation to Ebay Again.

In the past I have liked both buying and selling things on Ebay. Sometimes a little too much buying which is why it has just been easier for me to keep away from there for quite a while as to avoid buying anything. As an expat it has allowed me to seek out clothes, shoes, accessories for myself and the children which are not available in Germany- whether I buy from the UK or Australia. I love buying secondhand, particularly when things have sometimes only been used once!

Lately I bought three Arabia Moomin mugs for myself for Christmas and since then only a second hand maternity winter coat from a UK designer for a quarter of the price which was as good as new. And I should be able to resell it again if I want to for a good price.

Listing things on Ebay is a bit of trouble- the photos, the description, measuring things and then uploading it all. As I mainly sell clothes (books, music and DVDs go to Amazon), I do like to measure everything first up as otherwise you get loads of questions on this topic. I try also not to sell anything I wouldn´t want to buy myself.

However, as I need to make some extra money to make ends meet, I need to get into this again over the next month- my two existing children are ever growing and I am already thinking of the fact that they have grown out of all their summer clothes and wondering how to afford to replace them, plus new rollerblades and a bike for my daughter. Clothing is very expensive in Germany in general, things rarely go on sale, so it is expensive even though I buy most of their things from H&M which is supposed to be the low end of the market.

I have two other avenues to sell things- an expat site and flea markets- though I find I get more money for good quality things on Ebay as these two other avenues want rock bottom prices. So Ebay so far (even with the fees) seems to be worth the trouble.

This is what I wrote down about my first and only (so far) flea market experience last year:

“I had quite a good morning at the flea market yesterday, sold about half my stuff, made 50 euros (and spent 24 lol). I might not have spent anything but the friend who had a table next to me kept bringing things back to me she thought I might like (lol), so I ended up buying a pair of new near Nike football boots (7 euros) and perfect boy´s lederhosen (10 euros) along with a substantial collection of smurfs (4 euros) and one board game (3 euros). Nothing I sold was over 3 euros though. And, yes, people did want to bargain you down to 50 cents or so.

I sold a mixture of clothes, jackets, books, toys and shoes, so there was certainly no bias there as to what sold well. Though I did get the feeling from the massive amount of shoes around that they weren´t selling particularly well- the two I sold were birkenstocks, all other shoes unsold.”

So, my big aim for this week, is to start selling things again! I can´t just keep keeping things in the hope I will sell them- bags of extra clutter, I have to do it.

Do you sell? Just discard?

Filed under: Selling things