21:04 – A pile of magazines!

It’s day four of this years first 21 day declutter challenge.

A few years back, I would buy a lot (a lot) of magazines every month. They were mostly interior/garden magazines, with a few technical ones thrown in. I have also been subscribing to a private economy magazine for years.

Around comes 2014 and I decided that one of the goals that year was to massively reduce the books/magazines I would buy. I did so well during 2014 that I continued in 2015 and also 2016. With the exception on the private economy magazine that I get 11 times a year, I think I have bought something like 3 maybe 4 magazines since the end of 2013.

As I love browsing through interior and garden magazines, I have kept a few of my old ones, all the ones that had good articles or was just fun to browse through for an home/garden “pick me up” 🙂

That was until a couple of day ago, when I decided it was time to let them go. Since some of the magazines still had some valid articles/photos, I decided to keep those particular ones.

What I have done over the years (every time I clear out my magazines) is to tear out stuff I would like to keep and I collect them all in a small magazine box.

When I need a interior/garden “hit”, I will sit down with my box and look through it all. If anything in the box no longer takes my fancy, I will get rid off it. This way my tear out magazines box never fills up.

So the last few days, I’ve been going through my favorite magazines, and torn out goodies 🙂

The result?
A small pile to keep, and 58 magazines out-the door!

21:03 – Bagorama!

It’s day three of this years first 21 day declutter challenge.

And today it’s time for bags and backpacks.

You know how some people loves and collects purses? Uhu.. that’s not quite my cup of tea.

What is me, you’re asking?

I think I can clearly state, I’m a backpack kinda girl.

I’ve always been partial to backpacks, laptop bags, hip bags, travel bags and sport bags.

I’m not saying I don’t own any purses, because I do 😉

What I am saying is you’ll be finding more bags than purses in my home.

Well, that was, until today 😉

Today, I cut my “collection” almost in half.

I bet you are expecting to see this huge pile of bags on the floor, now, aren’t you?

Sorry.. have to disappoint you!

Since I have been downsizing my bag “collection” a bit the last few years (at least 22 out-the-door), this pile is relatively small.

Even so, I just about cut my current collection in half.

What I’m left with?
8 bags; backpacks, gym sack, duffel bag, laptop bag and shoulder bag.

Leaving the house?

1 Eddie Bauer laptop backpack
1 30 liter backpack
1 Crumpler laptop bag
2 gym sacks
1 Camelbak runners hip-pack
1 Eagle Creek waterproof hip-pack
2 suitcase straps
=
7 bags and 2 travel related items out-the-door

21:02 – All kinds of Purple!

It’s day two of this years first 21 day declutter challenge.

Sadly, Christmas is over, and all the Christmas stuff just got packed away 😦

Since this IS the year for getting rid off stuff, I thought it made sense to do a Christmas decoration review.

Most of my Christmas decoration is in the color of red and silver, but now and then I veer off into different color schemes. The last couple of years however, I’ve been going back to basic. So I figured it’s time to let some the other colors go.

As I have decluttered my Christmas decoration a few times before, I’m mostly left with a bunch of extras in the color of purple.

So here we are, a bunch of purples (yes, Melinda… sacrilegious.. I know) and others leaving the house.

4 medium ball ornaments
5 smaller ball ornaments
7 tiny ball ornaments
2 purple tinsel garlands
1 box of fake snow
27 small ball ornaments
1 Christmas star (window hanging version)
=
47 Christmas ornaments out-the-door

21:01 – Books

Yesterday I mentioned I was going to start a new 21 day declutter challenge, to kick start another declutter year. Guess what.. that makes this day ONE 🙂

And what better to start, but with the most difficult thing in the world to declutter… books!

Hold on.. did you say books?

Yepp.. your heard right.. I’m starting with books.

You have most likely all heard about KonMari and how you should keep only the things that brings you JOY!

Well.. if I’m am going to follow KonMari on this, I will be in big trouble, as ALL my books brings me joy. So I figured I will have to go about it differently.

LET’S BACKTRACK A LITTLE

Back in 2014, I started reading myself through my bookshelves, and called it my “Read a book program“. The idea was to read one of my books, grade it, and depending on the grade it got, either keep it or get rid of it.

When I started my “read a book program” I would sort the books into the following categories:

Books I love
Only books I love are keepers and deserve a place in my bookshelves. These are the ones that I will read over and over again, or they are part of a special collection, they have sentimental value, are an absolute keep for reference/work/hobby reasons or I just absolutely have to keep for one reason or another.

Books I like
Books I like, but which are not quite in the “I love” category, gets donated/tossed or sold. I did/do however check if they can be bought as Kindle e-books first.

Books that didn’t excite me
Out the door – either as donate/toss or sell.

HOW DID THIS GO?

I did really good during 2014 and 2015, getting rid of quite a few books (about 1/3 of my collection). 2016 however, I hardly read a book 😦

So I really think it’s time to start up my “Read a book program” again.

I have an overall goal when comes to my books.
My goal (sometime into the future) is to have most of my books as e-books (kindles)

There are two reasons for this,
1. My books will use less space in the house
2. It will be easy to bring my books with me when I travel the world (which is another dream of mine)

BACK TO DAY ONE AGAIN

To kick start the whole BOOK thing, I figured an initial run through my books might be a good idea. I’ve just taken a serious look at them, and lo and behold.. I DID find a few that I’m quite sure I wont be reading again anytime soon (if ever) 😉 I checked, and they are all on kindle, so here we are..

One run through my bookshelves = 22 books leaving the house

Since I’m picking up on my reading program again, with the intention of “emptying my shelves”, I’m sure you will see a few more books leaving this house in 2017 (at least I hope so).

I will keep some of my absolute LOVES (and some that I like and can’t get as e-books, yep, I have a few of those too), and in general follow my old rules.

What I do for all the books I handle is; I write down the title and author, the grade I have given them, can they be bought as kindle books? I do this regardless of if they are loved, liked or discarded. I’m thinking it will help me get rid of more books, and the grades will tell me if they are worth getting as kindles later.

Also, this time I will try to be a bit more ruthless than I have been in the past. Hopefully this will help me reach my 2017 goal, of 100 books out-the-door!

I know this is not a lot of books, but I told you the books brings me JOY, right? And since I have culled my bookshelves several times before (I mean.. seriously culled them over and over and over again), my bookshelves consists of pretty much only books that I love/like!

For now though – as a start – and on day one – 22 books out-the-door 🙂

Epson XP-860 – My new printer/scanner!

I got my hands on a printer/scanner a few days ago, and I’ve have checked it out some… so far it seems to do what I want.

I have a pretty good photo printer from before, so for me to go out and buy a new “printer”, this product had to tick a few boxes.

It had to do duplex scans – for my paper monster project
It had to do good quality photo prints – for when I create photo albums
It had to be Wi-Fi – for me to be able to print from pc/Ipad/phone
It would be nice if it did duplex prints – I have info that needs to be printed on a regular basis
It would be nice if it would scan wirelessly to my computer – saves me from having to use cable
It would be nice if I could print on CD/DVD’s – don’t use this feature much anymore, but…

I looked long and hard, and it turns out it’s not that easy to find a small home product that will do automatic duplex scans, and have a document feeder that can take several documents in one go. They do a lot of office related machines, but they are often bigger, more expensive, and don’t do really good photo prints (which was a big thing for me.. as I do print a few photos now and then).

I found that for home use it seems like HP, Epson and Canon have a couple of products (that will do both duplex and decent photo prints). I’ve always used Canon before, but I find the newer models not as sleek as they used to be (they need more flat space for placement), and I decided on Epson this time around.

I bought the Epson Expression Photo XP-860, which covers all the items on my wish list, and Epson are supposed to be good on photo printing and it gets pretty good reviews, so it’s worth a try…

If I’m not happy? Not a problem, as I can return it! They have brilliant return policies on a lot of electronic shops here in Norway 🙂

And if I’m happy? Then it’s a keeper, and my old one will be an item “out-the-door” – given away to a printer needing person 🙂

So, guess there is no excuse anymore! I have a scanner, now I just need to get going with my sorting, shredding, scanning and archiving 🙂

Stay tuned.. you know I’ll keep you updated 😉

My paper pile from hell!

I told you yesterday I was going to find ALL the paper in my house and pull it together in a pile or two!

Well I did… and here it is! My paper pile from hell!

Yeah, I should probably have heaped it all into a big hazardous pile. I’m sure that would have looked way more impressive 🙂 But, I’m just to organized, what can I say?

It might not look to bad, but I’m telling you.. there are still about 54 inches of paper… 😦

You wouldn’t by any chance be struggle with papers, just like me, now would you? Why not join me in culling it all down!

Taxes – and the paper monster!

April is tax time here in Norway. You get all your information drizzling in over a couple of months and by April 30th you better have your taxes done and delivered or hell breaks loose… or does it?

Actually no, it doesn’t, any longer…

You see, Norway started with e-filing quite a few years ago, where you pretty much just had to check, correct and press a button to file your tax return, and you were done. Nice right?

Well, now we have gone even further. Now we don’t have to do anything, absolutely zilch, nada, nope…

You see, the rule is that if you don’t press that button to “file and approve” your tax return, they just assume that you “approve” the numbers the tax authorities have concluded with, and it’s being automatically filed for you… Great yeah? Well, yes it is, IF they have your numbers correct in the system.

And that’s a big IF! Regardless of how automated taxes are becoming, I would always recommend to take an hour or two and check it properly. Check that they have the correct amounts on your pay and deductibles, that they have not forgotten anything or added something that should not be there. They might not know about all the little things about you, make sure you add them. It can pay off, as every little amount can help reduce the final amount of taxes.

So, every year, end of April, I sit down to do my taxes, and at the same time, I start to go through the rest of my paper monster 😉

My taxes don’t yield a lot of paper any more, as most everything is online. And truth be told, the rest of the year don’t yield a lot either. But even though most of my stuff is now online at different institutions, I still seem to manage to hold on to a significant amount of papers anyway. And this year that stops!

I have decided that this is the year to digitize my entire paper pile! Everything that I want/need to keep, that is in paper form, will be scanned over the next few months. And it all starts, today, people. It all starts today 🙂

So what kind of papers have I been holding on to and collected?

Tax papers
Insurance papers
Birth certificates
Medical papers
Pension information
Warranty receipts
Work papers
Some bills
Old letters and postcards
Random cut outs from magazines
Scraps of papers with all kinds of scribbles on (yes, that would be my scribbles)
+++

As you can see from the list, I’m holding on to a lot of paper related stuff (I have a few shelves and boxes full) so you can see how this might take me a while to go through.

My game plan:

Tomorrow I’m going to collect all and I mean ALL the paper I have in my house and put it in a pile or two or ten 🙂 I think there will be a few piles as I’m sure I have way more paper stashed around than I realise.

And thats when the real works starts! I’m going to have to go through everything, and decide what to toss, what to shred, what to scan and what to keep as physical paper.

But… before I can get to the scanning part… I need to get my hands on a half decent two-sided paper scanner, so guess that’s also on my list of things to do.

Stay tuned…. I’ll be posting all about that terrible pile…. yes, soon!! 😉

2015 – Goals! Oh nooo!

Oh boy!

It’s ridiculous how long I’ve been working on this post… I started it weeks and weeks ago.. and then I completely forgot all about it lurking around in the drafts folder… until I suddenly went.. oh crap.. didn’t I..??? Yeah you guessed it, I suddenly remembered that I had not posted it after all. How the heck could I forget?

And here we are, almost done with February. And I still haven’t given you the update on how I did with my 2015 goals! 😳

How can I make it up to you? Well I guess I could just go ahead and give you that update!

Before I do, I have a teensy-weensy disclaimer!

2015 turned out quite differently than I had anticipated. As some of you know, I had to throw in the towel at work, June 2015 for health reasons. Following that particular decision, a few things happened during the fall, things that was completely outside of my control, which unfortunately, took a toll on my health.

I know, I know.. it’s a poor excuse… But excuse or not, it is an explanation for why I completely flunked on some of my goals, as you will see below.

I did have quite few goals, and even though I flunked a lot, I did accomplish one or two…

So here it is, my (ahem) “quick” update, starting with one of the ones I actually passed 🙂

FINANCIAL GOALS
My overall goal when it comes to my house mortgage, is to pay it down as quick as possible. Every January I pay a lump sum towards the mortgage (a quick explanation of my mortgage). My goal for 2015 was to to save up NOK 60 000,- for my lump sum in January 2016. And I did it. Actually I was a ahead of schedule and had saved my yearly down payment by October. With a little extra savings in November.

I did debate paying down more than my 60 000 this January, but I decided I’d rather invest that extra money in mutual funds, as the interest rate on my mortgage is really low.

With this last payment, I’m down to 1/4th left on my mortgage, only 9 years in 🙂 Do I get a woot, woot?

DECLUTTER
I had a bunch of declutter goals. Just as in 2014 I wanted to shed an item a day. In addition to that, I had a few other “projects” like reading myself out of my bookshelf, watching myself out of my movie collection, and (the big mother of projects) photos!

My declutter goals for 2015:

😀 365 items – 561 items out the door – the big purges are mentioned here, here and here…
100 Movies – 68 movies
😦 Cut physical DVD series collection by 30% – I’ve only gotten rid of one series which probably amounts to all of 1%
34 books – 27 (I ran into too many I wanted to keep)
😦 Photo collection – I never had a proper goal on this as I have thousands of photos, and the idea was to – keep key photos as physical photos, scan the other ones I’d like to have access to, and get rid of the rest. – All I can say…. it IS on the list for 2016 (and 2017… and 2018… and…)

ONLY BUYING NECESSITIES
2014 was a year I focused a lot on only buying necessities ( I want, I want – I want it now!!!), and it served me so well that I continued in 2015. I had some non necessities allowances though;

😀 Books – buy only 10 books/magazines – I bought 6 books (4 of them e-books), no magazines
😀 Flowers and plants – same level of 2014 – I cut about 60% on 2014 results
😦 Eating out – reduce 25% on 2014 results – we have already established that this item is something we struggle with. So it shouldn’t come as a big surprise that we flunked this one completely. Here are the statistic:
- we ate out 39% more times than 2014
- average cost per meal was reduced 9,5% – resulting in
- total cost for 2015 was increased with “only” 25,9%

Even though the results are pretty bismol (with the exception of average cost per meal) there is one upside in it all.

You see, both B (my eating out partner in crime) and me stopped working early/mid 2015. B took out an early retirement + was hit by company downsizing, leaving the workforce early spring. And I, well I started the year working only 20% until I left completely in June, when I went out on 100% sick leave.

We have found out in the past, during holidays and such, that we eat out more when we are not working. In lieu of the fact that most of the year have been non working days, for us both, I’m actually surprised that we did not increase our cost by more than 25,9%. So yeah, we gotta look at the bright side of this 😉

❓ I can buy up to 10 non essentials throughout the year – Hmm lets see, I bought:
- 2 lamps at an antique fair – the lamps are going over my dining table (been looking the last 5 years – finally found some I think might be cool.. as soon as I change the wiring 😉 )
- 1 pair of shoes (needed a pair that can work as my one pair only for minimalist travel)
- a few Lush products to test out deodorants and shampoos in solid form (travel)
- a couple of eagle creek super light travel pouches (travel)
- 6 pieces of clothing – 4 replacing worn out items, 1 item filling a hole in my wardrobe, and 1 just because I wanted it…
- 1 frame for a poster (picture finally on the wall after years and years in a roll)
- a set of omaggio vases

Depending on how you want to count these non essentials, it’s either a flunk or pass scenario. If you look at it from a “if every single item counts separately” then, yes I bought more that 10 items. But if “each purchase count as one” (eg lush, lamps, vases..) then I guess I kinda passed? You know what? I’m leaving it to you to decide 😉

ACTIVITY AND EXERCISE
The goal for 2015 was to build up to, by the end of the year: 7 days of activity a week, with 3 of these as real workouts.

Yeah, that didn’t happen (re my disclaimer) – I did pretty good during summer with an average of 6 times a week, but I took a crashing nosedive end of August, resulting in this goal going straight out the window for the rest of the year. So yeah.. a big, big fail 😦

OTHER ACTIVITIES/PROJECTS
As always, I enjoyed my garden as much as possible. In addition I had a few other projects.. mostly helping out family and friends with little things in the house.

I did however have a bit of a larger task, helping a friend who got a new house in 2015. Picture this, a house built in 2000 with interiour like the 1970s! Yeah, non painted pine, red, orange and yucky cream/brown/puke coloured wall… and thats for starters. For her it became quite a renovation project.. so B and me tried to help out as much as my health would allow. You know things like; painting, drawing up the new kitchen, delivering doors to be spray painted, changing door handles, cutting moldings to fit new wardrobes, more painting, installing the wifi, hanging curtain rods, “create” (rather adjust) a couple of ikea kitchen units to fit the space… you know.. all the little things that comes up during move in and renovation 😉 It turned out to be a fun and very social summer as she had lot and lots of friends helping.. oh yeah.. and there was lots and lots of great food, do I need to say more 😉

All in all, it was a great summer season!

This concludes my “How did I do on my 2015 goals”!

About time, you might say! All I can say is.. Yeah, I know 😳

November in a nutshell!

Oh my gosh, it’s almost like I can’t believe it, I’m actually managing to get my monthly sum-up out there on a proper date. Who knew it would take me this long to “catch up” 😉

Well, I wouldn’t quite believe that if I were you, I’m not really caught up, as you will see in future posts to come.

But let me get back to my November sum-up!

Activities and exercise
I’m still in the middle of my somewhat intensive treatment program (average 2,5 times a week), add a cold/flu to that and I have done zilch zippidy duda when it comes to being out and about 😦

The one thing I have been doing, is the extremely strenuous sofa sitting, tv watching activity. And let me tell you, that stuff will wear you out 😉

Declutter
So you are wondering did anything make it out of the house this month, besides heaps and heaps of snotty tissues? Nope! I’m afraid not!

My decluttering efforts this month pretty much consisted of the aforementioned TV series watching. Unfortunately my Dark Angel marathon resulted in the series kinda growing on me (again), and I’m wondering if maybe I should rip the series to my computer, before I get rid of the DVD’s..? Which means, yes, you’ve guessed it, that the series aren’t making it out of the house quite yet 😦

But hey, today is December 1’st and hopefully I will have the series riped in time to leave the house before Christmas 😉

Only buying necessities
Eating out – I think I have given up on this completely. I might as well just realize that if there is one thing we will always be good at, it’s eating out 😉

Buying non essentials – For some reason it seems like it’s fleece buying time these days. Last month I got one I can use for a more dressed up occasion. This time I got a bright blue regular one, to replace a sweater that is about to fall to pieces.

Financial goals
Let’s see… I got paid some stock dividends this month, I believe I will put those towards my yearly mortgage payment in January, which should bring my mortgage down even quicker than originally planned 😉

Garden
We have had our first frost which absolutely killed off all my hydrangea and other plants that was still blooming and I just hate how sad my garden is looking right now 😦 Unfortunately due to the weather being totally bismol, I have not been able to “pack away” my garden for the winter.

I’m hoping for a clear day or two so I at least can cover my furniture, remove dead plants and get some bulbs into the ground. Looking at the weather forecast doesn’t give me high hopes for that happening anytime soon though… but here is to hoping 🙂

That’s it! Not very exciting I know… guess it’s like that, this time a year!

October in a nutshell!

Last month I promised I would do better at getting the monthly sum-up out in a timely matter. I’m not exactly doing stellar at that promise, but at least we are not quite half way into the month like I was last time 😉

Activities and exercise
I’ve started a new treatment in addition to the osteopath treatments I’m already doing. It’s been a bit busy with an average of close to 2 treatments a week (hopefully that will slow down soon). Some of the treatments wear me out a bit, and don’t leave me much energy for regular activities and exercise. Which means I’m still squeaking by, at an average of only 1,5 times a week.

As my current schedule will continue a while longer, I think my yearly goal of average of 6 times a week by the end of the year, will be a big fail. Next year maybe?

Declutter
Weirdly enough, a couple of items did make it out-the-door in October. But I never posted about them. So here it is, my decluttering effort of October;

1 Logitech computer speaker set
7 plastic compression bags
2 Natural Cotton/PEVA Storage Bags
1 grey storage bag
1 Tigger cup

That’s 12 items out-the-door, pictured below.

Still not much I know, but hey.. one item here, one item there.. it still racks up.

I will, I will get a few more items out-the-door in November… I’m sure 😉

Only buying necessities
Eating out – We are back to our usual poor performance 😦 Yep! You heard me right. We are back to eating out, a lot! I’m sure that doesn’t come as a big surprise now, does it!

My fault entirely, and I “blame” it all on the treatments (gotta blame it on something, right?) as I’m worn out afterwards and just want an easy meal.

I’m sure.. that will change when I get into a more regular treatment schedule again… Well… I can hope, can’t I 😉

Buying non essentials – I’ve been looking for a nice looking “fleeze”/indoor jacket for quite some time, and I finally found a black one I like. As I quite often do, I ended up having to buy from the men’s department, the woman’s versions just don’t seem to have long enough arms .. go figure? But it will explain why the link is to the men’s department 😉

Financial goals
I’m still putting away every cent I can towards my yearly down payment, and I’m happy to announce that I’m already there and then some, 2 months early 🙂

Projects
No projects this month. My friend (who moved this summer) is working away at sewing stuff for some christmas markets that are coming up, which means that any of the leftover tasks in her house have been put on hold until the markets are over.

That’s it for October sum-up.

Like it? You are welcome to share it :)

Like it? You are welcome to share it :)

Like it? You are welcome to share it :)

Like it? You are welcome to share it :)

Like it? You are welcome to share it :)

Like it? You are welcome to share it :)

Like it? You are welcome to share it :)

Like it? You are welcome to share it :)

Like it? You are welcome to share it :)

Like it? You are welcome to share it :)