I always carry a tissue or two on me (I hate hankies), but I like having a box of tissues in the lounge. So whilst we are going to buy another tissue box on the next shop, we wanted a temporary alternative option.

I remembered that Lifehacker last year had mentioned a toilet roll tip they had seen on Reddit, so I decided to go have a look. The Reddit user ‘FlintsDoorKnob’ had given a basic, but incredibly useful tip and you can see the original tip here. Basically the advice is to remove the middle cardboard tube out of the toilet roll, then pull upwards and et voilà! Now you can use a toilet roll as tissues.

Toilet paper in a tissue box.

So luckily I hadn’t torn up and recycled the old empty tissue box yet and decided to use it to accommodate the toilet roll. Here is what I did:

Step 1 – Remove the cardboard tube from inside the toilet roll.

Step 2 – Pull up the inside toilet roll paper.

Cardboard tube removed from toilet roll and paper pulled up.

Step 3 – Place within an existing container.

Toilet paper box.

In my case I was lucky to have the old ‘square’ tissue box that was just the right size for the toilet roll. All I did was carefully open it, place the toilet roll inside and then use a large elastic band to hold the box together.

Conclusion

The end result doesn’t look great, as it would of helped if I could have easily opened the box from underneath, but that wasn’t the design of the holder. However for the next four days, a bit of money will be saved. I know I won’t be saving a huge amount of money, but it also saved a trip to the shops.

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Three chocolate apples.

Note: Children require the help and supervision of an adult to make this recipe.

Ingredients:

• Apples!
• Milk cholocate cake covering (I used a 300g packet).
• Water

Other items you require:

• Lollipop sticks or forks
• Baking paper
• Small Oven tray or large plate
• Small saucepan
• Large glass cooking bowl
• Wooden spoon

Note: A 300g packet of chocolate will cover six to eight apples!! I didn’t realise this, until the chocolate had melted. So if you are making 2-4 apples, use around 100-150g milk chocolate cake covering.

Step 1 – Wash and stab the apples

Remove the apple stalks and then wash and dry the apples. Then carefully insert your lollipop sticks or forks into the end of the apples where the stalks were.

apples

Last weekend we had eaten too chocolate lollies whilst walking along the beach, so I kept then and washed them! Don’t ask me if that is hygienic or not, I don’t have a clue. Anyhow I had three apples and only two lollipop sticks, so I used a fork for the third apple.

Step 2 – Melt the chocolate

Get a large glass cooking bowl and then break up the chocolate into chunks and place inside of the bowl.

Be very careful with the next part, as you place the glass bowl onto a small saucepan, which contains boiled water from a kettle, but only enough so the water doesn’t touch the bottom of the glass bowl.

Melting the chocolate.

Next carefully place the saucepan on a hob and heat gently. You need to continuously stir the chocolate until it has all melted and then turn the heat off. This takes around 3-4 minutes.

Step 3 – Cover the apples in chocolate

You will now want to place each apple one at a time into the bowl and then spoon chocolate over them.

An apple in the chocolate.

Then place the chocolate apples onto a small oven tray or large plate that has a layer of baking paper (the chocolate won’t stick to the baking paper).

Step 4 – Place in the fridge to set

The chocolate does cool pretty quickly, but best place in the fridge to set for a few hours.

Et Voilà!

Two chocolate apples.

A naughty chocolate treat that is easy to make.

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A serving of homemade trifle

If you are throwing a British dinner party this dessert is great after the main meal, and just before the cheeses. Often if you have just eaten a large main meal, people will take a break in-between the meal and dessert. My girlfriend and I are lucky to use large trifle bowls from both my grandmothers, that were given to me in the past. If you don’t own a trifle bowl, I guess a large container with a flat bottom and reasonable depth with be okay.

Note: Children require the help and supervision of an adult to make this delicious recipe.

Ingredients:

• Custard (you must make your own custard, and not use ready-made custard)
• Raspberries (though you could use strawberries or other fruit)
• Thick double fresh cream
• Jelly (in our case vegetarian raspberry jelly)

Shopping advice

We brought our vegetarian raspberry jelly from a local health food shop. In the UK you might be able to find it in a Holland & Barrett shop, if you are looking for the vegetarian version. Our Holland & Barrett didn’t stock raspberry and instead of asking if they could order it in, another health food shop stocked it.

Some of the trifle ingredients

You can use tinned or frozen fruit instead of fresh fruit. We visited a few locations to find reasonably priced raspberries.

Step 1 – Make the jelly and mix with the raspberries.

Prepare your jelly in a jug and then pour into your large trifle dish. Perhaps you don’t own a trifle bowl, but I guess you could use another type of rectangle shaped dish, but not a rounded bottom bowl. If you are using fruit, then let the jelly cool for a bit and then pour onto the fruit and mix it before the jelly sets.

Jelly and raspberries in a large trifle bowl

You might also want to use slightly less water than specified in your jelly instructions, to compensate for the liquid that will ooze out of your fruit, if raspberries for instance.

My girlfriend used 300g of defrosted raspberries (we had brought frozen ones).

Step 2 – Make the custard.

Before you make the custard, you should allow the jelly two to three hours to set beforehand in the fridge. The layer of custard shouldn’t quite be the same amount as the jelly and fruit. Instead the custard layer should be around 3/4 the size of the jelly layer, though it is personal preference.

Trifle layers

You allow the custard to cool before pouring onto the jelly. Once you have created your custard layer, place in the fridge to set for a few hours.

custard

I’m sorry but you can’t use tinned custard, as you need to make thick custard, to create a thick layer of cold custard for the trifle. If you’ve not made custard before, don’t allow the trifle to be your first attempt! Instead make some custard and eat with bananas or other fruit. Then once you are happy with your custard making skills, make the custard for the trifle.

Step 3 – Add a layer of thick double fresh cream.

The last layer is a thick layer of double fresh cream. When my girlfriend last made the trifle the thick cream would not spread! Disaster! So she removed the cream, placed in a bowl and added a small amount of milk and then mixed. Then the thick cream was able to spread!

Cream on trifle

Step 4 – (optional) add chocolate sprinkles.

You might want to add a chocolate sprinkles to the top of the trifle, but we never do.

Et Voila!

Serving suggestions

Even though there is thick cream on top of the homemade trifle, many people (including me) often will have a small amount of single cream poured on their trifle after it has been served. You might also want to have a cup of tea to accompany! Then if having a dinner party, after the dessert, you might have a break, followed by cheeses and coffee!

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There are many stories I can’t share for one reason or another, so I picked a few more sedate moments, but these are still pretty funny! These stories are from around twelve to fifteen years ago. I might share more stories sometime, but here are three for now.

The Fall Guy

A friend and I decided to go out for a few drinks at a local bar. We arrive only to discover the bar is completely dead. There is basically us and a chap trying to lick his peanut packet clean.

Disappointed we order a couple of beers and sit at a booth, where shortly arrives the ‘shot lady’. She is unashamedly flirting with us, in a not so subtle way. We buy a couple of shots, which taste like strong mouthwash (but not in a good way). Somehow we decide to wash this down with a couple of screaming orgasms (as you do), which frankly shouldn’t be mixed with shots.

So my friend comes back from the bar with these large brandy types glasses with the screaming orgasms, which are quite delicious. Only problem is our sexy shot lady is back… of course we want two more shots of mouthwash! Which were promptly followed by two more screaming orgasms from the bar. I could be wrong, but I think were drinking double screaming orgasms to save on trips to the bar.

So move forward an hour and we’ve been visited by the shot lady quite a lot and drunk a fair amount of screaming orgasms to wash the taste of the shots away. We’ve had so many shots that we’ve built a tower of shot glasses, one inside the other rising quite far off the table. We are proud of our tower, so when a bar person comes to clear our table I refuse to have the shot glasses removed.

So anyway… I head off to the toilets, but upon my return the bar has woken up somewhat and there is a group of ladies at our table. My friend is telling them about how he is a fighter pilot (he wasn’t), and so I am (d’oh). We decide to dance and instead of heading off to the dance floor, dance with the ladies in front our table. We are having quite a good time, though I’m disappointed our shot glass tower has been cleared away when our backs were turned.

My friend who is quite a good dancer is dancing away, chatting to a lady and then…. like a tree just chopped, falls directly backwards. I’m mean one moment he was John Travolta, the next he was on the ground, being lifted up by bouncers escorting him out. The ladies look shocked. I look shocked. My friend looks shocked.

At this stage my friend has lost the ability to walk unaided and we need to get a taxi. We realise we’ve spent all our money on shots and screaming orgasms (the drinks!), so we head off to a cash point. My friend can now hardly stand, and needs support. So I’m trying to hold him up against the wall with one hand, whilst using a cash point with another, and then a police car just mysteriously decides to pull up next to us. I let go of my friend who promptly slides down the wall. “Hello officers”, I say…….

Then onwards to the taxi rank, with me helping my friend get there. The first taxi who has probably waited a good half an hour to get to the front, sees us two and decides to pull away and drive off… gee what a surprise. The second has a death wish and waits for us.

At this stage I didn’t realise how drunk I was, because I promptly open a taxi door right into my face… hard into my face. I then get my friend into the taxi and we drive off to drop him off first. Five minutes later we are at his block of flats and he somehow gets out and staggers to the block’s front door. I then carry on home to my place.

The next morning I wake up and suddenly realise… how did he get up the two flights of stairs to his flat?? Anyway there was a lot more to this story, but that is all I’m going to tell you!

Like a Virgin

I’m sitting with a friend in a rough pub. I mean this pub is rough and the jukebox is loudly playing heavy metal music, whilst people are getting aggressive with each other, and world war three could occur at any moment over a spilled pint. I mean all it is going to take is one elbow knock, and armageddon will occur.

We are a bit surprised how rough the pub is that night, as we occasionally drink there and it is usually dead, but has a cheap pool table and good beer. Tonight though it is packed and a fight could break out any moment. However we are young, and frankly don’t care. We are enjoying our pint of beer and eating packets of crisps for dinner.

It is then I decide I want to put some music on the jukebox. I tell my friend who knows me too well and is looking at me suspiciously…. Friend: “what are you going to put on?” Me: “not sure, thought I would see what they have.” friend: “you are not planning anything are you?”. Me (looking mildy insulted) “no, but perhaps something to cheer the place up a bit”. Friend: “don’t!”.

So I head on over to the jukebox. I’m flicking through the selections…. ah here we go… I make my selections and quickly head back to the table.

I return tell my friend I decided to put something suitable on, and there is nothing to worry about. A moment later I’m enjoying my beer and Madonna’s ‘like a virgin’ starts blaring out. People are looking annoyed…. okay more than annoyed. I swear one person is about to turn into the Hulk and is sweeping the pub for the Madonna fan. I’m meanwhile trying to look equally annoyed at say loudly “who put this crap on?”, whilst my friend is not looking too happy at me…. it is then when the giggles hits me, and once you start it is hard to stop. So we down our pints, and as slowly as possible (without trying to appear to rush) leave the pub trying to look disgusted without laughing…. and then dash up the road. Friend: “how many songs did you put on?” Me: “Only about five I thought they would enjoy”.

The Traffic Cones

It was probably after midnight as myself and a couple of friends were driving down a road in the middle of nowhere with a wood on one side. “Traffic Cones!!!”, one of my friends blurts out, and the driver does an emergency stop!

Sure enough for some reason there are traffic cones amongst the trees at the edge of the woods. So naturally my friend wants one and jumps into a ditch on-route to the cones…. which is when myself and the friend (aka getaway driver) left at the driving wheel, spot just barely in the moonlight night the soldiers (army) slowly creeping towards my friend further back in the dark! They are not too close, but have obviously spotted the chap trying to steal their traffic cones.

What is this, a traffic cone sting operation in the middle of nowhere? My friend who at this stage has scrambled out the ditch on-route to the cones and is breaking every branch underfoot, is blissfully unaware he has just stumbled into some army manoeuvre.

At this stage our friend is trying to select a traffic cone, as if they are in a beauty pageant and he is an expert on traffic cones. Meanwhile we are frantically (but quietly, as we don’t think we’ve been spotted) trying to signal our friend, who finally turns round, smiling with his chosen traffic cone (not my choice, but hey), looks in the direction we are pointing, drops the cone and runs…. only to stop running and decides to go back for the cone! Shortly after we are speeding off and the army didn’t grab him, but held back.

I can only imagine the army conversation went something like this. “There is some git trying to steal one of our cones.” Response: “Hold back, let the idiot, do you want the paperwork?”

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Homemade Lemonade

Though be warned homemade lemonade contains a lot of sugar! This is the ‘flat’ version, aka no bubbles, but still tastes great. It takes roughly thirty minutes to make and the recipe is enough for four people.

Note: Children require the help and supervision of an adult to make this drink.

Ingredients:

• 8x lemons (enough juice to almost fill a large mug)
• granulated sugar (fill to same height in a separate mug as lemon juice)
• 5x mugs of cold water

Step 1 – Squeeze the juice out of the lemons

The most time consuming part of the lemonade recipe is the squeezing of the lemons. Chopped the lemons in half and then use a squeezer to remove the juice (I squeezed straight into a mug).

Lemons, squeezer and a knife

Somehow I still managed to get some pips in the mug I was squeezing into, so I removed those afterwards. It took me around twenty minutes to squeeze the lemons and it is quite tiring on the hands. Squeezing lemons is a messy process!

Step 2 – Measure the sugar and water

Once you have squeezed all your lemons, take a clean dry mug and filled it with the same amount of granulated sugar as lemon juice in the other mug, and then pour the sugar (not lemon juice) into a large saucepan.

lemon juice and sugar in mugs

Then take the same now empty mug and fill with the same amount of cold water as lemon juice, and then pour the water into the large saucepan as well (I didn’t pour in the lemon juice). So the saucepan will currently contain the sugar and water only.

Step 3 – Slowly heat the sugar and water

Slowly heat the sugar and water whilst continuously stirring until all the sugar is dissolved to make sugar water. Then turned the heat off once the sugar is completely dissolved. This process will only take a few minutes if that.

dissolving sugar

Step 4 – Add the lemon juice and water

Then add the lemon juice to the saucepan and stir it into the sugar water. Now add four more mugs of cold water and stir it all in.

added the lemon juice

Step 5 – Pour into a container

Now pour the homemade lemonade into a sealed container (washed up squash bottles in my case), and placed in the fridge to make fridge cold.

Et Voilà!

Serving suggestion

Before you serve the lemonade you should shake or stir the drink as some lemon bits and sugar would of settled at the bottom. You might wish to dilute with a bit more water. I simply transferred the lemonade to a plastic beaker for the photo you see at the beginning of the post. The still homemade lemonade should last a few days in the fridge. Obviously as it is a summer drink, you probably will want to serve with ice cubes.

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StarCraft 2 first mission

So I played the beta version of StarCraft 2 a while back, but since then I’ve changed computers, and my new system is a laptop, rather than desktop and the change in spec and operating system left me with plenty of questions. Will StarCraft 2 run on my computer? – being the first question. So I decided to try out the free ‘Starter Edition’, to see just that.

Q. How much space does StarCraft 2 take up?

A. The download package for the starter edition is 6.99GB, and then the software mentioned it required 12GB for installation space. In reality once installed and version patches were then also downloaded, my installation directory sits at 10.2GB.

starcraft 2 installer

Q. Can StarCraft 2 starter edition run on Microsoft Vista?

A. I played the beta on Microsoft Windows 7 Professional, but now I’m running Microsoft Windows Vista Business on a laptop. The starter edition did install and play on Microsoft Windows Vista.

Q. How to resolve the ‘there were multiple problems saving data’ error message?

A. When the installer was applying the patches, it suddenly came up with the above error message. My solution was to close the installer, then restart it and close it after five minutes. I then walked away from the installer for a couple of hours, restarted it yet again and it then completed the installation.

Q. How to speed up the StarCraft 2 download?

A. It was estimating the download was going to take 27-32 hours on my computer, which wasn’t because I didn’t have the bandwidth. However by selecting ‘View’ from the menu and then ‘Preferences…’, I unselected ‘Enable Peer-to-Peer Transfer’, and selected ‘Don’t throttle background download’. It then said the estimate was around 4 hours to complete the download. It is also worth noting once the installer was downloaded, even after installation there were various patches downloaded. So make sure you leave a considerable amount of time for the download and install. I started it in the morning!

speeding up the StarCraft 2 downloader

Q. What computer specification do you require?

A. I can’t give you an exact answer, but I can tell you about my system specs. I played the beta on a 3GHz single core computer with an AGP Radeon HD 2400 512mb graphics card, with 2gb ram and Microsoft Windows 7.

My old system spec I played the beta on.

I’m playing the starter edition on a duel-core laptop with Microsoft Windows Vista and onboard PCI-Express x16 128mb graphics card.

So basically my old graphics were superior, but now my processor capabilities are superior. I’ve only played the first level, but it seems to run okay with low settings. I honestly don’t know what is enough of a good spec to cater to the single player and multiplayer levels, but I’m happy with my experience of single player levels on the starter edition.

To be continued…

At some stage I will update this blog post with further details, but I hope someone finds my Q&A helpful.

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We currently don’t have lot of money, but it is important to improve the quality of life where possible, regardless of how small the budget is. For now I’m going to cover anything from reclaiming space, to repairs, general DIY and anything else that is related to living in our flat.

The Bedroom

We’ve been working hard to create more space in our bedroom. We’ve given away lots of clothes, disposed of two chunky bedside units and put up new curtains in the recent past. This month it was time to say goodbye to our old bed, and buy a new base and mattress.

new bed

Noticeable recent changes:

• Chunky bed base replaced with raised bed frame.
• 80% of items that were in bedside units were disposed of.
• Bedside units were disposed of (remaining items inside found homes elsewhere).
• Blackout curtains to replace tired old thin curtains.
• A huge amount of clothes given to charity.

Tips:

• Buy a replacement bed from a firm that will remove your old one for a small fee.
• A double isn’t as nice as a king sizes bed for a couple, but a double helps to create more space within a room.
• Blackout curtains hopefully works towards improved sleep.

We’ve still got a lot of work to do in the bedroom, but it feels more spacious than in the past.

The Lounge

In an apartment / flat, a lounge often serves as a dining room and study. So this one room is our main living area. We have been working hard to make this area more spacious, which we have, but we plan to go a lot further.

At the beginning of January we disposed of our sofa-bed and replaced it with a more comfortable settee. We also took the opportunity to dispose of a bookcase, table and computers, amongst other items. In recent months we’ve given away more books, comics and other items to charity.

sofa

At the weekend we fitted an insect mesh to the large window, so during the summer flies and wasps can’t get in. Why? We live near a few food premises and last year there were too many insects around, so we are prepared this year.

insect mesh

Long way to go, but we’ve got a huge spacious area in the middle of the room, and over the coming months we plan on making it even more spacious in our main room.

The Kitchen

We have a very small kitchen, so it is important we maximise the space available, especially as we love home cooking. In the last month we have removed an ornamental plate from the wall, plus given lots of cupboard items to charity and put up a kitchen blind.

It also wasn’t just about freeing up space, but we also gave away items that we just didn’t use. For example we had too many vases and dishes we didn’t use, so we decided not to keep them.

Late last year we replaced the sink mixer, as the old one needed replacing, but a couple of weeks ago we had to replace part of the new mixer, because it broke!

mixer tap

Tip:

• Use a kitchen blind to add more privacy.
• Less items on the wall of a small kitchen, can help make the room feel larger.

The Bathroom

We’ve not done much work to the bathroom recently, but late last year we replaced all the taps in the bathroom, and last week we started placing lagging on the hot water pipe under the bath.

The Hallway

In the hallway our main focus has been the hallway cupboard. We are currently in the process of freeing up a large shelve to use for bedding and towels.We used a few different techniques to create space:

• Merged a few small boxes into a couple of larger boxes to use less space.
• Gave some items away to charity.
• Stored some items elsewhere.

We also unfortunately had to blue-tack the bottom of an old mirror to the wall in the hallway, as the music (the bass of the music) from the neighbours was vibrating the mirror and making a noise.

Conclusion

So even with a little amount of money or at times no outgoings, you can make a home feel more comfortable. As mentioned we’ve got a long way to go, but working on it little and often, means that gradually the changes do add up, and improve the overall feel of our home.

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homemade ratatouille with mashed potato

Note: Children require the help and supervision of an adult to prepare and cook this recipe.

Ingredients:

• 2x Aubergine
• 3x large courgettes
• 3x Large Peppers
• 6x Onions (medium size)
• 3x tins of chopped plum tomatoes
• 1x and a half teaspoons of mixed herbs
• 1x and a half teaspoons of garlic granules
• 1x tablespoon of oil (we use rice bran oil)

The ingredients, but my girlfriend used three cans of tomatoes, not two as in the photo.

Step 1 – Prepare the fruit and vegetables

Wash and chop all the fruit and veg. Make sure you remove the seeds from the peppers, as you don’t want to cook the seeds.

chopped aubergines

My girlfriend used three different types of peppers that came together, which were green, orange and yellow, but using just one type is fine.

green pepper

Peel and chop the onions separately and store in another container, as the chopped onions will be used earlier than the rest of the fruit and vegetables.

chopped onions

Step 2 – Prepare the tomatoes

We often find that tins of ‘whole’ plum tomatoes are cheaper than chopped plum tomatoes! So what we do is then chop the tomatoes ourselves! So when you are buying your tins of plum tomatoes, it is worth checking what is cheaper.

chopped tomatoes

Step 3 – Heat oil and sweat onions

Take a large saucepan and add one tablespoon of oil. Then add the chopped onions to the pan and on a low heat sweat them, which is when you cook them until soft whilst stiring.

Step 4 – Add the vegetables to the pan and cook

Now add the rest of the items to the large saucepan, such as the aubergines, courgettes, peppers, tomatoes, herbs and garlic. Mix all the ingredients well and then turn the heat up, so not low, but also not too high and then cook for thirty to forty minutes.

The fruit and veg with the other ingredients in the large saucepan.

You will know when it is cooked, when the last of the fruit or vegetables is no-longer solid, but you don’t want all the items to be too soft, especially if you are going to freeze the ratatouille.

cooked ratatouille

Et Voilà!

You might want to add some black pepper to give the dish more of a kick, but we leave that to the person eating the meal to decide once it is served.

homemade ratatouille

Serving suggestions

Homemade ratatouille can go with many items, which is why we freeze it and then use it as part of different meals over a month or two. For instance I love it with mashed potatoes and vegetarian sausages! Crusty bread, vegetarian kievs and ratatouille would be another good combo.

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It is a shame people allow themselves to be distracted by movies, television, social networks and other activities, rather than send an email, letter, postcard, write a blog post or just have a conversation, without time constraints. It is a shame many people don’t give more thought to their words and time to converse with others.

For some, they don’t know when not to use words. A flippant comment, a cruel remark, which people either forget or despise those shameful actions. Some prefer to be a critic, but don’t have the wisdom to understand sometimes the grammar or spelling doesn’t matter, especially if the passion and effort is clear for all to see. Enjoying and excelling at the use of words, is not an excuse to be a ‘grammar nazi’ or to look down at others.

People often treat words as disposable assets, to be consumed and then discarded, but the most powerful words can engrave themselves into your brain, heart and soul. The postcards from a great-grandfather to a great-grandmother through world war one are moving, and bridged a connection across countries, through uncertain times. The letter an aunt sent to me just two weeks before she passed away, changed me. Being the recipient of the last spoken words of clarity from a grandmother, showed me how truly powerful a sentence can be. Yet also a sentence shared on a social network can bring a smile, give form to a thought, educate and make a difference to someone’s day.

For me words are both business and pleasure. Words are protected from distractions, inspired by commitment, knowledge and passion. I often go months without a break from writing on a daily basis, and I’m not referring to social networks. Also each day regardless of how busy I am, my health or location, I read. You probably won’t find me reading a book from some current top 20 list, but often books from yesterday, especially the 20th and 19th centuries. There is a rich archive of old literature to discover, with styles and content unique to the past. Though on occasion I will dip my toe into 21st century literature.

I love it when I find an author whose writing style and stories enrich my day. I can be miles from home, having a nightmare day and unable to speak to my better half, yet that book can help ground me, capture my imagination, take me elsewhere and bring a much needed distraction, even if just for ten minutes. When I’ve finished a book I have enjoyed, I often yearn for more, often finding it hard to pick up a book written by someone else – a sense of loss and often caught up in thoughts for hours or days of the story or topic I just devoured.

Words can take us on journeys, change our very being, but words are often taken for granted, yet if given more care, attention and yes some love, the world would undoubtedly be a better place.

Words can outlast our existence, echo around the world and centuries from now change someone’s life. Sometimes writing is just for us, and helps give form to a thought. Sometimes reading is a personal experience or to be shared, discussed and debated.

Words can be powerful, if you let them.

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pile of clothes

Some of you who follow the blog, might think ‘hang on, didn’t you already give DVDs and clothes away recently?’ – the answer is yes, but we have since revisited what remained and decided to go further. There are always tough decisions if clearing out more than a few items, such as my ten year old long winter’s coat, which is in great condition and cost us near to £200. However just because we paid a lot of money for an item, if we don’t use it and don’t plan to, what is the point keeping it?

With regard to clearing out DVDs, we just don’t have the time to watch them, coupled with the fact that there is always new content on Freeview or Netflix to watch, we are focusing on only keeping a small collection of favourites. In my humble opinion the DVD market is going to die, as the tape market died and the vinyl market shrunk.

For example we rent movies online from BlinkBox, not the library now. We have a Netflix subscription for movies and TV shows. Plus we’ve brought a few TV series on iTunes. We basically have too much choice, so why bother keeping a huge collection of DVDs, if there is no time or inclination to watch most of them within a year or two?

In our small kitchen we sorted through a large cupboard at the weekend and gave away dishes and vases. Plus we had an ornamental plate on a kitchen wall, which we gave away. Couple these clear out efforts with a new blind we put up in the kitchen on Saturday and our kitchen is slowly transforming.

So the end result of our March efforts was more available space, but without comprising on quality of life and indeed improving our home environment. I know this blog post isn’t exactly a ‘wow’ article, but our consistent ‘decluttering’ actions have influenced many areas. We’ve saved money, created more floor and cupboard space, made cleaning easier and other benefits all directly or in-directly resulting from decluttering.

My wonderful girlfriend and I, still have a lot of clearing out to do, and there never is enough time, but we make time for it, and the benefits are worth it.

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