a graphic of a junk drawer and it's contents
Episode 345 – 10 things to declutter from your junk drawer

Every kitchen needs that one drawer that contains lots of useful things. Now whilst we love and can definitely stand behind a drawer of useful things, more often than not this drawer deteriorates into a junk drawer, chockabloc with a random assortment of things, many of which need to be consigned to the bottom of a bin bag. In this podcast we’re going to talk about the 10 things you need to declutter from your junk drawer today.
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Transcript of this podcast episode
Speaker 1  00:00
Every kitchen needs that one drawer that contains lots of useful things. Now, whilst we love and can definitely stand behind a drawer of useful things, more often than not, this drawer deteriorates into a junk drawer choke a block with a random assortment of things, many of which need to be consigned to the bottom of a bin bag. In today's podcast, we're going to talk about the 10 things you need to declutter from your junk drawer. Today,

Speaker 2  00:41
you're listening to the declutter hub podcast bringing you tried and tested no nonsense tips and advice from the leading experts in decluttering and organizing your home. Now here are your hosts Ingrid Jansen and Lesley Spellman. 


Speaker 1  01:04
Hello and welcome listeners. I'm Ingrid and I'm Lesley. If you're new to the declutter hub podcast, you're so welcome. What you'll find is that we try and find a fun factor in the serious business of decluttering, and if you've been here for a while, you know exactly what we mean. So thank you so much for listening. If

Speaker 3  01:24
you'd like to get involved in conversations relating to this podcast, it all takes place in our Facebook group. So come and join our lovely, warm, supportive community. To find the Facebook group, go to declutter hub.com, forward slash group to find out more, or you can search for the declutter hub community on Facebook. Well,

Speaker 1  01:43
Lesley, here we are with a 10 things podcast. And you know how much I love a 10 things podcast? I don't know what it is. I think it's the making of the lift and thinking of 10 things that I really enjoy.

Speaker 3  01:56
I know it's all very kind of like, do this, find this thing, declutter it sort it out. It's very quick to involve too much kind of consternation on the matters. So yeah, so that's why 10 things podcasts are actionable, aren't they, and that's what we love. But 10 things can also kind of expand out. So we need to get cracking with our number one. What's number one on our list of 10 things you need to declutter from your junk drawer.

Speaker 1  02:24
Yes, and the first one is currency. Money. You know, whether it's your currency that you use your own country, or things you've picked up over the years when you've been traveling, these little coins and little papers, and you think, Oh, actually, don't really have anywhere to listen, end up in a jump drawer, right? These all these little currency bits and bobs. I

Speaker 3  02:47
think it's really changing. It's interesting actually, because I went away with my friends a few weeks ago, and the one thing that struck me is that I didn't use any currency at all. I just used my phone the whole time, right, to pay for everything. But there were a few odd little bits and pieces that we did need currency for. But luckily, one person had some currency. And then we use split wise. Have you ever used split wise Ingrid? Yeah, I think

Speaker 1  03:10
there's, like a Dutch version called split sir. I think the same idea, yeah,

Speaker 3  03:14
yeah. It's like the best thing ever. Because, you know, if anybody's not heard of split wise, it's you can split things across. This is not really about currency, but it kind of is. So when you go away, when you go out, when you go on holiday, if you go with a group of people, even when you go out with your kids, you know now my kids are adult kids, and we can make a decision, right? Well, we've got a bill, we want to split that between two people, between five people. So you sort of set up a group. So if you then buy something and somebody wasn't there, if you buy a round of drinks, for example, and somebody didn't example, and somebody didn't have that round, you would only then split it between four people. It's absolutely brilliant, and then at the end of it you settle up, right? So it's just really, really good. So completely unrelated to currency, but it just reminded me, as we were talking about a holiday. So definitely look at split wise. I'm sure there are other alternatives, but it's so easy, and it means that no one is paying over the odds. But anyway, back to currency. So it dawned on my while we were there that you don't hardly use any currency. I'm sure some people probably still do a little bit more. But you know, back in the day we were talking about it, when we were on holiday, you still have to go and get travelers checks. Remember to buy, like, travelers checks and and then you would take them, and then you would get changed from, like, a supermarket and stuff. I mean, gone are the days now you can just tap on Apple Pay or Google pay and pay. Can't you so much more straightforward? Um, but, yeah, I think, but we still do use currency, and we definitely still have currency hanging around. So what do we do about that? A we choose, we try not to keep it try and use it up. Don't get as much currency as you might need it along the way. You know, you can get stuff out of the bank and stuff while you're there. So try and keep on top of it. But when you come back, certainly make a habit of going and cashing that in at whatever kind of you know. Currency exchange place, and then the coins. Many, many charity shops love the coins. So you can give them on the plane. Quite often. Can't you ingress on the plane, they collect loose change, and then you can actually give them to charity. Stops quite, quite like foreign currency as well, because they can cash it all in so it can be gone, can't it? Definitely,

Speaker 1  05:21
definitely. I mean, I've got a little what I do, because there's, like, I've got some, not, like, with hounds or stuff, because they're in my wallet. And euros, I've got a separate Euro wallet because I travel to Holland all the time. But I've got like, a couple of dollars left, because I know at some point I'll be back, you know, traveling to the US. So I wouldn't do that with my dollars. And I've got some Swiss francs, because my friend lives there. So when I go out and see her, it's but I've got these little I put them a little freezer bags, and I write the currency on it, and I put them, like with my passports and with my

Speaker 3  05:59
like, these plugs that you'd like, travel plus, travel adapters. Travel adapters.

Speaker 1  06:03
I couldn't think of the name there, Lesley, so I kind of, I've got, like, a little basket where all of these kinds of bits Live, which is really handy, because then it makes me realize, but all the other stuff from when I was, like, in, I don't know, Greece, when it was still drachma, all gone, because there's no, like, French ranks for life from pre like, 2000 gone, because those are things that end up, like, in the bottom of drawers, and especially junk drawers. So I think this is very good. Number one, Lesley, absolutely

Speaker 3  06:36
currency. Yeah, let's do it. No, you're right. We you do keep some currency if you go, if you know that you're going to go back, yeah, a lot of it, you don't. It depends on where you're going. So evaluate that currency and see if you can make some money out of it. That's what we want. We want you to recoup the rewards of your clutter also useful. So we want to go on to our number two. So number two Ingrid is business cards, also something. I wouldn't say these have died to death a little bit, but there's different ways of connecting with people, other than a business card, but they are still very much in use in some areas, aren't they? Ingrid,

Speaker 1  07:10
yeah. I mean, I or even, like, a little card from like, sometimes when you get a little card through the door and you think, Oh, I, I'm not sure I'm gonna use this person, but it's reminded me of something that needs to be done to the house, and then at least I've got a starting point to start Googling on the website, or when you go to, like an event somewhere, I mean, you've got, like, Online Business Card Systems now that you can kind of snap a picture and, you know, so they're, they're they're dwindling down. But sometimes you do get a business card, or when you've seen somebody at a bank or and they give you like, a card. Like, are you so spoken to this person? Where do you put these things? In your junk drawer? You do put

Speaker 3  07:52
them in your junk drawer, because what you've done is you've not taken that into an actionable point. So today's all about action. So currency we've already gone, gone into that. You need to take that back to the bank and recoup that, get that money back. If that's the sensible thing to do. Business cards, you need to, you can't just have them hanging around in your junk drawer. You need to take it to the next steps, which is, okay, I got a business card from somebody. It was a useful connection. I need to follow them on LinkedIn. I need to go and look up their Instagram profile. I need to put them in my contacts. Put them in my email contact so I can follow up with them. And so it's really, really important to take these kind of things to next steps, rather than to just get them, gather them, grab them and leave them in your junk drawer. Also Apps for Business Cards Ingrid, right? You can, I don't know what they what they're called. We don't really get out and about much. We're mostly behind our desk. But you know, there's definitely, you know, for people who are networking all the time, then there are business card apps, you know, do let us know in the comments what they're called and share and so that other people can see that. But you know, it's really important to take that from a business card and take it to the next steps. That's the most important thing, right?

Speaker 1  08:57
Yeah, yeah. Because otherwise, you know, you, if you get like, a whole stack of them, you can't then remember, you don't know you kind of, yeah, you're not gonna go, oh, it was this person had let me rummage through my junk drawer and see if they gave me a business card it. That's where it kind of, then the system falls down. So you have to put something in place where you're gonna kind of collect them all and kind of go, Okay, I need this information now. And maybe kind of, you know, you need to think about a system. How am I going to retrieve this information if I need it?

Speaker 3  09:29
Have you ever given a How long is it since you've given a business card out? Oh my

Speaker 1  09:34
gosh, I I actually, you know, every couple of years I had like, a whole stack printed and at some point I went through them, and now I'm like, I can't even remember when I've given out a business card. I do have a tiny little business card holder with a couple of business cards in my big purse, but I didn't ever take the handbag anymore. Lesley, I now just take a tiny bag with my phone, because you do everything. And I actually just remember. When you were talking about apps, I'm like, I actually think I've got an app on my phone. I think it's called like, hi, hello, or something like that. Yeah, we

Speaker 3  10:06
got that when we were going to an event and we didn't do it. We're just too busy talking and swapping business cards. We probably never got to the point of using it. We thought we were going to do really well. But it's interesting, because Nathan's just started a job in London, and he was so happy to get his first business cards. No, I mean, he's a 22 year old. He's like, giving them out, looking at business cards and stuff. So I think it is still, you know, a little bit of a sign of status for some people. So, yeah, they're still very much in existence, but they're just no good sitting at the bottom of junk drawer. So if you've got them in your junk drawer, in your drawer next to your desk, wherever that is, in your bedside, draw some people. You know, all these things are possible. Gather those business cards together and do something with them. Sponsor number three, definitely.

Speaker 1  10:48
And this is a bit of a no brainer, but we wanted to put it in because we find these all the time, bulbs and batteries that need to be recycled. And the thing is, they get mixed up in your drum drawer with, actually, the bulbs that do work and the batteries that do work, and then nobody knows anymore What's going on, and then they start to get a bit rusty. You think, oh, this is probably not working anymore. So you need to have a plan. You can't just fling it into your drum drawer when it's new, or when it's used, and hope for the best. There needs to be some sort of pot system used batteries, or empty batteries, which is little label, little sticker with a sharpie, you know, or just a little plastic bag which says empty batteries. And then, of course, the next step is, when are you going to go to the recycling center to drop them off? Can you drop them off in your in my local little there is a big pulse where you can put them in at the at the library, there is a pulse, but at some point you need to make sure that they leave your junk drawer so they don't keep getting mixed up. And then, of course, you know next steps can be, I'm gonna buy a battery tester so I know that I don't waste batteries by thinking they're empty while they're not, because batteries are expensive. And yes, of course we want to use rechargeable I mean, you can take it further and further and further, can't you, but what we see broken light bulbs and broken batteries in junk drawers. I think

Speaker 3  12:18
the interesting thing about that is, yes, we absolutely think that that's the place for them. So a junk drawer, or a drawer of useful things, as we like to call it, is definitely a place to gather the things that need to be recycled before you take it to next steps, because you will collect some of these. You're not going to go to the recycling center every time you've got one battery or a bulb that needs to be sorted out. We can't put these in the general recycling. They have to be recycled appropriately, for obvious reasons. So it's important to have a place, as Ingrid says that's designated. The one thing that I've really noticed over the past, you know, a few years, is that these are depleting because, of course, now we've got, you know, it's not even rechargeable batteries anymore. It's USB charging for loads of things. And so, you know, things are getting charged with USBs. And so the number of batteries is depleting, which is a good thing, right? Because they've got terrible kind of things in them, like that are not entirely great for the environment, and so it's good to be charging these things through USBs. The same with light bulbs. We've got long lasting light bulbs now that last much longer than they used to. You know, you might get six to nine months out of a light bulb before, but now, in principle, they've got guarantees on them that mean that they'll last for years. And so the numbers of batteries and bulbs are definitely going down, but it's definitely a job this weekend. You know, take it's that next steps. That's what this podcast is all about. Take the batteries and bulbs and take them to the recycling center or sort them out. Grab yourself a battery tester, like Ingrid says, and test them really, really important. So bulbs and batteries are number three, yes,

Speaker 1  13:44
number four, glue and super glue that is dried up, we find tons of glue, glue sticks, glue dots, glue super glues, little glue ends up in junk drawers, and actually there's nothing really. It's not really a bad place for it, but sometimes when it gets to the back of a junk drawer, you forget that you have it, so you buy new then the old one is kind of never close Pro or somebody who uses it in your house, not pointing any fingers here is not closing the super glue properly, and then this tiny little leaks, or it just doesn't close properly lit, and then it dries out, and all of that, it needs to go. It needs to go.

Speaker 3  14:29
I mean, you say that, have you ever used the super glue and it's ever been available for you to use a second time? Never, no Exactly, exactly. So I just think it's like, I just think super glue just dries up. I don't think it's about closing it properly. I'd love to know, if anybody knows how you get super glue to be used more than one. But

Speaker 1  14:51
they're also shiny Lesley. They're like little outside of this. So maybe that's the idea behind it, that you're only supposed to use it like was. I. No, but it's fiddly. It's fiddly.

Speaker 3  15:02
People do put people, like, put like, little pins in it, you know, like pins in the top, and they pull the pin out maybe, you know, like, you like, little, you know, yeah, there's things like that. But I don't want you to be able to get the lid on that. I mean, I feel like it's one of lifestyle. Emma's the whole Super Glue situation, right? But honestly, but we still keep a dried up super glue that we can't use in our drawer in case we ever need super glue, and then when we need it, we have to go and buy a new one because it's dried up.

Speaker 1  15:29
Yeah, do you know actually, talking about Super Glue is so random this. But I had a little break in my nail. I've got, I've got these lovely nails, and I had a good little break my nail because, of course, as always, I was too fanatical playing tennis. So one of my nails broke. And actually, my nail technician said to me this morning Ingrid, when this happens next, have take put a tiny, if you like, in a situation you can't have your nails repaired. And you know, it has to kind of last, put a tiny, tiny, tiny bit of super glue on your nail, and then we can fix it the next time, maybe you should just get nail glue. Might be a better. Okay. Have you ever tried to get a tiny, tiny, tiny bit of super glue on something? It's always like, oh, anyway, well,

16:16
hack Ingrid's nail hack, I know.

Speaker 1  16:19
I'm gonna move on to number five before we get into this whole random conversation, number five, without a shadow of a doubt. These are in junk drawers, little tools, and it starts with like a little screwdriver or maybe an allen key, and like the little pack with screws that comes with an allen key when you put furniture together, and then before you know it, you've got measuring tapes and a hammer and big screwdriver. Said everything into your junk drawer, and it's like, oh, I didn't know this was a tool drawer. It used to be like my drawer of useful things, and now my half my shed is in my kitchen drawer. What happens, I

Speaker 3  17:03
think the main of the point is, for like tools and things like that, is that it is a useful place to have some tools. It's going to very much depend on the makeup of your house, because if what like a lot of decluttering an organization, if there are barriers sitting in our way of doing something, then we don't do it right? So if, if your tools are in a garden shed, and it's January, and you've got to go outside and you've got a slippy thing, and you've got to open the thing, you know, with the key, and you're not going to go away and put that hammer away, or those, or, you know, the screwdriver away. You're going to wait until it's nice, and that's when it ends up getting into the drawer. And so this is all about barriers. And so it's useful to have a couple of little bits of tools, maybe a small hammer, maybe, yeah, definitely, a tape measure is useful in there. You know, maybe one flat head screwdriver, whatever they're called, and one Phillips screwdriver, you know, things like that, quite useful. But the problem is, we kind of use things, then we put them back, and then it kind of grows so it's not, we're not saying that it's not a useful place to have things like that. We're saying you need to keep it under control. And every now and again you need to go, right? I need to repatriate some of these tools. Yeah, um, because otherwise the number of tools grows. Now Ingrid was talking about these kind of allen keys and packs that you get from like Ikea or other places that you build furniture, really got to keep a control over those things, because they're probably not the things that you're going to need. You know, you might need a little Phillips groove driver, you might need a little hammer, you might need a tape measure, but you're probably not going to need that one allen key that you got for your callax unit in your child's bedroom. And so those are the things that you either need to let go off completely recycle, if it's metal, you know, you may have a full set of Allen key, like a lot of people have got, off their own full set of Allen keys. So therefore you don't need the one that comes from Ikea, because you've already got, like, a set. And so you need to identify those things so those things don't grow and, you know, either keep them in your toolbox or let them go recycle, them into recycling metal, you know, which is very super satisfying to to recycle tools, isn't it, and to keep those to a minimum Exactly, exactly,

Speaker 1  19:07
right? Well, what a nice list. Lesley, a great top five. So let's go for a quick break, and after a break, we'll continue with our 10 things to declutter from your junk drawer. Hi everyone. Welcome back. We are going on to a number six on our 10 things to declutter from your junk drawer list. And number six is, and this may sound a bit old fashioned, but we know they're still there, checks and check books sometimes as well. But checks,

Speaker 3  19:38
yeah, and I do think, you know, checks were a bit of a dying breed. I'm not quite sure, because I know that. I know that. I think that in America in particular, and, you know, forgive me, because I've not been to Australia and Canada and stuff like that. So we only really know the US, but I feel that the banking system was a tad behind where we were in the UK and Europe, right? A little bit called. A bigger country, have lots more to do and all that kind of stuff, but I feel like they use, like, checking accounts longer than we did, and I don't. So I don't really know where that sits at the moment, but checks are definitely still a thing in this country for odd, random things, like people very rarely use checkbooks in the business. Yeah, you know, in our clutter fairy business, we have the odd client, you know, elderly client who struggles, gets the bank or something like that, and will accept a check from now, we're lucky enough in banking apps and things like that to be able to snap a picture of those checks, and you can kind of deposit them via your banking app most of the time now, yeah, but then, you know, if it doesn't, I don't know about you Ingram, you know you're trying to take the picture. It's like, so it's too close to the edge, or, you know, there's a shadow on the tech, or whatever. You've got this check from somewhere that's like two pound 27 and it's like there's no way am I letting this two pound 27 that's come from eon, or whatever the thing go I've got to get this two pound 27 check with his banking app. What in it yesterday, I

Speaker 1  21:04
had, like, a push back to a couple of months, like a while, I think was last year somewhere. What I just couldn't, for the life of me, get the picture of the check, and I was like half an hour fiddling, and the other one, I had, one other one, it was fine. And then, like, a month later I had to try. And I was like, Okay, let me do this on my it just didn't want to do it. I was like, I don't know, then my patience. So it's great,

Speaker 3  21:32
it's great technology, but I feel like it needs a little bit of work. And then you're a bit embarrassed with your two pound 27 check that you are, like, clutching onto for dear life. Think it's going to change life. Then you go into the machine at the bank, you know, as you've gone in to do errands, you go into the bank, and then it's like, Nope, can't take the check. Like, and then you've got to go with your two pound 27 like, deposit checks to the lady, if you know what I mean, like, so it's all a bit, I just feel like we've got this, like, you know, I mean, funny thing with checks. So what we do sometimes, and we've gone around the houses again, as is our want, we keep hold of these things because we're waiting to go to the person in the bank to pay it in, right? Because our banking apps not worked, or because that's not possible. And so we see checks sometimes people, particularly elderly people, you know, don't want us. We don't want to send money through the post, but it's weird when you want to send cash to a to a child or a teenager for the birthday or something like that, you don't put cash in and you don't want to just transfer it through the bank, because it seems kind of like as if it's transactional. So you want to put something in the card that represents the money that you're giving them. Yeah, that's when I would use a check. But more often than not, I'll go, here's a check, but when you're ready to do it, let me know, rip it up, and then I'll send you the money. You know it's like, it's like, crazy, isn't it? It's crazy. Is it just me? Or yeah,

Speaker 1  22:51
you know what? When I opened the bank account here in the UK, when I moved here 16 years ago, they said, Do you want to check? And I'm like, stay away with your checkbook. And the bank teller was like, but it's part of your thing. And I'm like, I don't even want it. Don't even give it to me. And then last a couple of months ago, I always helped to organize the Christmas party for our local rock wire, and we hired a whole and I paid for the deposit, and they wanted to give me the deposit back in a check. And I'm like, don't even think about it. I'm gonna give you my short go to my account number and don't even think about sending me a check, because lots of the local banks have closed down where I live. And I'm like, It's a fact. It's an utter fact. So I was really happy when the banking hub opens. So you got, like, one day a week a different bank, but because they're talking about

Speaker 3  23:37
that here, that, I mean, that sounds like such a great idea. So you've got one of those in your town, haven't you? Yeah,

Speaker 1  23:42
yeah. Thank goodness, because the nearest ones were, like half an hour driving, so everybody was kind of getting into a state here. So we now have a banking hub, so every day of the week there's another bank. So my bank is on a Monday, so, but the problem is, you have to kind of really plan your life. Now, if I go on a Monday, on a Monday during the wrong bank. But anyway, that's better than driving half an hour. So you kind of, you know, anyway, who knew we could talk about checks for like, ages? Yeah. So

Speaker 3  24:10
the point is, really, again, like all of these things that we've been speaking about today, it's all about these barriers. And so a check is something that we feel like it's burning a hole in our pocket. I mean, sometimes it's more than two pound 27 and so we need to deposit it and so, but we've got to wait until a Monday, you know? So England, in English, scenario with the banking hub on a Monday, I can't do it on this Monday because I'm busy all day. It's going to be Monday in six weeks time. Yes, then we put it into our junk drawer, and that's when sometimes things get lost and they go off our to do list. So the these need to be very much in our in our task lists and things like that. Yeah. So checks are often at the bottom of a chunk drawers,

Speaker 1  24:46
you know. And this is why I love attending sportscast so much, Lesley, because we can really go kind of chat about these random things that happen in our lives and that we you know.

Speaker 3  24:55
Anyway, the checks, honestly, just going back to the check, you know, unless you. Put it on the thing. I've got light shining on it. I've got thick, you know, you're like, leaning over the desk to try and get on it, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Ridiculous, yeah. Anyway, yeah,

Speaker 1  25:09
right. Number seven. Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely. Buttons and, like, little tiny sewing kits, like, you know, these little kits you get from when you're in a hotel, or when you Yeah, I don't know where they come from, but they just suddenly appear. And you sewing kits, but or buttons, you buy a new top or a new shirt, and there's like, a little then you're wearing it, and you're like, what's like, poking in the side? Oh, it's still the little plastic bag that's with a little plastic tank with a tiny button in it. And then your downstairs in the can, you think, oh, gosh, that's like poking me. And so the button in the plastic little, tiny bag ends up in the junk drawer.

25:51
I mean, what do we think about sewing kits from hotels?

Speaker 1  25:57
Well, I think, please leave them in the hotel. If you're not, if you've used to sew again, just leave it. If you have used it. I think, I mean, I have one or two in my I've got a sewing box, like a tin, a square tin, where all of this stuff lives, right? So I've got a little one or two little packs from a hotel that I've taken, that I've used, because then I were like, Okay, it's you. So I'm not gonna leave a used thing in the hotel, because I can use

Speaker 3  26:29
the thread leave a used thing in the house, yeah, but if you like used a

Speaker 1  26:33
little sewing kits, I think I'm, you know, that's handy, because then the needle and some other thread and there's, like, a little button, I'm like, oh, that's handy to have in my sewing kit at home. No, it's not handy. I think it's handy. So I've got call yourself a tea clutter, leaving it behind, like piles of 500 I've got, like, a tin where there's like two Lesley random,

Speaker 3  26:54
random. So you've got, like, a cheap threader and a one size of a needle and a yellow thread or a white thread. But have you also got a reel of cotton in white or black? Yes, yes, you don't need that thing.

Speaker 1  27:15
I'm being called out. Listeners. Help me send to help. What

Speaker 3  27:19
about button? I want to talk about buttons as well, because obviously, you know, there are people that are handier than us. Do you sew a button on if it comes off? Yeah? You do, yeah, of course you do. I would just put it into, like, buy a new thing. That's what I do. But, um, my

Speaker 1  27:35
favorite top, my favorite, one of my favorite tops, had a button came off from the cuff. And I def not this one, but another one, quite similar. And I definitely sorted back on because I'm, like, I'm a favorite No,

Speaker 3  27:46
no, I would do I would do that if it was, like, a favorite thing. But I really, and you're saying that sometimes I can't, I literally can't remember the last time a button fell off, anything. Just don't fall off. Do they

27:59
my? I've got my clothes for

Speaker 3  28:04
25 years, I'm moving through things that are random. Yes, yeah,

Speaker 1  28:11
I actually see photos of myself like, wow, I really had them. Then, what year is that exactly? So I

Speaker 3  28:19
think you've got to be, you've got to, you know, with buttons, what we need to do is we need to keep some buttons, but you need to go through regularly to make sure that you've still got that item. Because what we have is, like, hundreds of buttons from things that we've kept over the years. And you know that people want buttons and stuff, it depends. You know, you've really got to evaluate it. These are the types of things that are not hugely problematic, but it's just more clutter, isn't it, and more clutter, and

Speaker 1  28:47
especially, I think the problem is with these kind of things, they end up everywhere. So the thing, I think, what really helps here as a start, find a space for it, like in my sewing tin, right? That's where all these things live. I don't have buttons in my bedroom drawer and somewhere else and in a pot, on a little dish somewhere, or on the fireplace that where with a random dish of other things. We've talked about our hateful little dishes before, with all these random bits, because there's buttons hate to say, hate what we did. Oh, hate we do. I remember a party before, but we really kind of were strong that we actually these random dishes with, like, random stuff, you know, and buttons are in them. So I think the start is find a designated place for them. But also then be realistic, are you a I'm going to sew this button back on person, or is it like that's never going to happen, but I need to have it fixed, so I so then it's a task for the possibly the dry cleaners, if they're also a mender, or maybe another person in your family who's got the patience to do it. It, or the eyesight, or whatever it is, you know, I'm like, it's getting harder and harder to show a button on because I can't see. So it's the action I think that follows, instead of just flinging it in a jump drawer, right? Oh my gosh, I'm getting old. I'm bothered here. Now

30:16
you're going into into hate mode. I know you're

Speaker 1  30:19
quite strong for me. Anyway, number eight, another no brainer, Lesley, so we can keep it brief, maybe pens, pens in a junk drawer.

Speaker 3  30:30
Pens definitely belong in a junk drawer. It's really useful to have some pens in a junk drawer, but what happens is the numbers start to expand, and you get loads of pens in a junk drawer. So what we need to do is we need to repatriate those pens to where we kind of keep the general pens for the family, wherever that is. And so regularly, we need to only have two or three Max pens in a junk drawer, I think, and there should be somewhere that's a little bit more obvious for them. Test them with regularity as well. Make sure that the right kind of pen, because often we get, like, all different kinds of I might have a sharp it might have a highlighter. Might have a Do you know what I mean, a laundry market. Are these the best places for these things? They all end up in the same place. But more than anything, do the pen do the pen projects? We love a pen project, yeah,

Speaker 1  31:18
oh, yeah. And there's so many, and then you're like, oh, that's falling apart. And that doesn't dried really well, and the inks dried out, and you can really whittle it down. And it's, you know, this is if you've got a cheap cup of pencil or junk drawer, it's not a big job. It's all these little things that really help add up with very

Speaker 3  31:36
satisfying as well. English. Very satisfying,

Speaker 1  31:39
definitely, right. Moving on to number nine, what we see a lot are birthday candles. Birthday candles live in junk drawers because there was a party, the candles have not been completely being used. You kind of rinse them off, and then they kind of stay on the side for a while, and then they just end up in a junk drawer. That's kind of how it goes, right?

32:04
I mean, rinse them off. What do you mean if the

Speaker 1  32:07
birthday candles have been on the cake, oh, the cake, there's normally, like cream. No, there's normally, like cream on them and stuff like that. So I think, Oh, they're not completely used yet. Let me just rinse them off. Then you dry them off to the site, and you're like, oh, I don't even know. Let me just put them in a drawer.

Speaker 3  32:24
So what do we think about candles? I want to delve deep on this. So are we reusing because obviously we put a candle, you know, most of the time it's going to burn for 30 seconds max. Isn't it so hard? The enemy is going to go. So do we keep those candles and reuse them? What at what stage are we going to say that's too much and it's going to look a bit sort of cheap, almost to kind of really cut down. What do we do with, like, a 30 candle? Do we keep the three and the zero to hope that we're going to wait till the 40? What do we do? Like, you know, which candles do we keep? Which do we reuse? What's the thoughts on that I know I'm interested. What's your thoughts on that? Well, you're obviously rinsing cake off.

Speaker 1  33:07
You know what? I honestly, I think I have like, this lovely Happy birthday candle, indeed, like used for like 30 seconds, walking it from the kitchen to the living room and or max blowing it out. Candle gets pulled out, puts to the side, gets rinsed off, and I'm like, well, that's been on like 30 seconds, so and that can have another round. I'm not gonna buy like a brand new cat. Does that make me sound really cheap? Now, I

Speaker 3  33:33
think I reuse candles, but I feel like there's a tipping point to when it looks a bit like, oh, that's the bottom. When they look like, yeah, the top of the threes are almost eradicated and burnt down. Maybe I shouldn't put that next time someone's 31 to me, we do keep them. I keep all my candles in a bag, right? Yeah, but you always think that you've not got candles, don't you see? Go out and buy a new Yeah? I mean,

Speaker 1  34:00
yeah, yeah, because you did last thing you need is on the day to go, got no candles or, oh my gosh, it doesn't look a bit so you kind of, when you're planning for a party, and if you're doing something like with, like matching plates and napkins or things like that, you kind of think, Oh, let me grab some new ones. So I think, but they need to lift again. This is like, Have you got a baking section in your kitchen somewhere? Can you put it with? Or have you got a books where all the party decoration stuff live? I mean, I saw this, this video the other day. Let's see on Instagram. But this woman had, like, this gigantic cupboard. I've got, like, a couple of little bits, but she's like, this whole cupboard with like, massive trays and things. And I was like, Wow, this felt a

Speaker 3  34:47
lot for the rapping, you mean, for the for the cards. It was like

Speaker 1  34:51
napkins and decorations and plates and matching things and flags and other things and and even no much. All had that was, like, a whole cover. I'm like, I've, like, won books with a couple of bits. That's plenty. I'm so glad. I don't want that much.

Speaker 3  35:09
I know exactly for those kind of you know, things that don't happen very often, but I suppose it depends on how much joy you get out of those kind of celebrations. Yeah. And so everyone is different, and that's the beauty of decluttering and organizing. There's not a one size fits all, but in terms of birthday candles, I think there's two obvious spots for them. One is with baking equipment. One is with the party decorations, and they need to be stored there so that when you are thinking about buying a birthday cake, there needs to be that mental kind of check like, Oh, let me just double check whether I've got any candles or not. Yeah, check it before you go out. So yeah, birthday candles should not be designated. What is it? A signed design, whatever the word is, decimated. Now, rinse them off.

Speaker 1  35:54
Yes, yes. Well, let's do number 10 before we're going to be here forever and ever. As usual, number 10, in our 10 things to declutter from your junk drawer is random Keys, keys that nobody knows where they come from, what they're for you kind of check with other people in your house. You're gonna go any idea, and there's sometimes a label on it, and then somebody says, yeah, they might be from a previous house, or the garden gate from my mom or dad's house, or there's no label on it. It might be from neighbors. Who knows, nobody knows. I've

Speaker 3  36:33
still got a key project. It is a pain, right? Because, so basically, our lock broke on our front door, so then you've got a so it's a front door key. So you've got, you've got the whole you've got your car key. That's why I've got a set of car keys with the key on. I've got a set of keys without a car key on. If I'm going out walking. Same forever for Steve, that's that's four new keys you've got to get. All the kids need a key. The cleaner needs a key. We need random kit and neighbors kit. All of a sudden these things are like 10 pounder, just something ridiculous. It's been like 150 quid on keys, yeah, because one key is broken. Yeah, you know what I mean, yeah, crazy stuff, isn't it? So I've still got, so got the stuff, got the fobs. I've got these little orange tags and everything. So I'm definitely 100% going to do a property key project, go through things because things happen, because you should have a handle on what keys you've got, really, shouldn't you, yeah,

Speaker 1  37:26
yeah. I know. I I'm going to come clean. I have, I think, a couple of keys that I have no idea what they are, and it's just one of these things that just but the thing is, don't let them live everywhere. You're gonna have to gather them together, get them all, and then you're just gonna have to walk around your house and actually just do some testing here, there, you know, and kind of look at your even look at your own key chain. Do I actually know what all the keys on my key chain are for that I use every single day, you know?

38:00
Because they do know. Do you know? I think,

Speaker 1  38:02
yeah. I think I do, yeah, because I got one from my front door, my in between door, my back door, the gate in the back my mom's house. No, that's not true, because that's gone, because she moved out. So I need to get a new key of her.

Speaker 3  38:15
But you don't really need to keep your mom's house. Do you you live in a different country tonight? I

Speaker 1  38:19
know, but I still want to have a key to my mom's house, yeah? But, well, like a psychological

Speaker 3  38:24
need have a key to your mom's Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But no, it is interesting a key project, but it's a big job. Like a key project, honestly, can if you do it well, and it'll take all day.

Speaker 1  38:35
Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely. So gather those random keys together, put them in a little port, and kind of go right once the clutter goes down, and I actually start to see, you know, the bit of the light at the end the tunnel, then it's time to do a random key project. But if they're now floating around everywhere in your junk drawer, just get a tiny little, I know, maybe a little iPhone box or something, or a box from a phone, and kind of start to gather them together. And if you kind of start to go, start to go, oh, this is actually easy. Maybe, you know, it helps to put a little label on you don't want to write your full address on it, you know. But even just, you know, this house or that house, or it's the caravan, or it's the holiday home, or it's my neighbor's key or whatever, so you kind of know what's happening there. So, yeah, you all got jobs. You all have jobs for this weekend, basically giving you 10 jobs.

Speaker 3  39:28
No, that's a lot. Yeah, don't tackle them all at once, but definitely look at those drunk drawers, even if it's just to work out what what's required from your drunk drawer, and just to sort of assess what you've got in there and which you are 10 things you can take some action on, because some of these things are quite big projects. Yeah,

Speaker 1  39:45
definitely. So, yeah, that's your call to action. Tidy up that junk drawer today and get it all sorted out. So we hope that you've enjoyed this podcast. I definitely have Lesley. It's, it's, makes me always smile. And, yeah, we. Hope to see you next week for our next episode. So thanks so much for being here and thanks for listening and watching. We appreciate you.

Speaker 2  40:12
Thanks so much for listening to the declutter hook podcast. Don't forget to subscribe to us in your podcast player so you don't miss an episode and we'll see you next week.
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Episode 345 – 10 things to declutter from your junk drawer

Episode 389 – Overcoming mobility challenges when decluttering with member Rory

Episode 388 – Start as you mean to go on – plan 2026 for decluttering success

Episode 387 – Our 2025 year in review – the big Declutter Hub round-up

Episode 386 – 10 Tell-Tale Signs that you need to Declutter your House

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