A graphic of a tidy living room with Christmas tree, fire place, presents and decorations at night

Episode 5 – Why is November the Best Month to Start Decluttering for Christmas?

Most people plan to declutter in January, but we want to talk about why November is such a great month to declutter to prepare for the holiday season.

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Transcript of this podcast episode

Intro  0:07  
Welcome to today's episode of The declutter hub podcast, your channel for super easy, no nonsense advice on how to declutter and organise your home. Please welcome your hosts professional organisers, Ingrid Jansen, and Lesley Spellman.

Ingrid  0:30  
Hello, and welcome listeners to episode five of the declutter hub Podcast. I'm Ingrid. And I'm Lesley. If you have clutter and wanted to short it out, this is the show for you. In today's episode, we're talking all about why November is the best month to do your Christmas decluttering. Now, most people have it in their mind that January is the perfect month to declutter. But we want to talk to you today about why we think November is actually a great month to declutter. And to get prepared for the holiday season.

Lesley  1:03  
We actually like every month, every week.

Ingrid  1:08  
That is definitely true. But there are definitely benefits of why November is a good month to to get already some of that decluttering out of the way. So give me give me give me a good reason, Lesley. Why, why do you think our listeners should do some decluttering as well in November,

Lesley  1:24  
if ever, there is a time that you want to be proud of your house, I know this might sound a little bit vacuous. But it's true is when people are coming into it. Because you don't want to be judged. You want to live in a house that looks lovely. And Christmas generally is the time when people are coming to visit. You know, it may be that because of your house, you don't have people to come and visit, maybe this is the year but actually, people can come to you even if it's just for coffee or whatever. But you know, baby steps. And so let's do that. But that might be quite a nice thing. So people will be coming into your home. So what better time now to have a home that you can be proud of? Yeah.

Ingrid  2:00  
Or if you are planning a big Christmas dinner and it's at your house, and you felt embarrassed about your house in previous years, maybe by doing something already now and using November, in the time in November to do some decluttering and organising, you actually feel a lot happier and prouder to having people over for dinner or Christmas dinner or a party that you're organising doesn't really matter what it is people are coming into your home, and you want to feel make them feel welcome.

Lesley  2:29  
Yeah, and you want to be calmer. It's gonna make you calmer as well. Of course, if the house is calmer, you're going to be calmer. There is Christmas dinner to cook as well, to be fair, yeah. is less calming. But yeah, wouldn't it be nice if the house was all looking great before.

Ingrid  2:43  
And we're not talking about every nook and cranny here, you know, I mean, if you want to pick three, three rooms, you might want to spend a bit of time in your kitchen, you might want to have spent some time in your living room. And if you're going to have people over in your guest room, you might want to do your cached room. But so we're not talking about a complete decluttering of your whole house and every nook and cranny in the month of November. That's not realistic, isn't we? No,

Lesley  3:11  
not at all. I think it's useful what you said about the spare room. It's a really important one. Because spare rooms quite often if we're lucky enough to have one become become dumping grounds. Particularly if you're just looking at two or three rooms, your natural progression is going to be well, we'll just put that in the spare room for now. And then that's when it kind of becomes this overwhelming dumping grounds that many of us have gotten in our spare rooms now. So yeah, so the get if you do have guests, or if you, you know the possibility is going to be there that you can have guests to stay over even if it's just for one night. How nice would that be if you had a guest room that you could be proud of as well? Yeah, that was clutter free and organised. Yeah.

Ingrid  3:49  
And you know what, we all know that the holiday season is a time when you have a lot of stuff coming into your home. And we're not talking only about people, but also about food and presence and a Christmas tree. I mean, it's all going on, isn't it?

Lesley  4:08  
Full time? Yeah, Christmas periods, you need room to put everything in everybody. 

Ingrid  4:15  
So having a bit of a clear out in November can really be beneficial to feel like your house is ready as well to have this influx of stuff coming in coming in.

Lesley  4:27  
Because when there's you know, even if you take control and you say you know what, we're not going to do a crazy Christmas and buy tonnes and tonnes of presents other people do so sometimes you don't have control over that. There's so much stuff coming in. It's just nice to have the space, then you can have that place for everything and everything in its place. But if you don't do that decluttering before Christmas comes around, then you're left with a kind of Oh my word where is all this stuff gonna go after Christmas? Yeah, and so

Ingrid  4:53  
yeah, and I think especially when there are children in the family and when they're small children in the family even more so. Um, ought to do a bit of a toy clear out? Yeah, absolutely. If maybe you're not, maybe you're not going to have any guests over. So you're not have to worry about the guest room, but maybe you do know that grandparents or family members buy a lot of toys for the kids. So maybe your action for November could be, I'm going to clear out some of the kids toys. So there's actually room to put all of these new presents that are coming into this house.

Lesley  5:23  
Yeah. And and, you know, equally it might, if you do to a toy clear out, you know, people are always asking Are they watch lullaby watch alibi for them? What do they need? You know, truth is, they probably don't need much. But you could give them pointers about what you know, if you do when you it's almost like doing an audit of your rooms, isn't it by looking at what you've gotten them. And you know, times times are, can be messy, and everything gets jumbled up and you forget what you've got, the kids don't play with half of stuff. So much as you know, decluttering, a play room is difficult, takes time, it can be really useful, because all of a sudden, you can almost do what I'd like to call precision precision shopping, which is where you can direct people appropriately to buy the right things rather than duplicate things all the time. Yeah,

Ingrid  6:07  
yeah. Or maybe even when you are doing a toy clear out, you are realising how many toys there are, and how much they haven't even gotten around to playing with in the first place from last Christmas. And maybe that can focus you on saying, I would like to have experiences rather than toys this year. Or you can maybe say to grandparents, for example, instead of spending all of the amount on toys, can we not put some aside into maybe a savings account or maybe in an envelope with some money so they can go to the cinema or do something fun? And the other amount on toys, so you can steer it a bit more as well, I think

Lesley  6:43  
so. But but you ultimately then have to have control. And you have to have the knowledge to steer that day. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I get overwhelmed when I'm doing play rooms. And I do this as my day job. You know, sometimes when you walk into a play room, it is like, Whoa, this is a lot of work. And there's a lot of, you know, tiny little things to sort out. The other one thing that I wanted to say really about ties is that we can repurpose and re gift these. So we've got the ideal opportunity at Christmas, you know, there's toy drives, there's all that, you know, giving things away, you know, all the collections that they do, you know, they do things at schools, the school fairs, all those kinds of things. So if there's toys that are unwrapped and unused, that the kids haven't played, and maybe they've grown out, there can be repurposed, without you having to go out and spend your valuable money on buying things that you've already got in the house, it's

Ingrid  7:29  
in good condition, why not the absolute perfect opportunity. And also, I think what always, what I find is that if you do a bit of decluttering, and a bit of sorting stuff out, I always find that I still have some wrapping paper. And I still have some gift tags, and I have some Christmas cards. And so I tried to kind of gather all of those things in November and see what I've got left from last year. So I can take stock, and realise Oh, I don't need to buy as much as I thought I had to, because there's still some stuff here that I can that I can use again, that that's still leftover from last year.

Lesley  8:04  
Because you just if you've not gathered that together and not looked at what you've got, you just do that classic thing of oh, it's three for two, let's get nine rolls of wrapping paper or whatever. Yeah, and you don't actually need it. And so you can use the cards that you have from last year, you know, good card, given his going down and down with every passing year. So a lot of people have got those cards and wrapping paper and so on in the cupboards already. And wouldn't it be nice not to have to store that wrapping paper till next year, I know it because also we buy things in the sale, you know, buy things in the sale when they're, you know, 20% You know, 20% of the original price, and they all buy that for next year in January, put it in the top of a cupboard, forget about it completely, and that are gone. And all of a sudden in July, you find the wrapping paper that you bought for last Christmas. I know. So it's things like that, you know, because we do forget, you know, particularly those kind of Christmasy things. If we've got young children, we do try and hide them don't Right, yeah, we try and hide them away from the children and forget about them. So it's important for that kind of thing as well.

Ingrid  9:00  
Yeah, good point. I think also, what is really helpful in November is to do a bit of an audit and a short out in your wardrobes. Right okay now because especially if you've got a lot of kind of more, if you want to have a nice outfit for Christmas and want to dress up a little bit. Have a look at what you've you still have from previous years. Again, maybe you did buy in lovely dress in the sale last January. You've completely completely forgotten because she's got it that's great dressed for next Christmas. Now you can't remember you're off out again, trying to look for an outfit. Well, if you take stock of what you have, you might find a dress or a lovely top or a nice pair of trousers that you can mix and match with something that you can wear this holiday season. And maybe then you only need to buy a nice piece of jewellery. Yeah, and to change it up and not spent a lot of money on all new outfits all the time. To see if you can mix and match in and find maybe a treasure in your cupboard you forgotten that you had?

Lesley  10:05  
Well, they say we were 20% of our clothes 80% of the time, don't they? So that other that other 80% is probably there's a party dress lurking somewhere in there, isn't there? Yeah, that we can work?

Ingrid  10:19  
Well, that will, you know, that's great. And that's a great way to save some money as well, especially because Christmas in the holiday season is such an expensive time of year. If you can make it work like that, I mean, it's really, really good, I think.

Lesley  10:34  
Yeah, definitely. So we're not saying that don't, don't declutter in January, because we'd also like you to declutter in January as well, because New Year's resolutions are always great. And hopefully, in 2019, then the new year's resolutions are going to come good with the help of the declutter, hub, and Ingrid Yeah, and so but yeah, we think it's really good to do a kind of mini declutter in November of focus, focus things, maybe ties, if you've got young children, definitely a wardrobe. You know, it doesn't necessarily need to be addressed. It could be an outfit as well. And great. Yeah. So yeah, so.

Ingrid  11:06  
And also, I think, when you'd go through some cupboards, and some wardrobes, you might find some stuff that you had completely forgotten you were given last year. And it might also make you a bit more aware of, wow, these gifts were given last Christmas, they've ended up in a cupboard, we haven't used them. We haven't even missed them. We've gotten there were there and make you rethink about the gifts you give to other people. Yeah. And maybe it's an excellent way to maybe also have a conversation with your friends and family who or whoever you spend Christmas with, to look at how are we celebrating it? And do we just randomly buy gifts for each other, that not really make us happy?

Lesley  11:54  
People do different things, you know, decided particularly as families change, and families get older, and you know, there's little kids and that, you know, just changes over time and who you buy for changes. And so maybe it's time to do just one sort of Secret Santa gift and you know, pick it out of the hat rather than buy for everybody, that kind of thing. One thing I just wanted to mention, which can be quite a contentious thing, what do we think about repurposing gifts. So recycling gifts?

Ingrid  12:20  
I think for me, personally, I have got no problems with it. But I think if you still remember who gave the gift to you,

Intro  12:28  
you don't want to give it back to the same

Ingrid  12:30  
person. Here in the UK, I think there are a lot of Raffles. So if you get a lot of smelly soul for Christmas, and body lotions, and soaps and things like that, and you know, you've gotten so many, you will never use them up. I think those are perfect gifts to put in a raffle. But I think it's also then important to say, if there's a group of friends who all just give smells to each other, why don't you just go out for a nice meal instead of buying stuff with each other and maybe do it in a different way and kind of rethink the whole gift giving of a Christmas? Yeah,

Lesley  13:05  
definitely. And if you don't feel comfortable giving it away, you know, to a raffle or whatever. It's a great November's a great time to give to charity, all of those unwrapped gifts, and then they can sell them on as Christmas gifts. I mean, what a great thing that would be. Yeah, you know, and that's your charitable giving done them for Christmas, which would be fantastic, feels good

Ingrid  13:25  
as well as well. Give nice stuff away that you know that a charity shop can sell and can make money off and close. It's just wonderful. And I mean, Christmas is such a lovely time of year anyway, you know, it's good to spread the love and, and make other people enjoy a lovely Christmas as well. But I think in the end, in the end what it all boils down to. It's about the people. You know, it's not about the presence. It's about the people you you hang out with and the fun you have and and the experiences of being together. Yeah, definitely. Well, listeners, we hope you've enjoyed this episode. That's it for now. And we've hope you've enjoyed listening, and that you will do some of the decluttering this side of the holiday season and save some money, which is always good. Thanks for taking the time to listen today. If you'd like to get more tips and advice follow us on social media. And if you don't want to miss the next episode, please subscribe to the declutter hub podcast. See you next time.

Intro  14:24  
Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the declutter hub podcast. Check out declutter hub.com For more inspiration. Don't forget to tune in next week.

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