BellaOnline Forums Home and Garden Cleaning Cleaning out the desk drawer

My desk drawer can barely be opened because it is so full of stuff. How did this happen? Do I really need need this stuff?

And this is after I sent a large box of pencils etc down to Alabama after Katrina too!

LOL, you need to see our house - my boyfriend does not throw stuff out. I use to be this way, but after moving so many times - have learn't the hard way to clean out regularly. With him, he is just too busy. With me, it was being "lazy" = hate to clean

We have been in the process of moving and I filtered through SEVERAL junk drawers and hope that we can stay on top of them at the new house. Funny how easy it is to let it accumulate and hard it is to get it dejunked!!

I think one reason I hate throwing things out is that it always seems as soon as I do go on a cleaning frenzy within a week I am needing something that I just threw away. If I really stop to think about it, the real problem is I let it get so out of hand that when I do clean the junk drawer/closet/basement/shed it has reached the point I can't stand it another minute and I truly am in a "frenzy" when I am cleaning that I don't stop to think about each item.

That is how I felt about it this time too, Debbie. I was just ready to 'get rid' of stuff. We'll see how much of it I end up missing!!

Lisa,

Lay a large plastic bag on the floor. Tip the whole contents of the drawer onto the plastic bag. Clean out the drawer and only put back what you really want.

Then, if you can, throw everything left on the plastic bag in the garbage bin.

Drastic, I know, but fast. And you'll feel very good about it very soon.

I know we want to recycle and see that every pencil has a good home, but occasionally it's easier not to. With your newly refurbished nearly empty drawer you'll be more productive and you can resolve to recycle everything from now on.

Ooooooo Tina - that's brilliant! Plastic bag! Dump out!!

OK I am doing that this very second, thank you so much!

OK this was what was in my desk drawer where I sit every day. No wonder I couldn't find anything in it!!



Now to sort through this all!

Tina brilliant suggestion.

Lisa great picture. Do let us see the "after" one.

It took about a half hour and now everything is much, much cleaner! Plus I found all sorts of useful things.



Highly recommended!

Now I have to use up all these stamps. I've only used "forever" stamps for the past few years so I'm not even sure what to do with these other odd ones.

Lisa what an incredible photo! It looks great. Do you think you can keep it this organised?

Also query for me (difficulties in translation between US and UK) - what are FOREVER STAMPS?

Yes I want to know the same question, what are forever stamps?

Well done on cleaning the draw!

Asha -

My hope is that now all the random junk is out of there that I'll have little opportunity to put new stuff into there. I guess we'll see!

In the US, regular correspondence-type letters in regular envelopes cost 44 cents right now. So if I wanted to mail letters to friends I'd have to get 44 cent stamps to stick on those envelopes. However let's say in 3 years the post office raises their rates to 45 cents a letter. Now I have all these 44 cent stamps lying around and have to buy 1 cent stamps to add on to my letters. It is a nightmare and it's why my drawer has all sorts of random stamps in it.

So what they did starting in 2007 is issue (in addition to other stamps) a new Forever stamp. This stamp is bought at the current rate. So if I buy it now it costs 44 cents each. But it is ALWAYS good for a regular letter. So in 3 years if the rates go up to 45 cents those stamps are now good for the 45 cents for a letter. I never have to worry about what the current rate is! I can just use a forever stamp and be done with it!

It makes my life so much easier, but I still have to do something with all these old stamps. It's such a hassle to piece them together on envelopes.

Lisa is this an investment opportunity? buy loads of stamps and sell them on in ten years time - could make your fortune! (that's presuming you haven't made it already...).

We have first and second class stamps in the UK and I've never had a problem if I've used old ones. The problem only comes if you uee a stamp that has a particular amount on it (in the UK it would normally be down to pence).

That is a brilliant idea, must inform the Post Office about this. They are always putting up the price of stamps in the UK with very little warning.

It's funny but I rarely use stamps any more, yet when I was younger I was always queuing up in the Post Office for stamps!

Maybe those that say 1st class and 2nd class are like forever stamps in the UK Asha?

Asha, I have considered that for a possible investment, but i never went so far as to actually buy enough stamps to do it.

I think the stamp price increase is slower than what you could get with a checking account interest rate, although I suppose it'd be worth investigating

Asha - when we buy a stamp it always has a value on it - with the exception of the new forever stamps. So before if the letter rate was 42 cents you would buy a stamp that said "42 cents" on it and use it for first class mail. Then when they raised the rate to 44 cents now you'd have to buy additional 2 cent stamps and on your letters put one 42 cent stamp plus one 2 cent stamp to add up to the new 44 cent total, to use up your remaining 42 cent stamps.

Lisa, i actually have a few old stamps that do not have a cent value on them. For those I have to actually take them to the post office and ask what they are worth. The postal people then have to go look it up - they don't remember either.

Oh right one or two christmas stamps were like that. They have specific values but its like a guessing game.

You can find out the value of those old stamps on the USPS website.

When forever stamps came out I did the math. Should I bulk buy them now and use them in the future, thus saving money? I'm not sure I can repeat the math now, but I worked out it's not a saving but a loss to buy 10 years worth of forever stamps, it's better to keep your money in a savings account. Added to the fact that you may lose them and never remember to use them.

I don't buy them in bulk but, I do prefer purchasing the Forever Stamps because then I know that they will always be good to use. Even if I lose them and find them later!!

Yes exactly. I don't buy ten years worth but whenever I do buy stamps I buy forever stamps. That way if I don't use them immediately they don't become hard to use when the price goes up.

In very encouraging news, my desk drawer is STILL CLEAN!!! This is fairly amazing. So that was worth the effort to do.

A three month update! Still fairly clean! If you make the effort, and then just keep an eye on it, it's completely possible

I have trouble with letter series stamps. I have some "G" stamps, but there were apparently several series of "G" stamps, each worth a different value.

Forever stamps? The first series of current forever stamps was issued in April 2007 at .41 each. First class postage is currently .44, 7% higher. If I had banked $100 in 2007, it would have paid less than 1.5% per year or 6%.

Frank, so the forever stamps are actually a better investment than the bank? huh. Good to know.

Lisa, congrats on your desk drawer!

Hello there everyone,

Lisa and all, I have just been a copy cat and done the same thing with three drawers (one in the kitchen and two in the study) and did throw a lot of 'stuff' away. Put it all in a double plastic bag and left a note inside for the person who finds it ... "I hope you can use this stuff or some of it anyway and if not please give it to someone else who can!"

I will never know the results but am sure that someone out there will do something with some of the non-junk-half-used-no-longer- needed-by-me stuff I included.

Ah, now to tackle the wardrobe with the same simple approach.

Hmmm.

Cheers!

What a sweet idea of leaving a note. Like the old saying goes, what is trash to some people is a treasure to others. I try and keep my desk drawers organized, but i'm sure there are pens in there that no longer work, so I need to go through it again some day.

I do have several other junk drawers around the house so I need to work on one of those and make progress. Maybe I'll work on the kitchen drawer sometime this week.