 Hey there and welcome today to our Clutter Corner Live. I am super excited that you've joined me today, and I'm really excited that we're able to have a conversation with each other about our stuff, because it allows us then to change our relationship with stuff, and as we move through this new era of being aware, it gives us choices. And so as we enter consumerism and global warming and there's too much packaging and too much stuff is hitting our landfills, how are we gonna deal with it all? So I don't want you guys just to get rid of stuff just for the sake of getting rid of it. I want us to start being aware of the things that we have and are the things that we have intentional? Do we use the things we have, right? If we don't use it, we wanna lose it. And that means giving it away, donating it and what have you. So over the last couple of weeks, I'm super excited you guys have joined me today. I see that we've got lots of friends joining us. Hi and welcome everyone. Jason is here and we've got Sally here. We've got Rita here. Brooks is here. Books with the twist is here. You guys, thank you so much for joining us. This is awesome. The conversation that we're having is, do we have stuff intentionally and are we making the changes? So that's the conversation that we're having. Does anyone have any wins that they wanna share with us before we begin today, talking about what is under the bathroom sink. And just over the last couple of weeks, any wins so far. I see that we have Sally who has just joined us. And I know Sally originally joined us and then got rid of some fingernail polish. And she was also very influential in helping us bring the topic to you of the mustard and ketchup packets that we use through the drive-through and that we didn't have, that we have too many of those. So let's bring Sally on. Sally, how are you this week? Good, how are you? Good, it's good to see you again. So tell us, what are you working on this week as far as decluttering and maybe changing your relationship with stuff? So far, some update from me. So far, I don't miss my new polish at all and the ketchup packages or the plastic utensil. I don't miss them at all. I'm glad I get rid of those. And then unconsciously, I think now when I go to drive-through, I don't request even only all these extra ketchup packages and things like that. And then so far, I kind of organize whatever the unnecessary junk in my house very well. I throw a lot and donated a lot. And so what advice would you give to somebody that's just thinking about maybe downsizing a little bit of their things? What advice would you give us? Was it hard for you? Not really. Once you really go through the thing when you pick up the item, really look at it like, do you really want it or you really need it? If you need it, you can keep it, of course. But if you just like want it in case of one day, the one day will never count. I mean, at least that's for me. I always keep stuff for what if maybe one day, but the one day I never use it, it will be seated for years and years. So now I tell myself, if I don't use anything for a year or two, I just carry it away because I believe the one day will never come. And do you have a different rule for how long you let that decide? Like if I didn't use this in the last year, is that different from something that you might save for two years? I kind of go through room by room, drawer by drawer or closet by closet. So anything that sits longer than two years, definitely yes. I donated it a lot, I made a lot away. And then whatever that is like old or spoiled, I think like, you know, certain lotion, the one that I throw a lot away. And then on top of that, I think I keep a lot of kids stuff. My kids is older now, but I keep a lot of their baby stuff that when they're a teenager or they were even younger then. So I keep a lot of those, I don't know why. So I kind of ask myself, do I really need this? They don't want that. So I kind of slowly like giving away or whatever. I mean, just donated it away, other people can use it. I'm so proud of you. And I really admire the fact that you're willing to share that with us because I know a lot of parents save stuff that's sentimental to their family. And they are thinking maybe one day they're gonna give it to their kids, but you just made a really important realization where you said, my kids don't want it. And so to be able to let that go, I mean, that's huge. That's huge from the sentimental standpoint. I'm so proud of you, awesome. Well, thank you so much, Sally. I'm so glad that you joined us today. And I'm gonna let you bump out of here for a minute. We've got lots of people that are commenting now. Bernie Bernsify says, yes, I tell the drive-thru person I only need one ketchup packet, a nugget sauce and you keep the rest. I always say the specific amount and the facial expressions are funny sometimes. You know, it's interesting and I'm so glad that you brought that up. It's interesting that that's where we are right now because in the past it's always been people give me more and give me more. And now to say, no, thank you, I have enough. I bet that is really unusual for a lot of people. So I'm so glad that you shared that with us. We have several people that are saying hello, hello, Peggy. Hello, blue star. Judy is here. Judy says she's gotten rid of my flat iron. I wear my hair curly now. And the only time I use the flat iron is when I decide not to declutter it. Or when I decide not to, then I gotta read this. Hang on. The only time I use the flat iron is when I decide not to declutter it. And then I don't. Maybe I should declutter that. And that's the flat iron. So we'll talk about that because that's really interesting and that leads us to today's topic, which is what is under our bathroom sink. Okay, so this is a really tough subject because under the bathroom sink is a whole lot, like a mini version of the scary room. And we talk about the scary room where many people have a room in their house. It might be a storage unit or a great big closet where they kind of put things and then they kind of close the door. Like if company is coming, oh, hurry and put it in this room and then they close the door and we'll see and they'll think we're totally organized. But that room piles up and up and up. And a lot of times kids will go away from school. I know this is happening this week to lots of families. Their kids are going off to school and then the parents are like putting all the stuff inside the scary room and we're gonna close the door and we'll deal with it later, right? So the bathroom underneath the bathroom sink is a lot of times like a little scary room. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna take a look at some of the stuff that's under my bathroom sink and we're gonna have a conversation about that. Now, there's no right or wrong to what's underneath your bathroom sink, okay? I wanna start right out by saying that. What I want us to do is to be aware because when we're aware, we have choices. And so is this happening in your life? Is it not happening in your life? Do you have stuff that you wanna have a conversation about what exactly is happening, right? All right, so one of the things that I discovered when I opened my bathroom sink is that I had some baby oil, right? Under the same bathroom sink, I had more baby oil and then underneath the bathroom sink, I had more baby oil. And so what I discovered was I have got three under the same bathroom sink. Did this ever happen to you? You have multiples of something. It might be multiples of hand lotion or multiples of something and you're using it. Like these are half gone, right? These are half gone, but yet for some reason, I still have three. Do I need three? The answer is no. Can I explain why I have three? I can't. And so my curiosity is do any of you have multiples where you didn't quite finish something and yet you bought more and you replaced it and it's underneath your bathroom sink? Anybody here with that happening? I'm looking at the comments here. Yes, we do have some folks that have had this experience before. I see here somebody does this with shampoos and I wanna stop for just a second and say that I too did this with shampoos, but I did this with shampoos in my shower and I wanna stop for just a second because I actually went through the reasons why. It did become aware to me that this was an issue of mine until I was cleaning someone's house. And when I was cleaning someone's house and I discovered inside their house, they had about 30 shampoos. This is not under the bathroom sink. We're gonna address this one in just a second. But with the shampoos, one of the things that I noticed was they had like 30 shampoos and they were like almost gone, but not quite gone. And I had four or five in my shower. And I started thinking one day while I was cleaning the house, why do I have shampoos that I haven't finished and yet I've already replaced them? And is there a reason for that and what you traced that back to? Because I'm thinking at an unconscious level, if I have three containers under the same bathroom sink and they all have something in them, why have I replaced it and I'm not using the rest of one before I open the new one? What's with that, right? One of the things that I discovered and this is for me personally, I'm from a large family. And in the large family, one of the things that we always did was we tried to save some for the other person because I don't want to jump in and take a shower and there be no shampoo left. So even if there's only a little bit left, I'm gonna kind of like split it in half and I'm gonna use half of it. I'm gonna save half of it or some of it for the next person that's taking a shower. And we always tried to save a little bit extra for the next person that was coming behind us. Now when I moved out on my own, I was repeating the same behaviors without consciously knowing why. I was saving some for someone that wasn't coming because I lived alone, right? And so now I had stored three or four or five shampoos inside my shower. Now I'm wondering is this the same kind of thing where I have this underneath my bathroom sink and I'm waiting for someone to come and use the rest of it, okay? Now there are other people in my house but no one is gonna be underneath that bathroom sink except for me and no one else is gonna use that, except for me. And so I can either consolidate those or I can use them up and not replace them anymore. And what I realized as I went through my bathroom sink is I didn't, I don't have an inventory program. I just have like loose stuff, right? That ever happened to you? I see that Heather has joined us. Heather, I'm gonna jump you up here. And did you ever run into, hey, how are you today? I'm good, how are you? Good, good to see you. Did you ever run into multiples of something? All the time, I'm really bad about it. I tend to, if I start to get a little low on something or if I don't remember if I'm low, I'll buy a new one but then I never actually end up getting rid of the one that is less full. So I just have new ones and half fulls and I don't know when is a good time to, okay, I can go ahead and throw this out because I feel wasteful. And so what is your answer? When do you give yourself permission to let go of it? I haven't, it's all under my kitchen cabinet or under my bathroom cabinet. Okay, so it's still there, all right. That's what I need you for. Well, you know, when it comes to cleaning supplies because I know a lot of people keep cleaning supplies underneath their cabinets, which is awesome because then you have it on hand if you're gonna clean the bathroom and stuff but the cleaning supplies have a shelf life. And in most cases, it's 18 to 20 months. And so I know that we've cleaned underneath the cabinets for lots of families and we cleaned under one and there were things from like 2008 and this was like a year ago. In 2008, they had cleaning supplies and they were like, I guess one day I'm gonna use them. Well, like I guess you're not because you didn't use them so far and they're probably expired and the chemicals will only stay stable for so long before they either start to evaporate or they're not as effective or whatever. And so we need to start giving ourselves permission to recycle and just say, hey, if I didn't use the stuff I have here. Now, what's really interesting and I'm gonna move these hand lotion I have a little tub here and it's just a scary tub. I hope you guys can see this. It's a whole bunch of junk. This was under my bathroom sink and I'm gonna go through it one by one. We're gonna do a small clutter corner here and I'm gonna pick out what we have and we'll have a conversation. Heather, stay with me for just a second because you might know about some of this. So here I have a travel pouch. This is like the Ziploc bag that they let you go through at the airport. And I have stuff in here that is only used for travel. And I feel like this is very useful because if I get called away like instantly, I can grab my little travel pack and go, right? So I don't think I would get rid of this because this is useful. I have a spare deodorant in here and I have some Q-tips. The Q-tips are not going to go out of style and they're not going to wear out or anything and they don't expire. The only thing I have to be careful of is the deodorant. If I don't use the deodorant within, let's say, I don't know, a year or two, it might liquefy. Do you know about how long it would take before something like that happens? Well, they don't necessarily liquefy for me but I still don't know that they're effective or safe after so long. You don't really think about an expiration date on things like that, but there has to be one. So yeah, I keep things way too long. I know with the deodorants and I'm really guilty of this and you guys might have done this in the past. Well, my family shops at Costco because you can get more for your money, right? We love to get more for our money. And so like, I'll buy the deodorants at Costco. What instead of buying one, I'll buy like five because they come in a pack of five. And so then I say, oh, well, I'll use one now and then I'll put the other four under the bathroom sink. Right, where do you store them? So you store them under the bathroom sink. And I have, for true, I have gone to use deodorants like as the spare, like, oh good, there's a spare. And I open it up and it's just like liquefied and has that ever happened? If that's ever happened to you guys, right? Liquefied in the comments. I'm curious to know, am I the only one that's ever happened to? Or you held on to a deodorant so long that it went ineffective on you? I see Parker is laughing. Oh, Heather, thank you so much for joining us. I'm gonna let you bounce out and we're gonna bring, we're gonna bring Parker on here and say hi to Parker. But it's so good to see you. Thank you for joining us. All right, Parker, how are you today? I'm good, how are you, Angela? Good, thanks for joining us. Did that ever happen to you or you had like a deodorant or something liquefied that expired on you before you got to use it? For sure with deodorant, I know I would leave one in the car or something and just I would use it years later and then it would just be completely useless at that point. Lynn Rocklash says stick deodorant does have an expiration date on them. And I think this goes back to like the cleaning chemicals where if you have something beyond its expiration date, it becomes unstable and unstable means that it doesn't respond the way that it's supposed to when it's originally marketed, right? And so there are things like that. I know for me, this has probably never happened to you guys, but like you're going through a tub that looks similar to this. And like you find an old cough drop or a piece of gum or something. And then you're like, well, I wonder if it's any good. Do you ever do this? Maybe I should like try to eat it. Like, did that ever happen to you? I know it's gross and we should just toss it. Reed has joined us and Reed is laughing. I'm gonna let you bump out of here. And I wanna say this has ever happened. Did Reed ever eat an old piece of gum or a piece of cough drop or something? Thanks for joining us Parker. It's so great to have you with us. This is fun. Rita, how are you today? Hi, I'm good, Angela. How are you? Good, thanks for joining us. So the question is, did you ever eat something beyond expiration that you found in a place like an old drawer or underneath the bathroom sink? Yeah, so I think one of those things everyone has on hand is medicine. And like you mentioned cough drops, but I don't think most of us get sick often enough to go through an entire bag like at once when you buy it. And so I've definitely kept like a half even bag of cough drops in the drawer. And the next time I get sick like months and months later, I go for that same bag and it's just like sticking to the wrapper and it won't come out right. So yeah, it gets nasty. If you have ever eaten that old piece of gum or old cough drop or something, right cough drop in the notes. I'm curious to see, is it just me and Rita? Because I do this, I'm like, no one is watching. I wonder if it's still any good. And then like I bite into it. And then like you say with a cough drop and you're like half of it, it seems like it was melted and then like it reconstituted itself. And you're kind of like, that was so gross. Why did I do that, right? That's just awful. I don't know why we do that. One of the things that I found, and I'm glad you brought that up, Rita, is I found like this little packet it must be like a cold medicine packet or something. And I don't know how old this is. Wait, there is an expiration date. This is so cool. 2002, 2002, it's now 2022. This is 20 years old. I don't know where this has been, but I just found this and this is 20 years old. Heather's back, Heather's laughing at me. Hang on, I'm bringing Heather back. Heather, how are you? You're laughing at me like. Oh no, it makes me feel so good that if someone like you that does know how to clean and keeps your plate, then I'm okay. Like the fact that I have things from 2010 is okay because Angela does. Well, I'm glad you bring that up because here's the interesting thing. I don't know where this came from, but as I was going through my stuff, I found a bunch of weird stuff. And it's interesting because like here is like one of our funeral postures, right? This is gold glitter. Do you know how long it's been since I wore a gold glitter nail polish? 20 years maybe? I mean, it's been a long time. And because we've had a conversation already about the fingernail polish, I know for a fact I'm not ever gonna use it. I know for a fact that it's probably mixed up. It's not gonna go on well, like if I try to reuse it. And so because we've had the conversation already, and this is where the previous conversations come from, I didn't get rid of it at the time because I didn't have any more to get rid of. But when I found this, since we've already made the decision, it's easy now to make the decision again. Oh yes, I have a rule about fingernail polish. This is going right in the trash because I know I'm not gonna wear it. And what is the rule? Use it or lose it. And so if we're not gonna use it, we know we can lose it. And this is not something that I need to hang onto. There's no possible use for that, right? So thank you Heather and Rita for joining us. It's so great to have you here with us. And Chris, as I got a little laugh out of that gum remark, that's me for sure. Oh no, you've been eating an old gum. I hate that. Especially like if you find it like in a glove box of your car, and then it's like mint flavor and you're like, oh, I'm going to a meeting. It's all I have. I think I'll just eat it and hopefully it gives me good breath or something. And then it's like crunchy gum, you know? And you're like, ah, I hate that. And I've done that more than once. So don't tell anyone. Bernie Burtzify says, oh, I have a ton of old nail polish. Throw it out. I haven't gotten to that. Okay, so that's what we're working on. We're working on giving ourselves permission to say no to some of this stuff. So yes, yes, it's okay. If you get rid of that and I'm gonna get rid of this salt or tab, whatever that is from 20 years ago. Because I promise I'm not gonna be eating that, right? Another thing that I found is I found some sunscreen and there's nothing in it. I don't know what happened to it. It's just gone. Now I'm curious, well, where did it go? I wouldn't have saved an empty jar. And so where did it go? Did it evaporate? I don't know, right? So there may be stuff that you think you have. And if I saw that without looking in it, I might say, oh, well, I don't need any. I have some. So I'm gonna go to the beach. I don't need any. I have some. And then you get to the beach and you open it up and it's gone because you didn't recycle it in a timely manner, right? So what is under your bathroom stink? I found this. Now I'm really embarrassed to say that I think this came from a trip. And I know this has never happened to you guys where you go on a trip and they have like new toiletries every day, shampoo, hair conditioner, lotion, soap, hair, what do you call it? Like a shower cap. And then you're like, oh, this is free. I think I'll take this home. Did this ever happen to you? Sally's back and I see Sally laughing. Sally, hi and welcome back. Did this ever happen to you and your own mute? Where you save something from a trip and then you get home and like one day you're gonna use it or what? I used to be very bad at it, like you say, because it's free. I pay for the room, yep. I collect it, I bring it home. My husband do the same thing. But over time it just collected in the whole basket is full of it that I never use. And I don't know why. Yes, it's under my sink in the basket with all the tiny, tiny soap, tiny, tiny shampoo. Yeah, that I don't use. So I think this goes back to the thing that you mentioned earlier on a different, one of our clutter corners about like the mustard and ketchup packs where we stop and we say, no, thank you, I've had enough. At what point do you say no to toiletries? And I know that it's nice to have them while you're there but I think in the back of my mind and I saved them for a period of time because I used to travel a lot. And it wasn't like I saved them all but like if I was halfway through a conditioner or something I'm like, oh, they can't reuse that and give that to anyone else. So I think I'll take it home and finish the rest of it and then I'll toss it. But I didn't, I brought it home and then it went under my bathroom sink and this ugly little bucket, right? And so now I'm taking a look at it and I'm thinking why did I hang onto that? What was the purpose of hanging onto it? Because I didn't use it and now I've stored it and I don't know how old it is. And so what was the game plan? And I guess the honest to goodness truth is there was no game plan, right? I didn't have a plan for it. So sometimes we bring stuff into our lives and there's no plan. We just, like you said, Sally's free. Hey, I think I'll take it. And then you end up with a whole little case of stuff. And I know that when my husband started traveling a lot he did capture little items like this until we got to the point where we're like, no, no, we don't use them. Number one, number two, I think at some point the thought was if I ever run out on a trip and I, you know, last minute I'll grab my to-go, my to-go kit and then I'll be ready to go, right? Except wherever we're going, they have new supplies. And so why are we saving them supplies? Oh, Alexa just commented if I needed some supplies. Whoa! I found out the way though. Yeah, I found out the way that in my local place, in my county, they collect for the homeless. So I pack up all my tiny, tiny shampoo and soap and whatnot that I donated to the homeless shelter. They take that for the homeless so they can use it instead of throw it away. But don't keep it too long because if you keep it too long it gets spoiled and then you cannot donate to them. And Chris echoes that. Chris says I had a grocery bag full of travel things. I always took them because they were free and I donated it all to a local shelter. And so there is a possibility that can be reused. I also wanna highlight the fact that it's expensive for the Airbnb owner or for the hotel. And so just like the mustard and ketchup packets are expensive for the restaurant, that if you're not using them, instead of having the service provider just throw a whole handful of them in your bag to stop and say that's fine, I don't need anymore. And I know in a lot of the hotels that I've gone to, they have a little sign that they've posted that says if you want the towels washed or the linens washed, go ahead and flip this over. And if you don't want them, flip them over this way. And along with that sign that says, you know, we're good. I put all the little half things together, but we're good. You know, we don't need anymore. We still have half, we'll use the other half tomorrow. We don't need all new supplies. And lots of times we've come in and they've left our half supplies and they didn't refill them and they didn't replace them. So that's awesome if we can start making a conscious effort as to do I need this? Am I gonna use it? And even at the point of use, which is like at the hotel or at the Airbnb to say, you know what, I have enough. Even though it's free, why are we bringing it home? Because I mean, this is odd, but you still have to like then pack it up in your suitcase and you gotta pack it up in a bag so it doesn't like spill in your bag. Did this ever happen to you? Like you brought stuff home and it spilled in your bag and you got the lotion all over your clothes before your clothes went into the wash? That's awful. I hate stuff like that. But this gives you an opportunity then to make those choices kind of in real time, right? We've got a question here that's from Evan. This is, how do you balance being frugal with not being wasteful? Sally, what's your take on that? How to balance being frugal? If you really want to use actually you can, but for most of the lady, one tiny bottle is not enough. Yeah, you bring home. So you tell yourself, if I bring it home for the hotel, put it in the shower, use it right away the next day maybe then it kind of you use it up instead of just collecting it and put under the sink. You actually can use it, it just for some reason we had a bigger bottle of shampoo in our shower. So we tend to use that first and then we just keep to whatever we're collecting aside. But if you're consciously telling yourself, I want to save money, that's why I collected home to use it, yeah, you can use it. Just have to tell yourself that I use a small one first before I go to the big bottle, yeah. And that's a really great awareness. If we are going to use it, that's great. And if we're not going to use it, let's make a new rule for ourselves that if we know we're not going to use it and it's going to end up underneath our bathroom sink that we just say no to the extra travel supplies that we didn't buy, that we're not going to use. And instead of re-gifting them, like I'm not going to take them home so I can re-gift them, let's just not take them home at all, right? Let's just stop them right there at the point of entry so we're not carting them in our suitcases and we're not trying to then figure out what are we going to do with them when we get home? Because yes, they're still good and they're cute and they're nicely packaged and they smell nice and all those things. But if we're not going to use them and it's going to be a year or two or 20 that we still have stuff, then it's time for us to make those conscious decisions, right? Chris made another comment, not to mention the toothbrushes and toothpaste you get from the dentist. Ah, I'm so guilty of that. And I hate to say that because I've used an electric toothbrush for probably at least a decade, maybe more. And yet still every time I go to the dentist, they give me a free toothbrush and toothpaste and the dental floss. And then I end up taking them home and they sit on the bathroom cupboard for a while until they get scooped up and they get put in a bucket like this that goes underneath the bathroom sink, right? And like Sally said, are you going to use it? In the back of my mind, originally I thought, no, I'm not going to use it, but we have lots of company that comes and stays with us. If they ever forget their toothbrush, I will have a spare. And so I justified it in the beginning. I remember consciously justifying that, thinking that one time my dad came to visit and he forgot his toothbrush. So it was so helpful because I had a spare. Okay, well now I've got like 12 spares and like my dad never forgot his toothbrush again and like he's the only person that ever forgot his toothbrush when he came to visit. So now I've got like, I don't know, a dozen toothbrushes that I don't need, right? So I'm going to take Chris's suggestion and I'm going to give them away. And what I might do is I might just give them back to the dentist because they're all still in the original packaging and everything. And the dentist I know gives them away still because they still give them to me, but I'm probably always ever only going to use my electric toothbrush. And so I'm never going to use them and I don't need them all, right? Sally, is that gross? If I give back dental floss, unused, brand new, unopened dental floss, toothpaste and toothbrushes back to my dentist. No, I think instead of give back to the dentist we'll be good to donate to the homeless, homeless shelter. I believe you'll collect those for those homeless. Yeah. Okay, so don't take any more from the dentist. Yeah, don't take any more than I have to use it. Yeah. Okay, fair enough. My other alternative is to save up and to collect one every time and then give them away for trick or treaters because they hate stuff like that. Okay. I'm joking. But I do save it though. I feel it very useful. I travel a lot. My family travel a lot. So we don't, I mean, some of us have an electric toothbrush and we don't bring those. So we bring the tiny toothpaste. We use it in the hotel and the toothbrush. We finish using it, we throw it away and then we come back without. So it's easy to bring to travel to use it and throw. And then another thing I have is I make all my kids put the extra toothbrush in the car because sometimes they go hang out with a friend or sleep over one or they forgot the toothbrush or last minute they need it. So they have a spare in their car they can use. That's another thing that we keep the spare toothbrush in the car. Oh, that's a great idea. Oh, I love that. Yeah, that's, you can't go wrong doing that. Well, Sally, thank you for joining us today. It's super fun to have you here with us. And I always appreciate your advice and your bright smiling face. So thank you for joining us here. And I see that we have Heather back. Heather, how are you? You're on mute. Sorry. I fixed it. Did you ever have any extra toothbrushes or anything like that that you either decided to give away or you just were hanging on to them for some reason you didn't know? At this very moment, yes, I still have them. First off, please, please, please don't give them to kids for Halloween. They will come back for you. You know, it's funny because we've, for years, I've given away the non-scratch scrub sponges. They come in little individually wrapped things. And so the kids come up and of course, I don't have any candy. So they come up and I'm like, here, have a sponge. And the kids are always like, that's not candy. And they get all like offended by my gift. And one year there was a girl and her mom that showed up at my door and I thought they were selling magazines or something and I opened the door. And the mom is like, my daughter got a sponge from you for Halloween and it's used up. And can she have another one? And I was like, yes, I have springs. I thought that was so cool. And then her mom made her come back, right? And then I was like, that is so cute. And so, yeah. My kids would have marked your address off their list. Probably thrown eggs at my house and stuff like that. Yeah. It's kind of fun. I get that from my mom. We had apple orchards when I was young. And so my mother would always give the trick-or-treaters apples and she's like, I want them to be healthy. I don't want them to have candy. And I'm like, this one day in here. One day in here. They don't care about your apples. And she don't have to give them a nice crisp apple. Like that was a value, you know? Well, now you're giving sponges and toothbrushes. Sponges and toothbrushes. We've advanced, yeah. Yeah, this is awesome. Yes, I'm really, really bad about keeping like, I think, okay, I have a box of all my extra bathroom stuff. And when someone comes and stays, they're going to have their own travel, everything. Cause I have it all, but no one comes to visit me. And when they do, they bring their own stuff. So it's just sitting there in a box, yeah. Yeah. Oh, thank you so much for sharing that with us. I thought it was just me. And the truth is people have not come to visit as much since COVID. And I guess now that the world is opening up again, I want to go see the world. They don't want to come see me. They're not coming to see me as much. And I do have the stuff that, you know, if they came, I've got soap, I've got toothpaste, I've got spares, and I have old stuff that they can't even use. You know what I mean? I've got it all. Right. And you have a store right down the road. So they will be fine. But in my mind, I need to use the key. Yeah, no, that's the key. Because if they needed something, like if they ran out of deodorant or something, there is a store that's a stone's throw from the house that could go pick it up at that time. That's a really good point. So all right, well, thank you so much for joining us again, Heather, this was awesome. Good to see you as always. Good to see you. All right, let's go back through here. I found some athletes foot spray. And I look at the bottom of this and this is 2009. Ah, what is it doing? And you want to know what? It's empty. So again, this is one of those things. I don't know, I don't know why it's there. I don't know where it came from. It was probably during some, maybe in a gym bag or something like that. And then it later got moved underneath the bathroom sink. And now it has either was empty when it got put under there or it evaporated. And so I'm really embarrassed to say that I found some things that I'm sitting here and going, oh, isn't that interesting? But it's great that we're having this conversation for this reason. When you go through a storage unit, for example, you're gonna find old stuff like this that at one point there was value to it, right? Or it's not empty yet, so I think I'll save it because maybe one day I'll need it. And we don't really know when and that one day is gonna be. And so we hang onto it, but we forget that it's there or we never took inventory of it. So we either went and bought new stuff so that we would have it when we needed it or we just forgot that we have it. I mean, like I can't tell you if this was mine or if it was my husband's or if it was a teenager that lived with us or I mean, I don't know who it is and I don't remember ever having bought it. I'm sure I did, but it's empty and the date on it was 2009, even if there was some left in it, I wouldn't use it because again, it's the stability thing, right? I don't know how old it is. And so if you come into something that is underneath your bathroom sink and you're unsure of it, I'm gonna give you permission to get rid of it. Get rid of it because you don't know and then don't replace it unless you have an inventory program. Now, I do wanna share an inventory program with you. If you guys are on Google, there is something called Google Keep and it is, if you go to the little box up in the corner, there are like nine little dots. If you click on that, there's a little yellow box and the yellow box has a little light bulb on it. And this is, it's free for everyone that uses Google Chrome, but it's a little checklist and you can make a little checklist of all of the things that you have in your bathroom. And so what happens is if you're ever, and it follows you around on Chrome, like it's on your smartphone at all times. And so you can share, at the bottom of that, you can share with someone else. I wonder if I can actually share my screen and I'm gonna try something I've not done. I don't know, I don't know. Let me see here if I can share this. This is really helpful information if I can do this. So Google Keep, can you guys see my screen? I'm trying something I have not done here before, but you guys disappeared. Hang on one second, let me see if I can get back. Can you guys, can you guys see my screen if I share my screen in your notes? No, you cannot see. Okay, well, that was a dumb try for me. I just tried something, I just took a risk and I just fell flat on my face. That was me falling flat on my face. Okay, so let me explain it to you. Nine little dots on Google Chrome. If you click on it, you're gonna find a yellow box and the yellow box has a little light bulb on it. That light bulb is Google Keep. And in that box, you can make a checklist and at the bottom there's a little person with a little plus sign. If you click the person with a plus sign, you can add every member of your family that's on Google Chrome. You can add them to your list. And so if someone else in your family is at the store, they can look at that list, you can share the list with everyone in your family. So if you've ever been at the store, for example, and one of your spouse or your child or somebody says, oh, hey, I'm at the store, do you need such and such? That ever happened to you? What you can do is you can just look at the list and you can say, yes, we are out of and you can list whatever it is. We're out of toothbrushes, we're out of athlete's foot spray, we're out of cold medicine or whatever it is. The person can buy that when they buy that, they check it off the list. So that forever, from now on through forever, you have a running checklist. It's a running inventory of everything that you have inside your bathroom. And if you have not done this, I recommend that you create a Google Keep file because as soon as you check it off, then it goes to the bottom of the list. Now at any time, let's say that a month from now, you run out of deodorant, for example. What you can do is you just uncheck the thing at the bottom and it goes back to the top of the list, unchecked as if, hey, we need it again. So if any member of the family is at the store or you're out and about and you're like, hey, I wonder if we're out of such and such. Instead of buying two and three copies of something, you're like, oh, let me look at my list because we all have our smartphones with us, right? You look at your smartphone and you're like, yes, it's true, I have this with me. And then you don't need to buy anymore because you already have it, right? You have it with you, it's at your house, you don't need anymore. That's gonna prevent us from doing this kind of thing where we buy lots and lots of the same products, not knowing, oh, I can't really quite remember because I know I'm getting close, I don't wanna run out. There's nothing worse than running out of something mid-shower or mid-morning, getting ready for the day, right? We all want a couple of spares. But the good news is if you have a running list, then there's an inventory and anyone in your house can either add to the list or they can add something to the list or they can uncheck something saying, hey, we need it again. And so that's a really great way to keep inventory. So I just wanna share that with you. Let me look at our notes here. Hello, Taxabella, Jennifer, hello. Anne, hello, how are you? Thanks for the tip, gotta go to work now. Watch the rest later. Yes, yes, please come back and watch it. One of the things I found underneath my bathroom sink was a toilet valve. And this is really weird, you go, why is that under your bathroom sink? Well, under the bathroom sink because if the toilet breaks, I have a repair kit. Lots of people will use cleaning supplies that are strong chemicals and they put them inside their toilet tank either to keep the toilet tank or the toilet bowl clean. A lot of times what happens is it erodes the rubber flap that flushes the toilet and creates that seal. And so every year and a half or two years, it is important that you replace that. And lots of people don't have a replacement. And so then the toilet just leaks and leaks and leaks and just keeps running and it wastes water because that seal is not properly closed. And so if that ever happened to you, there's a really inexpensive, easy fix. And I keep at least one of these in the house. It just is under the bathroom cupboard I was cleaning out today. And I am gonna keep this because this is really actually a really good idea. And we have in the house cleaner package for all the professional house cleaners, there's a program that's an upsell package where they replace these for homeowners. And so they have some on hand as well. But one of the things that you might consider is that every year and a half or so that little rubber flap might come unsealed. And it's just rubber. And so like being in the water the whole time it's not as effective as it once was. So instead of calling a plumber and having big expensive plumbing repairs, it's really a little tiny, tiny rubber flap that costs about two and a half, $3. Or this one costs I think $11 or $12 or something, not expensive at all. But this is the whole gear that you replace. And then you just re-hook the little hook and you're good to go again. So there are some easy fixes. I know that in lots of people's bathrooms, I'm guilty of this for a while. We had light bulbs under there. It was kind of like a little storage unit where we stored things. So there are opportunities if you are doing home repairs and stuff like that, like repairing your own toilet tank where you might consider keeping something like that under your sink. So what should you keep under there? What should you let go? And that's a really great question. The suggestion is keep the things that you're using and let go of the things that you're not. One of the things that I do recommend that we keep under the bathroom sink, and this is for every bathroom, is keep the cleaning supplies you're gonna need for daily upkeep on your bathroom. So if, for example, you're brushing your teeth there, what do we know about brushing the teeth? We're on top of the sink, right? Toothpaste, soap, makeup, stuff like that. We know that when we're done, we need to wipe it off. Where is the thing we wipe it off with? So you might consider having a little stack of microfiber cloths underneath your sink. You might even consider on the side of your sink or on the side of the cabinet having a little hook where you can hang a cleaning cloth in your bathroom. And then when you're done washing your face or brushing your teeth or whatever, you've got a cloth there that you can wipe it off. And then like in the hotel where they wash the linens every so often, it might be every other day that you wash that cloth. But that way you're not going through a whole bunch of paper towels, but you have what you need right there at the bathroom to keep the bathroom clean. Underneath the sink, I also recommend some kind of an all-purpose cleaner because if your bathroom is like mine and every other bathroom, you probably need to spray everything down from time to time. And so an all-purpose cleaner that's kind of pH neutral, something in the seven to nine range is gonna give you good cleaning power. It's gonna sanitize your bathroom. It's gonna, you know, all the handles, the door handles of the door knobs, the toilet flushing handle, the faucets on the sink. Those are all high-touch areas. And so we wanna make sure that we spray those and we clean those. I like to do that once a day. And so if we're doing the toilet rotation where we scrub out the toilet every morning, that's another quick tip, but that's not under your bathroom sink unless you keep your toilet brush under your bathroom sink. But most people will have some kind of a cleaning spray. So I do recommend some kind of a wipe, whether it's paper towels or it's a microfiber cloth, and then some kind of an all-purpose spray. Those I do recommend. Two more items that I recommend keeping under your bathroom sink is a non-scratch scrub sponge. And that's one of those that's not gonna scratch the appliances or if you've got a fiberglass or an acrylic tub, it's not gonna scratch those. And then also some sort of a powdered cleanser. The powdered cleanser we use inside the toilet because if you're scrubbing out the toilet every day, you do not need heavy-duty chemicals. And I don't wanna use heavy-duty chemicals if we don't need them, okay? So I don't wanna store them and I don't want them at, I don't want them underneath the bathroom sink because I don't want them in the reach of children, right? Every one of the strong cleaning chemicals will say keep out of the reach of children. And so we wanna put that stuff in the linen closet or away so kids can't get to it. If you have something under the sink, it should be something that is pH neutral so that it's not gonna cause any harm if it leaks or if it spills or if somebody gets into it, right? So that is what I would recommend. A powdered cleanser that can be used in the sink and the tub and the toilets. So it's multipurpose for all of those three appliances. The non-scratch scrub sponge is awesome if you're going to like remove makeup from the inside of the sink. And so one of the things that I recommend on the sink, not under the sink, but on the sink is like a little pump spray of dish soap. Now dish soap is awesome in your kitchen for dishes, for stubborn stains. It's also great for removing makeup from the inside of your sink. So if you've ever had makeup, I know this has never happened to you guys, right? Makeup gets on the inside of your sink and then it just kind of smears and then you like you try to wipe it up with a tissue or something and it's not quite clean. Just put a little dab of dish soap on your non-scratch scrub sponge. Use a little bit of clean water and just wash out your sink, right? Take the towel that you have that's right there on the side of your sink, wipe it out and you're good to go. There are little tiny habits that we can start adding to our decluttering process that are gonna just upgrade our lives. So as we go to our under the cupboard, under the counter, let's look at the things we have. It's okay if you keep them. You can keep every single one of them if you want, okay? Nobody's judging you. It's okay if you do. But if you decide, you know what? Whoa, whoa, I found something that's 20 years old. It's okay to get rid of that, right? And I'm making a conscious decision to get rid of some stuff. I didn't know I had it and yet I do, right? How did this get in my house? I have no idea, but yet here it is. So I'm gonna get rid of it and then I'm not gonna buy anymore because I'm going to keep a Google keep file of the things that I have. I'm just gonna do a quick inventory as I go. I'm gonna say, oh, look, three baby oils in my bathroom sink. Well, now I know for a fact I can use those up. They're all, the data on those is all still good. I'm going to use the three of those before I buy any more. I do not need to buy anymore until I've used what I have, right? All right, I want to jump over to the comments. We got lots of comments coming in. Thank you guys, this is so awesome. This one says, hello, Ms. Brown, just checking in to say, hi, I love all your cleaning instructions. Your new tape is life changing. Oh, thank you so much, Carol. And I just brought this up, not having read this in advance. The new tape, for those of you that haven't read it, I actually have links to that in the YouTube version of today's show. And the reason that I have that is there are many people that we play tapes in the back of our mind, you know, like, I don't know, things that people said to us or maybe it's negative thoughts that we heard when we were children or whatever. The new tape is actually reprogramming. It says, you know, I'm good enough. I'm the best. Yes, I feel great. I feel fantastic. I live in a clean home. My bills are paid and they're just positive affirmations that help you reframe what you're looking for so that when that stuff starts showing up in your life, you're like, aha, I was expecting you, right? So that's what that new tape is all about. So check it out. If you haven't listened to it already, it's absolutely free and you can listen to that as you go to sleep at night. And so I listened to it on my smartphone, turn the phone upside down so that the light is not bright and I just turn it on low and I listened to it in the background and I fall asleep. So there you go. Peggy, she says, that's a current issue of mine. It doesn't flush correctly and the metal chain gets caught. Yes, so this goes back to the toilet flap. A lot of people don't know what it is. So they call the plumber and the plumber will come out and he's like, it's gonna be a couple of hundred dollars and he'll charge you for a couple of hundred dollars. I'm not kidding. To fix your toilet that's running and leaking and it's really just a flap replacement. So at the most, I'm not kidding, please do not get gouged. At the most it's a 11 or 12 bucks for the replacement and you can buy them at Home Depot and Lowe's and Walmart and all those places as well as online. And I'm not selling them. It's not sponsored or anything. It's just something I found underneath my bathroom sink. And I would say that's a really great item to have on hand as well as a couple of spare light bulbs because if you're trying to put your makeup on in the morning and the light bulbs burn out if you don't have a utility closet that's dedicated for utility purposes, it's gonna be difficult to find a light bulb when you need it and then you don't want your makeup to go on uneven, right? So there are a couple of things that are useful. I see Rita is back. Let's bring you back. Rita, how are you doing today? I'm doing great. I actually know that. Thank you. I noticed that in the comments, a couple of people were asking about how to safely dispose of some of the things you pulled out like the aerosol can. And I do have a tip for that. So things like nail polish and the aerosol cans can be considered household hazardous waste. I don't know if you've heard that term before, but most cities and counties do have a facility where you can go and drop that stuff off. I know if you just do like a quick Google search online for a household hazardous waste facility, there are like websites where you can search for the closest one to you. You can search what you're trying to get rid of and I will show you how to recycle those items. I live in the US, so I'm speaking from a US perspective, but I'm sure other countries have a similar system. Thank you so much for bringing that up. It is really important that as we do get rid of stuff, that we do get rid of it responsibly. And that's, I can't speak to that enough. I mean, I think it's just on everyone's mind from a recycling standpoint. And if you read the safety data sheets of most of the things, like I would have to pull up the safety data sheet for this. And I know by a fact with aerosol cans, this has to go like to the recycling center, not the recycling center, but the waste treatment plant. And they have a whole entire section, like when you drive in, they have a whole entire section where they take things that don't go inside a landfill, for example. And they will take all of your paints and your paint thinners and aerosol cans and stuff like that, so that they're not left to explode somewhere, by kids poking holes in them or throwing them inside fires or things like that. So I think responsibility is key. I'm glad that you brought that up. And one of the things that we learned from, it might be you, Rita, from a couple of weeks ago, was that we need to empty out the nail polishes. And so everybody in our Facebook group was emptying out their nail polishes and they were making these awesome looking murals and stuff to get rid of the nail polishes so that it would dry out and it would not go wet into the landfill or that it wouldn't be toxic. And that was less toxic after it dried or something to let that happen. Anyway, we saw some really cool designs that looked like paintings. So that was awesome. Thank you for your very helpful tips. Alrighty, are there any other questions that we wanna cover from underneath the sink or do you wanna see one or two more items? We have just a minute left and I'm still embarrassed about the things that are in this box that we haven't looked at yet. There are some cool things, but I found a face mask. I think the airline gave this to me one time and I saved it because I don't know I was gonna use it or something when I got home. Well, I have blackout curtains so I don't really need it. And then I saw that the elastic on it is busted now. So do I save this in hopes that one day I'm gonna sew new little elastics on it? And the answer is no, I didn't use it then. I'm certainly not gonna spend any time trying to make it work now. And so this is one of those things that while it did have a purpose while I was on the airplane, I never used it again. And yet here it is in this bucket, right? So I'm gonna give myself permission to not fix this and I'm not gonna keep it. This is gonna go over here with the other little trinkets that I'm letting go of. I found something cool and this brings back memories of when I had my braces. I found this little container and I hear something in it and I say, well, isn't that interesting? I wonder what's inside. And when I opened it up, here's what I found. I found some makeup wipes and some hair pins and then I started laughing going, oh, isn't that cool? I took this on a trip with me and because I wear my hair pinned up, I wore the hair pins and then I had the makeup removers and it kept them from getting wet. And then I thought, well, that is just a great idea. I'm gonna hang on to that. And I think that was my original idea because I no longer have the retainers or whatever that went in here. I have a different one for the retainers I wear every night. This was like a spare. So then I was like, hey, that's a pretty good idea. So I decided to save this one for travel. So if there is something that you're gonna use and it makes sense, then let's go ahead and keep it, right? Like I said, if it has utility, if you're gonna use it, if you're currently using it, and this will just go inside my travel bag that is all ready to go in the event that I do go. And these are not stability sensitive. If I don't use them for two weeks or a month, they're not gonna go bad or anything like that. So that's fine. One of the things that I found, and this was interesting was I found a shower head and I thought, well, that's odd. Why do I have a shower head underneath my bathroom sink? And then what was interesting was I have two shower heads and I said, well, I know exactly what happened. I replaced them with a shower head on a hose. And so why am I saving these? This never happened to you guys, did it? I see Sally, Sally's back. Sally, I'm gonna bring you back on. Ta-da! Hey again. So this is what I found. I found these underneath my sink and then I had this question to myself. When I sell the house, was I gonna put these back on the faucets and then take the shower head on a hose with me because they were kind of expensive? Am I gonna take that hardware with me to my new house? Or am I gonna leave them for the next homeowner? And then what I realized was this, because I love cleaning, right? Those showers are hard to clean without a shower head on a hose. And so the person that moves in after me is not gonna be able to clean them either unless they have a shower head on a hose and there's already one there now, right? So I decided, well, out of the goodness of my future heart, I'm gonna leave the shower head on a hose for the next guy that comes, right? But then the question is, why do I still have these? What's happening? Why do I still have these, this hardware, which are like the original shower heads from my shower if I'm not ever going to use them? What am I doing with these? Sally, what do you think? What's happening? I'm so confused that when they move into my house, I mean, like 20 years ago, yes, we change all the shower head to the handheld and the same thing, I keep that under the sink. I don't know why really now I gonna ask the question to myself. I really don't know why because I know that when I move, I will never change it out again. That is definitely a no. But why would I keep it under the sink and taking a space? I don't know why. Well, and I think originally, maybe I was in a different space when I bought my house. Maybe I was thinking, because I do remember that the shower head by itself, I'm like, well, that's not gonna cover very much territory. And it's not gonna cover a great big shower, right? I'm gonna need a shower head on a hose. And then when I went to buy it because it was like bronze and it was like right about the time when like the bronze stuff was becoming really popular. And it was really expensive. They were like, I don't know, $300 or something. And I remember thinking, oh, that's expensive. I should take that with me when I go. I know why I saved them. And now, as I'm thinking about it now, I mean, they're not new now. And so it would be weird if I put these back on and it's like, ha, I'm taking the old one with me and you guys bend for yourself, you know what I mean? Like it's already there. It's already on the showers. I might as well leave it, right? Yeah, it's really weird. Why would keep stuff like we thought one day we would? I mean, like, why really? You make me question myself. I never think of that. I guess it is under my sink. All of my sink had one. Yeah, I wonder why too. It's so weird. Why would keep stuff like that? That's why, no reason. Well, I'm finding in the notes here that it's not just us. There are a couple other people that also saved the shower. But I think this is a great conversation because I think this gives us permission to start looking at the stuff that's underneath our bathroom sink in a different way. And like I said, you don't have to get rid of anything unless you want to, but you might realize that you are at a different place in your life than you were way back then. I'm now at a place in my life where I probably wouldn't take the shower head on a hose because it's more important to me. I know it was a money issue in the beginning, but it's more important to me now that they have a way to easily clean their shower than it is for me to have that shower head on a hose and then not have one. You see what I'm saying? That's where I am right now in my life. So maybe my rules or my reasons changed. Does that make sense? Yeah. And so I think as we move forward, one of the challenges I would like to give us this week, if you haven't already and you're thinking about looking underneath your counter, your bathroom sink, take a look at the stuff that you have and just ask yourself, why is this here? Is this something that I'm using? Is this still a good reflection of who I am today? And if I'm gonna keep it and I'm gonna use it, kind of like the baby oils, if you're not gonna use them, lose them. But if I'm gonna use them, let me make a list in an inventory of that so that I don't find myself buying more of it when I haven't used the stuff that I already have. Right? Yeah. That's very true. Alrighty. Well, that's about it for today. Do we have any other questions or anything that anybody would like to ask before I leave? Sally, thanks so much for joining us. I'm gonna remove you here. Is there anyone else that wanted to join us? Chris, as I think I know what I'm gonna do after this program, I'm going under the bathroom sink. Yes! For those of you that haven't joined us and you want to keep track of what you're doing and you wanna show us before and after pictures or you want an accountability partner, we do have a group called Horting World. You don't have to be a hoarder to participate, but we're having daily conversations on how to change your relationship with stuff. If you have not joined us, I will leave links below so that you can come over to the Horting World group and you can show us your before and after pictures. You can show us pictures of what's underneath your bathroom sink. If you've gone through some of the previous little sessions that we've done together, you can share with us the stuff that you're getting rid of or how you got rid of it. Or if you stumbled on a new way to get rid of something or a new way to donate something or a new place to donate something, we would love your ideas and your tips. All of your ideas are valuable to us and we're going through this together. Like I said, there was no right or wrong way to do it, but I think we're all becoming more conscious as a group, as a collective about the waste and about having too much of something and about having things that we don't need in our lives and about getting rid of them so that our family members don't have to and then just being more intentional about the things that we have. So I appreciate your time today. That's it for today. We are gonna switch the time of this from two o'clock back to noon because we have lots of people that can't join us. They can join us a couple of hours earlier than they've got to bolt out and go to work. So starting next Thursday, we're gonna move our two o'clock session to 12 and we'll leave announcements everywhere our clutter corner continues. So if you have ideas or suggestions or things that you wanna have a conversation about, we'd love for you to join us on camera and we're gonna be back next Thursday at 12 o'clock. So that's it for today. And until we meet again, you know the routine, leave the world a cleaner place than when you found it.