Readers' FavoritesDecluttering Your Life Starting with These 22 Things FirstJanuary 14, 2019*There are affiliate links in this post. If you purchase a product by clicking these links it may generate income for me (woohoo!). Using these links come at NO EXTRA COST to you. Thank you for supporting TGAH!* Decluttering Your Life Starting with These 22 Things First Isn’t it terrible that decluttering your life almost seems like the latest fad that people are starting? Honestly, I’m not too into fads, but I think it’s a great one, if that’s what it is! When I met my husband I was Ms.Materialistic, Y’all. I had all the shirts, shoes, purses, scarves, makeup galore, jewelry I never wore, etc. But even outside of that, I had other things! So many pens, pencils, papers I didn’t need anymore, or just general objects that had no meaning whatsoever in my life. Here are a few great things to get rid of to start decluttering your life right now. 1. Your Computer Hi, my name is Chelsea and I’m a blogger. I love homesteading, homemaking, organizing, farming, gardening (most the time), and I love blogging. What does this have to do with your computer and starting to declutter your life? You wouldn’t believe the amount of pictures, downloads, random files I don’t need, etc. that I had on my computer until the other night! I probably deleted 1,000 various types of files from my computer. Doing this didn’t only feel SO good but my laptop is so much quicker now. Decluttering CAN be mindless and that’s okay! Take advantage of Netflix at this time while ridding yourself of things you don’t need anymore. 2. Emails Full disclaimer, I stole this one straight from Stephanie at Happily Homegrown. I’m part of a wonderful Facebook group she runs and she shared with us the other day that she took the time to declutter her email inboxes. She unsubscribed to emails, deleted emails, organized her inboxes, etc. I did the same thing last night and it felt SO good (almost 1,000 emails in my inbox UNREAD). I started by deleting everything I didn’t need and I plan to slowly unsubscribe to the pages I’m not interested in as the email arrive again. 3. Subscriptions This one might be hard for a lot of us *raises hand*. We have so many subscriptions to things! Hulu, Netflix, Audible, you name it. We use most of them occasionally…okay probably WAY too much. I’m surprised we don’t need a new Roku remote by now. Canceling subscriptions are not only a step to starting to declutter your busy life but it also saves money. CHA-CHING. The only one I’ve unsubscribed to so far is Audible, but I’m working on the rest. None of us are perfect and maybe I like to indulge in Grey’s Anatomy every now and then…no pointing fingers, here, though. This is a #judgementfreezone. 4. Bookmarked Links I am Queen of the Bookmarked Links. There are bookmarked links in the regular Bookmark section, the “Other Bookmarks” section, the “Bookmarks Bar”, and I also have folders for Blog, Blogging Courses, Homestead Stuff, Simple Homestead Blog Hop, Recipes, Keto Recipes, and Credit Cards. Organized, yes. But there are probably 50 links under most of those categories and that’s a little excessive no matter what way you put it. Every 3-6 months I sort through the links and delete the ones I either have no idea where they came from, haven’t looked at since I saved them, or are now totally irrelevant to my life. It’s always daunting but feels great after I’m done. 5. Stationary Post-It notes, pens, pencils, tops to pens, extra erasers, etc. First, before I start preaching, I have to tell you something. My name is Chelsea and I’m a pen hoarder.There, I said it. I love pens and when I find one that I like, I often buy a pack so I never run out! STOP IT THOUGH. I’m not joking, I had 20-30 pens in the car. There are another 30-40 in the house. In each purse of mine, I have probably 2-5 pens. This is just excessive and I’ll be the first to admit that I might have an issue. But I can also tell you this: Getting rid of something as small as a pen can make you feel so accomplished when you’re decluttering your life. Take it from me, Chelsea, the pen hoarder. 6. Crafts I’m two years into sewing and GIVE ME ALL THE FABRIC. I have a rule now that if I don’t have at least one project in mind for that fabric, I don’t buy it. I also go through my fabric drawers every couple months and get rid of little bits that I can’t use or fabric that, in reality, was never something I’d use in the first place. Donate it or use the fabric as rags, but just get it out of there. 7. Games We have 3 backgammon boards in our house and there’s another one at my mother-in-law’s house. Again, excessive. Decluttering your life is about simplifying and minimizing certain things. Having more than 2 backgammon boards max isn’t really needed unless you’re hosting tournaments. The worst thing about it is that they don’t even all have the pieces they need! So, yes, those will be going to donation. 8. CDs and DVDs I’m regretting making the choice to write this post because self-reflection is real, folks, and there’s a lot of it going on for me right about now. I have SO many CDs. There’s this huge box in the car of local music I’ve acquired over the years from when Emerson and I traveled playing music together. I’m not sure I’ve even unwrapped/opened half the CDs. There’s just this big box that takes up a portion of the floor in the back seat of our car and they’re always there. I’ll be adding it to my list of things to purge.DVDs are easy to get rid of for us because everything is streamed now. We kept a couple of our favorites like Lonesome Dove, Robin Williams: LIVE on Broadway and Rocky Horror Picture Show (#judgementfreezone, remember?). The other ones that were dusty were donated because we never watched them or thought about them. 9. Electronics When I mention electronics I mostly mean things like broken phones, earbuds with the earbud part missing, random chords, etc. I always find random phone cases that I really don’t know where they came from. If you have objects like that in good condition, throw them in the donation box, not the trash. Never throw electronics away because they can leach chemicals into the landfills and that’s a big no-no when we’re trying to love the environment a little more. Always donate what you can and properly dispose of what you can’t. Yes, it’s so much easier to just throw it in the trash, I know. You just have to keep in mind that, while you’re trying to declutter your life, you’re also paving the road to a more mindful lifestyle. 10. Books Red flag! I have so many books. I went through them all last year and narrowed my collection down to one 5 shelf bookcase (and a shelf for my cookbooks and songbooks) and that’s pretty good for me. The important thing is that my husband or I use every one of them. I do acknowledge that it’s just us two right now and when you have more family members, young and grown children, etc. your collection will grow and become harder to minimize. I suggest seeing if you can have a family purge day and have everyone get rid of 3 things at least. This would be a great starting place! Then, go out for ice cream or something because it can be a bit stressful getting other people to just on the “Purge Wagon” to start decluttering your life. Have patience! 11. Toiletries The bathroom is a room in the house where most of us do just a few things in and that’s it. Because we don’t spend a majority of our time in there, things get pushed to the back of cabinets and drawers and forgotten about. When I went through my bathroom I donated an unreal amount of travel bottles, travel tubes of toothpaste, hair products I hadn’t used in months, hair blow dryers (I had 3….don’t ask), and so much more. You’ll find that, besides toilet paper and towels, you don’t really need multiple of everything in the bathroom. I would almost say that starting in the bathroom would be the easiest place to start when you’re wanting to declutter your life. 12. Makeup and Medications Ladies, I think you’d be surprised by the amount of makeup we have but don’t need or use. Not to mention, you’re not really supposed to use the same makeup for as long as I was using some of my makeup…EW. I have two tubes of mascara now and 2-3 eye shadow pallets I use every weekend when my hubby and I play music at restaurants, bars, etc. as our side-hustle. I don’t have bags and bags of makeup anymore that I have to search through to find my favorite tube of mascara that I use every time, even though I have 9 tubes. Unfortunately, makeup ends up in the trash. Eventually, I’d like to try and make my own makeup but I’ll first use the stuff I still have. Let me know if you have good recipes I can try for DIY Makeup!Medications are short and sweet, really. Consolidate and discard. If you have two half bottles of ibuprofen, combine them if they’re the same type. BE SURE to properly discard of prescriptions medications. I would suggest calling your local pharmacy and/or sheriff’s office to ask what the rules are in your county. In most counties, the sheriff’s office will have drop-off days for prescription medications. 13. Kitchenware Unless you have a team of people peeling carrots and potatoes for canning (and you very well might, so just skip this one if you do!), you probably don’t need that many potato peelers. While decluttering my kitchen, there were so many kitchen gadgets, spoons, forks, cups, etc. I never used or even knew were there. 6 wooden spoons were excessive for someone who never used them and while I was at it I gave away those 6 mugs shoved in the cabinet. I might hate clutter in the kitchen the most because I want all the space I can have to create. Probably once a week now I go through one cabinet in the kitchen and try to get rid of things. I LOVE it. 14. Tupperware Tupperware are like socks, over time you just lose the other matching piece. Just this week I seemed to have misplaced two tops to two of the bottoms of Tupperware and, man, that’s aggravating! If this happens to you, you can sometimes repurpose them! Use them as feed scoops for your animals or, if the Tupperware is small enough, use them in drawers to organize and section certain items. If you can’t repurpose them then recycle them, if you can’t recycle them then you can donate them. I just hate to throw things away! If the Tupperware isn’t useable anymore, then I suppose you should trash it. Decluttering your life feels good but you do unfortunately have to sometimes add to the landfill on your way. 15. Pantry This might be one of the hardest areas when it comes to decluttering your life. It’s not hard because you’re attached to the items but because most of us really hate wasting food. I’m far too guilty of it myself and I just hate to admit it. One of my goals for 2019 is to waste less pantry food. Food items that are stored in the fridge are 98% eaten but the pantry just gets pushed further and further back. I have a white board in the kitchen and I’m going to start an “Eat This” list or maybe an “In Stock” list so people know what is there and what needs to be eaten. 16. Magazines Magazines…laughable really. I had SO MANY MAGAZINES, and I kid you not, I’ve never looked at a single magazine I gave away, and that’s why I gave them away. There’s a pile a Country Living magazines in my living room I’ve looked through a couple of times. If I’m being honest (and I always am so here we go), I’m keeping them because they look nice *face palm*. Really, they’re colorful and make a great centerpiece for a little table we have in the living room. They’re the next to go, though, because it really is clutter that I don’t need in my life. 17. Greeting and Holiday Cards Through middle school and high school, I kept every single card. Every. Single. Card. When Emerson and I moved to our homestead, I went through all those cards and got rid of a lot of them. Then we got married and the cards came flooding in! This time, there was so much sentimental value behind every card, it was hard to give them away. My older sister gave me the idea to cut the cards in half and use them as recipe cards and that’s what I did! Genius idea, right? I get to keep the cards by repurposing them to write all my favorite recipes on. Win-win. The ones that were blank or had no name on them I threw away or recycled. Such an easy step to decluttering your life! 18. Clothes and Closet I’d argue to say that our closets might be most of our biggest pain points when it comes to decluttering our lives. For some reason, clothes hold sentimental value. If you’re reading this, you might’ve heard about the new Netflix Series called “Tidy Up with Marie Kondo“. She has a rule with clothes where if it sparks joy, you keep it, and if it doesn’t, you donate it. Here we go with the honesty again, but I thought this was super silly when I first heard it. Then I went to my closet and realized it’s true. Some of my clothes spark joy and others don’t. I also turn all my hangers around the wrong way and correct them as I wear that article of clothing. Every backward hanger at the end of 6-12 months is repurposed or donated. I donated 30 shirts last year! 19. Sheets, Pillow Cases, etc. We have a trunk in our room that houses all of our sheets, pillowcases, etc. Brook McAlary presents the idea in her book “Slow: Simple Living for a Frantic World” to designate a space to an item (or items) and once that space starts to overflow you get rid of some of the extra. Let’s just say I really need to go through my trunk of sheets, pillowcases, etc. and leave it at that. You probably only need 2-3 sets of sheets for each bed in your house. I understand there are circumstances where you would need more than that, but I think it’s a good starting spot for decluttering your life. 20. Manuals Do you keep every manual you’ve ever received with every piece of equipment you’ve ever bought in your whole life? Yeah, me too! I don’t even read manuals, Y’all. It’s true. I’m that annoying person who hates reading the manuals and directions and would rather figure it out on my own. Sometimes it works, other nights I end up cursing myself for being such a stubborn dang woman. The funniest part? I still save the manuals! As if I’m going to want to take it apart and do it again. If I ever sell that poorly made bookshelf in the living room, there’s no way I’ve taking it apart first. Get rid of the manuals, especially if you’ve never looked at them. Some manuals you should keep for larger pieces of equipment or if it carries a warranty, but outside of that, do your decluttering mission a solid and lighten your load. 21. Chores and Tasks This is the longest blog post I’ve ever written and I promise it’s almost over! There’s just so much to say and decluttering your life is one of my favorite topics. “Declutter” your chores and tasks. This doesn’t mean you stop doing the laundry, but maybe you choose a day or two to do the bulk of your laundry. On Sundays, I clean and blog and that’s about it. I’ve made a schedule for myself and keep a white board near my workspace where I have a “Priority” list and a “Not-So-Priority” list. Organizing your life is as important as decluttering your life and they go hand-in-hand. I’ll be writing more about organizing your life and scheduling soon, but until then, decide what HAS to be done and how much of it then move on. 22. Say No Finally, learn to say no. Decluttering doesn’t always mean that you’re getting rid of physical items. Decluttering your life is about slowing down, living intentionally, and reducing stress. If you feel like you’re constantly forgetting about your engagements or stretching yourself thin with the number of favors you do for everyone around you, learn to say no. Learn to set aside time for yourself. Loving yourself is part of this journey, too, and I had to learn that along the way. It doesn’t matter how you do it really, but you have to set aside a few minutes (at least) every day to do something for yourself. For example, every night I moisturize my face and rub the soles of my feet with essential oil while listening to my favorite music. The lavender oil relaxes me, I treat myself to a small foot massage, and I listen to music that I love. This is my time. I take that 5-10 minutes every night to reflect on my day and on myself; to evaluate my progress and make mental notes of what I’ll do tomorrow. “Me” time can be something as small as just standing still for a moment, closing your eyes, and breathing. Anything that makes you stop and remember that living simply isn’t always simple, but it’s always worth it. That’s my motto and I invite you to use it for yourself. Let’s start decluttering our lives, friends. One small thing at a time.... Read more...Cheap Kitchen Gadgets I Couldn’t Live Without on TGAHOctober 11, 2018Cheap Kitchen Gadgets I Couldn’t Live Without I love being in the kitchen and I love cheap gadgets. The love of baking and cooking runs in my family and as I get older, I continue to find little things that make my life in the kitchen easier. Just a disclosure, if you do decide to buy any of my favorite items I may make a small commission through the Amazon Affiliates program. There will be no fees or extra charges to your purchase, though, so don’t worry! Thank you for supporting The Green Acre Homestead, let’s get started. Fine Mesh Splatter Screen There is a lot of bacon being cooked in this household. I also use the saved bacon grease on occasion to cook things like hash browns, so as you can imagine, many of my shirts are spotted with oil stains. Although I’ve started wearing aprons, it’s sometimes not enough. Plus, who likes being popped by boiling oil? This cheap kitchen gadget takes that worry away and I use it multiple times a week. You can also use it for sauces and soups! Cast Iron Pan Holder I can not tell you how many times I’ve burned my hands by grabbing a cast iron pan. Just like many other people, I LOVE cast iron! I have a dutch oven, a shallow cornbread pan, and a medium-sized frying pan. I plan to do nothing but add to my collection. This little silicone pan handle cover is a wonderful, super cheap gadget fix for your kitchen. I’ve also created a few of my own which I might offer for sale! (To be announced) Reusable Straws I’ve written about reusable straws before in a post about minimizing waste in your household.If you have children, reusable straws are a great option for the homemade milkshakes and blowing bubbles in their chocolate milk. Smoothies are made every day in our house and I love iced coffee so straws are used multiple times a week. These stainless steel straws are very well made, just remember don’t use this cheap kitchen gadget in hot liquids! Lazy Susan I’m not calling you names! My spices used to be all over the place, taking up an amazing amount of space. Once I found a lazy susan spice rack, my problems were completely solved. It tucks back into that awkward corner of the cabinet that I couldn’t find a reason to use and all of my spices are out of sight, but not out of mind! This actually might be the best gadget I’ve on the cheap for my kitchen! Magnet Strip for Knives When I was a young girl, I reached my hand into a drawer on sliced my finger. IT HURT…quite bad. My mother-in-law had her knives on a magnet strip and when I saw it, I thought “GENIUS”! It’s easy to know what knife to pull when I need it, which knives are clean and aren’t, and I think it looks nice. I’m not always a big fan of “modern” but I’ll admit I do like how modern the knife magnet strip is. Do you use any of these gadgets in your kitchen? How about other pieces you couldn’t live without? I’d love to hear about them! For more cheap kitchen gadgets, check out this Buzzfeed article “20 Useful Kitchen Gadgets Under $20“!... Read more...The Best Garden Planner You’ll Ever Find (And why I love it!)August 9, 2018The Best Garden Planner You’ll Ever Find I’m going to tell you a little about how this really is the best garden planner ever, so stick with me, y’all. I took my own advice from my last published post, “Taking a Break: Homestead Edition“, and took a mental break last week from blogging. It’s a blogger no-no to do that but I did it anyway because, well, I needed it. I can not believe it is already August! Here in Central Florida, that means that we should be putting our second round of hot weather crops in the ground and planning for our cool weather crops to go in, as well. Last winter was unusual for us as we had three hard freezes in a row. The Green Acre Homestead lost an established Meyer’s Lemon Tree and our Key Lime Tree and I was devastated! I’ll admit that winter-proofing the garden is all a little new to me since I’ve only farmed in the Florida winters for three years. Not to mention, it’s been drastically different every year, making it much harder to prepare for! But I’m here today to tell you about how I plan my gardens year round and why I love my garden planner! Do you have to have a garden planning program? No, you don’t need it. I’m still relatively new to gardening on a large scale and I’m just now getting the hang of my zone’s weather format. So, for me, a garden planner was something I really wanted and almost needed. I looked around for a while, thinking I would maybe make my own. The problem was there was so much information I needed at hand: companion gardening, a way to keep track of where I planted what as to rotate my crops, seasons for the crop because I often had no idea, etc. I would say that anyone new to gardening should find a planning software they love and use it to start. You won’t regret the decision. Is planning a garden hard? Yes…and no. Don’t you love that type of answer? If you’re planning your garden with no large intention such as preserving your harvest to have year around, I think that gardening is much more simple and can be done without a planner. I find that planning a garden becomes a little more difficult when you have the intentions to preserve that harvest to fuel you and your family year round. You want to plant short-season crops together so that when they’re done, you can pull them up and replant something new in their spot. This way you maximize your gardening and growing ability. You want to make sure you have enough of the crop to eat and also preserve. Companion planting and rotating your crops can come in handy when you’re gardening with intentions outside of (but not to exclude) gardening just for fun. How do I keep my gardening hat on straight? The answer is The Old Farmer’s Almanac Garden Planner, a.k.a the best garden planner around! I want to start off by saying that I am not an affiliate for this program so, if you utilize these links, it is of no benefit to me. I just personally love this program and feel it could be a wonderful tool for many gardeners and planners out there! Top 5 reasons I love this program (besides only being $29 a year!): I can have multiple garden plans going at one time. Now THAT is the best! I have three spots where my gardens are (which I don’t particularly recommend): front, middle, and front yard gardens. My front gardens hold my perennials, like my asparagus. The middle gardens grow my seasonal vegetables and the ‘front yard’ gardens hold all of my vining vegetables and fruits. My planner looks like this: They have a companion planting future that makes my life so much easier! No more hopping back and forth from page to page on Google trying to figure out what plant is best paired with my broccoli. Here’s an example below. The crop I selected is broccoli. Once you plan your crops, you can specify how long they’re in the ground for right in the planner, that’s why it’s the best. So if I plan to plant my broccoli in November and pull it up in January, I can record that crop specific detail. You can view your gardens by month. If I choose “October”, I won’t see the broccoli as a crop. I view any month from November to January, it’ll show my broccoli will be in the ground during those months. (#best garden planner) Once you finish planning your best gardens ever, they have a “Plant List” feature that tells you what you’re planting, how many of that specific crop you’re planting, and when to sow indoors, outdoors and harvest. It looks like this: Finally, I love that they make crop rotation so much easier! While planning for next season, if you select “Broccoli” again, it’ll show you where you should not be planting broccoli! You’ll see I’ve selected a little broccoli plant is where the beds are red is where I will not be planting it. Are there other awesome features in the best garden planner EVER? There sure are!: You can specify which variety you’re growing. You can click the “Info” button on a crop and it’ll tell you all about that crop: Rotation group, preferred soil type, position (sun or shade), if it’s frost tolerant, perennial or not, feeding schedule, companions, spacing, when to sow and plant, notes, harvesting, and troubleshooting. It’s all right there for you in one spot at the click of a button in the best garden planner there ever will be. While looking for crops within the program, you can either search through “All Plants” or you can choose to just view something specific: vegetables, herbs, fruit & nuts, flowers, cover crops, garden objects, layout, irrigation, structures, companions for plants, or even a custom filter! As I mentioned above, you can also add structures and garden objects. In my pictures, you’ll see I’ve planned my irrigation and my beds in the software. So not only can you plan the crops for your gardens, you can plan the actual layouts! Finally, although small, I love that the program automatically and periodically saves your works as your working. The Old Farmer’s Almanac Garden Planner also has a wonderful print option, which I use to bring my layout outside while I’m planting to make sure everything is going into the right spot! Let’s sum it up and get to planning! I’ve always loved to garden but once I found this planner, it took a word of worry off my shoulders and let me take steps to planting my best gardens! I’m a planner and I was trying to draw everything by hand in the beginning, it just was not sustainable. Every season I plan and print my layout and save it in my Homestead Planner. My gardening game has really been kicked up a notch and it’s all the thanks to this planner. Do you use a garden planner? How do you keep your gardening hat on straight? If you use The Old Farmer’s Almanac Garden Planner, I’d to hear about your experience! **You can find this post, and many other great posts, over at the Homestead Blog Hop. Be sure to check it out!** Relevant Articles: 3 Cheap Types of Weed Cloth to Use on Your Homestead Hoop Frames on Garden Beds and Why We Use Them Gifts for the Gardener: Happy Homesteading Holidays... Read more... 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