Decluttering the Stuff for a Decluttered Life in Retirement

Day 77 of Isolation – Decluttering!

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I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned that we had 14 rolls of undeveloped film just hanging out in the desk drawer. Feeling inspired, I took the 14 rolls of film to get developed in January 2020. The drugstore initially said it would be about a week. Several weeks later and only 9 rolls had been processed and returned. After a couple more weeks, the other rolls were processed and returned.

When we picked them up at the drugstore, I quickly went through them and realized MOST of the pictures were worthless. $322.36 later to realize maybe one roll of film worth of pictures were kind of usable. I put the pictures back in the envelopes and said I would deal with it later.

Later arrived.

I’m decluttering 14 envelopes, 10 cds and 541 pictures (due to duplicate printing.) Some of the date stamps are from 1999, 2000, and 2001. Just a few years hanging out in the drawer!

565 items gone!

13 responses to “Day 77 of Isolation – Decluttering!”

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  1. mindbeautysimplicity Avatar
    mindbeautysimplicity

    Same thing happened when my family and I cleaned out my grandma’s house. She had so many photos in albums (1000+) I spent nights ddcluttering and organizing these photos. Made me not want to take any photos anymore. Jk…but it was a lot of work.

    Here’s my post
    https://mindbeautysimplicity.wordpress.com/2020/07/14/example-post-3/

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    1. declutteringthestuff Avatar

      I know!! Plus the living the moment idea vs “stop, I want a picture” obsession some people have.

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      1. mindbeautysimplicity Avatar
        mindbeautysimplicity

        Oh yes, or people doing something just for the picture.

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        1. declutteringthestuff Avatar

          OMG, yes!

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  2. purpleslob Avatar

    After ALL that money- oh no!!
    Makes me even happier that I threw mine away several years ago, without even trying to develop!

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    1. declutteringthestuff Avatar

      I’m torn on whether it was worth it. There were a few pictures that I kept even though the quality was horrible.

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  3. Jen Avatar

    Wow! That’s a lot of pics from a long time ago! Lol!

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    1. declutteringthestuff Avatar

      hahaha yep! Kiddo #2 has nagged for the last 20 years to have me get them developed. Let’s just say she wasn’t happy when she saw the quality of them.

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  4. Brian Avatar

    I’m curious why the photos ended up being worthless? I think my mum still has a lot of undeveloped film from our childhood and family holidays and I considered getting them developed as a job-lot, but I’m concerned they will have degraded with time, which appears to be the case from the selection you have presented.

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    1. declutteringthestuff Avatar

      Most of the pictures are so overexposed you can’t make anything out in the picture. A few of the rolls “survived” but are spotted. And then there are some from the kiddos cameras that are obviously taken by a 10 year old and damaged. Not many were salvageable.

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      1. Brian Avatar

        It’s a shame you got so little out of them, but thanks for the insight.

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        1. declutteringthestuff Avatar

          I guess the one positive is that we had the memories and the pictures jogged them a little for a couple of things even though the picture quality was horrible.

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  5. Nicole Avatar
    Nicole

    Digital photos definitely save money. No more paying just to see if you got a good shot!

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