LMIM Podcast - Episode 1 - Purse Declutter
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[00:00:00] My purse has been driving me crazy for weeks and over the weekend I did manage to go in and take out a bunch of receipts, get those recycled, but there is still just a bunch of stuff in here. And if you've been a part of my world. For a while, you know that I tend to declutter and organize by frustration level.
So with my purse being one of the things that is frustrating me the most, I thought today I would tackle that. So I've got my purse and I am just going to. Empty. It's completely, I'm taking everything out. I'm just dumping it, honestly on my flat surface. Wow. That's, that is a mess. Okay. And of course, there's all sorts of little crumbs and other things that are just all in the bottom.
Lovely. Okay. I got [00:01:00] some things that fell off my flat surface, so I'll have to grab those and put them back on. Okay, so the next thing I'm gonna do now that everything is out of my purse. I am going to just make some piles. I'm going to group things by type, so I still have receipts in here.
What is going on? All right, so I'm gonna just grab all the receipts and put them to the side. Oh my goodness. What is this? Don't know if I had crackers in my purse at one point, but what are these little crumbs? I don't know. Okay. So I'm starting with receipts and paper type items. So I'm putting all of those off to the side.
Okay.
And it's not, it's not pretty. It's a mess. And I want you to remember that as [00:02:00] you're going through the declutter process, it gets worse before it gets better. So if you start to get frustrated about that, please just keep that in mind. Okay.
It's like typically one of the easiest things for me to reach in and grab is my wallet, and I don't use like a traditional wallet. It's just like a little, I don't know. Little pouch thing that my sister had got me when she had gone to Italy. I think she bought me and my mom some earrings. And these earrings came and this like really cool little like pouch.
And I just, my mom and I both use the pouch as our wallet. It's just, I don't know, it's just really nice. Okay but. I haven't, like the past couple times that I've needed to reach for my wallet, I'm having to like, move everything around in my [00:03:00] purse to try to find it. And that, that just drives me crazy.
So we can't have that. I'm just, I have to giggle at the things that I'm finding in here because what? So I bought off of Marketplace. I bought a walking pad and. I guess I threw the remote for it in my purse. Okay. That doesn't need to be in there. Okay. I have a ton of cough drops. I forgot I had some blow pops.
Nice. That's fun. For a little after lunch snack. Okay. I had, I was not feeling well a couple weeks to go and went to the clinic and they gave me an inhaler, which I forgot all about. I have the inhaler in here. All sorts of good things. Okay, so I've moved all my papers, I've got all the papers off to the side, [00:04:00] and oh, there's my driver's license from when I had to withdraw money from the bank.
So I'm gonna put that in my wallet right now. So that it doesn't get lost in the shuffle here. I don't know about you, but I constantly have. Half used not, like sometimes half used tissues, but also like tissue packages. So I've got three packages of tissues and each of them have been open. I don't know why I don't just use one and then use all those tissues up and then open the next one.
But that's not how it happens in my purse. Okay.
So I've got my let me turn that down so that doesn't keep making lots of noise while we're doing this.
[00:05:00] Okay. So I've got all the paper. I had a few bucks, not much, maybe $10. I've got some change, so I'm gonna put like all that stuff together. Oh my gosh, these crumbs. Gross. Okay. Got a few coins. I'm gonna put those off to the side. Boy, this is nice. I had some loose pills in here.
That's not cool. Lemme just put those back in the package. We needed to replace the light over the microwave or under the microwave, and just call, I'll just call it the microwave light. And so I have the lights, the original light bulbs here in my purse. We don't need those. Not sure how to just.
Dispose of those, if that's, if I just throw those away or if that needs something special I'll go on this little kick where I think that I'm going to wear lipstick or like a lip [00:06:00] gloss. And so I have a lip, what is this? L or e, LF. Hydrating core lip shine. I have used it a couple times, but honestly, I'm most consistent, which is Chapstick.
That's the thing that I really need to have with me. I do have some trash items. I had some wrappers from cough drops. Looks like a mint wrapper. I have some McDonald's from the Min Monopoly game. I'm sure that these are. I'm done now. Enter code by 11 23 25. Oh, here was food. I won some food.
Dang, I don't know what I won. Oh, but I had to do that by 1122. So that was. Or, I'm sorry, 11 two. So that was a month ago. Yep. Okay. So all these, none of these are good. I guess I didn't [00:07:00] win a million dollars or anything. All right. So I will put those in the trash pile. Okay. And then I have some, air Pods or Airbus, whatever you call those things that you put in your ear.
Okay. Some feminine products, and then I'm gonna just group all of my pins. I have a highlighter. And then I always travel with a fingernail file or an Emory board because it just seems like I always need to file a fingernail. Got some hand sanitizer. So I think I'm gonna put the I'm gonna put the inhaler, the cough drops.
I had a, the bandage the feminine products, and then the pills, which actually were for my cat. So I'm gonna put all that kind of stuff together. I'm gonna put the hand sanitizer, some mascara [00:08:00] and the lip gloss or lip shine stuff together. And I've got my keys. Oh okay. Let's see. The blow pops.
Honestly. I don't know that I'm gonna put them back in my bag. I don't even remember where I got them. Probably at the Mexican restaurant. I don't remember. Okay. And then the tissues are off to the side. All right. So really I have everything separated by category and oh, I also have some like microfiber, really small cloth for wiping my glasses and sunglasses.
Okay. So now that I have stuff separated into categories, groupings. Oh my gosh, these crumbs are just getting on my last nerve. I'm gonna go ahead and look through these papers. Most of them, like I said, are just receipts and I don't need them, so that's gonna be an easy thing to get rid of. But I do have a couple things, like one [00:09:00] piece of paper that needed to go in my wallet, so I did that.
So now with the papers, all I'm doing is grouping by what I can. Recycle and then if there's anything that I need to keep, then I'm just putting that off to the side and I'll find a home for it. Okay.
Again, most of these are just receipts and they are not necessary. Sometimes I hold onto receipts for too long, even though if I buy something at Target. I'm typically using my, I have a Target debit card and even if you use any type of card there, they can do receipt lookup. So many places can do that, so it just, it doesn't feel necessary to hold onto the receipt, but sometimes I will still hold onto it for.
I don't even know why, because it's who I am sometimes. [00:10:00] Okay. Some of these receipts are so incredibly crumpled. They just, all of them are gonna go into the recycle bin anyway, so it doesn't matter. Just look. Oh, yeah. See this one's from back in September, the beginning of September. So all of these are super duper old.
Don't really need 'em. Okay, so all of the paper items in my purse, all of the paper items being received. 'cause I don't really have any other just loose papers in there right now, which is honestly surprising. Usually I have some kind of folded up papers, but I don't so all those, I'm just going to recycle easy enough.
And then. Let's see. I think I'm just gonna go ahead and make dec decisions on the rest of this. So I've got some trash that can be thrown away [00:11:00] and those little McDonald's monopoly pieces, my pens are all in good shape. I don't need to. Check those. Oh, I need to figure out how to get rid of the light bulbs.
I'm hoping that those can just go straight into the trash unless they need to be recycled in some way. The inhaler, I don't think I need to carry it with me at this point. I feel much better. So I'll probably, and it should have plenty of I don't know, what do you call 'em? Puffs left. So I will put that in my medicine cabinet.
The feminine products I'm gonna keep in my purse. The, I don't think it's terrible to have a bandage, so I will keep that. And then the cough drops. I'm also gonna keep in because tis the season. Boy, there's not a whole lot else that I need to necessarily declutter. Mostly it's just [00:12:00] giving, getting the receipts out, the trash out.
I don't know that I need these three packs of tissues. I'll try to just use up what I have or I might just try to shove 'em all into one. But I'll tell you what, the other thing that I am gonna do is, because I have two. I have my, the thing that I use is my wallet, and then I have this other little bag that I got from IKEA that I really like.
Oh, there's some change in there. And another bandaid. So I'm gonna just go ahead and take a minute and empty that out. And it looks like I do have some notes. Oh, wow. I have a lot of change. Much more change than I thought I had in this thing.
Okay, so now that little pouch is empty, so I'm gonna put that change with the other. And then I have a bunch of gift cards that I've [00:13:00] just been carrying around for a long time, and I don't even know if they're still good, honestly. Oh, look, this is a bonus card for $10 off a future purchase. Valid at participating US bakery cafes.
This is from Panera, so I guess I bought some gift cards last year to give us gifts and I could use this bonus card from January 1st through 31st, 20, 25. So we don't need that. So what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna grab all of the gift cards. Put them off to the side and then I'm gonna get online or get on the phone and see which ones are still valid.
It's because I bet there are some that have been used up and that I don't need. Oh, here's a room key. I guess I forgot to turn in a room key from a trip. I bet I [00:14:00] have another one. Oh yeah, a couple of like paper gift cards. Oh my gosh. This is a paper gift card from I. May 3rd, 2019. I wonder if it expires.
That's wild. Okay. Okay. And then, oh, some appointment cards for appointments that have already passed. That works because then I can just put that in my recycle. I love finding things that are expired or that, just aren't valid anymore because it just means that. It's an easy decision, right?
You don't need to keep that. Oh, found two more band-aids. Okay. That's cool. All right.
And a couple notes that I [00:15:00] had that don't really mean anything to me, so can get rid of that. Okay. So I have quite a few gift cards that I need to see if they are still valid. That works. Like that. I'm gonna do the same with my wallet. And then I think I also have a couple of outdated insurance cards, so need to get those outta there as well.
And then things won't be nearly as heavy. And I will be a much happier person.
Oh, I even had a couple receipts in the thing that I use as a wallet
and a couple notes. What are these? Oh, okay. There's some things that people had told me about that I wanted to check out [00:16:00] that we don't need. My paper pile is getting bigger, my recycle tile a lot.
Okay, so now I have all. The gift cards pulled out to check, putting my wallet back together, my little wallet pouch. Oh, another thing that I need to take care of is. The what I keep my ID badge on for work. Like it has a chain thing, but it broke, so I had thrown a different one in my bag. So I think I'm gonna go ahead and just put the old chain off to the side so I can get rid of that and then [00:17:00] put this new, honestly, does it make sense to put this on? I'm trying to see. Yep. I'll get that. I need, I'm gonna switch that out. I should just take a sec.
Okay. Okay. So this is, now I have my to-do pile, which is the gift cards. I'm gonna put those back in that, the the pouch that they came out of, because I know I have to do that. Putting my, I've got my trash pile, my recycle pile. My blow pops. And then I've got the things that aren't going back in.
So the things that aren't going back in are the remote for the walking pad, the inhaler, the pills for the cat. [00:18:00] And let's see, is there anything else that's not going back in? Boy, I'd like there to be stuff that's not going back in. I'll consolidate the tissues into one container if I can, or one little pouch.
I think I'm gonna put my, I really don't need to be carrying around the mascara. It should go in my, it keep my, I keep my makeup in a like a gallon size Ziploc bag. I don't even have that much. Just a few things. But I usually throw that in my backpack. So I will put the mascara in there. Oh, I do have this I'll have to put a link for these so you can see what they are.
But they're little like file tabs, they're post-its. And I love these suckers. I had 'em in my purse for some reason. I guess I was gonna take 'em to work and use some there, but they [00:19:00] really don't need to. They're just getting gross in my bag. I will put those with the other ones not in my purse.
Okay, so now that I have everything sorted out and I know what's not going back in, I'm gonna put the things that are going back in, I'm gonna put my pins. I am rolling around with a highlighter right now, and that's not really that necessary. Yeah, I'm gonna leave the highlighter out. That's silly.
That doesn't need to go back in. Okay. And then the change, I'm gonna put in the pouch with the gift cards 'cause otherwise it's gonna be rolling around just in the bottom of my bag and I need to put it in my, i'll take it to the change container, that'll be fine.
[00:20:00] Okay. Actually, I think I'm gonna put it in my car and the change thing and keep in my car. All right. And then gift cards back in there. I'll take care of those a little bit later today, hopefully. Okay. One thing I didn't mention, but I've got sunglasses. So sunglasses in their pouch are going back in.
It doesn't look like I'm gonna be able to consolidate the three packs of tissues into one, but I can consolidate them into two, so put those back in. It is runny nose season, so I do not need two microfiber cloths for wiping glasses, so I'm gonna take one out. And just keep one in my bag.
Put my car keys back in.
All right, so now that becomes trash. I can put my wallet back in. [00:21:00] My $10, the cough drops, the bandages, and the two feminine products. My AirPods or whatever you call those things, hand sanitizer.
Okay, so now with everything back in the things that needed to be back in and leaving the things out that didn't need to be in there, the highlighter, the inhaler the remote for the walking pad, all the receipts, the couple of cards like the key card for the hotel room, and then the the gift card.
That's no good. The chain. For my id, the blow pops. Yeah, it looks better and it definitely feels better. It's not nearly as heavy. So super happy with with the progress from today with decluttering my purse. [00:22:00] I hope this was helpful for you and if you decluttered your purse today or your work bag, or your wallet, whatever it is, I'd love for you to let me know.
