Kathleen Lipp:
Well, hey friends, welcome to Clutter-Free Academy where our goal is to help you take small doable steps to live every day with less clutter and more life. And Roger, happy day after Christmas!

Roger:
Oh hey!

Kathleen Lipp:
Yay! Survived another Christmas, yay!

Roger:
Yes.

Kathleen Lipp:
And guys, as you probably can imagine, we are recording this before the day after Christmas. But we know,

Roger:
We don’t even have snow on the ground right now.

Kathleen Lipp:
I know, we haven’t even had snow yet. And yeah, we’re firm into winter up here, winter time up here. But Christmas brings a lot of chaos and Christmas can bring a lot of clutter. And so this is gonna be a… Very fast episode guys because I know you’ve got other things to do. I know I hope you’re still watching Christmas movies I hope you’re still doing all the Christmas things but I wanted to tell you five things that we and in the Lipp household here at the Red House do in order to stay clutter-free after Christmas and so We’re gonna go through this fast because I want you to enjoy your day after Christmas But number one, deal with the Christmas clutter right away. So anything you are keeping, break down the boxes. Recycle that paper if you can. If you’re a paper reuser or a bag reuser, please be a bag reuser. Fold those up, put them away. If you have family in from out of town, sort through this stuff. Every year somebody leaves a gift behind here and then. You know, it’s four months until we see them again. No, I’m not, I don’t want to store things for people. How else do we deal with the Christmas clutter, Rog?

Roger:
Oh, you know, probably a lot of families do this. We make a game out of throwing away of the wrapping paper.

Kathleen Lipp:
Yes.

Roger:
We have the big garbage bag. Can you make the shot from where you’re sitting with the

Kathleen Lipp:
Yes.

Roger:
crumpled up paper?

Kathleen Lipp:
Yes,

Roger:
So

Kathleen Lipp:
I-

Roger:
that’s just little things like that keep the system flowing and keeping the house picked up.

Kathleen Lipp:
Yeah, and another thing, if you have Christmas ornaments, Christmas decorations things, that year after year do not get pulled out, then it’s time to donate those. It’s time to donate them. And I’m being a bit of a hypocrite here because I have a whole dish set that I love, but there’s no place to display it or store it here at the Red House. We just don’t have the space for it. And… You know, the Red House is not our forever home because someday we will physically not be able to live here because it’s a crazy place to live. But I want to be able to have those dishes. If anybody’s familiar, the Macy’s log cabin design and they make me super happy. I’m not a China person, but this is like stoneware. It’s wonderful. But deal with the, if you have… Ornaments things like that never get put on the tree go donate them You know, that’s some of the things you could deal with right away Put all that stuff aside. Yeah, right

Roger:
If you have lights that don’t work, you might be thinking, oh, it’s a project. I’ll get that fixed someday. Will you?

Kathleen Lipp:
Yeah

Roger:
I know I won’t.

Kathleen Lipp:
Yeah, and Roger’s a lighting guy like he’s a Lighting guy at our church and if he’s not gonna do it You’re probably not gonna do it or the people in your life are probably not gonna do it Is this why we have to buy lights almost every single year?

Roger:
Absolutely 100%.

Kathleen Lipp:
Okay.

Roger:
This is the

Kathleen Lipp:
Oh my

Roger:
only

Kathleen Lipp:
goodness

Roger:
reason.

Kathleen Lipp:
Uh-huh. The only reason not that our house gets more lit up like a Roman candle every single year Okay, so number one deal with the Christmas clutter right away. Okay number two make a meal plan with any leftovers. You have been cooking and cooking and you’ve had people come coming and cooking. So a couple of things, either repurpose those leftovers or eat them right away. Or one of the things that we do at Costco, we buy those to-go containers. They’re from GLAD, they’re plastic to-go containers. So you can pack those up and send them home with your guests. We pack up food and take it to our neighbor who doesn’t cook But he’s always he’s a volunteer firefighter. And so he’s on calls all the time. So we just bring him a meal and It’s good to go. So if you know, make a plan to eat up that food, that’s what I’m saying.

Roger:
Yeah, and I think there’s we’re also attacking this one from the other side this year by having a little bit more strategic plan going in to Christmas.

Kathleen Lipp:
Yes, yes. So we overcooked.

Roger:
I guess this is airing after Christmas, so the cows have left the barn for that one.

Kathleen Lipp:
Yeah, but, but you know, it’s a good thing to think about for next year. You know, every year I put on my calendar, not every year, but most years, do not buy wrapping paper. You have plenty. Um, one of the things that I have already put on my calendar for October next year is you only need the Turkey and three side dishes and two desserts. Um, we lost

Roger:
Yes.

Kathleen Lipp:
our minds this year. I don’t know what happened, but it was crazy. So yeah, you can make less usually. And one of the things that I really discovered is I used to make everybody’s favorites and I’m like, no, I’ll make that for your birthday. Let’s do that for your birthday. We don’t have to do that for every single holiday. So be strategic going in, but also plan to use up those leftovers because I don’t want you to cook just because you need a little variety. People can eat the same thing over and over again. Okay, number three. Schedule a day to do returns do not do returns on today on the 26th. That’s craziness. Don’t do it Don’t do it stay away from the stores. Don’t do it. You are too valuable Your time is too valuable. Your sanity is too valuable, but you know, could you do it? January 2nd could you do it? You know most places have 30 days you do not need to do it the day after I love Amazon returns we are buying less from Amazon but there are specific things that our kids sometimes want that are only on Amazon but I love that you can just go to like a Whole Foods or a UPS store and be able to do that return very easily Make sure that you can you know, if you absolutely can find those receipts Places like Marshall’s they’ll give you a gift card, but you can’t get your money back on your card Target I love their return policy because as long as you have a Target, you know account not their credit card, but like their frequent buyer you get the app as long as you have the app It keeps track of what you’ve purchased and you don’t even need a receipt

Roger:
But

Kathleen Lipp:
Anything on that?

Roger:
we can’t

Kathleen Lipp:
Yeah

Roger:
talk about returns without talking about Costco.

Kathleen Lipp:
What why what

Roger:
Oh,

Kathleen Lipp:
oh you

Roger:
there

Kathleen Lipp:
mean?

Roger:
you can

Kathleen Lipp:
the

Roger:
return it for

Kathleen Lipp:
return

Roger:
like a

Kathleen Lipp:
anything

Roger:
year. Yeah.

Kathleen Lipp:
Yes

Roger:
It’s, it’s

Kathleen Lipp:
Which

Roger:
wild.

Kathleen Lipp:
is lovely. Yeah, we returned a computer recently now there is the infamous somebody returned to christmas tree after christmas If you’re that

Roger:
Okay,

Kathleen Lipp:
person,

Roger:
don’t cheat

Kathleen Lipp:
please

Roger:
the system.

Kathleen Lipp:
don’t be that yeah, please don’t be that person. That’s just gross But yeah, you know, I bought you some uh battery operated socks and because you’re often out there doing snow that kind of thing, but they didn’t work. And so I had them, I just returned them like in July after I had bought them in October and it was no problem. No, you know, by the way, we give enough money to Costco, it shouldn’t be a problem. And Sam’s club is the same way. I’ve never had any problems returning anything to Sam’s club is the but be a returner. Do not keep things in your house, be a returner. So yes, Costco, Costco’s great about that. Okay, number four. So you scheduled a day to do returns, I want you to schedule a day to do a drop-off at the charity shop. You know, if that’s not a regular part of your errands, either make it a regular part and you’re just dropping off like one little bag at a time, or. Schedule a day to do it after Christmas because when you get all this new stuff in There should be stuff going out of your house And especially if you have little kids who are growing out of their stuff They don’t have cousins or little brothers or sisters, you know get that back in there are people who could use that desperately and so um schedule a day to drop off at the charity shop and Then number five stay out of the stores It’s going to be very easy for me Christmas 2023 to stay out of the stores. My mom’s having eye surgery on the 26th. But Roger, if we were not taking care of my mom’s medical needs, I would want to go to someplace like we just went to an apple farm and that was so much fun. You could go to the dog park with your dog. Although, you know, if you’re listening to this in 2023, there’s a bad dog cough going around. So maybe stay out of the parks, but, or go to a movie. I think the day after Christmas is a beautiful day to go to a movie that’s not in a shopping mall. And guys, I wanna give a little warning here. I think that there are going to be some crazy sales in 2023, you know, between Christmas and New Year’s because I think retail was way down this year and so don’t be tempted just because something has a good price on it. I think these stores have a lot of inventory that they’re going to need to get rid of but it doesn’t need to go to your house. Anything you want to add to this list Roger?

Roger:
No, I think going in with a plan and just keeping up with things. You’ve got people at your house probably, and that’s where the clutter is coming from. So

Kathleen Lipp:
Yeah.

Roger:
it is fine to enlist help in dealing with that clutter.

Kathleen Lipp:
Yeah, you

Roger:
I

Kathleen Lipp:
know

Roger:
think

Kathleen Lipp:
what?

Roger:
that might be another thing to think about.

Kathleen Lipp:
I will tell you one of the best things that the people in our family do is they all say, hey, I’ll take a bag of garbage home because they know how hard

Roger:
Yes.

Kathleen Lipp:
it is for us to get rid of garbage up here. Like that is such a gift. So we try to do, you know, we try to keep all the wet garbage, but the dry garbage and the recycling our family takes. And so yeah, ask for that help. I think that that’s really, that’s such a great thing. And you know, send those boxes home with the kids and the grandkids. You don’t need to be the one to take care of all that, unless they’re flying. If they’re flying, then everybody gets a pass.

Okay, guys, we hope that you had the best Christmas. We hope that this is gonna be an amazing new year. Listen next week where we’re gonna talk about ways to keep stuff from coming into your house. Today we’re really talking about getting it out of your house, but we want you to also keep it from coming into your house as well. Well, friends, first of all, Roger, thanks so much for hanging out with me.

Roger:
Thank you.

Kathleen Lipp:
It’s always fun.

Roger:
Yes.

Kathleen Lipp:
Friends, thank you for hanging out with us. You’ve been listening to Clutter-Free Academy. I’m Kathi Lipp. Now, go create the Clutter-Free life you were always intended to live.