I’ve found that as more and more people know about my clutter-free philosophy, I get fewer physical gifts and more experience/ consumable gifts.

This is fantastic for me because my favourite gifts are

• gifts of time (I have one friend who takes me for supper every birthday – it’s great because we’re connecting and I’m eating ),
• consumable gifts (One friend bought me the MOST delicious scones for my birthday one year – I treasure the memory of those scones. Still another regularly buys me seasonal plants – I love that she knows I will kill them anyway ) and
• gifts in my passion (stationery and pretty things). Still another friend gave me personalised notecards and stickers for my birthday last year. I LOVED (love!) that gift and am already about a third of the way through that stash.

That said, of course I get other gifts that I just can’t use.

I don’t use perfume at all because I have allergic rhinitis and many scented body lotions/ shower gels also fall into this category.

I re-gift all those things if I can’t return them.

Do you re-gift?

Here are some of my feelings on the subject:

1. I think it’s perfectly okay to re-gift gifts. If someone gives something to you, the item is now yours and you are free to do with it as you wish.
2. Unless the giver says something like, “this is a family heirloom and this is why I’m giving it to you”. In that case, I would return it to the giver if there was a very good reason I no longer wanted it.
3. Sometimes we just get things that are not our style or that we would never in a million years use. There’s no point in hanging onto those things. Why not rather release them and make someone else happy?
4. My pastor said about a million years ago, “if it’s not a need, then it’s seed” and I remembered it. She was talking about how she often received boxes of chocolate and she doesn’t eat chocolate so she receives the gift gratefully but then passes it on immediately. (I also flinched because I am one of those people who had given her a box of chocolates!) I love this idea and try to think of someone who might need or like it more than I do.
5. So yes, I re-gift. I do only re-gift things if I feel they would be perfect for someone else otherwise I donate the gift.
6. I think this goes without saying but if you do re-gift, do remember (or make notes!) who gifted it to you as you don’t want to be in a situation where you give something back to the person who gave it to you. This happened to me recently and I told her, “Um, I actually gave you that. I have no problem with you giving it away but not back to me, okay?” – yes, it was a tad awkward!

Do you wait for a special occasion like someone’s birthday or Christmas to re-gift that item, or do you just do a random act of kindness?

I’m on a random act of kindness kick. Actually, I’ve been doing RAOK goals for about 18 months now and I must tell you, it’s FABULOUS to re-gift straight away. However if there’s a birthday coming up, I will wait.

Over to you.

What are your re-gifting philosophies?

Do you have an awkward re-gifting story to share?

this is what I gave to most of my friends and colleagues this year

• 9 cups of cereal (I used O-Tees, Popped Rice and Corn Flakes)
• 1 cup nuts (peanuts)
• 1 cup pretzels
• 1 cup bagel chips (I used cream crackers because I had half a packet left – basically any savoury biscuit will do)

• 6 Tablespoons butter (I used margarine)
• 2 Tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1 ½ teaspoons flavoured salt (I only use 1 teaspoon since I don’t like very salty things and I did a cheesy version at first and the next time I did a garlic and herb version)
• ½ teaspoon garlic powder (I used flakes)
• ½ teaspoon onion powder

1. When the butter mix is melted, pour half into your bowl, stir well and then pour the other half and finish stirring.
2. Put the bowl in the microwave for one minute, take out and stir, and then do another minute and stir. Don’t do two minutes all at once – you don’t want it to burn. My microwave is 1000W so adjust accordingly.
3. The smell of the Worcestershire sauce is quite strong at this point. Don’t worry,  that’s normal.
4. Empty  your mix onto 3 cookie sheets lined with wax paper to absorb the excess oil and cool down.
5. I left mine out for about 20 – 30 minutes to cool down and then packaged it all up.
6. While the mix is cooling, prepare the containers.

• 5 cups of cereal (I used 6)
• 1 cup biscuits (I used Marie biscuits the first time, Tennis biscuits the next time) The one is a plain, buttery biscuit and the other has coconut in it.
• 1 cup raisins
• 1 cup chocolate chips (let me tell you my trick –  a small bag of choc chips costs about R20 but a large 200 g Cadbury’s slab only costs about R13 – R14. Get the slab and a big butcher’s knife and have at it. I chop on the diagonal, swivel my chopping board  and chop on the diagonal again. It seems to be quicker that way. Within minutes you’ve got nice chocolate chunks in your favourite chocolate instead of the boring choc chips, and you’ve saved R7)
• If you don’t like raisins or chocolate, add 2 cups of anything – dried fruit, sweet nuts, etc.

• ¼ cup butter (55 g margarine)
• ¼ cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon vanilla essence

1. Pour half into your bowl, stir well and then pour the other half and finish stirring.
2. Put the bowl in the microwave for one minute, take out and stir thoroughly.
3. Now add raisins and chocolates and stir again.
4. Lay out on wax papered cookie sheets for 20 – 30 minutes, package nicely and enjoy.

• Cereal
• Raisins
• Dried fruit, chopped up

The family that snacks together stays together?

These are sweet mixes I keep ready to combine. I forgot to keep the chocolate (and I threw in some Smarties too – candy-coated chocolate buttons) separate so I won’t microwave for that extra minute. It will still be fine because I’ve made that mistake before. This is another one of my tricks because I hate messing up the kitchen so I do it once, measure dry ingredients for at least 2 more batches and then it’s easy to quickly whip up something

this one has raisins, smarties and chocolate chunks

and Marie biscuits

I did two cans each for some friends – a savoury and a sweet

Please let me know if you make it, if you try different ingredients and if your recipients LOVE it like I do

What are your quick and easy gift ideas? (not necessarily in the kitchen or handmade)

Please encourage all your blog friends to join us in decluttering and choosing to live a simpler life by using the button on your sidebar. Christmas is less than 3 weeks away and you need to start taking action so that you don’t just fill up all the spaces you’ve already decluttered.

Ideas for clutter-free giving

This week I was so eager to declutter that I forgot to take before pictures but I am showing you the tidy after space. This is our dedicated space for things we have to return to other people.

I had some dishes I had to return to a friend right there for nearly 3 months (!) as well as a surprise gift for her husband. I came second in a competition at work for doing a presentation and won a really beautiful barbeque set.

Well, Dion and I don’t braai (South African word for barbeque) so this set was totally wasted on us and instead of just shoving it in the back of a cupboard, I thought, “who loves to braai?” and the answer was our friend, so I decided to give it to him.

Then I wanted to show you our donation box. We put anything we want to donate in this box, our cleaning lady sees if anything takes her fancy and I put the rest outside my gate. Remember in South Africa, things won’t be there for very long, which is very useful.

There are some corporate gifts in there, an old poster and some dip (for chips/ crisps) that we’re just not getting around to eating.

What did you declutter this week?

Please link to the post on your blog where you show off your pictures or talk about the declutter. Or if you don’t have a blog, tell me in the comments about ANYTHING you decluttered this week.

It can be anything – physical, electronic, mental clutter or even the need to be a certain way. Like perfectionism!

What did you declutter this week?

Please encourage all your blog friends to join us in decluttering by using the button on your sidebar. Christmas is just around the corner and you need to start taking action so that you don’t just fill up all the spaces you’ve already decluttered.

The Declutter Tip for the week …

Re-think the types of gifts you give to others.

For Christmas this year, consider giving gifts of time or clutter-free gifts like experiences. Take a friend for coffee and a muffin, or take over a casserole that they can pop in the freezer.

Last year, my sister gave me a massage for Christmas. It was my best gift because not only do I love massages, but also nothing to schlep back to Joburg on the plane and find a place for in my house

This year for my birthday I asked my husband for a DVD of one of my favourite movies (The Holiday) and we spent time together watching a lovely romantic movie on the couch eating popcorn and chocolate. Divine!

Alternatively, give something that is consumable (like my easy oatmeal cookies) or that people will definitely use (not that think they should use, but that they will use)

What other ideas do you have for clutter-free gift giving?

I bought two of these bags (yes, identical) because I couldn’t decide which I’d rather have. I haven’t used the red one at all so I’m decluttering the red one. No, I’m not throwing away a perfectly good (unused bag) – I’ll sell it to someone.

What did you declutter this week?

Please link to the post on your blog where you show off your pictures or talk about the declutter. Or if you don’t have a blog, tell me in the comments about ANYTHING you got rid of this week.

It can be anything – physical, electronic, mental clutter or even the need to be a certain way. Like perfectionism!

I want you to leave a comment telling me what you’re going to declutter next week, just for accountability