In this week's Money section in The National, we examine the sharing economy and how renting or borrowing items can be more cost-effective than buying. In addition, we profiled UAE residents who have decided to live a simpler life, ridding themselves of personal possessions and only keeping what they need.
Those interested in leading a similar lifestyle, should tune into the advice from the professional organiser Shelina Jokhiya, managing director of Decluttr Me. Here she recommends 20 ‘must not-have’ items that you can clear out from your home today:
Electronics
1. Boxes - either for your devices such as Apple products, kitchen gadgets, shoes boxes and cereal boxes
2. Broken electronics - irons, blenders, vacuum cleaners
3. Power cords including USB cords that don’t fit into anything you have now
Kitchen items
4. Mismatched glasses and crockery
5. Electronic kitchen gadgets
6. Useless kitchen contraptions - banana slicers or milk frothers
Paper products and stationery
7. Scrap paper
8. Old Newspapers and Magazines (Time Out 2011 is obsolete)
9. Receipts, unless they have a warranty on them
10. Take away menus – order online instead
Toiletries
11. Make-up used or unused
12. Out of date medicine - hand them over at your local pharmacy.
13. Toiletries you do not use - all those moisturisers, spray tans and bubble baths
Clothing
14. Spare buttons
15. Old bed sheets and extra sets
16. Items you bought and never returned to the shop that will never fit
17. Hangers from dry cleaners
Miscellaneous
18. Spare change - take it to the bank or give it to charity
19. Anything in those unopened goody bags including mugs, key chains, flash drives, leaflets, etc
20. Candles that you don’t like using
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