Week 3 Low Spending & Decluttering Challenges Results

Week 3 of Carla's Double February Challenge is done....at least for me it is!

First the Mini-Challenge.....where you are suppose to help someone.  That would be today, when I used my mechanically prowess to help #2 son with his problem.
Yah see, his friend gave him a guitar flanger pedal for his Birthday.  It's a little hunk of metal and plastic that you plug your electric guitar or bass into and it distorts the sound the instrument produces.  #2 son says "this pedal makes your guitar sound like it's on acid."
Okay....
Anyway, it worked for the first few minutes he used it but now it won't work at all.  He's been nagging me to order him a new one on Amazon since Sunday.  No, he can't wait to take it to the music store and see if they can fix it first.  He has to go out and drop $30 on a new one.....and pay for Express shipping to boot!
So "hell no you don't need express shipping" mom goes on Amazon.....and she starts reading the reviews on this item since she knows nothing about guitar flangers, heck, she didn't even know what a flangers was until #2 son told her about them.
And mom reads in a review that there is a battery inside this nifty little device, so mom asks #2 son if he has opened the flanger up and changed the battery inside.  To which he responds no.
You see where I am going with this now, don't you?
So mom opens and changes out the 9Volt battery and Voila!....It's a miracle!!....his Flanger works!
I saved him $30.
Of course after all that I don't get a thanks mom....he just grumbled some more when I told him he owed me $4 for the battery. ;-)


As for the Low Spend part.....
Food shopping.......$73.02
I actually spent money on something other than food though.  #2 son is in need of new footwear as he has holes in every last pair now.  So I went on eBay and bought him 2 pair of Chuck Taylor Converse sneakers.  We usually hit the Converse outlet in Rehobeth Beach to get them for a discount price but he wore the last pair out sooner than expected.  I got them on eBay and with the shipping they were the same price as at the outlet-but without paying for gas for the car to get there.lol
2 pair Converse....$72.98

As for the Decluttering Challenge.  This week was the Productivity Challenge.
I am working on my dining room/living room.
I don't think I was very productive though.

Before I show you my living room, let me explain that it isn't really a living room yet.   I've used it for storage....stored various things over the years.  First we moved here sort of in a hurry so it held lots of moving boxes.  Then after I got that stuff put away we got another load of my mother's things....my mother passed away the week before we moved here. So the next 2 years, as my brother settled her estate, we had to cart my inheritance stuff home from VA and find places for all that stuff. Then my eBay inventory grew so some of it got shoved into the living room.  At one time the room was wall to wall boxes of crap.....very similar to one of those Hoarding shows, except without the trash and animal feces. lol
We also had 4 dogs-one of which was very destructive-at one point and there is a white carpet in that room, so we had to gate off the living/dining room.  The destructo dog is gone but we still have 2 dogs, 1 of which is paper trained but she also considers the dining room her toileting area, so we still have to gate the rooms off.

I have almost gotten the living room emptied at this point.  I am tired of waiting for the last 2 dogs to pass on to fix up my living room, so I am working on getting repairs made and the room painted and furniture bought so we can use it as a living room.
*Deep Breath*

Here are the before shots.....

 That old rug is there from when the Xmas tree was up.  Not quite as bad as leaving your lights on your house all year, but close.lol

 Tubs of eBay merchandise that hasn't sold yet....and that isn't even listed right now.lol

I emptied the ugly plastic shelving unit and got rid of it.
I also got rid of 2 boxes of trash.....

And I gathered all this to donate......

And here are the after shots.....

I cleared the paperwork off the table(for the most part).  The stuff in the chair are my Xmas presents I still haven't opened. lol

I washed and rehung the curtains.

 I gleaned and restacked the eBay merchandise that's left.

 Other than sending some Christmas stuff back upstairs where it belongs and trashing that plastic shelving unit, I still need to work on this part of the room at another time.

The same goes for the table at the bottom of the stairs...though some of this is stuff that is going upstairs.

So that is that.  I am not done but progress was made this week.

Sluggy