I had a stack of random old papers, diaries/notebooks and invoices that I didn't want to just throw away. It needed something better. More permanent...
Death by fire!
Why do we keep things? I had 5 diaries that went into that pile. I was never going to read them and they were 10-15 years old. There was no sage advice to be learnt, no future offspring who would benefit from my sms exchanges with my ex boyfriend. Everything was packed into a box for " the stuff you should probably keep but it fills you with dread every time you think about it"
I'm going through a time of throwing things out. Cleaning. Purging. Letting go.
If it doesn't make you happy, don't keep it. Unless it's something important like tax returns or official documents. those you have to keep. But receipts for bread and milk older than 5 years? No.
Think of it this way. If you died now and your family had to sort out your belongings- keep in mind they probably have no idea what was precious to you and what wasn't- What would you not want them to find? Or not have to deal with? Or not want them to have to dig for because you were too lazy to put all your important info in one place?
When my gran passed away we found rather epic stashes of plastic ziplock bags.
What random thing will your family find?
Fire is such a lovely way to get rid of things permanently. Especially when notebooks are concerned. Just throwing it in the bin won't make it go away, it just moves it around. It would have taken my worm farm far too long to get through the stack of paper and some of it was probably toxic to them.
The fire pit is called a Swannie Braai, a South African invention made by Oom Swannie. It is a collapsible braai that you can run on newspaper alone. They recon 12 sheets of balled up newspaper is enough to cook a steak.
We haven't had much luck with that but it makes a great incinerator. :)
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