It is great to feel that the decluttering efforts are really making a difference. This morning I noticed that the shelf where my recipe books are stored was very grubby and needed cleaning. It was a simple matter of grabbing an armful of books and placing them on the bench while I wiped down the shelf and then replaced the books. This took me less than 2 minutes.
I have never had hundreds of cookbooks but nevertheless it has taken about 3 rounds of culling to get it to this. You can read about a previous effort here.
That was about 14 months ago but a few more have moved on since then, too. I do not miss any of them and have not have occasion to regret my decision to move them along. Recipes are something that has really been revolutionised by the advent of the internet. There is nothing you cannot find. Also, recipes are like clothes – there are definitely trends and fashions.
Do you have recipe books? Have you reduced your collection?
organised castle 
Absolutely have decluttered quiet a lot of recipe books now that I do not bake cakes etc because we are watching our sugar intake and the weight why bake and if I really need a recipe as you mentioned the internet is just a click away another lot of STUFF not required.
The way that many of us have altered our diets means that lots of recipes are simply no longer relevant. Good on you for moving them along. 🙂
Me too. I still have to go another round of books or pieces of paper inscribed with recipes and do a cull. They are in my Linen cupboard…now that tells me a LOT.
It’s great when little chores are done in a flash. So liberating.
Alexa-asimplelife
Ah, the pieces of paper! That is a whole other story! Wishing you luck. 🙂
I have a rather embarrassingly large collection of cookbooks and recipes, which I started when I was about 8 or 10, and there have been a few additions in the last year or two, when I’ve wanted to try a new style of cooking (and the other half was looking for prezzies for me). Once in a blue moon I look through the collection of books and find some that no longer speak to me, so they go. I’m probably due for another cull now. But I am currently more interested in chucking out loose cut-out or copied-down recipes, as and when the urge strikes to tackle a category of them (sorted from an earlier attempt to rationalize). It’s slow, but it’s low priority.
Priorities are so important. It sounds as though you have made some progress. Remember, slow and steady wins the race. 🙂
Have I reduced my cookbook collection? Yes…..and no, I bought Maggie Beer’s “Maggie’s Kitchen” in October and another cookbook on freezing foods a few weeks back from an op shop. I still have my high school cookbook which is now about 36 years old – and I still use it. But I also use the internet a lot to source recipes. But I cannot stand having a lot of cookbooks sitting on the shelf when I only use a handful of recipes from each one so I will be slowly adding recipes to the ones stored on my laptop and moving some of the cookbooks on.
Hi Sherri
Thanks for your thoughtful comment. Adding recipes that you use to your laptop is a great idea. Then the books can find new homes. 🙂