We needed to be careful with decluttering, too. We found newspapers, plastic bags (just like you!), and a dumpster full of other stuff. She also collected empty Pringles Potato Chip cans (bags of them) and therein was a big problem. I was throwing them away, one felt "weird" so I opened it, and found a roll of 10's and 20's. Turned out not to be the only one. A double-edged sword. Nice to find money mixed in with all of the garbage, but it also meant that we needed to pick through it with a fine-toothed comb. Turned a few weekend's worth of work into almost a year.
I LOL'd at your comments on the liquor. Years and Years ago, my grandmother's husband (not grandpa) passed away. He was an accountant, and often would get "tipped" in high-end booze by his clients.
Anyhoo, after he passed, Gram mentioned casually in a phone conversation that she was "Cleaning Out His Liquor Cabinet".
"HOLY #@#$%@%@%", my Dad roared, "We'll be right there!". He and I jumped in the truck and drove all night to get to her house. Saved a pickup-truck load of booze, all top-shelf. The real find/save was most of a case of 100-year-old Napoleon Brandy, that she had already set out by the curb "Because it was old."
Stocked Mom+Dad's liquor cabinet for 15 years or so, the last of it was used up at my wedding. :-)
My wife's dad used to own a liquor store before retiring; he kept crates of liquor and cigars in a side area of the garage. Don't know why my mother-in-law kept it for 3 decades after his passing, she kept everything he owned including his clothes. Besides the other stuff, there was lots of lumber and boxes of jars packed into a storage room under the house, and lots of lumber packed under the front stairs of the house (3 levels). My wife and her sister were discarding clothes and my wife chastised her sister for simply throwing clothes into discard bags. My wife went through every pocket and found money and jewelry items, that otherwise would have been discarded. We stopped hiding money in our own clothes after that!