There are distinct benefits to reduction of clutter of all kinds from our lives, and living smaller, simpler, and within our means. On our path there, we are likely to find that we have a bunch of extra stuff that we need to get rid of.
If you are like my wife and I, you may accumulate more and more stuff over time, never getting rid of any of it, until you are so swamped with so many things that you are completely unorganized and unable to find anything if you even happen to remember what you have in the first place. All that stuff gets lost in the bottom of rubbermaid bins for years on end and moves with you from residence to residence. Now is the time to start digging through all of that and letting go of all those things that were so near and dear to you for so many years that they simply got lost in a huge pile of miscellaneous artifacts and possessions.
CALL
TO ACTION!!
SELL
YOUR STUFF!!
One excellent place to list classifieds for free is Craiglist. You may be surprised who is willing to not only come pick up your old couch which is in decent shape, but also pay you $ 100 cash for it. In my experience, Craigslist has been far and away the best place to dispose of items in good condition but no longer needed. This works well particularly for larger indivdual items that are commonplace in most homes such as furniture, appliances, and so on. Be sure to add photos and mention that the price is what it is so you don’t have to deal with bargaining on the spot. Cash and carry only, you pay for it, you haul it away, price firm. Craigslist is fast paced, first come first served, so be ready to respond to requests as soon as you post your items. And please exercise some caution if you are inviting the buyer who is unknown onto your property for viewing or pickup. http://www.craigslist.org
If your items are collectibles of some kind which are of significant value to the individual collector, you may want to consider selling them on ebay. However, it may be better to do so through a third party seller who has a good rating on ebay so that your buyers will trust the seller enough to make payment. http://www.ebay.com
There is always the ages-old rummage sale, and we have had many successful ones. Our last rummage sale was a one-day blitz of clearing out a bunch of our junk for pennies on the dollar, and at the end of the day not only had other people hauled away a lot of our stuff for us, but we also made $ 500 in cash.
Lately I have seen more people leveraging their online social networks as a means of parting with unwanted items, and that is also a great route to go. Just post to your facebook wall what your are selling and and how much you want for it, and see if any of your friends are interested in buying it. http://www.facebook.com
Whatever is broken should be dumped, and whatever is useful but maybe not worth much should be either thrown away or organized. You have to consider, if you managed to live without it for the past five years, and you totally forgot about it, do you really still need it taking up more of your living space?
Whatever is left once everything is cleaned out and everything you could sell has been sold, should then be donated to your local thrift store.
While you are making the donation, walk in there for a little and check out how much you could be saving by buying second hand clothes instead of new ones. We’ll write that one up in a different blog entry…
