Keeping Donations Simple!

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How to simplify donating your clutter

How to simplify donations

…and get clutter free now

So you have purged your home of things you don’t want, and now you have a small mountain of things you want to donate? I am going to bet that you have 5 or 6 places that you think you need to go to get rid of this stuff…
…The clothes you want to go to Goodwill (except for the kids clothes which you want to consign somewhere).

….Those books you want to sell to a used book store, but the store is a 30 minute drive away. But maybe next month you could go there?

….The kitchen gadgets would be good to go to a home goods-based thrift store.

…The unused notebooks and binders could go to a school.

…The antique dish collection from your mom you want to sell on E-Bay, but you haven’t sold anything on Ebay before. And of course you don’t know what the dishes are worth, and you hate shipping things. Ebay means you need to ship things in a timely fashion.

….And your husbands’ tools should go to Habitat for Humanity…


Just stop. Stop making it hard.

Your intentions are great—you want to prevent waste by trying to find homes for this stuff. I totally get it. But what is really going on here? I mean, below the surface?

How do you feel when you look at this pile of stuff? Guilty for buying it in the first place? Extravagant? Wasteful?

But here is the thing: everyone buys stuff occasionally that they do not like or use. You may have done this more than occasionally. And yes, you may have spent a lot of money that you now see was a mistake—but there is no point beating yourself up for things that cannot be changed. You know better now and you will do better from now on.

Your main goal now is to get rid of the clutter once and for all.

And that means getting rid of it as fast and easy as humanly possible. Here’s you can do that:

  • Limit the charities to 2. One charity is best but it isn’t always possible since some specialize in only a few categories. Purple Heart will pick up donations, so all you have to do TODAY is call and book them. Put the date on your calendar and haul the stuff out to the curb before they arrive.

  • Don’t try to save everything. An old ugly couch won’t sell and no one will spend the money recovering it. Just ask your trash company if they will haul it, then put it on the curb with the trash.

  • Simplify giving things away. If you have an item you think others would want, but isn’t worth donating or selling (like plastic gardening pots or an old lawn ornament), put them out by the curb with a FREE sign. Snap photos of it and post it in a Facebook FreeCycle or Facebook Yard sale page with a list of what is there. You’ll get the best results if you say the specific dates the items will be out there and that you will not hold anything for anyone (People will ask anyway, but it helps…).

  • Remember you goal is not to recoup money spent, it is to simplify your life. That means getting rid of the clutter as quickly as you can so you can move on.