At midnight, I will go and see if the free, curb-lurking, white plates I put on the curb yesterday are gone. Tomorrow is garbage day. If they are still there at midnight, I will bring them up behind a tree and put them out after the garbage runs in the morning. I put them on the curb at about 5 pm on Tuesday. They will live there on the curb until they are gone. But, I don't want them in the garbage truck and in a landfill.
This is one of my methods of decluttering. I have several ways I handle unwanted things:
1) sell to antique shop
2) consign to antique shop
3) sell to junk place
4) give to friend
5) donate to church thrift store
6) will sell on Etsy when I get store up and running
7) place it in trash if it a useless item for anyone.
8) give to one of my children
9) repair or refurbish to sell or keep
10) keep it to repurpose
11) put it on the curb
12) sell it to salvage yard if it is metal
13) use it as a gift for friend or my family
I have a box of things to sell on Etsy, so I should get moving on getting the store ready to sell things.
UPDATE: Mark took the plates.
Your turn
Do you have a way of handling things other than the ways I listed for myself? Or, from my list, which do you use? What is your favorite? What is your least favorite? Any probems with any of these 13 ways? Do you have plans for decluttering?
I've used Freecycle to get rid of things--even old paint. And the local thrift shop has gotten a lot of my stuff, as had my UU church when they have a white elephant sale. Even the really worn clothing will be used for rag making if you donate it to a Big Brothers/Big Sisters dumpster drop off.
ReplyDeleteGood job!
ReplyDeleteIf someone can use it, I donate it to The Salvation Army or GoodWill. If I can get reasonable money for it with little hassle, I sell it on Craigslist. If it's broken, into the trash it goes.
m.
I used to do the curb side thing when we lived down south. There was a week long 'spring cleanup' for each area every year, when you could throw out furniture & large items. People would put stuff out a month or so in advance, and scrappers and scavengers would be out collecting the good stuff long before garbage day. It was like a free neighbourhood garage sale.
ReplyDeleteHere we have to go to the dump, and reuse groups are pretty much non-existant, so I just keep a box in the closet where I toss anything usable that I'm done with, and drop off at the thrift store when I go to town. We also take aluminum into the metal recycler a couple times a year.
I should probably try selling a few things once in a while, but I'm lazy, and I just want it gone.
I use your thirteen ways plus garage sales. We try to hold one every couple of years. Oh, no etsy. I'm not organized enough for that.
ReplyDeleteIn Chicago, unwanted clothes in good condition went to consignment shops but here we donate to church's who give these to locals in need.
People around here do the same as Wendy said...spring and fall clean-up.
ReplyDeleteI use freecycle and we drop my clothes (which keep getting too big for me since I've been eating heart healthy ;-) in the Red Cross drop off bin.
I'm visiting your blog today from a link on Kymber's blog. Haven't had a chance to look around yet because the first thing I read got me to comment :-)
Spreading the word to friends and family is my favorite method for decluttering. There have been numerous items we thought no one would be interested in that college-aged friends of my siblings were thrilled to claim for their dorm rooms or first apartments.
ReplyDeleteIf no one wants it and it has some resale value, old electronics might be listed on eBay, books or movies on Amazon's marketplace, or CDs sold to SecondSpin.com. If the resale value of an individual item is so low that it doesn't make any sense to incur listing and shipping fees to get rid of it, we'll wait until we have a boxful of books or old DVDs and see if they have any trade-in value at Amazon or Powells.com. Whatever is left over is donated to the library or taken to Goodwill. Clothing goes straight to charity.
The stack of plates was not gone at midnight, so it is up in the yard to be put out until next Wed night. I am running to Huntsville in a hurry to get computer bugs out. When I return, I have thoughts on each of your comments.
ReplyDeleteLindaM,
ReplyDeleteI cannot believe I forgot yard sales! Thanks for the input.
Sue,
And, I forgot Freecycle which I do use. Come back and look around.
Hops,
Thanks for some more suggestions, places I don't use except for donating to charity--church thrift store. I remember we were desperate for furniture when we married and used some pretty horrible furniture in our first house. I wanted to buy a house rather than have a rented place full of nice furniture.
I put the stack of plates back on the curb. And, my computer is still running AVG and finding problems.
Wendy,
ReplyDeleteI wish we had days for spring cleaning out like you do.