Tag: decluttering your home

Get the Kids to Declutter on Their Summer Vacation

Posted on by Jordank

School’s out (for the summer)! And if you have kids, that means you’ll be looking for something to keep them busy for six or eight hours on most weekdays. Summer camp, a family vacation and other diversions are great options, but they can’t fill every one of those hours fast enough. This summer, get your kids involved in a good #decluttering.

You can already hear the collective groan you might hear as you suggest such a chore. But if you organize and incentivize the task, you might find that it gets done faster and more completely — and then everyone can really enjoy the summer fun.

Set a goal; the Making Lemonade blog suggests a summertime target of reducing stuff by one-third. Kids tend to accumulate lots of toys, clothing and other junk that they outgrow quickly, leading to overstuffed closets and drawers, so extra stuff should be easy to weed out. Put each of them in in charge of choosing what to keep.

Find a rainy day or quiet weekend to have everyone pitch in and declutter their personal spaces, or simply set a deadline. As an incentive, put a garage or yard sale on the calendar; anything that the kids are able to declutter and sell will mean extra money in their pockets — money they can spend on whatever they wish.

Toys can present an especially challenging decluttering task, says Simply Well Balanced. Sort them into categories — building toys, stuffed animals, craft supplies, etc. — and ask your child to keep only a limited number of favorites. Those few items will go back to the closets and shelves, and the rest will be bagged and boxed for sale or #donation. Anything broken or unusable can go directly into the trash.

After you hold your sale and distribute the proceeds, you can box up the leftover clothing, toys and other household items and schedule a ClothingDonations.org pickup. A driver will stop by on the appointed day, load up your stuff and leave a donation receipt for tax purposes. That lightly used merchandise will then be resold to fund veterans’ programs.

This, in itself, can be a lesson in personal responsibility for younger children, decluttering coach Gari Julius Weilbacher told WHYY. “It’s wonderful to teach kids from a young age about making meaningful donations. Involving kids in packing up the books, toys and clothes that they are no longer using can engage them in the process.”

Purge, Organize and Store Extra Stuff

Posted on by Jordank

If your space is stuffed to the gills with junk, a ruthless purge is the first step to a new, more #organized you, says Living Well Spending Less. “If you don’t love something, if it’s broken, if it doesn’t fit, or if you don’t use it, get rid of it!” Then, make an assessment of your storage space: Does it have room for a new set of storage shelves, hooks or bins? Deep-clean the area and invest in a uniform set of bins or boxes; then, reassemble the space, grouping all like items together. “Once you’ve organized your storage space, commit to keeping it intact,” the story says, and you’ll be able to find things when you need them while keeping #clutter to a minimum.

Declutter to Increase Storage Space

Posted on by Jordank

The curse of having too much stuff is common among Americans. And if you don’t keep that stuff organized, it becomes #clutter — and clutter can cloud the mind. That’s why the first step in any plan to get yourself, your storage space and your home organized should be to #declutter. Go room by room, the Spruce says, “and if rooms are large or complicated, you should start by breaking them up into zones. Work quickly and decide which items to toss and which to keep.” As you eliminate junk and free up space, donate any castoffs that may still be useful to someone else to ClothingDonations.org.

Is Self Storage the Right Answer for You?

Posted on by Jordank

Did you inherit a bunch of furniture and memorabilia as part of a relative’s estate and need a place to store it safely? Maybe you recently downsized and need to “shelve” that overflow stuff until you can find a place for it or sell it. Or perhaps you are moving, renovating or divorcing and need a place to put everything until the dust settles.

There are all kinds of reasons people turn to self storage, and more Americans are doing just that every year. The self-storage industry has been growing an average of 3.8 percent annually since 2013, according to a report from IbisWorld, and is now worth more than $37 billion per year.

If you’re considering becoming the one in 11 people nationwide who pay for self-storage, however, you should first think about why you need the extra space and how long you expect to need it. Once all of that extra stuff is out of sight, it’s easy to ignore — even though warehousing it costs a premium every month.

There are good reasons to invest in a self-storage unit, says DoughRoller. When you’re buying, selling or renovating your home, you can keep your extra stuff safe in storage until it has a new home. If you have an end date in mind, you won’t pay the rental fee month after month just to keep your stuff hidden.

Another good reason to invest in a self-storage space is to protect an investment. If you have an antique car that you only drive in the summertime and no extra garage spots, it’s a good idea to store it in the winter. Another good use of self storage is to warehouse goods you sell or business documents you don’t need on a daily basis.

Too often, however, self storage is the final resting place for the things that people never really needed, but couldn’t bear to part with. If you rent a unit only in an attempt to get the #clutter out of your home, you’ll be wasting good money — $91 per month, on average — to keep that extra stuff out of sight and out of mind.

Like a gym membership, self storage can quickly turn into something you pay for without thinking or taking advantage of its full value. And remember: If you happen to miss a few payments without rehousing your stuff, the storage provider will solve your clutter problem on its own by seizing that stuff and auctioning it off.

Instead of turning to self storage to house your junk, get rid of it. Box up that old bread maker, kick that extra couch to the curb and contact ClothingDonations.org for a pickup. Your donation will not only help the nation’s veterans, but also save you the hassle of moving that stuff to another location and the cost involved with housing it. You’ll be better off without it.

It’s Finally Spring (Cleaning) Time

Posted on by Jordank

Spring begins — officially, at least — tomorrow, March 20. And the news couldn’t be more welcome for people in many parts of the country after enduring what turned out to be an unexpectedly severe and snowy winter.

As the temperatures warm and the days lengthen, however, you might discover that a few things on your late-winter to-do list have gone undone. After another cold, snowy day, you may have decided the couch was too comfy to leave and binged Netflix instead of starting a new project.

Now’s the time to shake off those winter doldrums and snap into action. There is no time like right now — the very start of spring — to begin a spring-cleaning plan. Wait, and you might miss a perfect summer day.

The weather is just getting good enough for you to begin a thorough, whole-house deep-cleaning. Start with the windows; recipes for a cleaning solution vary (dish soap or vinegar and water are two good options), but authorities including Clean Mama agree that using a squeegee and lots of rags is the best plan of attack.

Once the windows are clean, the spring sunlight will reveal just what else might need a deep-cleaning. Pick a mild day and fling open those windows, then go room by room and dust from the top down, clearing cobwebs, moving to flat surfaces such as shelves and tables, and finally, vacuuming.

Once you’ve dusted and vacuumed, wash all of the linens that have been busy catching winter dirt, including throw rugs, bed linens and blankets. Vacuum and/or shampoo any upholstered furniture that has gotten dingy and dirty during the darkest nights.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff that has piled up in the last six months, set aside some time to #declutter as you clean, the Sylvane blog says. “Clutter has psychological influences. It signals to your brain that work isn’t done.”

Put that decluttered extra stuff in boxes and bags and contact ClothingDonations.org for a donation pickup. It only takes a few minutes to arrange, and takes most of the hassles out of decluttering. Plus, the donation is tax-deductible.

Finally, wash and wipe all of the hard surfaces inside your home: backsplashes, counters, cabinets and appliances in the kitchen and bathrooms, wood and tile floors, and utility shelves. Feeling ambitious? Powerwash the garage floor and deck.

Starting is the hard part, but the beginning of spring provides a fantastic reminder that a deep-clean may be in order. Once you begin, you’ll be able to shake off the winter doldrums and enjoy a fresh, decluttered space all season long.