Every year on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday of Labor Day weekend, the Hwy. 61 Yard Sale offers flea-market finds along a more than 61-mile stretch of road from Festus to Jackson, Mo. But Labor Day is not necessarily the best time to have your own yard or garage sale, according to The Spruce, since so many families will be celebrating the last gasp of summer with a vacation or other plans. The good news? You’ll have more time to declutter and sort your stuff before you post those sale signs the weekend after!
Tag: decluttering
Declutter Before Back to School
Most young people will return to school in just a few weeks. In many regions, school starts as early as mid-August, and that means there’s no time like the present to not only shop for the new clothes, textbooks and gadgets they’ll need for the upcoming school year, but also make room for those items by cleaning out some of the old stuff they won’t.
If your kids are still young, that’s great — you can help them form a foundation of habits that they can use throughout life. “Four-year-olds aren’t super-great declutterers, but they can certainly look through a pile of their drawings and pick out their favorites, or try out a pile of markers to figure out which ones are dried up,” says the Frugal Girl blog.
Help young children sort things into categories, and make “keep” and “get rid of” piles within each. Resist the urge to conduct the decision-making yourself; like everyone else, kids get attached to their stuff, and may be hurt if you make a call without their input. Instead, gently urge them to save only their favorites in each category (clothing, books, toys, etc.).
When they complete each segment of the task, box up the lightly-used stuff and contact ClothingDonations.org for a pickup. To keep things orderly, invest in some plastic bins to keep like items together, and reinforce the advantages of decluttering by pointing out how neat, clean and spacious their shelves and rooms become.
If your kids are already in their teenage years, the battle may be more difficult, says The Non-Consumer Advocate. Again, you should involve them in the decluttering process; it is not OK to arbitrarily clean and toss. Do, however, set concrete limits on how many of a particular item can be kept: X number of T-shirts or X number of games.
If you’re sending a child to college for the first time, you have a golden opportunity to declutter your home. You might have plans to repurpose his or her room, and even if you don’t, there’s likely a ton of stuff they won’t need during the transition into adulthood that you can store, sell, donate or throw away before they go.
As they pack for school, again: Create piles of items to keep, donate and trash. Almost any item of clothing your child doesn’t want to take to college is fair game for a donation, as are toys and games they’ve outgrown. Take this opportunity to have your child create his or her own bin of special memories, says the SpareFoot Blog, and store it in a safe place.
When your child moves out of the house for good, they can take that bin with them — and you can reclaim the space!
Is It Already Too Late to Spring-Clean?
Can you believe that spring started only a couple of months ago? Back then, it seemed like there was all kinds of time to sort through the junk and spring-clean the house, but with Mother’s Day over, summer will be here before you know it. And with Memorial Day just around the corner as the “official” start of summer, there isn’t much time left to accomplish important tasks like these.
But there’s really no bad time to spring-clean. For example, SpringCleaning365.com suggests that you dedicate just five to 15 minutes per day, every day of the year, to specific cleaning and organizing tasks; by the end of the year, your life will be less cluttered and less stressful. For May, the blog suggests (among other things) dedicating an entire week to a master closet purge and a thorough cleanup of digital photos.
While digital photos can undoubtedly benefit from better organization, that closet purge will be good for more than your own mental health and well-being. After you set the winter clothing aside for storage, donate the extra garments you no longer need to ClothingDonations.org, which will distribute them to local resale stores and dedicate the proceeds to veterans’ programs.
Cosmopolitan offers a complete how-to on performing a closet purge. It says to get rid of “clone” clothing (stuff that you have multiple other and better versions of), as well as the things you bought but never wore. Also get rid of “other you” clothing, the magazine says—things you last wore years ago, when you were skinnier/heavier/younger/trendier than you are right now.
You will find “junk” during a closet purge—stuff that’s too tattered or stained to pass along to friends, relatives or ClothingDonations.org. Donate these items—at least the softer, more absorbent ones—to the rag bag. That way, they can help you with the next step in your spring-cleaning regimen: wiping down and scouring the various parts of your home that tend to collect dirt and grime.
No matter what the calendar says, it’s never too late to declutter and spring-clean!
Give Mom the Gift of Less Clutter
Many moms — especially older moms — already have lots of stuff, and some are entering their “downsizing decades” later in life. This Mother’s Day, give them the gift of decluttering! Stop by, cook brunch and clean the hall closet; throw everything she no longer needs into boxes and schedule a pickup with ClothingDonations.org. Then, give only gifts that offer Mom an experience rather than more stuff, says the Embracing Simple blog, or items such as fresh flowers and pampering bath products that she can use — and use up — quickly.
The Best Gift for Mom? A Clean Home
Many moms will want a big brunch, cards, jewelry and a bouquet of flowers on Mother’s Day. But some would rather have a little bit of quiet time or an hour of extra shut-eye than a big celebration. And a break from everyday chores is a gift that moms young and older will always appreciate.
Money magazine talked to a number of bloggers who write about motherhood, and found that the best Mother’s Day gift is basically a day off—meaning zero time spent in the kitchen, and some space to relax. Simple outings can also be good, but only if mom doesn’t have to lift a finger to help out.
One of the most-wanted “gifts” the moms mentioned is a clean house. “My ideal Mother’s Day gift would be my family all pitching in together to clean up the house, do the dishes, fold and put away the laundry, and make me something yummy to eat while I took a bubble bath or read a good book,” moneysavingmom.com’s Crystal Paine told Money.
That comes as no surprise to this writer, who cleans, sweeps, vacuums and organizes some area of the home every time he visits his longtime neat freak of a mother. Since she’s getting older and downsizing, we often declutter and give the extra stuff to ClothingDonations.org, which makes it easy for us to keep the house tidy while contributing to a good cause.
If your mother has allergies, consider a “real” spring cleaning that cleans up the indoor air after a long winter, Huffington Post writer Amy Ziff says. Open the windows and give her potted plants instead of cut stems; they’ll help keep the indoor air clean. Clean under the sinks and replace the toxic chemicals you may find there with natural alternatives.
“Our homes need to become healthy-air oases,” Ziff says. “By conducting a health check-up this (and every) Mother’s Day, we can help our moms, ourselves and all of our loved ones breathe easier.”
Cleaning and decluttering cost very little, and the effort is sure to be one that Mom treasures. Once the place is neat, spotless and fresh-smelling (and you’ve worked up an appetite), you can take her out to brunch or dinner, too!