Tag: decluttering

Now’s the Time for a Great Garage Sale

Posted on by Jordank

Most people stage garage sales in the spring — right after they do their spring cleaning and neighbors start to emerge from their houses to enjoy the warmer weather. But the end of summer and beginning of autumn can be an equally favorable time for your effort to declutter and make a few bucks off the things you no longer need.

So, with the autumnal equinox coming up on Friday, Sept. 22, and the weather still warm in many parts of the country, now’s the time to plan a late-season yard, garage or tag sale!

The more temperate the climate, the longer the garage sale season, says Household Tips Guide blogger Lynnette Walczak, who had her most successful sale in late October in Tennessee. Warmer areas also favor Friday sale hours, she adds, but no matter which days one chooses to hold a sale, the “early bird” hours of the morning will be busiest.

To take the hassles out of having a late-season sale, you should have a garage-sale “stash” at the ready by decluttering continuously throughout the year, says the Money Saving Mom. Set aside unwanted stuff on a regular basis and designate containers and a place to collect it all — maybe in the garage itself. When you’re ready to have a sale, it will be near-ready to sell.

You may still have stuff left over from a spring garage sale that’s still saleable, too, and some of these items — sweaters, blankets, skis, etc. — may have added appeal ahead of the cold winter months. A late-season sale will also benefit from a new set of customers, since many people won’t have seen your fliers and signs on the first go-round.

Older shoppers are out looking for deals in the fall, says My Divine Concierge. “Those kept inside by the heat of summer now find cooler days to go garage-sale shopping. And don’t forget the snowbirds who are preparing to leave for their annual migration south in a few weeks. They are out looking for a few last-minute items they need for their winter homes.”

To attract bigger crowds, enlist a few friends or neighbors to contribute items to your sale, or enlist the whole block or neighborhood and make it a multifamily sale. Multifamily sales attract an estimated 50 percent more customers, according to tips appearing in the Duluth News-Tribune, and more traffic means more sales.

Our Organizing Blog has many more tips on staging, pricing, and advertising a successful garage sale that apply throughout the year. And don’t forget: If you need to get rid of any unsold items following a sale (or just don’t have the time or energy to devote to staging a sale, but still want to declutter), contact ClothingDonations.org to schedule a pickup. It’s easy, tax-deductible and helps veterans programs nationwide!

Declutter During the Change of Seasons

Posted on by Jordank

Instead of treating the end of summer like a funeral, embrace the cooler temperatures by preparing your wardrobe for them, Goedeker’s Home Life says. Give beach towels and bathing suits a wash before putting them in storage, and set aside any T-shirts or other summer garments that just didn’t get worn this year. Then, unpack the flannels, sweaters, jackets, blankets and scarves you’ll be using in the months ahead, taking care to eliminate any that have outlived their usefulness. Finally, pack up those lightly-used also-rans and contact ClothingDonations.org for a pickup. You’ll be able to start the season with less clutter!

Save Your Sale for After Labor Day

Posted on by Jordank

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!

Declutter Before Back to School

Posted on by Jordank

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?

Posted on by Jordank

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!