Decluttering - Toss, Sell, Donate

Welcome to all of my new readers! I hit 59 Facebook followers today, and 11 on Networked Blogs, and if I knew more about blogging I would know how many are following me in Google Reader...  I am so excited that you all are reading the blog!

Most of you know me... and you know that I love to organize things! My dream job is to be a professional organizer, but since I have a decently "lucrative" full-time day job, there's not much time for organizing other people's stuff. Which leads me to my own!

This year my family has been trying to reduce our debt and improve our financial situation.  What does this have to do with clutter, you may ask. Well, my opinion is, that the more stuff you have, and the less organized you are, the more time you spend maintaining your items.  The more stuff you have, it is harder to find the things you really need, and you spend time and effort managing these things.  If you can't find something, you may buy something you already have! (This is why I need to organize my grocery stockpile!)  And long term, when you run out of space in your house, you upgrade to a larger house to hold more things! (This is the most expensive of them all!)

So I have been on a mission... to declutter our things, and organize what we have.  I have been going room by room, and finding things we really don't need.

Once you do this, what do you do with it all?

Toss - Face it - some of what you have needs to be tossed. Food past its expiration date, broken toys, some things are way past their usefulness. Toss it.  (Excluding anything made of paper! We'll get to this in a second)

Sell - Try to make some money off of what you are getting rid of. Although don't fool yourself by trying to get a ton of money for your stuff. Remember - you are trying to get rid of it.
There are lots of ways to sell your stuff!
Ebay
Yard Sale
Craigslist
Half Price Books or Record Exchange for Books / CD's/Media
Consignment stores or sales

Swap - Your trash could be another's treasure!  Organize a clothing swap - for children's clothes or yours! Trade with a friend. Sign up for Paperback Swap and trade books you've read before for new ones. The possibilities are endless.

Donate - For the lazy, like myself, donate. Donate to Salvation Army, Goodwill, etc.  I just scheduled a pickup for the Vets to come to my house to get our donations. Woo! No wasted gas or time taking it to the donation place.  You also get a tax form or your donation, so you can use it for your taxes.

Recycle - Yep, recycle glass bottles, plastic containers, and paper. My favorite thing to do with newspaper, flyers, old magazines, etc, is to take it to the Paper Retriever Bin! You know, those green and yellow bins that a lot of churches and schools have?  The organization actually gets money for the paper, so we recycle every shred of paper in this house.

What are you waiting for? Get to decluttering!  

Do you have any ideas that I didn't mention?