The October issue of Real Simple magazine reveals a grim statistic: 6,250 tons of landfill waste “could be avoided if half the kids in America traded Halloween costumes instead of buying new ones.” That the equivalent to the the weight of more than 3,000 mid-sized cars! Be sure and swap, sell or donate this year’s costume. Did you know there’s an official Halloween costume swap day? Of course it’s already passed, but you can mark your calendar for next year’s swap.

I have three main methods of disposal when it come to rehousing my clutter.

• I donate most of my items to the thrift store. I have used the same thrift store since the beginning of my declutter mission and now I volunteer there as well.
• I sell items that I feel inclined to recoupe my losses on, by auctioning them on ebay. It is a love hate relationship but all in all I have done pretty well out of it.
• And then there is Freecycle.org This is my go to place for when I am trying to responsibly dispose of items that are not appropriate for the thrift store or that are too awkward to sell on ebay.

Freecycle, like ebay, can have its love/hate aspects as well. I have come across more than one potential recipient who messed me around, not turning up and generally wasting my time. There is at least one lady that often tries to claim my stuff that has surely got to be either a hoarder or owns a secondhand store. Either way she is hopeless at showing up on the first attempt. But I can forgive these little inconveniences because of the many time I have successfully rehoused items that may otherwise have gone to waste.

• There was the broken guitar amplifier that one man was happy to tinker with
• A lamp that needed rewiring
• My old motorcycling leathers that were stiff from lack of use over 20 years and no longer fit me. These were eventually donated by the Freecycle recipient to a vintage motorcycle club to be auctioned to raise money.
• The hutch from my entertainment unit. I kept the bottom as my lowline TV unit and Freecycled the hutch section. It was collected by a carpenter who was thrilled to use the lead-light doors and was also going to salvage the timber for other projects.
• Numerous baseball souvenirs that weren’t worth the hassle of selling on ebay
• Some Snoopy toys
• A television that even the thrift store didn’t want. (Not featured as My Daily Declutter Item yet only collected on Saturday)
• A selection of collectable Coca Cola bottles that I felt iffy about selling on ebay because they were full and awkward to post. I didn’t think these were appropriate for the thrift store either because someone might have bought them to drink and they were way past their used-by dates. (Friday’s declutter item)
• And today’s declutter item, some seat cushion covers and back cushions for a pair of Ikea tub chairs. I doubt anyone would have wanted to buy these on ebay or at the thrift store but I found a taker on Freecycle within the afternoon or advertising them.

I know that there are a number of disadvantages of getting rid of your stuff this way…

• Sometimes people don’t show up when they say they will or at all in some cases. I usually just put the item on my front stoop and the people pick it up when they are ready. What do I care if someone steals it, I don’t want it anyway. It is somewhat annoying though when people don’t show up to collect an item that I don’t feel comfortable putting outside, such as the television. I make a time, I wait around, then I get a text saying “Sorry something else came up.” and I have wasted my afternoon. Grrrr! For me though, I will suck it up for the satisfaction of finding homes for my stuff and keeping it out of landfill.
• Another deterrent is the fact that you are giving complete strangers your contact and address information. Who knows what sort of people they are and soon they are going to turn up on your doorstep. I don’t let this bother me. I am sure there is only one fruitloop in a million and I haven’t encountered one yet. For the sake of extra safety, plan pick up times when you aren’t home alone.

In relation to people not turning us a arranged ~ I often pull the trigger too soon by being overeager to make arrangement with the first person to email in their interest in the item. I think it is probably better to wait a while, read all responses and pick the one who seems the most keen. Their eagerness may inspire them to be more punctual and accommodating. I will try this approach the next time I list something and see how it turns out.

The Freecycle Networkâ„¢ is made up of 4,989 groups with 8,800,647 members around the world. It’s a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (and getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It’s all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills. Each local group is moderated by local volunteers (them’s good people). Membership is free. To sign up, find your community by entering it into the search box or by clicking on ‘Browse Groups’ . Have fun!

If you haven’t tried it yet why not give it a go. You have brought all of this stuff into your home. You have come to the conclusion that you no longer need or want it. The responsibility is now yours to dispose of it responsibly. I have had people say to me “Finding ways to get rid of clutter is such a bother.” My response to that is “Try harder!. You got yourself into this mess and it is up to you to do the right thing by the environment while getting yourself out of it. Think of it as penance from your past indiscretions and as an incentive to be a more responsible consumer in the future.”

Today’s Declutter Item

Some time ago I bought some slip on covers for my ageing Ikea tub chairs. Included were seat covers and back cushions so the ones below became excess to my needs. I stuck them in the bottom of a closet where they hid for years. Last Friday I finally got around to advertising them on Freecycle.org and lo and behold someone claimed them. She was happy, I was happy and the cushions were saved from landfill and stopped cluttering up my closet. Win Win!

Tub Chair Covers & Cushions

Something I Am Grateful For Today

Finding the time to get started on making my Christmas cards. I got the housework out of the way, even pulled down the microwave and cleaned the little nook it sits in. Meanwhile I did three loads of washing and answered lots of blog comments. Snuck in the odd coffee and a piece of chocolate here and there and still found time to make some cards.

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” Brother David Steindl-Rast

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow

I ran into a friend at the grocery store a week ago and we had a little chat. She was searching for some containers to hold clean and used plastic teaspoons that she washes and reuses in her work space. She works in a training environment and as usual coffee and tea is provided as refreshment. In order to do the right thing by the environment she encourages people to leave the plastic spoon to be washed and reused. Of course not everyone conforms to this ideal so the spoons constantly need restocking.

I offered to find her some proper metal teaspoons at the thrift store where I volunteer making it more likely that people would leave then where they use them. This should eliminate the use of plastic altogether and the spoons are secondhand so buying them doesn’t add to the supply and demand for new product.

I managed to pick up 20 silver plated teaspoons for only $4 and delivered them to her. She was very pleased and I was happy to help. Not only did we achieve something for the environment but the sale of the spoons provides cash for a charity that helps people in need. To top it off, my donation of the spoons to the organisation she works for saved them the expense of buying new ones. Win Win Win!

My Silver Spoon Donation

The intention for this post is to help you choose the best way to dispose of the objects you are decluttering. Some objects will be just trash but for others you will be endeavouring to find new homes either by donating to a charity, giving them to someone else or selling them.

There are often emotions involved when it comes to clutter. Finding the right home for your things can make the decision to let go a lot easier. For example it feels easier to let go if you…

• Know that the procedes of donating your items to charity will help someone in need.
• Get a little money back by selling your items.
• Know your items will be appreciated when giving them to family or friends who have admired them.
• Doing the right thing for the environment by finding a way to recycle items you thought were good for nothing.

Donating to charity is simple. In some places it is as simple as making a phone call and the charity will come to you to collect your items. In some cases you just amass the objects until you have a car load and then drop them off to a charity near you.  I won’t go into specific details as to what charity to use because that will be different depending where you are in the world. I am sure everyone is aware of a charity in their area that you can either drop off or phone for a pickup.

Be mindful of what you send to charity. They will not accept certain item because of safety and/or hygiene reasons. They may or may not accept mattresses or sofas that are stained. Some won’t accept mattresses at all. They usually will not accept underpants, for obvious reasons, unless they are new with tags on. Also, please make sure any items that you send to a charity are clean and in useable condition (working order). Soiled and broken items will be rejected and the charities end up having to pay huge fees to send loads of these uncharitable donations to landfill. If in doubt about what the charity will accept just phone them and ask.

Selling is a great way to eleviate the guilt of having spent money on an object that you didn’t get good value out of. It is also a good way to redeem a little cash to help pay off credit card debt that you probably shouldn’t have racked up in the first place.

I mostly sell on eBay but there are also other world wide sites like Craiglist. These are not the only options though. My husband’s work place has a on-line community board where employees can post For Sale ads, maybe you have such a resource. Australia has Trading Post and Gun Tree and others I am sure. Most places will have newspapers that also have on-line classified. My daughter once sold some old clothes using Facebook as her advertising medium. Just use your imagination or google something like “Selling Online” and see what comes up.

It is important however when advertising items to give a detailed description of exactly what the item is you are selling and what that includes. Just as important is to be honest about the condition the item is in. Just because something doesn’t work or isn’t complete doesn’t mean someone won’t want it. Parts can be just is valuable to people as the whole. If you think an item is worth selling why not give it a go.

Giving to family and friends is can be a very satisfying way to pass things on. Particularly things that you have held dear for some time. Perhaps things that have been handed down to you from other family members. If someone you know admires something you have decided to declutter they would be a good candidate to offer this item too. Always make certain that the person you offer it to only takes it if they truly want it. Make sure you explain that there is no obligation and you won’t be upset if they turn down your offer.

Giving to family and friends isn’t always about precious objects it can also be about useful objects. My father recently gave my brother his ride-on mower because my father no longer lives on a large property but my brother has a vacant block of land to mow.

Other ways to give stuff away.

• Freecycle is a great resource for giving things away. Especially those odd things that aren’t suitable for charity or for selling.
• Putting stuff out on the footpath with a free sign on it has also worked well for me in the past.
• One of our readers occasionally leaves a box in the foyer of their apartment building with free items in. You could possibly do this at your place of work or at a community group that you visit like a children’s playgroup.
• When I lived in the US there was a homeless man that was often begging at my freeway exit who I used to give things to every now and again. One day I even brought him a hot meal, he was very happy about that.
• Rachel, one of our readers is having a give away morning on the 20th of August to reduce her stuff before moving into a smaller dwelling. Hows that for ingenuity.

The options are endless. Once again just use your imagination. Today I googled “Give stuff away” and came up with some sites I didn’t know about like ozrecycle.com, scoodi.com and altruists.org. I didn’t check to see how good they were but I did find those and many more.

Recycling is an important aspect to decluttering. Anything that can be recycled should be disposed of responsibly. There are several way I go about this….

1. I put any items, that are suitable, into my recycling bin. Your local government department in charge of the collection of these bins will most likely have a web site giving clear instruction as to what type of items are suitable to go in them.
2. Larger items that may have some potential for recycling get saved until our local council has a curbside pick-up day. This is where you put the bigger items that won’t go in the trash or recycling out on the street for pick-up. Old mattresses, furniture, televisions, building materials and many other items are suitable for this type of collection. Many of these items will have components for recycling. I find that, in my area, the piles of stuff awaiting pick-up are well picked over and deminished in volume by the time the actual collection day happens. What is collected is sorted into trash and recyclables and treated accordingly.
3. There are often designated drop off areas or special drop of days for the recycling of certain items. Batteries, paint, electrical goods, chemicals etc are often disposed of in this way. Once again you can utilise your search engine by typing something like “recycle batteries (name of your city)” and helpful information will likely pop up.
4. Once again Freecycle is also a good way to recycle or repurpose items that are no longer in working order. I have given away pieces of furniture  and electrical items on Freecycle. There are often folks out there who are happy to fix of use the parts for these items.

I hope this post has helped you find some ways to responsibly rehouse or recycle your unwanted items. You will have peace of mind knowing your once precious things are going to good homes. And I can not stress enough how important it is to do the right thing by the environment, by keeping perfectly good stuff out of landfill and by decreasing the demand for the production of new products.

Here is a link to a guide I am slowing adding to that gives you ideas and web sites that will help you find appropriate places to donate and recycle.

Today’s Declutter Item

Some more t-shirts off to the thrift store today when I go to do my volunteer work. 

My husbancs T-shirts

Something I Am Grateful For Today

I love how fast my donations leave the house now that I am volunteering at the thrift store where I drop them off. Last week I even dropped something off for my neighbour. I am grateful the the lovely people at the thrift store have made me feel so at home there already. I look forward to going each time. It is wonderful to see the stuff walking out the door to be reused by someone else.

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow

A request from The California Wine Club

I’m reaching out to you on behalf of The California Wine Club and their “Put a Cork in it” collection drive. The CWC, in partnership with ReCORK.org, is hoping to collect, recycle and repurpose 20 million wine corks by September 30th. If our goal is reached, ReCORK will celebrate the accomplishment by planting 1,000 cork oak trees in the Mediterranean cork oak forest.

CA Wine Club is giving away some great prizes as well! Wine Magnums, CA Wine Club memberships, and sandals from SOLE shoes (Made from recycled cork, of course) Enter the Sweepstakes on our FB page – http://www.facebook.com/pages/CWC-Cork-Drive/122918901125308?sk=app_188808144508665

For more information go to ReCork.org

Hi Readers, today I am featuring the first of two interviews that were very generously offered to me by Ideealistin, one of our regular readers and commenters here at 365 Less Things. When she isn’t decluttering or reading my blog Ideealistin is a journalist and recently she conducted these two short email interview that she thought would be a nice fit with my blog. I was granted permission to publish these by the two interviewees today’s being with Bee Johnson of  The Zero Waste Home and the second interview with Dave Bruno from The 100 Things Challenge is scheduled for Thursday.

Without further adieu here is the interview with Bea Johnson:-

Ideealistin: Bea, voluntarily giving up things seems to become a serious lifestyle choice and it seems to have its’ origin in the super consumer culture of the USA. Do you sense the wish for less in your everyday life and neighbourhood? Or do you think we are more at a stage of talking about the concept and liking it rather than executing the “less”?

Bea Johnson:  I think it’s a combination of the two. People are interested in living with less but they do not quite know how to change their accumulation habits. I think the American culture makes it too easy to accumulate. We are pounded with ads, are handed out freebies everywhere we go, and it is often easier to buy things then not buy them, (i.e, repair them or rent them). Which is why I have added the Refuse to our set of Zero Waste rules. We have been able to achieve very low waste by Refusing what we do not need (junk mail, freebies, plastic bags), but also by Reducing what we do need, Reusing by using and shopping with reusables, Recycling what we cannot refuse, reduce or reuse and Composting the rest.

Ideealistin:  Your change came about with downsizing house. Did looking at the way you were living make you want to downsize or did downsizing trigger the purging and rethinking?

Bea Johnson:  It is downsizing that triggered our rethinking.

Several years ago, we moved from a large home located in a bedroom community (where the car was our main mode of transportation) to a home half the size in an active downtown. We wanted to be able to walk or ride everywhere (school, stores, coffee shop, movies, theatre). But before finding the small house, we rented a small apartment for a year, with only a few necessities. We stored the rest. We immediately found out the benefits of living with less, We had more time to do the things that are important to us, such as spending time with family and friends, and explore/enjoy the outdoors. Once we moved in the small house, we let go of 80% of our belongings. It is with more time, that we also started educating ourselves on environmental issues, and decided to do something about it for the sake of our kids future. In the midst of the recession, my husband quit his job to start a sustainability consulting company, I tackled the house and our lifestyle.

Ideealistin:  You gave up on something, nobody really wants in the first place: waste. Were you expecting the harsh criticism that people confronted you with for giving up something that would end in the trash five minutes later anyway?

Bea Johnson:  I am not surprised by the criticism and expected it when going into it. I thought long about it before starting my blog. I live in a very consumerist society. Our story makes people reflect on their own shopping habits and sometimes shatters their way of thinking, But we’re not telling anyone how to live their lives, we’re just sharing how we live ours.

Ideealistin:  You did not really have a guide into your lifestyle changes. Would you have wanted one? How did you keep yourself motivated and assured of being on the right track? How do you feel about more and more growing into the role of a sort of guide yourself for others?

Bea Johnson: Had I had a guide, I would have reached our current waste level, much faster. Not having one though, allowed me to test some extremes and find my level of comfort without compromising our trash level. It helped me evaluate and stick to changes that are sustainable, i.e. applicable to the long term. We do not consider Zero Waste as a short term project, but rather a lifestyle. All along, my motivation was, is and will be, the future of my kids.

Ideealistin:  Relinquish waste also meant to give up certain things or find alternatives. Today you say you like your new way of life and the alternatives better – but how did giving up feel on the way? Did you have cravings, hard times, thoughts of giving up?

Bea Johnson: With any change, naturally comes adaptation. Washing my hair with baking soda and vinegar for 6 months, made me feel like someone else – or something else, like salad dressing ;). I realized that I had gone too far by “giving up” hair luster that comes with shampooing. I now use shampoo sold in bulk (I refill my bottle at the store). Today, I do not feel that I am “giving up” anything, as we have found a balance and have Zero Waste on auto-pilot. After all, this lifestyle has not only made our family happier, healthier, and more organized, but it has also saved us money and more importantly time! With that in mind and contrary to popular belief, I think this lifestyle gives back more than it takes away.

Ideealistin:  When talking (and blogging) about your choices you’ll always get other opinions, some thinking you go too far, others thinking you do too little. How did (or do, if this is still something you think about today) you manage to find the right balance?

Bea Johnson: My balance is based on finding out what worked for me and my family, and ignoring other people’s opinions. If we worried about other people’s opinions, we would have never evolved. I think worrying about people’s opinions is what keeps many people from changing, it puts them into an action paralysis. I truly believe and live by these Gandhi words: “Be the change you want the world to be.”

Ideealistin:  Many people seem to see zero waste and „less is more” not as an option because they feel their spontaneity (or even their creativity) endangered by not being able to buy things on the go (whether be it coffee or shoes they like and that maybe are on sale). Do you feel or ever felt too unspontaneous?

Bea Johnson: Spontaneity can manifest itself in many different ways. One does not have to be an ardent consumer in order to be spontaneous. It is actually with the time that we have gained from living with less that we have gained spontaneity (less time to care for things, means more time to care for people). It might not be through consuming an unneeded pair of shoes (thoughtless purchase), but rather through getting together with friends: sharing an impromptu glass of wine, or going for coffee (the coffee shops serve in reusable ceramic cups), or packing a last minute picnic … This lifestyle puts more emphasis on human interaction than it does on stuff, of course.

***End Of Interview***

I think you will agree with me that Ideealistin asked some very pertinent questions here and was given some very thoughtful and candid responses by Bea. I for one had a lot of the questions answered that I had been wondering about Bea and how the metamorphose of her and her families lifetstyle took place.

Thank you so much to Ideealistin and of course to Bea Johnson for the opportunity to release this interview here at 365 Less things.

Today’s Declutter Item

There will be a lot more Snoopy stuff passing through the Declutter Item of the Day before the end of the year. There are some to donate and some to try to sell on ebay. So expect to see a lot more of it.

Snoopy Toys

Something I Am Grateful For Today

Today I would like to say how grateful I am to you all, my wonderful readers for joining me on my declutter journey and in some cases sticking with me for a very long time now. Every new reader is a blessing and any faithful reader who has stuck with me through thick and thin are considered a friend. It is great that some of you add your voices to my post through your comments. Those comments make this blog a more rounded experience for all readers as well as for me. New and differing opinions is how we learn in life and I am always grateful for the opportunity to learn. So thank you everyone, new, faithful, talkative or silent, I know you are out there listening and I am grateful for that.

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

Colleen has issued a Use It Up Challenge several times. The most recent one I can find is in September. I’ve been thinking a lot about this challenge recently because we are finally coming to the end of it here at the Bogard household. Along the way, I consumed all the multiday vitamins and calcium I had in the cabinet, and we used all the various extra bottles shampoos and conditioners along with several toothpaste tubes that the girls had not squeezed down tho their last drops.

Those items were quickly finished in comparison to the soap challenge. I had no idea we owned so much soap! I tried a couple of times to give away the Mr. Bubble then put it into the dispenser with the kitchen soap. (Not the best idea, according to my husband. He feels it lacks any grease cutting ability.)  The rest of it, we have been using up one shower, one bath at a time. We had soap the girls had made, soap their friends had made and given as gifts, chunks of soap left over from when we made soap, fruity smelling bath bars that had been given as gift, little soaps from hotels, and at least a dozen smallish bottles of bath gel that had been gifts. Obviously, the trouble with even a useful gift is that it’s clutter if you don’t use it, so using it is what we’ve been doing, apparently since September. That’s eight months ago!

As we’re approaching the end of the soap supplies, I’ve started thinking about other things that can be used up. The only thing I’ve really latched onto is plastic bags, specifically the sturdy plastic bags that mulch comes in. The last time I did a big mulching, I neatly cut open the tops of the bags and saved them, all stored inside of one bag. I found them when I was cleaning the shed. I decided that since I’d saved them, since they were still intact, and since they really can’t be recycled despite the recycling symbol on the side (too many bits of mulch still clinging to them), I would use them as kitchen trash bags.

I typically only use one kitchen-size trash bag a week, and it holds everything.  These mulch bags are quite a bit smaller than my kitchen trash can – not as wide nor as tall. I had to consciously decide to use them. Because they don’t hold as much, I’ve been using one and a half or two bags per week and am very gradually making my way through them. (I also reuse the large bags my toilet paper comes in as well as dog food and bird seed bags, but those I have much less frequently.) I am packing for a camping trip this weekend and decided to put a couple of the bags in with my kitchen things. They’ll make sturdy camp trash bags. (I am also taking a recycling bin.) If I hadn’t consciously chosen to use the bags, they’d have been wasted when I was dumping the mulch out – it’s a lot easier to get the mulch out if I split the bag down the center than it is to cut just the top – but I chose to Use It Up. (Or, to be more truthful, in the past I decided to Save It Up. In the present, I decided to Use It Up.)

What do you have that’s consumable and in excess to your needs? Food? Check the pantry and the freezer. Toiletries? Check under the sinks and in the bathroom drawers. Craft items? Check your supply drawers. Or is it something more creative like my reduce and reuse mulch/trash bags? Let me know what you’re using up.

Note from Cindy: I am driving the 5th graders on an overnight field trip Tues and Wed (US) or Wed and Thurs (Aus), and I likely will not be able to respond to comments. I have asked Colleen to try and keep up with them if she has time. If not, I’ll jump in when I return.

Today’s Declutter Item

Craft Adhesive (Use it up)

My Gratitude List

• Something that made me laugh ~ An amusing email response to my ki-ai story yesterday. I will not embarrase the author of the email by revealing her name or the details but needless to say her story was way more hilarious than mine and Ki-ai has forever had a special significance to her from that day onward. To be able to laugh at yourself is a good quality to have to give someone else permission to laugh at you is a special gift.
• Something Awesome ~ When you are late for an appointment but they were running late and you arrive just in time.
• Something to be grateful for ~ The opportunities that life continues to deal out to us whether we are expecting them or not.
• Something that made me happy ~A wonderful unplanned day of eating, chatting and laughing with old friends and new.
• Something I find fascinating ~ The things women talk about when we get together. I wonder what men talk about when we aren’t around. I bet they don’t have nearly as much fun or are as open as us females.

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow

One of my golden rules for decluttering is…

Don’t waste it just because you don’t want it.

There is no doubt that during the course of decluttering your home you are going to have to deal with what to do with all the items you are getting rid of.  We have spoken quite a lot over the last thirteen months on how to go about rehousing items but it never hurts to refresh our minds of these details.

On my page Give away-Throw away – Sell – Use up, I list what became of all the 365 items I decluttered from my home during 2010. I will use the info from that page here to explain what was involved in the disposal of these items and other methods that you could utilise to achieve the same result. The title of each topic speaks for itself but there is more to some of them than meets the eye…

Give Away (237 items)

Thrift Store – Most were taken to my local thrift shop where they were more than happy to take them off my hands. Now the thing with thrift shops is that they can’t take everything, and you really should speak to them first to make sure you aren’t just adding to their rubbish removal costs. Even when we think an item is still usable there maybe a health or safety reason why thrift stores can’t take these items for resale. Please click on this link to read about how some charities in my area are pulling their bins because of this problem and because some people just abuse the system.

Freecycle – Because of the inconvenience of having to arrange the pick up I generally only use Freecycle to offload the items that are not suitable to give to the thrift store. For example I have had three separate baseball card give-aways because baseball isn’t popular in Australia and these would just be a burden to the thrift store. I also had a lamp that required rewiring that one lovely lady was happy to take away because her son was an electrician. Once again this item would have been useless to the thrift store.  I have also given away a couple of American voltage electric appliances that people were happy to run from a step down transformer. As you can see these would not only have been useless to donate but also difficult to sell.

Friends – I have also given away about a dozen things to friends who were glad to have the use of them. In some cases the item would have had to be purchased new had I not been able to step in and help. My friends soon learned to see me before running off to the store.  We are doing each other a favour here and I thank them for taking the items off my hands.

Other Organisations – I managed to find homes for all of my 237 items just using the three avenues mentioned above but there are many other organisations out there that would be glad to accept donations. Scout groups I am sure would be happy to take camping equipment, schools would be glad of the generous donations of craft and stationary items, sporting clubs can always use extra equipment. Just use your imagination and I am sure you will find someone happy to re-purpose your unwanted stuff.

Sell (58  Items  sold on eBay at a total of $1533.65)

On-Line – Although all of the items I sold were sold on eBay there are other online selling options that you can chose from such as Craigslist.

Newspaper – You could advertise to sell in the classified section in your local newspaper. This is a good option if you have items that are too big or cumbersome to sell on eBay. Although eBay and the like do have a pick up only option that targets local shoppers I think you may find a bigger audience through using a non-online selling venue. In Australia, we have an online/local newspaper combo selling option called the Trading Post that I am going use to try to sell some musical instruments soon. I will let you know how that pans out.

Notice Boards – I don’t know if you have ever seen notice boards in your local shopping centres where people paste up photos and contact details to sell, rent or give-away items. I have seen a few in my area perhaps there is one in yours.

Garage Sale – I have had several garage sales in the past though none of my 365 things were sold this way because I was purging slowly and did not want to store the items until I had enough for a garage sale. One thing to remember with garage sales is that you have a very limited audience, and they are looking for a bargain but if you were only likely to donate the stuff anyway then you could end up with a few hundred dollars in your pocket instead.

Market Stall – This is much the same situation as a garage sale but you have a larger audience and have to haul the stuff to another location to sell. Like garage sales I have had great success in the past offloading my stuff this way.

Use Up (Only 3 items of my 365 were declutter this way)

Even though 3 is a very small quantity over the year there were many other items that were used up that I didn’t include. Items such as clothing that wore out that I didn’t replace and cleaning items that I didn’t like that I persevered with rather than cluttering up my cupboards with a duplicate in another brand. As you in know I call this Natural Progression Decluttering. I really hate waste and I would rather find a way to use something up rather than throw it away because that is a crime against the environment in my eyes.

Throw Away (67 Items)

To me this quantity (67) seems like far too many but it isn’t as bad as it looks. I scanned back through my records on my Google calendar to find out what was among these 67 items. Some of them were sent to be recycled such as paper products like old magazines, files and boxes while many of them were items that were simply used beyond there usefulness, just plain old worn out, rusty or perished in some way. There was nothing thrown in the trash just because I was too lazy to deal with it and that should never be the case for anyone. If an item still has use in it please please find it a new home.

Today’s Declutter Item

Today we have another mystery item which fetched $10 on ebay. Actually they are parts to an old wood plane.

Things I am grateful for today

• Getting through the housework quickly – So I could go out for a coffee with a friend.
• That it cooled down before we went for our afternoon walk – I would also be grateful if these 35°C plus days would go away for the year.
• Space in the freezer to put the water bottle for a quick cool down.
• Online product reviews – My stab blender is dying and I want to be sure to get a replacement that will perform admirably.
• Having fun with my guys – They are a pair of mischievous devils but lovable ones. (I speak of Steven my husband and Liam my son of course.)
  

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow.

Sometimes to declutter an item means to make it useful again.

This pair of much loved Keens just needed a new lease on life.

So I bought some Suede/Nubuck dye and revived them.

At $90 a pair a person really wants to get as much use out of these as possible.

Well the jolly fat man is due to arrive again but that isn’t going to send me into a spin this year. I have let my family know that I will not be wanting any gifts and aren’t planning on buying any for anyone else. I will be giving my children money and everyone else will be receiving one of my recycled Christmas cards which is what this post is about. I love simple Christmas I feel so much more relaxed this year.

Every Christmas for the last  few years I have been using the cards I received the year before to make the years supply of Christmas cards. Instead of sending generic cards I am sending something I have put personal effort into and am recycling at the same time. I hope the recipients appreciate the effort that went into it and consider it my personal gift to them.

The decluttering aspect of this exercise is that I use up some of my over abundance of craft supplies. This year I have used 15 card bases and envelopes, several embellishments and a number of sheets and scraps of patterned paper and card stock . It may not be much but every little bit counts. Below I will share with you the results of my efforts.

A sample of the end result of my recycling and decluttering

Before                                           After

Before                             After                              Before                                After

Before                             After                                 Before                                    After

Item 336 of 365 less things

The complete collection of cards that I made for this Christmas. Slowly but surely those craft supplies are starting to dwindle.

5 Things I am grateful for today

1. Games to play together on a rainy day.
2. Be able to do things with my own two hands.
3. Patience – I can’t say I have it for everything but it has been the key to my decluttering process this year.
4. A break in the rain to plant some basil and a chilli plant.
5. Rice – Thai black sticky rice, creamed rice pudding, curry and rice, risotto… need I go on. It’s just so versatile.