But even given my propensity to add things to the garage sale box, the donation box, the recycling bin or--in a last case scenario--the garbage, there are still items I vacillate over.
1. One woman in a comment somewhere mentioned that she only keeps a few dishes, just what she and her husband use on a daily basis. I would love to do that, but...while I don't entertain frequently, I do have people over several times a year, so I have to keep enough dishes for those functions. In spite of that, I'm sure I have extra cookware and serving dishes I might be able to get rid of. Unfortunately, I've had difficulty doing this. Too many instances of thinking that I might need those things one day.
2. I do donate books, but those are difficult, possibly the most difficult thing for me to get rid of. So I still have lots of them and probably always will.
3. Paper. I have so many spiral notebooks left over from when my sons were in school, and I just can't get rid of those. Most are partially used, so I can't donate them to school supply drives. So, I'm very, very slowly using them up. Some I use in their original form, some I cut up and use as note paper.
4. Pencils (see paper above). I do use pencils, but I still have far too many, and the erasers are shot on most of them due to age. Still, I keep an art eraser nearby (Staedtler Mars Plastic ones are my favorites), and again, I am slowly (turtle slow) working my way through all those pencils.
Are you a saver or a pitcher? And what are the items you struggle with clearing out?
Best wishes. Happy reading and happy clearing!
2 comments:
Saver. Have a pile in our crawl space I call "Don't use now but may use later" that I cull before each annual yard sale I host. Kept a heating pad in there for 20 years and then indeed needed it in the middle of the night recently (so am quite thankful I kept it AND it still worked). Other things I put in our yard sale after not being used in years - and, of course, a week or days later I wish I had it; that's the way it goes!
I don't attend estate sales. I buy a clear plastic bag for $1.99 at Value Village that contains something I can use that would normally cost me well more than that on sale (like photo paper, business cards, recipe cards) - and I put the other dozen items in my yard sale (unless I can give them to friends or use them myself - and if they are new/unopened items, I donate them as draw prizes for our annual badminton tournament). Very rarely do those extra items not sell in our yard sales and I technically come out ahead financially.
I try to go through various drawers and shelves throughout every year to find more items for the yard sale, always keeping in mind that I too don't want my kids to have to go through everything when I'm gone. I have labelled my one-sided work papers as burn/shred, as I save old ones to use as scrap paper on the other sides before shredding. I systematically review my Christmas decorations, putting many in our yard sales too.
It's an ongoing process for sure.
I love your methods! I think you may well be the most organized person I know (and practical, too). I admire that.
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