Small Successes

Bags and boxes of stuff waiting to be delivered to Goodwill this weekend.

Last post I wrote about breaking down your goals to keep from getting overwhelmed.  Well, I'm finding that to be really true lately.  My goal of getting all our crap outta the basement is a little too big even broken down into the categories of my stuff, son's stuff, husbands stuff and our stuff.  Basically, I'm finding what works is to go down into the basement grab one item and do one of three things:  take a photo to sell it, put it in a bag to donate or find it a new home.  If I decide to sell it I take photos, write up a Craig's List Ad and put the item on the shelves in our bedroom as it waits to be purchased.  It makes our bedroom a little crowded, but it's better mentally for me to not put anything back in the basement once I bring it up.  If I decide to donate it, I have some bags lined up by the back door to take to our local Goodwill:  one bag for clothes, one for household stuff, and one for miscellaneous items.  This really helps Goodwill when sorting out your items and for me when tracking what I can deduct for taxes.  The last action of finding it a new home is usually the hardest and can create a snowball effect you might not expect.  Not that that is bad thing, but it can make the process a bit more time consuming.

For instance, I grabbed a Rubbermaid tub marked "Office Supplies" off the basement storage shelves today and while sorting out the pens, paper clips and envelopes I realized we already had way too many of these items out aready.  Which got me to going through all of our pens to see which ones still worked, tossing those that didn't and keeping only the ones we like.  Then I moved onto the huge supply of pencils we have dividing them in half to keep and half to donate.  I moved on to emptying out our little basket where we keep rubber bands removing all the laundromat tokens, screws, paperclips and misc. debris I found in there.  Basically, that one little tub of office supplies had me cleaning out drawers and shelves all morning.  The stumbling block came when I went to find out where I could donate all these still usable items to.  First, I found TerraCycle who has lots of recycling programs, but mainly for organizations, businesses and schools.  They also had no way to search if there is a drop off near you.  Next, I found I could send them to African children in need through Develop Africa, but they really want you to donate the money to ship the items as well which makes perfect sense, but we're trying to save not spend.  Closer to home I found a shelter that list that they would take the pencils and pens on their website, but give you no information on how to drop off these items or whom to contact.  In the end I decided to put a free ad up on CL and set them all out in a bag on my front steps.  The bag was gone within an hour which is great, but I can only hope someone is putting the supplies to good use and not just tossing what they don't need into the garbage.  All things considered I'm counting it as a success for the day.

It's only a small success getting rid of one bag of things we no longer need when we have a whole basement full, but a small success a day can add up to a very successful week.  It's really the movement towards the goal that I'm finding is important to me.  Instead of having a giant list of what I accomplished each day I'm simply asking myself if I worked towards our goal of living smaller and if the answer is "yes" than that's the real accomplishment.

To Sell or Not to Sell Your Used Clothing

Sigh, I still have yet to tackle the coats, hats, mittens, gloves etc. 

Now, I just talked about downsizing my wardrobe in my last post and you may have noticed I did not sell any of my clothing choosing to donate them instead.  The reason for this is that I find it isn't worth my time.  Women's clothing doesn't sell well on Craig's List or Ebay in my experience.  And, while I could  try to bring my clothing to consignment shops, I find these establishments to be very picky and only want items that are either very expensive or ones in "pristine" condition.  They also want clothing that is pretty current; basically only a year or two old at most.  The other bummer is if the consignment shop accepts your clothing and it does not sell in the time allotted you have to go back and pick them up.  With this scenario you run the danger of rethinking your choice of letting go of this clothing.  So, for most women's clothing I find it better to donate (to a Goodwill, other Charity or Church rummage) taking a tax write off instead of cash money.  You can really get the most value for your items this way.  Here are the IRS guidelines for itemized tax deductions and here is a Goodwill Value Guide to help you determine a price for your clothing as well as many other household items.  Really the only women's clothing items I try to sell (and I mainly use CL to do this) are coats, shoes or boots.  These items have a more general fit, and if lightly used they will sell well.

Now, children's clothing is another story.  Places like Once Upon A Child will purchase your used children's clothing outright.  I found them to be a very fair establishment which take most items unless very noticeably stained.  You will only get about 8-10% of the price they charge for the item.  So, for example, you bring in a pair of child jeans you paid $20 retail, they are likely to charge only $10 and you will get only 80 cents to a $1.  But, if you need the cash quickly this isn't a bad way to go.  If you need cash and have more time Ebay isn't a bad choice either.  For Ebay though, your children's clothing needs to be from higher end stores such as Hanna Andersson or The Gap (basically national or international stores with high brand recognition) and be in very good condition, but you command a great price.  My son has grown so fast that a lot of his clothing has gotten very little wear, but instead of selling it I find a lot of satisfaction passing them along to a friend of ours who has 4 boys.  Their family will certainly get a lot of use out of the clothing as each child grows.  There are really so many options.

You may be thinking well what about men's clothing?  I'd say it would be the same as per women's clothing, but I really have no experience as my husband tends to wear his clothing until it is ready for the garbage or rag bin.  He's very frugal that man of mine.

Books, Books, Books

My "library" of books.

I used to have lots and lots of books back when I was in Graduate school in California (it was for fine arts in case you were wondering.)  Books from all my undergraduate classes (I used to choose a class based on it's reading list), lots of Art books, biographies and novels.  I loved seeing them on my shelves and they made my sterile apartment very homey.  But when my then boyfriend / now husband asked me to take a month long camping trip as a way of getting back to Minnesota we decided to ship all my stuff home instead of renting a moving van.  Since we were shipping everything UPS and shipping costs are based on weight it quickly became apparent that many of the books had to go.  I gave them to friends and sold the rest at my local used book store as it was 1996 and email was in it's baby stages let alone online selling.

When I finally arrived home I moved in with my mother until Dan and I could find a place of our own to live.  So, I left the majority of my things in their shipping boxes waiting.  It took longer than we anticipated for us to find a house; about 1 1/2 years.  When we finally moved and I started unpacking those boxes from over a year ago I realized I didn't miss much of it, and in fact I decided to get rid of about half of all I owned.  See, even though we had this lovely house, we didn't have much furniture to put things on or in.  I was off to Half Priced Books this time to sell more of my book collection.

Of course we eventually got shelves and furniture and stuff and books crept back into our home.  Fast forward to current time and our new goal of downsizing and all those books, that seemed to grow to the space given them, had to go.  I started with selling on Amazon as I was getting very little at our local Half Priced Book Store (they usually give you something like 10% of the half off the original price.  So for example your $12.00 book they would sell for $6.00 and give you 60 cents.  Not much.)  I would look up my book title on Amazon and see what the lowest price was for a used copy.  If that price was over $10.00 I would go ahead and list it and If it was under $10.00 I found it simply wasn't worth the time and effort to ship with Amazons fees.  I did save money by using used padded mailers which my husband got for free off of Craig's List, but it still seemed like a hassle for a couple of dollars. The books I listed sold pretty fast (within 2 weeks), but you do have to wait about three weeks for the money to be deposited into your bank account. Then I took that bunch of books that were below the $10 mark on Amazon and listed them on Craig's List.  And the ones that didn't sell after a few months on CL then went to Half Priced Books. Then the books rejected by Half Priced Books got dropped off at the Goodwill on my way home.

Now, I still love to read, but I use my library for reading material instead of stores.  Once in a while the library won't carry what I want so I will bend and buy a used copy of that book, but when I'm done reading it out of the house it goes.  My personal "library" now consists of a sock knitting book, Pride and Prejudice (given to me by my husband), Gift from the Sea (given to me by my father), Watership Down (given to me by my brother), 4 cookbooks and a few books on Unschooling.  Digital books would probably be another solution, but I have yet to embrace this medium and like the feel of a good old book in my hands.