Destash 2023 Use it or lose it

[lockets]

Thanks. I never considered doing a series of them. Duh. That might be easier!

We did 5 weekends of garage sales in a row to clear out in a similar situation. To keep it simple, we put up signs that everything was a dollar. (Except we did have a "boutique" section and items on that table were like $5-$10. Of course we removed heirloom and expensive items beforehand.)

If something was worth less than a dollar I would tell people try to bundle some more stuff together to make $1. A good example of this is office supplies like pens, staples, etc.

After a couple of weekends people heard that we were having them weekly and we picked up a lot of momentum. Off the top of my head I think we made over $700.

Garage sale items that didn't sell were donated.

More expensive items were relocated to a family member's garage to be sold online later on.

 

[goofytinkerbell]

Happy Friday!

products used up - 2
book - 1
outerwear - 8
crafts - 1
misc - 5

1696/500 Items

 

[barkley]

We did 5 weekends of garage sales in a row to clear out in a similar situation. To keep it simple, we put up signs that everything was a dollar. (Except we did have a "boutique" section and items on that table were like $5-$10. Of course we removed heirloom and expensive items beforehand.)

If something was worth less than a dollar I would tell people try to bundle some more stuff together to make $1. A good example of this is office supplies like pens, staples, etc.

After a couple of weekends people heard that we were having them weekly and we picked up a lot of momentum. Off the top of my head I think we made over $700.

Garage sale items that didn't sell were donated.

More expensive items were relocated to a family member's garage to be sold online later on.

we couldn't have done that in our former neighborhood-there was a city wide law that limited the number of garage sales an individual property could have on a yearly basis and boy did they enforce it. where i live now it's too rural to attract anyone (and people are not fond of neighbors soliciting random strangers to have an excuse to scope out the area-history of break in's).

 

[lockets]

we couldn't have done that in our former neighborhood-there was a city wide law that limited the number of garage sales an individual property could have on a yearly basis and boy did they enforce it. where i live now it's too rural to attract anyone (and people are not fond of neighbors soliciting random strangers to have an excuse to scope out the area-history of break in's).

Yep. Definitely varies by region and neighborhood. We were lucky! A lot of variables came together to make it successful. For many others it's a no go.

 

[Lumpy1106]

A story and a PSA for parents of rapidly growing kids;
my youngest is 9 years younger than her older brother and sister. We had not quite de-cluttered from the older kids rooms when she came along so she ended up with not only all of her stuff, but all the hand-me-downs from the two older kids. She finally had enough and wanted to re-do her room (she's 9) so we told her just to remove whatever she didn't want and put it in the hallway. Well, get ready to cry all those TS3 ugly tears; she put all the Fischer Price playschool playsets - and there were about a dozen.

Strangely this moment in real life was nowhere near as sad as the movie, mostly because we now had to figure out what to do with it all. I HATE yard sales so that gets a nope. Nothing has the original packaging so giving it away to a thrift store was not going to work. Sorry to burst your bubble, but absolutely every preschool already has plenty. Thankfully, we found an answer!
Mattel will take them back;
https://shop.mattel.com/pages/playback
This goes for Barbies, Fischer Price, Matchbox and Mega toys. Just go to the website, fill in your contact info and they send you a shipping label. Too much for one box? They'll send you multiple labels and they will take it all. You might want to think they'll take the toys, clean them up and give them away to orphanages...OK, you go ahead and think that. They only claim to "keep them out of the landfills". Honestly my daughter is way happier now and we don't miss all the stuff - so I stopped caring the second the postal worker took the boxes.

 

[barkley]

A story and a PSA for parents of rapidly growing kids;
my youngest is 9 years younger than her older brother and sister. We had not quite de-cluttered from the older kids rooms when she came along so she ended up with not only all of her stuff, but all the hand-me-downs from the two older kids. She finally had enough and wanted to re-do her room (she's 9) so we told her just to remove whatever she didn't want and put it in the hallway. Well, get ready to cry all those TS3 ugly tears; she put all the Fischer Price playschool playsets - and there were about a dozen.

Strangely this moment in real life was nowhere near as sad as the movie, mostly because we now had to figure out what to do with it all. I HATE yard sales so that gets a nope. Nothing has the original packaging so giving it away to a thrift store was not going to work. Sorry to burst your bubble, but absolutely every preschool already has plenty. Thankfully, we found an answer!
Mattel will take them back;
https://shop.mattel.com/pages/playback
This goes for Barbies, Fischer Price, Matchbox and Mega toys. Just go to the website, fill in your contact info and they send you a shipping label. Too much for one box? They'll send you multiple labels and they will take it all. You might want to think they'll take the toys, clean them up and give them away to orphanages...OK, you go ahead and think that. They only claim to "keep them out of the landfills". Honestly my daughter is way happier now and we don't miss all the stuff - so I stopped caring the second the postal worker took the boxes.

on the flip side-

my kids are only a few years apart but they would go through similar phases of interest esp. with video game and cartoon (read-anime) characters, and then cycle back through them. i was so glad i hung on to the bedding sets the oldest had for stuff like pokemon and yugio b/c when the younger got into them they were nowhere to be found. i knew it was'nt likely my younger son would ever get into my little pony but i ziplock bagged the stuff and what happened? the 'brony' phenominum

i weeded out allot of their stuff as they aged up but i've told both of them that there are a couple of huge tote bins that contain those childhood toys that were still in good shape when they outgrew them that may have either nostalgic value to them or be welcomed for purchase by the local shops that charge outrageous prices for 'vintage' toys (i'm sure there's some audience out there that would love like new original tickle me elmo, sleep and snore ernie, toy story and other disney movie action figures, my little pony, polly pocket, matchbox cars, anyone remember dragon tales from pbs? they live on in my tote container...thank god for ziplock bags).

 

[barkley]

1 wheelchair given to middle ds. It was my grandmas when she lived with us and he might use it for his mil.
1 costume oldest ds found in his room which he didn’t take when he moved out. Renaissance Faire ready and brand new.

thank you again for posting about the costume-i sent an email today and a local theater group is very willing and happy for any costume donations i can provide. i've got a table and an area set up to start going through the bins tomorrow

 

[comicguy]

April update: A bit more productive month then the last few. Hoprfully May can be just as productive!
1 pair of socks - trashed
10 expired items from pantry (2021) - trashed
1 can of fake pledge (smells really nasty!) - trashed
4 pieces of shelf liner scraps -trashed
1 broken hairbrush - trashed

1 grocery bag of assorted paperwork - shredded and recycled
1 random plastic lid - recycled
2 Gift Cards - used up and recycled
2 cardboard boxes - recycled
1 container of stove top cleaner - given away
4 containers of “clorox” wipes - given away
1 pump soap dispenser w/soap (did not like scent) - given away
1 refill bottle of hand soap (did not like scent) - given away

12 pieces of rock tile shower floor - installed
10 boxes of shower tile - installed
1 shower floor drain - installed
1 shower head - installed
1 shower lever/knob - installed
2 Smoke/CO2 detector - installed
1 art print - hung up

4 canning jars - returned to owner

1 can of easy off oven cleaner - used up
1 disposable paint roller - used up
1 old paint brush used for final time - used up
4 pieces of shelf liner - used up
2 C batteries in flashlight - replaced
3 boxes on unneeded tile - returned to store

74 items left
134 of 500 total or 26.8% of goal

 

[newski_mom]

Curious if anyone has ever dealt with getting rid of a set of china. I'm in the generation that registered for everyday dishes and china when we got married. I have a 12 piece place setting of dishes that I'm confident we will never use.

I really don't think it's worth anything as far as selling it online, but I don't know what to do with it. My mom volunteers at our local hospital's resale shop and she said that have a few sets up there that just sit there, so I hate to dump it on them.

I'm definitely not opposed to donating it somewhere, I just don't know where.

My two DDs live in a bigger city, so I thought about having them both list it on their facebook freebie page and see if they get any takers. Anyone that could use it, I'd love for them to have it!

 

[focusondisney]

Curious if anyone has ever dealt with getting rid of a set of china. I'm in the generation that registered for everyday dishes and china when we got married. I have a 12 piece place setting of dishes that I'm confident we will never use.

I really don't think it's worth anything as far as selling it online, but I don't know what to do with it. My mom volunteers at our local hospital's resale shop and she said that have a few sets up there that just sit there, so I hate to dump it on them.

I'm definitely not opposed to donating it somewhere, I just don't know where.

My two DDs live in a bigger city, so I thought about having them both list it on their facebook freebie page and see if they get any takers. Anyone that could use it, I'd love for them to have it!

My sister donates household items to a shelter for teens, kids who come from troubled homes or aged out of foster care. They set these kids who have nothing up in apartments. Anything like that near you? There’s another organization that helps new refugees that welcomes those things too.

 

[newski_mom]

My sister donates household items to a shelter for teens, kids who come from troubled homes or aged out of foster care. They set these kids who have nothing up in apartments. Anything like that near you? There’s another organization that helps new refugees that welcomes those things too.

I don't know that we have one for teens, but we do have a place called angel ministries that helps people on tough times, had a fire, etc. I'll contact them and see if they would be interested in it. Thanks for the idea!

 

[barkley]

so far i've identified 3 large totes worth of usable costumes to donate. i've tossed out another full totes worth of costume stuff that's useless. i also pulled a couple of boxes worth of odds and ends to go to a charity shop.

Curious if anyone has ever dealt with getting rid of a set of china. I'm in the generation that registered for everyday dishes and china when we got married. I have a 12 piece place setting of dishes that I'm confident we will never use.

I really don't think it's worth anything as far as selling it online, but I don't know what to do with it. My mom volunteers at our local hospital's resale shop and she said that have a few sets up there that just sit there, so I hate to dump it on them.

I'm definitely not opposed to donating it somewhere, I just don't know where.

My two DDs live in a bigger city, so I thought about having them both list it on their facebook freebie page and see if they get any takers. Anyone that could use it, I'd love for them to have it!

is yours dishwasher and microwave safe (the stuff i got 32 years ago is)? if so have you ever considered just using it as your everyday? i know several people who had it put away for special occasions but decided to just start using it vs. it ending up as shooting targets for sale at 10 cents per piece at the thrift store (seriously-that's what they are doing with it here, they will take no more donations of it b/c people unloaded so much during the pandemic).

there's a company called 'replacements ltd' on-line that you can submit information on your pattern to who purchase some patterns. i'm kind of curious to see if they would be interested in mine-neither of my kids are interested and they do sell my pattern but seem to be out of stock on some of the non place setting items i've got so i went ahead and filled out the form just to get an idea.

 

[newski_mom]

so far i've identified 3 large totes worth of usable costumes to donate. i've tossed out another full totes worth of costume stuff that's useless. i also pulled a couple of boxes worth of odds and ends to go to a charity shop.



is yours dishwasher and microwave safe (the stuff i got 32 years ago is)? if so have you ever considered just using it as your everyday? i know several people who had it put away for special occasions but decided to just start using it vs. it ending up as shooting targets for sale at 10 cents per piece at the thrift store (seriously-that's what they are doing with it here, they will take no more donations of it b/c people unloaded so much during the pandemic).

there's a company called 'replacements ltd' on-line that you can submit information on your pattern to who purchase some patterns. i'm kind of curious to see if they would be interested in mine-neither of my kids are interested and they do sell my pattern but seem to be out of stock on some of the non place setting items i've got so i went ahead and filled out the form just to get an idea.

I'm not honestly sure if it's dishwasher safe. When we got married (32 years ago this summer), we registered for everyday dishes and china. We registered for pfaltzgraff everyday dishes and I still use them all these years later. Every now and then I think about getting a new set of dishes, but I really still like them and decide against it.

So, if it is dishwasher safe, I really don't have room in my cabinets to store 2 sets of dishes that we use regularly. I think I'll try to call the our local place that help with dislocated people and go from there. I'm like you, I would have to have them used as target practice!

 

[goofytinkerbell]

This week was down right pathetic!
books -1
office - 2

1699/500 Items

 

[lockets]

Goal Tracker:

163 of 500 items were either sold, donated, thrown out, given away, used or lost.

Sold: 12

Donated: 95

Threw Out: 50

Gave to Someone: 0

Used: 5

Returned: 1

Lost: 0

Listing Progress:

Listed Online: 80 items

To List Online: 535 items

Reality Check:
Added to Clutter: 0 items (Need to update this later. i definitely added some things.)

 

[goofytinkerbell]

Some progress this week
products used up - 6
office - 5
misc - 1

1711/500 Items

 

[goofytinkerbell]

This week was a complete wash. Nothing moved!

1711/500 Items

 

[DisneyHardin]

I'm having a yard sale with my cousin next Saturday. I don't have tons of stuff to put in, but I did round up 3 bags of clothes and 2 boxes of knick-knack stuff.

 

[luvmarypoppins]

5 books to a friend

 

[barkley]

new season of 2 hour episodes of 'hoarders' starts 5/29 on a&e-great way to encourage yourself to destash