Cleaning out the closets: Keep, Sell, or Donate

There aren't a whole lot of benefits to having to pack your entire house into boxes and move it across the country, but one big one is that you get a chance to sort through everything. Truthfully, you will get to do this at least twice in any good move: the before packing sort, into the box sort, and who moved this across the world sort. I remember opening a box in my apartment when I moved in and being like who's stuff is this??? Much of that went to the donation pile and occasionally I found something awesome that I totally forgot I had.

I have been working my way through my clothes closet as well as my other closets to see what needed to be kept and what should go away. A big help in the sorting has been to have designated areas for donate, sell, trash, and swap-party.

To be sorted

Things that go into the donate pile are things that don't have much life left in them but I know that goodwill does great things with use clothing such as some type of recycling. I have also put things that I no longer have all of the parts for or old cords for computers I no longer have.

For Goodwill

I have some things that are in good enough condition that I might be able to make a few dollars off of them. I don't intend to put a whole lot of effort into this but I will send out a list at work and see if there are any takers otherwise this entire lot will get donated.

There are some things that there is no hope for, they go into the trash. I also found that I tend to tuck paper into every little nook and cranny so I like having a designated place for stuff that was sentimental but is now just random junk. I also have a tendency to hold onto things for the future and then wonder why is this here? Trash.

My last pile is for the swap-party. One of my good friends holds a swap-party every season where you bring jewelry, clothes, and whatever else you don't want and see if someone else thinks they want it. I have put clothes into this pile that are still in good condition but no longer fit. I kept clothes that are close to fitting but anything that doesn't go over my hips went directly into the pile. I am not keeping clothes that I might someday fit into for two reasons: 1- that might take several years and 2- I am pretty sure by then it will be out of style and I will be annoyed.

I am trying to go through everything way before the packing starts so that when/if friends come for a packing party I don't have to supervise what goes in each box. I know that I won't get rid of everything that is trash but getting rid of lots of things is a great start.