Millie’s Decluttering Story
Some families have a second dilemma related to household
possessions. Not only do they want or need to downsize their own possessions,
but like many baby-boomers, they also have items from their parents’ homes to
part with.
Millie is a sixty-something married woman who’s lived in
her home for fifteen years. It was a low-clutter environment, but Millie
decided since they’d reached the empty nest it would be an appropriate time to sort
through possessions that no longer suited them.
Milly and her spouse had also recently emptied her
late-mother-in-law’s home after she passed away. They chose to keep a few
sentimental and usable items but had hundreds more to disperse. With winter
approaching, Millie was motivated to clear out her mother-in-law’s items that
had been stored in bins in the garage for two years. She set a start date and a
rough deadline and began the decluttering process.
To Sell or Not to Sell
Like many who embark on a decluttering journey, Millie
assumed collectible items might be saleable. She and her spouse agreed it would
be nice to earn a bit of money from them but had heard from others that garage
sales were hardly worth the effort. She decided to try to sell items online
instead.
One-by-one Milly pulled items from the bin and researched comparable
items online to find suitable prices. Then she cleaned each item and took
photos. After a full week of research and uploading photos, she was ready to
list the pricier items online for sale.
Milly had the time to do this and was proud of her work and
shared the links with relatives. In the meantime, though, she had to store the
items again until she found a buyer. And, aside from the upscale items, she still had
multiple other items to make decisions on and part with.
Give Away Table
Drastic measures had to be taken to meet her deadline of
having the project completed before winter.
Millie decided to donate what was left. She looked for boxes
to pack the non-posted items in so she could bring them to the nearby thrift
shop, but she had none.
In the past she’d put items out on the curb for trash pickup
and found passersby would take them before the garbage truck arrived. She
wondered how successful a free table of items would be. As she pondered the
idea, she realized a free table would save her from looking for boxes and save
her a trip to the thrift store.
So she created a makeshift table, and put the items on it
with a free sign.
In no time, cars stopped and those in them scooped up the
free items taking them away. Millie said it happened so fast she didn’t even
see the people do it. Seeing this idea was a success, she added some of her own
clutter to the table.
Sunday night she gathered what was left. There were about fifteen
items that nicely fit into a small box which she later took to the donation
centre.
As for the items she had posted online for sale, six weeks
later she still had no bites.
Millie shared, “The free table was a great idea. It really
excited me to learn people actually wanted my mother-in-law’s knickknacks. I
was surprised that even souvenir items with city or country names printed on
them went.”
What surprised Millie even more was the joy she found in
the process. She felt right about it.
Perspective
The way Millie approached her first round of decluttering
was helpful to her in giving her perspective on the value of possessions. It
had been important to her to honour her mother-in-law by doing the online
research and making the wisest decisions possible. She concluded, though, that
while it may sound great to earn money on old items, finding a buyer is another
time-consuming matter.
In the end, apart from the lessons learned, trying to sell
items online was more or less a waste of her time.
If you’re going to declutter your home, it will help if you
have a realistic view on the current value of your items. Holding on hoping to
earn money may delay your decluttering process. Instead, when you give items
away, consider you are blessing someone else with them.
Only you can decide if the stress of keeping clutter is
worth the money you may one day make.
Habits
After several weeks of decluttering, Millie paused the
project. The Christmas season was approaching. Now, Millie felt more aware of
how clutter accumulates. She became methodical about gift shopping vowing not
to buy anyone something that would clutter their home. Instead, she purchased
consumable items like soaps, clothing, snacks and treats, and items a person
would put to good use like the mobile phone charger she bought her son, or the
pain-relieving elbow sleeves she bought her husband. There would be no
knick-knacks, appliances, or trendy décor items purchased for anyone on her
list.
Millie also realized she needed to tame her online shopping
habit. The decluttering process put her on high alert to the tempting ads that
faced her daily. Mailbox flyers were quickly put into recycling. Sales emails
were deleted. Online ads were ignored.
Something else that surprised Millie was her ability to
throw things away more easily. Formerly, she would think of a number of uses
for items like buttons she’d cut off shirts she was donating, or saving plastic tubs
food came in. In the past, she had feared throwing out miscellaneous items she might later need. She realized that someday rarely came. Now she didn't want to spend any mental or physical energy on saving such. Peace of mind and energy were more valuable than this kind of stuff.
In the end, Millie completed as much decluttering as she could before Christmas arrived and kept the new commitment to live with less as a personal challenge for the New Year.
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