One of LifeHacker’s favorite easy-to-keep #resolutions is to keep one’s home cleaner. “Cleaning is one of the first chores we start to neglect when we start to get busy, but it doesn’t need to be difficult. Start by de-crapifying your home” to eliminate unwanted #clutter, it says, then schedule 15-minute cleaning sessions to keep everything neat and spotless. And while you’re de-crapifying, resolve to contact ClothingDonations.org to have all of that unnecessary junk whisked away with a free donation pickup. You’ll not only help yourself own the New Year, but help veterans, too!
Tag: clothing donations
Toward a Clutter-Free Christmas
Now that this year’s (shortened) #holiday season is in full swing, faithful readers of the Organizing Blog have likely dragged multiple boxes of decorations out of their attics and garages in an effort to create a bit of holiday cheer in and around their homes. After all, what are the holidays without lights, tinsel, ornaments and tchotchkes?
You may have also made multiple trips to the store in search of odds and ends that you’ll “need” to create that warm-and-fuzzy holiday feeling. Maybe the lights you stored last year didn’t work this year, or you just “had to have” the newest Star Shower laser lights or inflatable snowman.
The Organizing Blog is not here to tell you not to decorate or bah-humbug the holidays. But we will always remind you that it’s often best to keep things simple. During the holidays and throughout the year, it’s never a good idea to buy or keep anything that won’t truly add to your own happiness now and in the years to come.
As you shop, don’t give in to that voice that says you “need” to buy new decorations to keep up with the neighbors or feel a sense of shopping accomplishment. Instead, consider what your ideal holiday decorating scheme will be, whether whatever it is fits into that theme, and most of all, when you’ll know if you’ve decorated enough.
Similarly, as you examine your inventory of stored holiday supplies, you may find cracked ornaments, burnt-out lights and dog-eared decorations. If you think they can’t be used now, throw them away immediately — don’t just set them aside only to repack them later.
If there are any items that are nice enough to be on display somewhere but no longer fit your needs, bag them up and donate them to ClothingDonations.org. Even though you’re finished with them, an old nutcracker, elf or #Santa figurine might bring joy to someone else’s household.
When it’s time take down the tree and unplug the lights, again question whether or not everything going back into those boxes for storage adds to your holiday cheer. If you store only what you want and use, you’ll have a head start on next year’s holiday season!
Shop the Thrift for Black Friday Deals
To save even more money on holiday shopping, skip the megamall and go directly to the neighborhood thrift or secondhand store. There, you’ll find tons of gently used winter clothing, housewares, out-of-print books, music, and video games, and other one-of-a-kind finds for a fraction of their original prices, says NerdWallet. While thrifts require a bit of hunting, the savings make it worthwhile — and since many of them are supplied by generous donations to ClothingDonations.org, your dollars will do double-duty to help fund valuable veterans’ programs.
The Scariest Stuff
At #Halloween time, people love to have a little fun with the phobias that scare them. Houses get bedecked with #spectres and #spiderwebs, and children dress up in #ghoulish, #gory costumes to roam the neighborhoods’ front porches in search of free candy.
But the really #scary stuff may be INSIDE THE HOUSE. Overstuffed closets that don’t shut. Heaping toy bins. Stacks of books and papers that list under their own weight. Shelves jammed with boxes of rejects and extras. That’s right: Your house is #haunted by #clutter.
Many of the things creating the clutter may be uncomfortable to look at — clothing that no longer fits or has gone out of style, for example. It’s embarrassing to look at, so you shove it to the back of the closet and try to forget about it.
Or those extra knickknacks that didn’t find a place in your new home (and never will). Isn’t it best, you might think, to just box them up and put them on a shelf in hopes that someday they will fit in to your decor?
No! Get rid of them now, and you’ll say goodbye to those embarrassments while creating new space in your home for the things you use and love. Along the way, you’ll reduce the anxiety that having a cramped, disorganized and cluttered home can produce.
Scary Mommy says that clutter produces an ominous dread in her that’s worse than any installment of the Friday the 13th franchise. “Cleaning up clutter is not just another thing on the to-do list like packing my kids’ lunches. It’s a full-on ragey kind of panic.
“It’s the feeling that I literally can’t breathe with all the clutter that’s filling our house,” she says. “It’s a feeling that the world is a chaotic place that I can’t control, and all of that chaos is represented by the loud, unruly, angsty wreck that is my living room.”
Chaos is scary. But the #decluttering process is also scary, because it demands that you go through all of that broken, disused and extra stuff and make snap decisions about what can stay and what should go.
In the spirit of the season, resolve to face those fears. Pick a disorganized, overstuffed shelf, closet or room and begin. It may be uncomfortable, embarrassing or frightening at first, but as your space slowly gets more organized, you’ll feel the anxiety lift.
If you find anything that may still be useful to other people as you declutter, bag it up and contact ClothingDonations.org for a donation pickup. Like giving out candy, you’ll be cheered to donate something knowing that it will assist veterans year-round.
And that may just make decluttering feel like a trick and a treat. Happy Halloween!
Decorate Your Home for Halloween on the Cheap
If you bought so much #Halloween candy that you only have a little money left to decorate, there are plenty of ways to make your home look #spooky for scary-cheap. Make tombstones out of cardboard to turn your yard into a creepy #cemetery, haunt the trees and porch with few DIY spider webs (and giant spiders to match), make felt bats, or ghost-light your walkway with haunted luminaria, Money Crashers suggests. And remember: You can find lots of spooky supplies (including lightly used clothing for creative costumes) at thrift stores supplied by generous donations to ClothingDonations.org.