Fifty Ways To Leave Your Clutter: Part Four

This week we have part four of Rita Emmett’s post; 50 Ways to Leave Your Clutter. Here are Part One, Part Two, and Part Three, in case you missed them.

~~ Make a Family Call, Paul ~~
For family heirlooms or photos that are just collecting dust, never being
used, and you don’t really want, but you can’t throw them out:
33. Contact everyone in the family and tell them you don’t use or want these family heirlooms and ask if anyone wants them
34. If children, brothers and sisters don’t want them, call or write to nieces, nephews, distant cousins, aunts, etc.
35. If still no takers, look around for others – family friends, or someone with the same last name or nationality and offer to them. They might cherish what your family doesn’t want.

~~ Get Rid of Those Clothes, Rose ~~
36. You might find a charity that means so much to you that it’s a genuine joy to pass on your stuff to them.
Marge, a pharmaceutical sales woman, found an organization that collects business clothes for low-income women (many trying to get off welfare) entering the workplace.
At first, Marge folded her donations and stuffed them into a big plastic bag.
When she decided to clean out her closet again, she called the group to see if they still needed woman’s clothes. The receptionist told her an exciting story of a woman who felt and looked terrific in one of the donated outfits, and she’d just landed a job.
This time Marge hung the outfits on hangers when she delivered them. Each time she called to check if they still needed clothes, she heard another great story. Now she loves cleaning out her closets and puts each outfit in a box, with the matching shoes and accessories.
No, you don’t have to go to that trouble, but you – like Marge – may find that you actually enjoy the process of weeding out old clothes because you are happy to help those less fortunate.

Cultivate A Simple Habit
When you find someone
Who loves your stuff
To give it up,
Won’t be so tough

Other ways to dispose of clothes:
37. Sell at a second-hand store
38. Deliver clothes in good condition to a nursing home.
39. Check if your favorite charity has a garage sale or rummage sale coming up
40. Find a family with smaller children than yours. Offer to regularly give them hand-me-downs. Don’t ask for the clothes to be returned. That spoils it for everyone.

Rita Emmett is a “Recovered Pack Rat”, a Professional Speaker, and best-selling author of The Procrastinator’s Handbook; and The Clutter-Busting Handbook.
Go to www.RitaEmmet.com for info on Stress Management, Procrastination and Clutter. You will find books, CDs, DVDs and even on-line courses. To subscribe to her free monthly “Anticrastination Tip Sheet” with quick short tips & ideas to help break the procrastination habit, go to the first page of her website www.RitaEmmett.com. Rita can be reached at 847-699-9950 or REmmett412@aol.com.