I am a frugal minimalist, so I am always looking for ways to organize, declutter and save money.
Several years ago, I did a complete purge and declutter of my home. I got rid of everything I did not use, need or love. It was a process that took several weeks to complete but when I was finished, I was shocked at the amount of stuff I had accumulated and ultimately got rid of.
Do one room at a time. Create four piles, keep, sell, donate, and throw away. Do this for all of the items in each room.
Go through the entire room and put your items in the appropriate pile. Then take the sell, donate and throw away items to another location such as your garage or designated room in your home to temporarily hold them until you have gone through every room.
It may take some time at first, especially if you have never decluttered your home before. But once the job is complete you just keep on top of it and you will find cleaning and keeping things in order is much easier once the major job is done.
Be thorough and when deciding what to keep ask yourself if this is something you use often, something you need or something you really love. If the answer is no, get rid of it. Also think about duplicate items, for example, how many spatulas, toasters, staplers, pairs of scissors, etc. do you really need?
Don’t keep anything that is broken with the thought that you may fix it one day. That will probably never happen, less is more. Having fewer things brings a sense of peace and calm. Too much clutter is very stressful, and you may not even realize how stressful until you clean up and organize.
Once you are finished sell the items in the sell pile, donate the items in the donate pile and thrown away the trash.
Then set aside a place in your house or garage as a donate and recycle area. Keep 2 cardboard boxes or other containers to hold the items. From then on, each time you come across something you no longer need or use immediately put it in the appropriate box. When the containers are full drop them off at the donation and recycle center. If you make a habit of this the clutter will not accumulate all over again.
Now that you have gotten rid of what you wanted to you can start organizing each room. In the keep pile pick out things like baskets, tubs, crocks, totes, and other containers you can use for storage.
If you find you do need additional organizers or storage containers check out the dollar store, thrift stores, garage sales or Goodwill. You will save a lot of money if you don’t buy from a big retailer.
Once your home is in order here are some ways to donate and sell the things you are not keeping.
Organize & Sell Clothes: Organize the clothes in your closet and dresser. This will help you discover what items you wear often and what items you may not have worn for a year or more, get rid of anything you don’t need. You can make quite a bit of money selling your old clothes, shoes, handbags, and accessories at Thredup, ebay, Etsy, Poshmark, Tradesy and other sites. You can also try local consignment stores in your area or have a garage sale. Donate what you can’t sell.
Organize & Sell Toys: Most kids have far too many toys, and many of the items are so unorganized they do not even get played with. Go through your kids’ rooms and use the 4-pile rule. Then sell the toys they no longer play with or don’t want. Have a garage sale, sell them on eBay or another online site or find a store locally that buys toys and other children’s items. You can even get your kids involved and let them keep the money they make.
Organize & Sell Electronics: Most of us have old computers, cell phones, printers and other electronic devices. Recycle, donate and sell what you don’t need.
They purchase phones, cameras, computers, tablets, Apple products, smart watches, gaming consoles and other items. They also sell used items so you may be able to save money when shopping for equipment.
They don’t buy electronic equipment, but they let you compare other buyback sites to make sure you are getting the best deal.
They buy used cell phones. You just go to their site and enter the barcode number from your phone. They will give you a quote and if you want to sell to them they will send a pre-paid shipping label and you can send them the phone for free.
Amazon has a trade in program. They provide an Amazon gift card in exchange for eligible items.
Organize & Sell Books: If you like to read you probably have a lot of old books. Go through your books and decide what books you want to keep and what books you want to get rid of. As with other items you can sell or donate the books you do not want to keep. You can donate books to your local library, senior centers, schools, Goodwill, The Salvation Army, thrift stores, Vietnam Veterans of America, Habitat for Humanity ReStores and retirement homes.
There are many places online that accept and appreciate book donations.
There are also sites that will buy used books. Most of them use the books ISBN number. This is a 10–13-digit number usually located near the bar code. And they will give you a value based on that number.
BookScouter will help you sell used textbooks, they tell you what websites will pay for the books you are selling.
eCampus they buy, sell and rent textbooks. They also provide free shipping.
Amazon you can sell used book on Amazon and also use their trade in program.
Sell Back Your Book They buy, sell and rent books. Just enter the ISBN number and get a quote. They will also pay for shipping.
Bookstores They buy used book and also provide free shipping.
Organizing Can Save You Money
Duplicate Items: When you organize each room like I mentioned before you may find you have a lot of duplicate items. Getting rid of the duplicate items keeps things organized and uncluttered and knowing what you already have prevents you from wasting money buying the same thing again.
Smaller Home: Having less may also make you realize you could actually fit into a smaller home. Some people have so many “things” that they are living in a house larger than they really need. Not for everyone but moving to a smaller home could save you a ton of money.
Storage Units: There are people who rent storage units to store things they don’t have room for at their home. Unless the items you are storing are very important to you or it is temporary this is a huge waste of money. Why keep things that you don’t use or need?
Save Time, Save Money: Organizing and decluttering your home will take time at first but once you have everything in its place and you have gotten rid of everything you wanted to it will be much easier to keep things that way. I think twice about any purchase. The less I have the better I feel. I don’t buy items on a whim. I don’t need a lot of nick-nacks and things that clutter up my space.
A rule of thumb when shopping online is I often put items in my cart and wait several days. Many times, I realize I did not want or need it and don’t purchase it.
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