Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

5 Reasons Why You Should Declutter Your Home Once a Year

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When we moved from Chicago to Tucson 18 months ago, packing was a nightmare.  We hadn’t had a good decluttering session in nearly 3.5 years, since our last move, which was local.  We spent weeks, yes, literally weeks, giving away and selling junk that we just didn’t use anymore before we could even start packing our possessions.

When we moved to Tucson, I vowed to keep on top of the clutter and the household messes.  However, when we prepared to go on vacation recently and knew that our tidy neighbors would be coming in and out of our house for two weeks to cat sit, we realized we had a problem.  The clutter, and the messes, had returned since the move.

I spent several weeks decluttering again.  Several bags of items went to the local kids’ resale shop; several boxes went in the garage earmarked for a garage sale later this year, and a lot of crap just got tossed in the garbage.

Now that we’re decluttered once again, I can’t believe how much better I feel.  From here on out, we’re decluttering once a year.  Here’s why:

Make Additional Money

I made nearly $100 at the kids’ resale shop.  I opted for store credit to get 30% more money.  I’ll use that over the next few months to get my kids clothes and birthday presents.  (Yep, the store sells NEW toys at a fraction of retail.)

I also made another $150 selling items on eBay.

We haven’t had our garage sale yet, but based on what we have to sell, I think we’ll easily make at least another $100.

Sure, these amounts aren’t going to even buy us a month’s worth of groceries, but we now have several hundred more dollars than we had a few short weeks ago, AND our house is much tidier.

5 reasons to declutter your house
Original IMG credit: Dafne Cholet on Flickr.

Save Money

There were several items like my son’s arm shield for archery, our headphones for the computer, to name a few, that we were planning to replace because we couldn’t find them.  Surprise, surprise, once we decluttered and cleaned up, we found these and many more things.  We saved ourselves from buying duplicates.  These small savings add up!

Kids Outgrow Things

Kids grow. . .A LOT!  Pants that fit last winter may be two inches too short this winter.  Games that they loved to play with last summer may be too babyish this summer.  Why keep all these relics of previous phases of childhood?  Clear them out so you have more room.

More Satisfaction With Being At Home

My youngest two children and I had a particularly painful decluttering session when we tackled all the papers, toys, and little pieces that were littering the floor in front of their toy area.  But how much better we all felt when we could see clean, empty floor in front of the toy shelves.  In fact, my children started playing immediately in that space and had a great time.

I notice now that the master bedroom is cleaner, I feel lighter and happier when I walk into the suddenly much more open space.

It’s Easier To Maintain Your Home

We hope to stay in our home for many years, but the reality is that my husband may not have a job here in another year or two.  Until he secures a permanent position, we feel like our home is ours temporarily, so it’s important to keep up a maintenance and cleaning routine in case we have to put it on the market some time.  Having a clutter free home makes this much easier.

What benefits do you get from a less cluttered home?

 

Declutter Your House Like You’re Moving and Make Some Cash

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It’s been a long, hard winter.  In Chicago, this winter ranks as the third snowiest on record, and the temperatures have been bitterly cold.  Of course, we’re not alone; much of the country has felt the same pain.

Finally getting some warm, sunny days and watching all the snow melt has put me in the mood to spring clean.  I’m not someone who cleans just for the sake of cleaning.  No, I clean for two main reasons–to feel better about our home and how we feel in it and to make some cash.

To me, spring cleaning and decluttering mean raking in some extra cash selling the crap stuff we no longer use, love, or need.

A New Way to Think about Decluttering

But this year, I’m looking at decluttering and spring cleaning in a different light.  My husband’s mentor has accepted a job in Florida, and he asked my husband to come with him.  For a few weeks, we thought about going before we decided it wasn’t the best move for our family.

Still, during those few weeks a move was on the table, I panicked a bit looking at all the stuff we would need to either move, sell, or donate before moving 1,000 miles.  Suddenly decluttering became less about the mantra, “Only keep what you love and use”, and more about, “Would I pay to move this item 16 hours away?”  It wasn’t a pretty picture.

Declutter your house
Declutter your house and make some CASH!

How Much Money Can You Make Decluttering?

You make think of decluttering primarily as tossing or donating, but there’s also good money to be made in decluttering.

Things to Trash

Of course, we have our fair share of trash.  One of our daughter’s is a prolific artist.  She’s only 5, but she creates artistic masterpieces every day.  I’m perfectly okay with just keeping a few of these and trashing the rest, but my husband can’t yet bear to let them go.  We have three shelves filled with her work.  Seriously!  Almost none of those drawings would make a 1,000 mile move, so it’s time to purge.

Things to Donate

Right away, I saw plenty of stuff that we just don’t need and that have no resale value.  Clothes that we don’t wear, clothes that the kids have outgrown, baby blankets we no longer use, books and more books that we no longer read.  The list goes on and on.  Those items would easily make the donate pile.  (Remember if you itemize on your tax return to get a receipt for your donations so you can get a tax deduction.)

Things to Sell

But then I looked with a keen eye at the dollars we’re sitting on.

  • My husband has a jigsaw tool that he used once and never used again that could be sold for perhaps $50.
  • I have a good stash of canning jars, many of which I will never use and would not want to move 1,000 miles which could be sold for another $40 or so.
  • We have a foreign language program that we bought for homeschooling that was never opened because we were able to get a different program for free.  That is worth another $250 to $300.

The more I looked around, the more I realized I was just holding on to stuff that easily tallied $1,000 or more!

Is decluttering worth it?  For a cleaner house and an extra $1,000, I’d say yes!

What’s the most you’ve made when decluttering?