Clutter Busting Challenge September 2013

We had a Community Yard Sale a couple weekends ago and made $150. We spent the night before going through our things for stuff to get rid of since we didn’t have anything collected beforehand. We tried again this weekend since our community... was doing it again but it rained so we loaded the van and donated everything. If you were to see my home you would wonder were all it came from since it’s clean and clutter free but we found a lot of stuff to get rid of. A lot of stuff is our family’s homeschool supplies but it’s time to let go of since we are nearing the end of our journey.

We donated boxes of books, lots of board games, garden and home décor.
















A load of dishes, gardening, garage stuff, and crafting.

I gave a lot of manipulatives to our daughter Nastasja for her promotion to lead teacher for the school age group at her childcare learning center. The rest of the manipulatives I am donating to the center on Thursday when I go in to help her restyle her classroom. I am saving the actually curriculum to donate next month to our Homeschool groups book sale. Two summers ago I donated a van load of books to a young homeschool family.

I have downsized our homeschool supplies a lot this year since our youngest is 17 years old I am only keeping what I will need for the next 2 years. I went from 3 over full homeschool bookshelves to 1 but still have a lot of books in boxes. I donated several full bags of markers, pencils, crayons etc. before school started to a charity group. I have crates of old school work to downsize before I can pass it on to my kids. I have a lot to do but I am making progress.

I have had a hard time letting the homeschool stuff go because I need to feel like it is going to people who can use it and not feel like my life’s work is going into the trash. LOL You wouldn’t believe how many times I have taken the stuff to homeschool sales to give away for free. Yet no one takes very many things and it makes it hard to give the stuff away instead of just donating it to the thrift store but slowly I am finding people.

I have been doing serious decluttering for the last 3 years because I would like to move into a smaller house once we are empty nesters and my 87 years old dad no longer lives with us. There’s just a lot of stuff we don’t need and if it’s not being used regularly it can go to someone who can use it. I’m freeing myself from the extra work and responsibility of caring for so many things.