7 Easy Ways to Get Rid of Clutter for Families

In today's post, I'll talk about my person 30 Day Challenge to Declutter and tips that I learned along the way. My motivation began by wanting to convert our guest bedroom to a nursery so that I could move my baby from our bedroom to his own room. However, I quickly learned that this overwhelming task added joy to my life in unexpected ways as I found ways to clean out our clutter for various benefits. In today's post, I'll share some of those tips.

1. Set a goal to make a small amount of daily progress for 30 days.
If you are like us and haven't decluttered in many years, plus have children that inevitably go through a lot of clothing, toys, and more, you'll probably find that decluttering is an overwhelming tasks.  We initially tried a "weekend warrior" approach to decluttering, but the end result was that this strategy was miserable since our children are young and wanted our attention.  That's when I decided that I would dedicate a small amount of time each day for a month.  This approach was very nice because I started to look forward to my daily decluttering sessions where I had time to reflect on various items to figure out the best way to get rid of them. 

2. Find charities that you want to support based on a theme of items.
Perhaps you have a lot of women's items, pet items, sports equipment, etc. For instance, there is a charity near us that collects items for women that are in need of help.  Their website has a list of items that they collect.  I spent two days focuses on decluttering my closet and kitchen to part with items that I knew could go to good use.

3. Take photos of random items that you want to give away and email them to family and friends.
We took photos of random items and emailed them to family and friends to offer for anyone to take anything that caught their interest.  We really enjoyed this and were surprised by the items that various people wanted.  It was a win-win to declutter and help our friends and family.  Some people ignored our emails and thought that we were crazy while others were very sweet and took some of the items.

3. Sell items locally.
Another perk of cleaning out the clutter is that we made some money. I'm not sure if "made money" is the correct phrase since we only received a fraction of what we paid for items, but they were items that we no longer needed, so I appreciated the opportunity to sell them. For instance, my baby outgrew several items such as his bulky baby swing, a baby carrier that hurt my back now that he weighs more, and a few other items. Since the items that I sold were from my children outgrowing them, I put the funds into an account for them and I am sure that they will be happy to have the money when they are older.   (Let me warn you though that some of the people that say that they want to buy things are very sweet while others are weirdos.  We never have people meet us at our home and I think that this is a good rule if you are selling a lot of items. Surprisingly, some of the most uncomfortable people bought baby items!) Of course, if you have something larger taking space, like a damaged car, look for ways to get cash for damaged cars or other large items.

4. Sell items on eBay.
Some items sell for more money on eBay than locally.  If you have smaller items that are expensive and don't cost too much to mail, eBay is another way to sell your items.

5. Use Amazon Trade-in.
In my opinion, Amazon Trade-in offers very little for items and I was disappointed to see how little they offered for some of my items. However, it is very convenient since they provide a prepaid shipping slip and credit you in Amazon credits to your account.  You don't have to worry about wacky buyers who change their mind about an order or make untrue claims about the condition or an item.  

6. Donate to Goodwill.
Goodwill is great because they take a broad variety of items.  They even have a drive through. I really like Goodwill because they not only find homes for your items, but they employee many people with disabilities.   Keep in mind that Goodwill doesn't take cars.  If you have a vehicle that you don't want to sell locally, consider recycling your car.

7. If possible find a community center that gives permission for people set "free" items on a table.
We dropped several items off at a "free" table. We went for lunch and came back to find that everything was gone! It was fun to see our items claimed in such a short time. (Of course, you should ask permission for doing this and plan to take any unclaimed items with you at the end of the day.)