<p>Okay - I’ve been slowly but surely cleaning out drawers and closets and gathering stuff for a garage sale this spring. So far I have a ton of books (easily over 200) and old toys, and I’ve still got lots of detritus to sort. My philosophy is, if I can’t sell it, it’s going straight to Goodwill or into the garbage - it’s NOT coming back into my house.</p>
<p>But here’s my question. What do you do with old cassette tapes and VCR tapes? (I mean, do people still have cassette players or VCRs?) At first I was just going to toss them, but then I checked on eBay. People are actually trying to sell this stuff. (Really? 20 Conway Twitty tapes for $50?) I guess I could try to sell them and then toss them if I can’t.</p>
<p>We still have VCRs – three of them. And we use them a LOT. DH tapes his sports on them if he has to be out and requires that no one tell him the outcome of them. On some wild football Sundays, we have to agree which one of the TVs he won’t use for taping so i can watch something while he’s out.</p>
<p>Good weekend! Not only did I finish clearing out one of the spare bedrooms, DH and i also did the attic! We took a huge load from the attic to the dump, and i found – I couldn’t believe it – three huge garbage bags filled with infant and toddler clothes. (Children are now 26 and 21 years old.) It was fun for an hour to go through them and remember my boys wearing the stuff, but at the end of the hour I had three bags of stuff to throw out (stained, elastic dried up, etc.) or donate to Goodwill. The only things I saved were three hand-knitted sweaters and a pair of hand-crocheted booties that were made to look like rugby cleats. </p>
<p>The tag sale pile in the downstairs is getting bigger and bigger and bigger. I also started an eBay pile, since I have several items that were my aunt’s from the '40s and '50s. She was a very glamorous lady and some of her cigarette cases, compacts, etc., are worth between $50 and $100.</p>
<p>TatumG- I’m sorry your mom got rid of the Barbie- I can certainly understand the sentimental value. I had the blonde ponytail one and my cousin has the brunette pony tail one. I had the red suit with pillbox- I loved that outfit!!!I also had the first wedding dress- it was a work of art!!! And the witty bitty shoes- I loved them, even though they are a podiatrist’s nightmare. </p>
<p>RE Decluttering- I have three more big bags of clothes to go through. Wish I had a basement to sort out for garage sale. They don’t build them here. Instead I’ll have to sweat it out in the garage. It’s 80 degrees today.</p>
<p>More snow??? My D is in NJ- I know she doesn’t want any more cold weather. Texas girls fall down, go boom, in the snow and slush. No real practice in ice walking!!</p>
<p>Please don’t throw out any costume jewelry without checking with somebody knowledgeable. I have some pieces that were given to me as a child that are worth $500 or more. Some of the '40’s and '50’s brand-name pieces go for more than that. Don’t just assume something is ‘junk jewelry’ without at least looking for a name. You might need a magnifying glass. Thank Heavens for the internet. </p>
<p>We have some old photos of my dh’s family that we have put into a photo-montage frame. We don’t know who they are, exactly, but they are still family – besides, it’s fun to look at the quaint clothing and know that they were the fashionistas of yesterday.</p>
<p>To anybody discouraged, remember that completing a small de-clutter job is progress. Heck, even limiting the amount of “stuff” coming into the house progress. </p>
<p>When you stash away the tax paperwork… look at your 7+ year stuff. You probaby can trash much of it. (I do keep the printed tax forms and major paperwork. Check carbons and lesser things get trashed after 7 years… and maybe that is even too long to keep them). The exception is all the junk from the year we built the house. I have not yet had the stamina to decide what we need.</p>
<p>TatinG, so sorry about your Barbie, my mom did the same thing to me ( I think I had the same one as you ). She through out dolls that she thought didn’t look so good and kept ones she thought were “nicer” with no thought to the ones I loved the most :(</p>
<p>My mother gave away all my Barbies without asking me. And threw out all my baseball cards. I think her compulsion to throw out everything led to my compulsion to save everything. There has to be a happy medium between those two extremes. </p>
<p>I’m also on a decluttering mission – plan on putting the house on the market in a year. My most recent trash: two huge bags of old videotapes, movies my husband taped in the 1980s when we first got a VCR. All available on Netflix now.</p>
<p>Another Barbie tale. Mine was blonde with ponytail wearing black and white bathing suit. I also had some others Mom “loaned” them to cousin. I didn’t know she gave barbies away until I wanted to sell them in college. Aunt and cousin refused to return. My mom tried again a few years ago to get them back, no return. Hair was in perfect condition. My mom has since given me several special edition Barbies, I just put them in the closet.</p>
<p>“My most recent trash: two huge bags of old videotapes, movies my husband taped in the 1980s when we first got a VCR. All available on Netflix now”</p>
<p>I could be worse - we have DVD and Blue Ray versions of 50% of what DH taped. Please don’t tell him that I tossed the cassette tapes with the music that he owns on CDs or downloaded from iTunes.</p>
<p>One of the problems with old video tapes is than many of them have simply degraded to the point where they don’t work anymore. Make sure any you have with important family things on them get transferred to DVD s.</p>
<p>I gave two laundry baskets of VHS tapes to a local charity thrift store along with a couple of VHS players. They said that people who run family day cares come in all the time, since I gave the entire lifetime of Disney videos, someone should be very happy.</p>
<p>DD actually attended grad school not too far away and she took the old huge TV, tapes & VHS player there, skipped paying for cable and simply watched old movies when she needed a fix.</p>
<p>I found a family at church to take the old vhs movies. The grandma was especially happy to have Sound of Music to keep at her house. I wanted to give them away while there were still takers who can enjoy them before they eventually head to the landfill.</p>
<p>We’re always behind the times w/ technology, but it does have its advantages. When the children were young, we bought a full laundry basket of old Atari games for $1 (we still had the player). The children (and ok some of the adults) had a blast with the old games. Well worth the $1. Finally everything died, although I still use the laundry basket!<br>
Just thinking that there may be plenty of people who would still love to watch the old videotapes, so better to donate than to toss.</p>
<p>We have a drop-off truck parked in a store lot. When I dropped off some commercial VHS tapes recently, the fellow held them off to the side. I have no idea why, unless they wanted someone to check them out or had somewhere specific to send them.</p>