What do you do with old laptops when you get a new one? In our house the answer is you add it to the plastic container with the previous old laptops. I’m hoping someone else has better ideas!
I have two I need to get rid of - will the Apple Store take them? The one frizzled and I don’t even know if I can get it on to wipe it ckean
My husband cracks them open, takes the HD out, “initializes” it by hammering it to pieces, and takes the rest to an e-waste recycling place.
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This is exactly what we do - we usually drown or hammer the hard drive and then leave them at the town’s electronics recycling center (they take old tvs, computers, printers, etc.)
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I think any Best Buy will take them for recycle. How to recycle (or trade in) your old tech - Best Buy Corporate News and Information
Excerpt:
- After you drop off your old tech, our trusted recycling partners will wipe any remaining data from devices before determining if the product can be repaired, repurposed or recycled, but you can also wipe your hard drive before coming in. Here’s how to do it.
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Staples will take them and some goodwills for recycling
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Just followed up on my daughter’s American Girl Doll stuff. My friend was able to give it to a 5 year old refugee girl who was delighted to get it! I am very happy that so much of my stuff ended up in the hands of people who really needed it. Makes the cleaning out feel so much more productive!
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I am trying to figure out how many ‘potential grandchildren’ toys we should keep. We were gifted a beautiful solid wood rocking horse, and a solid wood doll house. After 23 years both are still in wonderful shape after heavy use. We did get rid of the doll house furnishings (those didn’t survive as well) - but trying to decide if we keep “in case” or if we donate.
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I would gift to some children who could use it now, rather than wait for potential grandchildren to use some time in the future.
Keep the horse! Doll house may or may not get used, but a rocking horse is a universally loved toy. I am sad my mom did not keep our rocking horse… my sister and I used it all the time, and the grands would have loved to use it!
Speaking of doll houses, we did not play with ours. We preferred to use one particular not so full bookcase as a doll house 
(which made mom mad, but she gave up). We thought the bookcase was a skyscraper! Books served as apartment walls on the “floors.”’ Our kids were not into dollhouses either… their Barbies were “free range” always fighting with Kens. 
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Depends. We kept a beautiful doll house FIL made for D. Even if GD never plays with it, it’s still a family heirloom.
I had each of my kids identify “special” toys they wanted to keep. The rest were given away/donated.
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With our recent move, there was some “tug of war” between my husband and I over keeping some of the kids toys. I can let go of so much …but this area was harder! I did reduce for sure and donated a lot but the items I kept include several Fisher Price “Little People” sets, Little Tikes big) dollhouse, Brio, Legos, Marbleworks (I swear my adult kids would play with this now if I got it out!), Magnet-Tiles (?), American Girl dolls (each daughter had 1 + 1 D had a Bitty Baby)…that’s mainly it! I may whittle it down more eventually.
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Thanks for the feedback! We are keeping the Rocking Horse. We will donate the dollhouse…and the wooden horse barn, collapsible wooden fencing to create paddocks and all the Breyer horses we still had (that I also forgot to mention).
The kids, for the most part, already went through their toys/games during Covid time (yup, I made them reduce while we were all stuck in the house). We got rid of about 2/3rds of our board games and about 90% of all the toys, legos, etc that still existed at that time - leaving us with plenty of games but reduced down to just ‘classics’. We now have one storage container of American Girl stuff, as well as other bits and bobs the kids couldn’t part with at the time.
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Your comment made me remember…
When my son and DIL moved into their new (to them) home, I asked if they wanted the (very nice) bedroom furniture from when my son was young. (I figured it could go in spare bedroom so it could be used by kid eve). Initially they (mostly she) said no. Then a couple of weeks later my son called and said “Is my dresser still available?”
Same thing has happened with some other stuff, so I have used my own judgement a little on potential grandkid stuff.
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Yesterday I went through a bunch of closets/clothes containers, and was able to let go of more than I’ve been willing to previously.
I still have a long way to go, but one bag at a time…
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Sounds great…my friend bought a computer from BB some years ago…with other peoples stuff loaded on it.
I attended a funeral today and decided I’ll likely to forever hang on to this corduroy jacket made by my talented seamstress grandmother. (I have may other items too, with hopes that family members might someday take. If not, over time I will need to just give some away.)
Look at the beautiful hand stitching done on all the seams! It makes an interesting conversation topic at church, especially with some of the older members who used to sew a lot themselves.
Sometimes when I can’t give stuff away, I at least mentally earmark the long term “keeper” of the group.
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I got rid of many toys years ago and there are some I should’ve held on to. The F-P toys, the Breyer horses for example have gone way up in price and replacements aren’t even close to the quality and durability of years past. Hang onto the better quality toys if you think someone may use them–many don’t actually take that much room and are quite worth keeping for playability.
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Beautiful jacket! My dad had a trench coat which really was “timeless” and quality. My son is now the owner. Clothing can be passed down too with success. I know this is “Bag A Week” but it’s been worth to not get too carried away at times.
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Dear god, people, if you have old Legos, Thomas the Tank Engine, Barbie, Star Wars, do NOT throw these away. They could finance your retirement.
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