The city of Denver has an arrangement with a recycle place and you can ask for a discount coupon to recycle. It’s not really in a convenient place, and you have to pay for monitors and other screens. It’s only like $10 for a smaller TV but the big ones are a lot more.
Best Buy will take things like laptops.
Once a year one of the TV stations sponsors a drive and it’s $5 per carload, but an additional fee for screens and monitors.
It’s illegal to put them in the trash.
Free here for all.
They weren’t listed as one of the places that takes donations here.
Only some optometrist offices do. I go to a retinal specialist in a building with only eye doctors in it and not ONE takes donations. I think the Lion’s club goes to the ones who agree to collect them and then uses them for their programs. There are several in my area, I just have to remember to make an extra stop (it would be so great if just one in my retinal specialist’s building would!)
When we got a new Dell computer they gave us recycling info and the Goodwill near us takes all kinds of electronics for recycling.
Many Walmart stores will accept old prescription eyeglasses at their vision center. (Not drugstore reading glasses. So I sent a bunch of my mother’s old ones of variouse strength to my sister. Hoping that some will work for her. Even if not, she liked the idea of having them for a while.)
I had to hunt for this thread!
My cousin reposted something on FB that I loved. It’s long, but I thought that it would continue to inspire us.
***
Look around your house right now. The junk drawer that won’t close. The closet you can’t walk into. The garage so full you park in the driveway. The box of cables you “might need someday” that you haven’t opened in five years.
You know what? Nobody wants your sh*t.
Not your kids. Not your friends. Not even Goodwill half the time. Messie Condo - organizational savant and devoted swearer - wrote “Nobody Wants Your Sh*t” to give you the swift kick in the butt you actually need. This is Swedish death cleaning with f-bombs. This is decluttering for people who are tired of their own crap. Here are five lessons that will make you want to throw half your house away:
1. When guilt is the only reason you’re keeping something
Messie says: “When the only reason to keep something is because you feel guilty getting rid of it, repeat after me: ‘F*ck it.’ Be grateful you had the thing when you needed or wanted it, and then let that sh*t go”. The sweater your aunt gave you that you’ve never worn. The wedding gift you hate. The toy your kid played with once. You’re not keeping these things because you love them; you’re keeping them because you feel bad. But guilt is a terrible reason to let your house turn into a storage unit. Say thank you to the thing for existing, then donate it or trash it. Done.
2. Stop bringing sh*t home
She writes: “Keep what you need (actually need, not might need) and what you love, and let the rest go to good homes of your choosing. Then stop. Bringing. Sh*t. Home”. You can declutter all you want, but if you keep shopping online at 2 AM, buying things on sale just because they’re on sale, bringing home free stuff you don’t actually want; you’re just cycling clutter. The problem isn’t that you have too much stuff. It’s that you keep getting more. Stop it. Just stop.
3. Containers don’t solve your problems
Messie calls out the Pinterest lie: “Contrary to popular belief and Pinterest, not everything is made better by being sorted into containers. Socks don’t need their own little cubbies. They’re socks; they’re not going to wander off or get into fights”. You don’t need a label maker and matching bins. You need less stuff. Organizing your clutter is still having clutter; it’s just clutter in prettier boxes. Get rid of the stuff first. Then see if you even need containers.
4. That bin of cables? Throw it out
You know the one. Every old phone charger, random USB cord, mysterious cable from a device you no longer own. You keep it because “you might need it someday.” But when you actually need a cable, you just buy a new one on Amazon for six dollars instead of digging through that tangled nightmare. The time it takes you to find and go through that bin is worth more than the six dollars. Throw. It. Out. Same with the twist ties, the shopping bags stuffed into other shopping bags, the takeout chopsticks you’ve been saving for a decade. It’s not useful. It’s garbage you’re emotionally attached to.
5. Your stuff will not be loved after you die
This is the brutal truth of Swedish death cleaning, delivered with Messie’s signature bluntness: when you die, your kids are going to rent a dumpster. They may not lovingly sort through your collections. They’re not going to keep your tchotchkes or your “good dishes” or the craft supplies you were going to use someday. They’re going to be exhausted and grieving and they’re going to throw most of it away. So do it yourself now. Keep what you actually love and use. Let the rest go while you can decide where it goes.
I’ve been moving and cleaning my mother’s stuff too (she died 3 years ago). A friend came and helped me Saturday and we got a car full of stuff to the thrift store (books, clothes,plant stand), packed a car for my new appt. She’s good at keeping things moving and she also took a car full back to her town as she owns the laundromat and has a community table to set things out, and people take all kinds of things as in 20 Christmas coffee mugs, some mixing bowls, crayons, games…
I went back today and it was nice that things were cleaner. I’d backed a bunch of books from the bookshelves but hadn’t looked at the bottom of the shelves which are closed cabinets with doors. I found a box with quarters and $2 bills - about $120. Since my siblings haven’t been helping me, I’m keeping all the money I find.
I also found some really tarnished serving pieces so I’m sure they are sterling. Also mine for keeps.
@twoinanddone -you’re the one doing the work, I say “ finder’s keeper”. ( just don’t tell them you found it).
My sister was asking about some bowl she remembers from ??? A silver bowl, or maybe pewter? Have I seen it? Um, not since 1966. Also, she was quite sure there was a little Christmas tree… driving me crazy.
I have been asking them to take stuff for 3 years. One day she was over and said she liked a certain picture on the wall. I handed it to her and said ‘take it now.’ Another time (when looking for the christmas tree) she said she wanted a tile table and shelf from the backyard (my mother was big on outdoor plants). I said I was planning on taking the table and she looked crushed. I said ‘take it.’ I should require them to take 10 things for every one they want.
3 years is a long time to be cleaning out! If you’ve had to do it mostly alone you are a saint.
My problem is that while I believe this 100%, my husband believes it 0%. So it’s a battle.
Not quite up for sainthood. I lived with her before she died and in that house for 3 years. A brother lived there too but he moved (didn’t move his crap) last summer. I been cleaning out stuff little by little (her clothes, OMG yarn and more yarn). I did clean out some kitchen stuff and start using mine, but there are doubles of a lot of things. My grandmother (her MIL) died in 1966 and my mother has been carting ‘collectables’ like china and glass do-dads around for 60 years, to many houses in many states. NOW my sister says she wants them. OMG, take them.
Someone suggested today that I get Habitat for Humanities to take a lot of the doubles of household goods (brooms, dishes, couches) as they give them to people setting up a household. There was someone on the Buy Nothing in my neighborhood a few months ago who works with a shelter kind of doing the same thing but she won’t/can’t tell us where to drop things so you have to drop at her house and then she has to transfer, so the things have to be well packed, and it all has to be coordinated.
Ditto.
Dh is resistant, but when he sees me getting rid of so much his guilt kicks in and follows my modeling. He’s not moving at near the pace I am, but baby steps are better than nothing, and one plus is that at least he’s quit bringing so much home!
My brother, who owns the house I lived in (mother’s house) is getting a dumpster next week. Yeah! Mostly for stuff at his house but there is plenty that can go into it from my/mother’s house. There are 2 sheds! There is stuff from the guy who sold it to my mother! There are grocery bags that have had a good life.
I feel like I could post this in several CC threads and it would be appropriate!
A book I came across today - haven’t read it but put it on my to-read list - called They Left Us Everything
I will definitely read that. Thanks for posting, @abasket.
That’s on my list!
Had the plumber over to fix an issue before the holidays. He needed to move several boxes in the basement to do his job.
I started to put the boxes back yesterday when I realized I probably didn’t need this stuff anyway. Put back a couple of boxes (kids books) but the others - one had a ton of folders/binders and another was the kids art supplies box. Posted the stuff on the town’s buy nothing list and most of it is getting picked up today/tomorrow. And I will now have two empty boxes!!
