I am forced to do some of my minimizing during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.
We are a few months into the pandemic of COVID-19 and the thrift stores, which is where I usually go to unload items I no longer use are not open and accepting donations so I’ve been forced to take a little longer and find other ways to get my stuff reused.
Why go to all the trouble?
- I’m challenging myself to really take care to find a good home for stuff that can be reused or repurposed instead of my old way of just dumping stuff at the Salvation Army, which was fine, but not available now – I have seen Salvation Army, however, at the garbage dump with huge loads of things they can’t resell.
- It forces me to really take stock of what each thing costs me in time to use, take care of and get rid of. Hopefully a lesson in not acquiring more things.
I started in my usual way with eBay. I have a lot of boxes that are labeled ‘great things to set out in the living room’ or ‘tchochkes’ or ‘broken buddha statue’. All these things are beautiful and hand crafted and excellent, but they have been sitting in the garage for several years so nobody has had a chance to enjoy them. So, I started with eBay. I posted a few things there, and I sold one tiny little ceramic fish dish. Then I asked around the family if anyone wanted the Wii Sport that hadn’t been used in years. Nobody did so I sold it too. That one went fast, and the new owner was really happy. I do still have a few things that didn’t sell. The process takes a long time. Preparing the item. Cleaning. Photographing. You know the drill, everybody knows the drill. I still have things that might sell on eBay, but I wanted to find another, quicker way.
I found a few sites that buy back used things so that they can sell them themselves:
- Sell Your Books doesn’t offer a ton of money, but if you have a bunch of paperbacks that you just want to get rid of and don’t want them to just go in the garbage, you have to type in the ISBN number to see if they will accept it, then they give you the postage to send your books to them! Wow. I loved it and sent them a couple of boxes of books.
- Decluttr takes a lot of different things. I still had a bunch of Wii games that I had intended to sell separately on eBay, but instead I rang them all into the Decluttr.com website and they sent me the postage to send them on. It wasn’t a lot of money, but they cleaned me out and I could just have them donate the money to Habitat for Humanity. Win!
- ThredUp will also send you postage for your used clothes. They have requirements that it should be in pretty good shape, so I sent them all the clothes I have seldom worn or have decided don’t look good on me at all and I will be able to get rid of more stuff with the hope that it will actually be reused!
- Craiglist has a bazillion people on there that will come and pick up your stuff. So many people want your stuff!! So I did a quick post of some benches I won’t be able to use at my new place and it was gone the same day! I made sure to put them out near the street at the time the person was going to pick them up in order to minimize the likelihood of anyone touching the benches before he picked them up. I mostly use Craigslist to offer things for free.
These websites were so successful I plan to cycle through them next week as well as post more stuff on eBay.
The principle I am holding in my head to guide me is my end game of eventually living in a tiny home. If I can get rid of a ton of stuff then I will be able to simply move into a tiny home without too much trouble.
I also hope to create a wardrobe that is enough day to day clothing, but also be able to dump it all in a small suitcase to take with me when I travel. Phenomenal!!
Zero Waste Home Concepts Used: Reduce!!! Reduce!!! Love it.
Zero Waste Home Next Time: Next time I hope I won’t accumulate so much stuff.
Job Satisfaction Rating: So satisfying seeing all these boxes ready to be sent stacking up in my kitchen. Lots of stuff going out, nothing coming in. Win, Win!
Whole Bunch of Projects 