I’m always looking for ways to reduce the clutter in my home. No matter how much I get rid of, more seems to find its way back to me. One way that I motivate everyone to get rid of things that are just cluttering up the house is to plan a yard sale. At the beginning of summer pick a day to have a yard sale, let everyone in the family know, you can also let other family members outside your home know and they can bring over items they would like to sell.
Go through each room, closet and drawer in your home, not with the goal of getting it clean but with the yard sale in mind. We all have way more than we need and a yard sale is a perfect excuse to get rid of things. Make sure you give yourself enough time so you don’t feel stressed to get it all done quickly, take your time, the more thorough you can be with this the easier it will be to organize later.
When I am going through cabinets and closets, I always run across things that I haven’t used in forever but I just know I’m going to need it so I stuff it back where it came from. Now, instead of putting it back in the closet it came from, I put it in a box, by the time I’m finished going through the house the box is pretty full. I label it with the date, tape it up and put it in the garage. Whatever is left in the box by the next yard sale immediately goes out; no looking through it to see what treasures I can’t live without. If I’ve lived without them for a full year, chances are I never needed it in the first place.
Let the kids know that they can keep any money they make from the sale of their no longer needed items. You will be amazed at how quickly the boxes from your child’s room will add up. If they are still not very motivated talk about a toy or something that they have had their eye on, help them see that by getting rid of things they no longer play with they will have the money to buy the special thing they have wanted.
One family I know uses this money as their amusement park fund. They take all the money they make at the yard sale and spend the day at the amusement park. The kids can play all the games they want, eat their weight in cotton candy and not even put a tiny little dent in the family’s budget.
Clutter makes it harder to keep our homes clean, the more we reduce the clutter the easier it is to clean. Make sure you save some boxes so when the yard sale is over, whatever is left can get boxed up and donated, otherwise these things will make their way back in to your home and the clutter monster will live on.