But I Don't Want to Throw It Away!

One of the biggest obstacles to decluttering is surprisingly simple - we don't want to throw things away.

Often, it's not because we're emotionally attached to an item. It's because we hate the thought of it ending up in landfill. We know it still has life left in it, and we'd much rather see it reused, recycled or passed on to someone who can make use of it.

Recently, Ruth from Ruth Bagnall - Organised Living and I have been experimenting with different ways to responsibly rehome unwanted items. Some methods worked better than others, so we thought we’d share what we have learnt.

The Jumble Sale

Back in May, we organised a jumble sale at our local community centre (you can read more about that in my previous blog post).

It was fun and a fantastic way to give hundreds of items a second life. However,

it also required a huge amount of work behind the scenes. There was collecting, sorting, pricing, marketing, administration and we needed plenty of help from friends and family.

We enjoyed the challenge of creating an event and the queue of people out of the door made us feel like we had really engaged people.

Vintage Cash Cow

We both decided to test out Vintage Cash Cow with various items we no longer wanted. Ruth has written a series of Instagram posts about her experience separately, and while our outcomes were slightly different, the process itself was very straightforward.

You simply pack up your items, request a postage label and send them off for valuation. It took longer than the advertised seven days to receive a qu

ote, but regular updates kept us informed.

I had some queries about my items so booked a customer service call. At this point in the process it became obvious

that this was big business with slick processes and scripted customer service. To be fair they never pretended they were anything different!

One thing to bear in mind is that you receive a single offer for the entire box rather than individual valuations for each item. If your priority is simply clearing space and making a little money along the way, it's certainly worth considering.

I chose not to accept the offer, and my items were returned without any issues.

The Car Boot Sale

After the jumble sale, we still had plenty of stock left, so we decided to try a car boot sale.

We arrived at 6.45am, ready to start trading at 7am. My previous car boot sale experience was over twenty years ago and involved people banging on car windows before we'd even parked. Thankfully, things felt much more organised and civilised this time around and we really enjoyed the chilled atmosphere.

I enjoy chatting to people (my customers will agree with that!) and I really enjoyed the mix of people there. 

At 7am you had the other traders doing a quick sweep round to see what was there. Soon after that came the people that really knew what they were looking for, they were keen on bargaining hard and were obviously looking to resell. The scale of the resale market could really be felt here – this was a livelihood for some people not just a nice Sunday morning out.

Later came families and casual bargain hunters, enjoying a leisurely browse and perhaps a bacon roll while they searched for hidden treasures.

Our aim was simple, to take as little home as possible. We priced everything at 50p and watched items gradually find new homes. We didn't make a fortune, but we did cover the cost of a couple of cocktails each!

Most importantly, it was satisfying knowing that those items would be used and appreciated again.

The Driveway Giveaway

With a few boxes still remaining, I decided to try something even simpler.

Because I live on a busy road, I put boxes of books and games on the driveway with a large "Help Yourself" sign. The boxes were gone within hours.

Whatever is left will be donated to local charity shops that have recently asked for stock.

Book Selling Apps

So, this was new one to me. We had a lot of books donated for the jumble sale and we didn’t sell many. Books are wonderful…and heavy ... and we didn’t want to keep moving them around so Ruth introduced me to a book selling app. I sometimes buy books from World Of Books and this is the other side of the process.

You download the app, scan the bar code and the app tells you whether they will accept the book or not and how much they will give you for it. You pop them in a box and arrange for a courier to pick them up via the app.

I scanned the same set of books using two different apps to see how it worked. One app offered me around 20p per book, and you had to sell a minimum of £7.50 and the other offered around 48p per book and you only had to reach £5. In total we sold £70 worth of books. The 3

remaining boxes of books we couldn’t sell via the apps were very welcome at the Oxfam Book store on the High Street.

Clothes selling apps/clothes swaps

Ruth is a seasoned Vinted seller and has developed a system that works well for her. She gives items a set period of time to sell and, if they don't, off they go to the charity shop.

I haven't quite mastered the art of Vinted yet. I find photographing, listing and posting items very time-consuming. However, I'm planning to create a dedicated packing and storage cupboard, which should make the process much easier. Hopefully having a proper system in place will encourage me to give it another go.

I've been to a cuple of clothes swaps and they are really good fun. You take a number of items and you can swap them for the same number of items. If you don't have anything

you can usually buy items for a small charge. The last one by The What Shop also had a repair element and you could get simple repairs done there and then. After an initial look round you go round again and again as more clothes get added as more people arrive. It's addictive! We went round five times then had to call it a day!

Friends and Family

Sometimes the easiest solution is right in front of us.

This doesn't mean forcing unwanted items onto friends and relatives! However, if you know someone has been looking for a plant pot, a set of cushions or a particular household item, it’s worth sending them a quick photo to see if they want it.

You might save them money while finding your item a new home.

When Landfill Is the Only Option

Unfortunately, not everything can be saved.

Some items are broken beyond repair or simply no longer have a market. In those situations, recycling centres separate materials so that as much as possible can be recycled on a larger scale.

I was reminded of this recently when a lady approached us after a talk and asked how she could dispose of a collection of old cassette tapes. She had contacted collectors, explored specialist groups and exhausted every option she could think of.

Nobody wanted them.

Sometimes, despite our best efforts, landfill becomes the final destination. The key is making it the last resort rather than the first.

What Would We Do Again?

We'd happily run another couple of jumble sales each year.

The car boot sale was enjoyable, but probably not something we'll rush to repeat. Never say never, though.

Vintage Cash Cow remains a useful option for items you're not particularly attached to and would like to convert into a little cash.

Vinted is still on my list. I hope that once the process becomes a habit, it will feel far less overwhelming.

Charity shops are definately going to be my go to. It's straightforward, doesnt involve any admin, marketing, photograps or trips to the post office!

Progress, Not Perfection

Ruth and I are currently putting together an online resource that will list sustainable ways to get rid of unwanted items. The aim is to make it easier to see at a glance whether something can be recycled, donated, sold or rehomed.

However, there's one final point I'd like to make.

Be gentle with yourself.

The desire to reuse and recycle everything can become overwhelming in its own right. Sometimes creating a calm, functional home means making decisions quickly and moving forward.

I've certainly had times when I simply needed to create space before I could put better systems in place.

Perhaps the biggest lesson from this whole experience came when I wandered around the car boot sale after setting up my stall. I looked at hundreds of items and realised something important:

Nothing there was nicer than what I already owned.

And if I did spot something I liked, my first question was, "where would I put it?"

If I didn't have an answer, it didn't come home with me.