From Chaos To Control - "Get Rid Of It" Bag

So I am a strong believer that if you have something that you don't use, or if you don't have room for it in your house, then by all means, GET RID OF IT!

Maybe that means finding a loving home for that old bed frame that has been taking up space in your shed, or passing off all your maternity clothes (which was a personal favorite of mine, ha!) or periodically (and frequently) going through the kid's toys and purging their rooms of unused or broken items.

I have a good system for my wardrobe.  Every so often I will go through my drawers and closet.  I make 3 piles: 1 for clothes that I frequent on a weekly basis, 1 for clothes that I think I may frequent one day and 1 for clothes that I wouldn't be caught dead frequenting:)

The first pile goes neatly back into my drawers and closet.

The second pile goes in a bag that I will store in the attic, or under the bed in a bin.  If I've not missed it or looked for it in the next 6 months I'm not going to miss it or look for it later.  So, I'll bag it up (use a blindfold if you must, because chances are if you see it again your heart will go pitter-pat and you'll want to hang onto it again) and head on over to the local clothes drop off to eliminate this extra "pile" from your house!

The third pile goes in my ever-present good will bag.  I have a trash bag at the bottom of the stairs that leads to our attic.  It is a bag designated for things that we no longer like, use or need, to be dropped off at goodwill when full.  Some months it gets loaded up pretty quickly, but the bag that is sitting there now has been there, unfilled, going on 3 months.  The purpose of this isn't to fill a bag as quickly as you can, but to have a "place" for those unwanted or unneeded items.  See, everything needs a place, even those things that don't have a place.

I also like to think of people that might be able to use our unused items.  Those things get placed in our "Lost and Found" that I mentioned earlier so that I remember to pass them off.  For example, I was going through a box in the back of a cabinet in the laundry area.  It was full of random lightbulbs.  In it was a pack of vanity lightbulbs for our bathroom in Charlotte.  We don't even have a use for those kinds of lightbulbs in our house here.  We've lived here going on 3 years.  Those lightbulbs are just taking up space now and we aren't going to use them.  I pulled them out, placed them in my "lost and found" until they found the perfect home with our friends who came to visit:)

I hope you have enjoyed this installment of "From Chaos To Control".  Now go get a bag started and make a home for those items that need one!