Total items out of the house: 236/365

I got this number thanks to Intuit’s ItsDeductible (no affiliate link, I just like them).  I put all of my items into their list and it gives me two things: 1) a record of everything I/we donated, and 2) estimated values to use for tax deduction time.

I went through the old clothes in Daughter Person’s room, and got rid of all the small clothes.  They were mostly 18mth clothes from last winter and this summer.  She had some 24mth and 2T clothes last summer, so I wanted to save what I thought might fit her this upcoming summer.  I kept one small box of summer clothes that will probably fit her.  It also let me know what I might need to get for her.  She’s firmly in the 24mth/2T sizes at the moment, although ones that are on the small side of the size no longer fit her.  Based on anecdotal evidence, she should still be in 24mth/2T this summer – depending on when she’s out of her diaper.  She might even be in 3T by the end of the summer.

I also went through some of the random things in our dining room and basement and got rid of old tupperware, some serving ware, and a few “tchotchkes” like vases and kettles.

I ended up taking three rather large boxes to Goodwill.  I prefer the Lupus Foundation’s pick up, but they aren’t/weren’t offering pickup in our area anymore apparently.  So, I sent the things off to Goodwill.  I *should* have shopped at Goodwill for Daughter Person’s summer wardrobe, but it totally slipped my mind until I was pulling away from the store.  I’ll go back later though.

Of course, as soon as I got back home, I was seeing other things that I should have donated or had talked about donating “next time”.  Oh well, I started a box in the guest room with those things, so that they make their way out the door “next time”.

Total items out of the house: 43/365

In addition to about 5 DVDs/games that I sent out via Amazon.  I also got rid of 5 items via Freecycle, and 2 via craigslist.  It took a lot of e-mails and phone calls to get everything arranged, but I did and the stuff is gone.  Daughter Person doesn’t even miss the toys we sent packing.  And I don’t miss the old baby bathtubs in the way any more.

I have carpal tunnel, which acts up when I’m stupid enough to use the scroll wheel on the mouse, and since I was doing a lot of reading at work the last week or so, I really screwed up my hand, wrist, arm and shoulder.  I’ve spent the last few nights in a wrist brace, which has worked well, and I took off today with Daughter Person to let it rest even more.  I’ve been trying to avoid using the computer, and I’ve done pretty well, but I’m still a computer person at heart, and without something else to occupy my time, I end up on the computer.  Luckily, I found a few really good books through the Kindle lending library and I focused on reading those rather than doing something on the computer.  As you can tell, I’m back (and I’m done with the whole series…).  Typing doesn’t bother me as much as using the mouse, so as long as I remember my keyboard shortcuts, I’m OK.

I sent off another 7 games this weekend, as well as a few things gone via Freecycle.  I listed another few things on Craigslist as well, one has had folks asking me if I could mail it to them, and I’m not sure about that, so it’s not gone.

I woke up with Daughter Person on Saturday and then we took her to swim lessons.  She slept for 3 hours during her afternoon nap, and I had a *lot* of energy, so I listed things on craigslist, Amazon and Freecycle as appropriate, printed out my magnetic menu board items, did laundry and scanned in a lot of Daughter Person’s schoolwork (and promptly recycled most of it).  I felt quite proud of all that I got done while she was napping on Saturday.  I wasn’t quite as productive on Sunday, but I made some progress.

Total items out of the house: 33/365

In the two days since I’ve listed the PS2 and Wii games (most of them anyway) on Amazon, 12 have been sold, netting me about $150 – which I think is an excellent trade.  There were a few cases missing their games or manual, which I need to search through the old TV stand to find.  Finally, I’m going to list the Wii and WiiFit up on eBay.  We’re not using them anymore, and there’s no reason to keep them sitting around.  I need to figure out how to wipe the Wii, but that shouldn’t be hard.

Total items out of the house: 22/365

In the last week, I’ve shipped off 3 DS games through Amazon, and got rid of one of Daughter Person’s old toys.  I’m about to list about 20-30 PS2 and Wii games on Amazon as well, so those will hopefully be going shortly.

There’s also another bite on another of Daughter Person’s toys from craigslist, so hopefully that will go as well.

Total items out of the house: 10/365

Still a long way to go.

Total items out of the house: 6/365

I sold an old lamp that we had in Daughter Person’s room – which I think we turned on once or twice – for $5 on craigslist.  There has been a bite on another thing I have listed on Craigslist, but no sale yet.

I also sent a box of 18mth PJs to a woman in one of my online mom’s group.  I think there were about 20 sets of PJs in the box, and they’re all out of the house.  I’m only counting it as one thing, but there were really several things in the one box.

We’re also discussing whether we want to sell our Nintendo Wii.  We haven’t used it in a while, we’ve mostly been using our Playstation (to play Blu-ray discs).  We have a lot of Wii games that will bring in some extra cash.  I have to decide if I’m OK with getting rid of the only system that will play Mario and Zelda…

I’m off to a great start on the decluttering goal.

Total items out of the house: 4/365

I freecycled an entire box of Daughter Person’s infant toys – soft balls, soft books, teethers, etc.  I only counted that box as one item, but there were probably 15-20 toys in it.  Little things that aren’t worth trying to sell on Craigslist.

I also freecycled an old bottle of Poly-Vi-Sol that we never opened and an old Star Wars doll my brother had given me almost 10 years ago.  It was still in it’s box – although the box had seen much better days (the reason I went with Freecycle rather than eBay).

Finally, Dad bought a new laptop with his bonus in December, and I “sold” his old one on Gazelle for almost $200 – pretty good considering that I know we bought it for $700 about 4 years ago.  (If you haven’t used Gazelle, it’s worth looking into for old Mac/iPhone/iPod items – I sent them a broken iPhone last year and got some money for it, and much easier than eBay/Craigslist).

I’ve listed some of the more expensive toys of Daughter Person that we want to get rid of on Craigslist, but no bites yet – those might just go to the donation pile.