The Need to Purge

For one reason or another, I was in every room in our house today (including the garage). With the exception of the main bathroom, the overriding thought that was going through my mind was "We have too much crap. We need to sort through this junk and downsize". Our laundry/storage room is full of bins of stuff that are rarely used, but I'm still hanging on to because of their memories. Our one spare bedroom isn't even a bedroom. It's a junk room. It's the room where I unload things that have no where else to go at the moment. It's full of the teaching resources I inherited from my mom, mattresses that don't have a frame yet, vacuums that no longer work, luggage with no where to go, leftover carpeting and lino from the renovations, an ironing board that doesn't get used, empty binders from university, and empty boxes "just in case I need one".

Our kitchen is full of pots, pans, bowls, cake pans, pizza trays, casserole dishes, salad spinners, choppers, dicers, blenders, grinders and roasters that are all rarely used (some are still brand new). The boys' rooms are full of movies that have been watched once and tossed on the shelf (hence the reason we requested that people no longer buy them movies as gifts). Mine and Mike's closet is full of clothes that we no longer wear but, again, for sentimental reason, we don't want to get rid of them. The garage is full of snowboards, baby car seats, bird houses, hockey equipment, baseball bats, dressers, empty boxes, table saws, work benches and the bathroom vanity that was ripped out of the main bathroom. Everywhere I look, there is just an excessive amount of junk and items that are used so rarely that when/if the time came we needed it, I'm sure someone we know would loan us theirs.

The idea of having another garage sale is not at all appealing to me. We had one last summer and they are just a huge waste of time. You spend all that time setting everything up and making it all looks nice when you just have to take it all down again (and sooner than planned if it starts to rain). The whole game of pricing everything is a dreadful balancing act. You can't price an item too high or no one will show an interest in it. If you price it too low, people will think it's just junk and walk away from it. Then, when it's all over, you're stuck with what to do with everything. Do you haul it all back inside and put it away for next year's sale? Or do you load it all up and take it to charity? As Mike and I stood in the garage tonight, I came up with the ultimate solution to get rid of our crap and we'll barely break a sweat.

We will take out an ad in the paper, advertising our "sale". We will put a few posters up on the busy streets nearby. We will haul all our junk out to the driveway. And then we'll walk away. Why? Because everything is going to be free. That old fridge that no one would buy for $75? Free! Colby's snowboard that he has never used? Free! Our old doors? Free! The old vanity from the bathroom? Free! Everything will be $0! And you know what the best part is? When people are bargain hunting, they don't care what kind of condition an item is in. All they care about is the price tag. So it's pretty much guaranteed that all our junk will walk itself off our driveway. And I'm betting it will all be gone by noon.