This blog chronicles my life as I try to balance healthy lifestyle habits with my husband's penchant for pizza rolls and my daughter's desire to watch iCarly 8 hours a day. It contains a mostly humorous, kind, and somewhat spiritual look at everyday life and the people who live it.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Green Tip Tuesday: Donating to charity

I hate clutter.  One of the good things about having moved 6 times in the almost-19-years Steve and I have been married is that I get the opportunity to continually purge.  Sometimes this is not such a good thing.  There have definitely been times when I regretted giving away something in one of my why-do-we-have-all-this-stuff-I-can't-stand-this-clutter moods.  Those regrets only occur when I impulse purge, something I don't recommend, so when we moved to this house last summer I decided to try "box purging."  The concept is simple: take a box, put it someplace it won't be in the way but is accessible (for me this was the basement storage room), and fill it.  All of the blinds we removed from this house went into the box.  Over the past 7 months I have added clothes we don't want, miscellaneous household items, Christmas decorations I have decided I don't like anymore, etc.  Last week a postcard came in the mail advertising that the Epilepsy Foundation truck would be in my neighborhood and if I just attached this postcard to my donation they would take it right off my front porch and leave me a receipt. 

Perfect.

I quickly sifted through the items in the box (okay boxes, I did have 2), decided I still didn't want any of them, had Steve carry them to the front porch and this morning POOF! they're gone.

They will recycle all my clutter.  I don't have the clutter.  It took no effort on my part (especially since Steve was the one who carried the boxes!).  It's being Green at its best.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

love it....it seems like society is on a declutter ora. Thanks for sharing. I use the box idea as well. When it is full even if it is 4 items it is out of here. Box spot right outside the entrance to the garage so it is closer to the van and no turn backs allowed once it is in the box. :)