I think we’ve all heard, a million times over, how much stuff you can accumulate with a growing child in your house. Now imagine there’s two children. And that you have received tons of hand-me-downs from generous friends and family. And that your husband hates to waste anything and refuses to get rid of things that could still be useful to someone out there. And that you have a basement where you can throw anything you’re not using. And finally, imagine you’ve lived in your house for over five years and the piles of STUFF have glommed into one giant mess of JUNK that you haven’t touched in at least a year.

We did a massive decluttering three years ago (and then again last year) when we decided to reclaim our basement as a playroom/guest room/study. (Yes, we did it once, then were overcome with STUFF yet again, so we did it again.) The process is daunting, time-consuming and exhausting… but oh so worth it when you have all that stuff out of your house and you have a whole extra living space because of it. And maybe even some extra cash or tax write offs!

Here are the ways we got rid of stuff we weren’t using.

D O N A T I N G

– To friends or family. This is my favorite way of getting rid of stuff because you still get to see it being used, and you’re helping friends and family. For me, that’s better than money, especially because most of this stuff came to me out of the generosity of other friends and family. I am careful to ask friends with children (or expecting children) exactly what they need, and then I tell them to look our stuff over and decide what they want. I have a few close friends who have kids a size or two behind ours, and they’ve basically told me they want anything and everything. So I basically just hand it over! Also, I’ve learned over the years that this is the only way I feel good about passing on items that were gifts.

– To a specific cause. Our veterinarian’s office held a huge yard sale and donated all proceeds to local animal causes, so we loaded up our first huge batch of stuff and made a big dropoff. Not only did we feel good about helping them support their causes, but we also didn’t have to deal with sorting and bundling for a different kind of donation dropoff.

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– To a donation center. I know that many people out there have a preference, but we chose a Salvation Army dropoff center close to us that quickly provides receipts for tax writeoffs. When it comes to getting tons of stuff out of the house at once, convenience is key for me.
S E L L I N G

I have used several different methods to sell things we no longer need with varied results.

– Hellobee Classifieds. Of course it’s a GREAT thing is to see my stuff go to a fellow HBer who is in search of something!! I usually ask buyers to cover the cheapest shipping possible and I invoice them on Paypal. Paypal takes a fee, but it pays for the protection for both myself and the buyer. I have sold all kinds of baby and kid gear items, clothes, and shoes here. And I’ve done plenty of shopping myself.

– eBay. I leave the eBay selling to Wagon Sr. because he’s pretty experienced with all the intricacies of being a successful eBay seller. I prefer to use eBay for high end or rare items, because many times the eBay fee, the Paypal fee, and effort to ship doesn’t make selling a cheaper item worth the cost. I have had a lot of good results selling higher end baby and kid clothes (Tea Collection, Mini Boden, etc.) and unused items always do well here too, as well as diaper bags and gift cards with balances on them. One of our biggest winners was a Hallmark ornament someone gave us that was engraved with the wrong year… a buyer opted to “Buy it Now” for $35 right after the holiday season was over!

– Baby/Kid Consignment Sales. There are all kinds of sales out there, and I have participated as a seller in two local sales. I have attended three or four different sales. They’re always a great place to pick up cheap gear, toys, and clothes… but I digress. I’m talking about selling here!! Preparing your items for a consignment sale is NO small task. But if you have a large amount of items, it can totally be worth it. You take inventory of your items online and set prices, and then you print tags to affix to your items. Usually you have to prepare the clothes on wire hangers and organize by size. Different sales have different ways of dealing with unsold items, but the ones I’ve participated in allow you to choose whether or not to discount unsold items for a 50% off sale at the end of the last day, and then you can choose whether you want to come back and pick up your unsold items or if you want them donated. Some sales are annual and allow you to relist items in the next year’s sale. A big thing is that these sales are usually seasonal in my area, so you can only sell summer items at the spring sale, and only sell fall items at the winter sale. This is a great way to get rid of a lot of large baby gear at once.

– Consignment Stores. I have only worked with one local consignment store, but I have done very well with the designer items I cleared out of the house with them. They look over your items, choose what they want to take, and record it. My store has an online login where you can track whether or not your items have sold. They price the items, the prices go down every few weeks, and they pay the consigner 50% of whatever they get — 60% for high end designers like Burberry or Marc Jacobs. I try to only bring brand name items since they have rejected a lot of items in the past.

– Local Facebook Groups. Try searching on Facebook for your town or area’s name, and you will probably find a few local groups to buy, sell or trade items. This is a great alternative to Craigslist since members are usually pretty active, people are there specifically for baby items, and it’s so easy to post items. One group I belong to even does a lot of “porch pick-up” sales, where the seller will leave your item in a bag on their porch and you leave the money in their mailbox. Sometimes buyers will just not show up. Obviously, seller beware in these instances, but the group is closed and the admin doesn’t hesitate to kick out members who violate the rules.

– Craigslist. We have had good luck with Craigslist for large baby gear items such as strollers, and regular house items like furniture. It’s also really great for posting when you are putting something out on the curb for free. I don’t think it’s ever taken more than a few hours for the item to disappear.

– Yard or Garage Sale. We have done this once, and it was a horribly exhausting and time-consuming ordeal. We had to make and post signs (and take them down after the sale was over), advertise the sale on Facebook groups and Craigslist, and then tagging and of course running the sale were exhausting. We also had several thefts over the course of the day, which I quickly learned is a very common thing. One person will distract you with a question (for us, it was a guy who picked up a DVD and asked us “how is this movie?”) then while you chat with them, their accomplice steals things. For us, the girl with him stole a Coach wristlet and a Samsung digital camera, among other things. Then she even bought a ton of books (paperback Harry Potter series, etc) and I let her pay what little cash she had with her, about $2.50. Right after they left, we realized the items were missing and we immediately knew what had happened. Anyway, after the sale is over we had to break down and then pack up the car with the remaining items to bring to the donation center. With all of the effort we made (and we live on a very busy road, and it was a gorgeous day) it was totally not worth it and I wish we had gone a different route of selling items piece by piece on Craigslist or Facebook groups. I’ll never do it again!

In general, my biggest tip is this: your time and effort are worth money as well, so try a few methods and find out what works best for your area and types of items you’re looking to get rid of, along with what you like to use. For me, interacting with local parents on Facebook groups has been wonderful, as well as continually selling to (and buying from!) the same people over and over on the Hellobee classifieds. I can name many members whose kids are the right age for our outgrown clothes (you know who you are!!). At the same time, being a consigner at a big sale gives you all kinds of perks (access to a pre-sale, volunteering at the sale gives you a larger percentage of your sales, etc.) so if I’m in need of a bunch of stuff, I’m much more likely to put in the work to sell at a consignment sale.

What are your chosen methods of getting items out of your house?