Wednesday, January 6, 2010

My Declutter Motivation Plan for 2010

We have a lot of stuff, and we need to get rid of it. We make occasional donations to Goodwill, but I have a lot of trouble letting go of stuff that may have some monetary value and I hang onto items with the plan to sell them on Ebay or Craigslist, etc. The problem is, I never quite get around to actually selling much of anything. It's a step into unfamiliar territory for me, and I need to figure out what will motivate me to move forward with my plans.

My goals:

1. To sell/donate/MOVE things out of my home throughout the year
2. To go through, clear out, and organize the basement
3. To go through, clear out, and organize closets and cabinets
4. To set up a process to deal with future items whose usefulness has expired (to be used after the major purge is over); a schedule for going through clothes seasonally, a place to store items destined for donation, etc.

My motivation plan:

1. To see how much money I can earn each month from selling our items online, through consignment, and (perhaps) at a yard sale this spring.
2. To apply this money to a loan payment I make every month. The payment is $100, but if I make more than $100 in a month, I will increase my payment to the total amount made in the month.
3. When the clutter is cleared, it will be time for my husband and I to start planning our next remodeling project. We can't figure out what to do with our space when we don't know for sure exactly how much stuff we need to store, so we need to make some decisions about how much stuff we want in our life and how we are going to handle it. I think remodeling is fun, so this will be an incredible motivator for me!

I'll report here at least once a month on my declutter and financial progress.

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