Yesterday I was able to remove one of the more bulky and unnecessary items from my garage. I have had a long pool lounge chair taking up space in my garage for over a year now. It was given to me last summer and I have used it maybe twice outdoors. With the dog now, I couldn’t even put it in the backyard without fear for destruction.

My solution, as I have mentioned before, was to purge it from my house. I didn’t know where to take the chair or if it would even fit in my car. Luckily, it was trash day. I figured if the trash people couldn’t take it, someone would; so I hauled it out to the curb. I’m fairly sure it wasn’t the trash people who made off with the chair, but someone who drove through and noticed a nice free chair on my curb. I returned from work happy now that I was free from this vinyl-wrapped menace!

If you have something large you no longer want, you might just give it a shot and curb it. The worst that might happen is you have to haul it back inside after trash-day is over. Some neighborhoods also offer a once-a-year bulk item trash day, so keep a watch for that. Alternatively, if the iteam is nice enough consider donating or selling to a thrift store or charifty (if its something they can use).

Over the past weekend I ventured into the darker corners of my home to review a large amount of “stuff” I wasn’t using. I had been moving and shuffling these same boxes around for a few years, always planning to “get to it later.” Today was the day to open them up and discover what “treasures” lay inside.

I used a basic criteria for deciding to keep an item:

1. Have I used this in the last year?
2. Do I have an immediate use for it now?
3. Is this valuable monetarily and easily re-sold?

If I answered yes to any of these questions, the item remained. If not, into the pile it went. Using this strategy, I was able to remove three large boxes full of junk from my home. The most common items were small useless trinkets, notes from college (that I’ve never looked at since), and packaging from electronics I’ve bought.

Other notable positives from the work:

• Extra storage space in guest room closet.
• Found a complete Dremel tool in box I bought 4 years ago.
• Decided to sell my old TV and VCR on craigslist for a small profit.

After this experience, I think I should do this more often. Is once a year enough to remove all of the junk we accumulate?