30 Before 30: Donate 100 Things to Goodwill

Clockwise from top: garage mid-clean, perfected closet, SUV full to the roof with donations

As anyone who knows me can attest, I discard clothing almost as quickly as I acquire it.  Of course I hold on to classic (read: expensive) pieces, but I am certainly not one of those sentimental types that holds on to my 8th grade Fun Run shirt for the memory of it being "fun."  So I really don't understand why I thought donating 100 things to Goodwill would take me years to accomplish.  This was by far the easiest item on my list, aided by a recent move and a hunger for spring cleaning.

When I was preparing for my big move up north, I moved out of my apartment in LA months before I actually moved.  I spent the interim at my parents house, with my things in storage.  But while packing up, I filled my dad's 4Runner with things to donate.  Those don't even count in this tally.  When I got around to unpacking said items 6 months later in my new home, I thought I had done a really good purge.  Boy, was I wrong.

While unpacking, I piled up almost 50 pieces of clothing I no longer wanted.  I put them in a box, and put that box in the garage.  When Ronny and I decided we didn't want something that we had duplicates of, we threw it in the garage.  So it comes to no surprise that by the sixth month of this habit, we could barely step foot in our garage.  We decided it was high time for a clean-out.

Of course the weekend we picked to do it was the hottest weekend of the year thus far, so we postponed and I instead did another closet re-org and purge.  I collected up 27 more pieces of clothing to get rid of, and am beyond happy with my newly organized, perfectly clean and functional closet.

When the Garage Takedown Weekend rolled around, we got to work.  At this point, we had both been so lazy with our move-ins that the donations were mixed in with "things we want to keep but don't have a place for," so we spent the whole morning sorting.  We built up a big Ikea shelf unit to store some of the smaller things and sports equipment, and filled plastic bins from my move with all of our seasonal decor, hobby supplies and bulk household items.  Our "donate" pile took up half our carport!

A lot of the donations came from the fact that when 2 people move in together, they both have stuff, and duplicates aren't necessary.  We compared who had the better pots and pans, etc, and the 2nd set got donated.  Here is an almost-total tally of what we donated:

77 items from my closet
12 items from Ronny's closet
4 throw pillows
2 floor lamps
1 DJ mixer
2 metal queen bed frames
1 mattress pad
1 large mirror
2 metal wastebaskets
7 misc Christmas decorations - mini tinsel Christmas tree, strings of lights, window decor
20+ misc kitchen item duplicates - pots, pans, entire silverware set, stove-top cooking utensils, can opener, etc

And I know there was more, Ronny started loading the car before I could finish counting.  So by my record, the overall total came to at least 129 items.  Not to mention the dozen or so items we are donating to Sweet Home Rescue, the shelter from which we adopted our pup.

I am encouraged by how easily I reached my goal.  I hope that the items we donated will help out a family in need somewhere within the Goodwill network.  And from now on, I am definitely going to try to spend my money in a more constructive manner and not buy stuff I will so quickly and happily discard mere months later.