Updated 2026. My mother passed at age 97 (2024) RIP. I will be updating this site so I can help retirees again. Write to me!

How to De-clutter the Home?

by Mari
(Wisconsin)

How do you clear out all the papers, books, reference books and other clutter accumulated from your teaching years?

Wendy's Reply: Oh wow, Mari, this is a LOADED question! Grin! There are oodles of websites to help you declutter and reorganize, here are a few to help you:

The Fly Lady has lots of ideas!

Create a relaxing clutter free home!

Oodles of Decluttering ideas here

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In Your Retirement --
De-clutter and Make Money Too
by: Leslie Wolfe

De-cluttering is something I think we all want to do eventually, somehow. especially when we retire. Taking the time to do it is something else entirely. But then again, it's one of the things we had on the list of things to do when we retired.

Over the past several years, hoping we could afford to retire was ever present on our minds. The most important thing for us to achieve was to enter retirement debt free, which we were able to do. We paid our house off in 2003, which was the last of our monthly expenses. And, since we have been living 'Green' all of our adult lives, our utilities are always lower than most peoples. We managed to get our bills as low as we could and still be comfortable and happy.

De-cluttering our home was a no brainer. It was also a no brainer how we would do it. Getting all of 'stuff' out of the way was a cinch.

We remodeled our large garage, putting up shelving where we could. We did it with one thing in mind; to have a huge garage sale. Not only could I de-clutter, but we could make money in the process.

Once the shelves were built we painted them a clean white, to match the rest of the garage. We proceeded room by room, cleaning out drawers and closets. We made sure the items we put in the sale were in good condition and worked properly.
I even guaranteed the items for 24 hours after the sale.

Everything we put in the garage sale was cleaned, price appropriately and displayed on shelves and tables so nicely. The garage sale was for 2 days and I'm telling you, we made a bundle. It was hard to get rid of some of the items but when we thought about why we were selling the items, it made it a little easier.

Since the garage sale, when we find things we don't need or want anymore, we clean it, price it and set it out on the shelves, ready for our next de-clutter session.

How to De-clutter your home
by: Anonymous

Set aside a few hours a week, room-by-room, one box at a time.

Don't pack more than you can comfortable lift yourself.

Call the local library about your books. Call an estate sale liquidator.

DeCluttering
by: Anonymous

Sign up for free weekly newsletter
Get Organized Now."" Lots of ideas and some systems you could buy. Or google "Get organized" to
find more sites, Get Organized at home, etc.
Sorting through stuff takes so much time.
A weekly newsletter can motivate you to keep working at it.

Elinor

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