Do what do you think? Do I have pass down ability here? (and I am short 2 kids in this pic) LOL

I love getting a call from a dear friend of mine saying, “Sandy – I have gone through the kids things and I have 2 big bags of clothes for your triplets!” It’s like Christmas time going through the bags to see what will fit and what we can use.

Not everything fits or will work, and if we can’t use it I pass it on. I have a couple girls that I work with that have children who I pass the triplets clothes and toys down to. If it isn’t something they can use, I take it to the Goodwill store that is in my town.

My older boys clothes go into a bin that are labeled and I save those for the triplets. (at least the boys)

Personally, I do not keep most of it for garage sales. I do not want to store things through the year waiting for a garage sale to make .25 off a shirt. I would rather give it to someone that I know who can really use it for free, or second best give it to Goodwill. I know someone has to buy it from there, but it is out of my house and I have my space back. Garage sales aren’t bad, if you have the space to store the things until you have it.

I have no problem looking at garage sales for clothes to fit the kids. I am not too proud to use hand me downs or buy clothing at a garage sale. These kids grow fast and aren’t in them more than a season. I wish I could afford to always buy them new, but I am practical and even if I could afford to buy them the best of clothing….it makes sense to reuse things. Recycle…be green with clothes too.

Color Code Your Trash Bags!

When you are de-cluttering it is easy to mix up things.  Here is a solution that can help with that.

I suggest getting a box of black trash bags, and a box of white trash bags.  You can also use clear trash bags for recycle.

Trash Bags – Color Code Them

Black is for trash that goes right to the trash can outside.
White is for donate.
Clear for recycle

It is to keep from getting bags mixed up in the clean up and clear out process. As you are loading things into the bags it is easy to think that you will remember what is where….but after you have loaded up several and you happen to take a break and come back to it, its easy to get confused.
You don’t want to accidentally throw away something that was meant to be donated and someone else could use.
I suggest the white for donate and not clear , the reason being -  you don’t get that bag out of the house the same day, it may give you time to reconsider what is in it and you may find yourself pulling things out to keep. Then you are defeating the purpose and you may not get rid of all the clutter you need to.
The clear for recycle because you can then see easily what is paper, what is bottles etc. when you go to take it to the recycle location. (Or hopefully if you are lucky enough…just out to your curb…we aren’t so lucky in our town to have curb side recycle yet. Pain huh?)  Update on that – we now have curb side recycling at our house. Our town has come out of the dark ages!
This simple solution for loading up different colored bags can make things much easier on the “getting out of the house” end of the process.