Cleaning House

One of my goals on maternity leave was to clean out the basement. That like many other goals didn't actually happen. Though I did make a good dent in the clutter but the place is still a mess. When I started the process I didn't want to just throw everything away because a lot of it was in good shape but we just didn't use it any more. There are the regular outlets like GoodWill and The Salvation Army but I wanted to see if I could maybe trade a few of these and get something back. Here is a little summary of what I found.

To Donate clothing and housewares:

-Goodwill
-The Salvation Army
-Dress for Success

To donate children's items:

-Newborns in Need - newbornsinneed.org
-Project Night Night - projectnightnight.org

To donate books, CDs, or DVDs:

-Books for Soldiers - booksforsoldiers.org
-Read to Reader - readertoreader.org

To swap items online:

-For clothing and accessories - rehash.com or swapstyle.com
-For children's items - handmedowns.com or thebabychain.com
-For books, CDs, DVDs, and video games - bookins.com, bookmooch.com, chancexchange.com, goozex.com, or swaptree.com
-For everything else - freecycle.org, neighborrow.com, swapthing.com, titletrader.com

I haven't tried all of these but I have use a few and I have gotten rid of a lot of things while helping others or trading to get something that I do want. I also ran into a way to give away gently used shoes. If you go to piperlime.com there is a link in the lower right-hand corner for soles for souls. You send your shoes to them and they distribute them to people worldwide who are in need and they send you a receipt to use for your taxes. I just sent them a big box yesterday.

So get on out there and clean your house out and help someone else out in the process! And reusing is also green!