Don’t break down those big boxes your holiday gifts came in just yet! You can reuse cardboard boxes by packing them up with donations and shipping them to Goodwill— for free.
When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully,
everyone is blessed.
―Maya Angelou
I know you’re already being good little boys and girls and breaking down those big boxes to be recycled. And that’s definitely a good thing! But did you know you can reuse cardboard boxes from Amazon or any other place, any time of the year, to pack up donations to Goodwill and have them shipped for free? You can even have them picked them up right from your house or office!
Apparently the Give Back Box program has been around for a while, but I’d never come across it before, and this is a great time to spread the word: everybody has big, sturdy boxes from their online orders being delivered.
Gathering up donations at this time of year means you can declutter to make room for the new items you’re gifted; you can clean more easily, which helps with lifting your mood (there’s seemingly a connection between clutter and mental state, especially as we grow older), improving your feng shui, and obviously making for a cleaner house for the new year ahead.
Going through the hidden recesses of your closets and the dark corners under your bed will undoubtedly uncover treasures you’d forgotten about so they can be used. Choosing items to donate is a good exercise in giving for kids after the craziness of the holidays.
And it goes without saying that Goodwill donations are tax-deductible, support jobs in your community and help those in need!
So here’s what you do.
Hang onto those boxes your holiday gifts arrive in.
Go through your house and let go of all the clothes, shoes, jewelry, books, toys, household items, etc. in good condition that you no longer use or that don’t “bring you joy.” Be ruthless! Trust me, it may be hard at first but you will feel so good once you’re done.
Pack your box up. There is no weight limit, but *no electronics, any liquids, fragile, hazardous or volatile items, or ammunition.*
Create a Give Back Box account. This lets you create and print your shipping labels.
Ship your box. You can send it UPS or USPS, by dropping off or ordering a pickup online.
Get a Tax Deduction receipt. After you ship, you can itemize your donation online and Give Back Box will email your receipt after the donation has been received and processed.
Now, obviously, if you have a Goodwill nearby, it’s just as easy to do the dropoff yourself; this is to make it easier for those who don’t have a donation dropoff that’s convenient or don’t have a way of getting donations there themselves (or maybe have a bad habit of letting Goodwill boxes sit in their car for months at a time. Ahem.).
The week after Christmas tends to be Goodwill’s busiest of the year, so if you’ve a couple of hours free consider checking in with your store and seeing if they could use help receiving donations!
Need decluttering inspiration?
These are my favorite books about decluttering and getting your house in order.
Ever need to clean up a room right quick and just sort of sweep everything into a big bin, and throw it under the bed or in a closet?
But then forget about the big box in the closet, until one day you’re looking for something and you open it up to discover the huge jumble inside?
And it’s just too much for you at that moment, so you pretend you didn’t see it and quietly put it back?
How about that time your house got robbed, and the fingerprint guy was totally overwhelmed by all the stuff falling out of the bedroom closets and said, “Whoa. They really tore this place apart, huh?”
And you just looked at him, slack-jawed, and then nodded yes, totally blaming the robbers for your unholy mess?
No? Just me?
That day with the forensics team was a turning point for me. It was, quite simply, the most embarrassing moment of my life, on an already difficult day.
I am physically incapable of leaving the house a mess now. Rooms need to be picked up, laundry in baskets at the very least, beds made. You just never know when your house might get robbed and people are going to be asking you, “Was this here when you left?”
I dug in, buckled down, and ruthlessly decluttered. I was flyin’ with the FlyLady. (That was short lived. Too! Much! Enthusiasm! for! Me!) I set up daily chore lists and enforced nightly ten-minute cleaning drills. I was a lean, mean, housekeeping machine.
Only… that was over five years ago.
And… then I got a job working from home full-time.
And also… I started a blog, in my “spare” time.
And did I mention… my brother and his family stayed with us for a few months, while they settled on a house for their growing family. So everything that we used to store in those rooms… came to live upstairs with us for a while.
Yeah. Somehow the clutter has crept back up on me. And set down roots.
You know when the clutter has grown out of hand and you don’t know what to do with it? And you go to the store and you buy all these fancy organizers that you think are going to solve the problem, but they don’t fit in the drawer right or you just don’t get around to using them?
You know how you empty three rooms of craft supplies and Christmas decorations and never-used wedding china and handed-down-waiting-to-be-grown-into clothing into a corner of your office and you have no freaking clue where you’re going to put it all?
So your husband builds a loft in your bedroom?
No? Just me?
The stairs are twisty-turnyview from bedOne day there will be a door to the attic, but for now it's a fancy piece of foamboard
So. I have this loft. And I know it was very handy and nice of my husband to build it, but… I feel like we have turned into crazy people, suitable for reality tv. I call it Elton’s Folly.
And I have all this STUFF. Most of it is stuff I actually need to keep. It was semi-organized when spread out over three rooms— I knew where to find things, even if it looked messy to the casual observer— but when Jeff moved it, he just dumped it all into one big pile on the floor.
And I don’t know where to start. I have an extra room and I still don’t know where to begin.
I just keep thinking of The Cat in the Hat.
And this mess is so big And so deep and so tall, We can not pick it up. There is no way at all!
Well, I don’t know about you, but when I’ve got a mess that’s staring me in the face that I can’t quite deal with, what I like to do is… read a whole lot of books about decluttering and organizational techniques! I’ve become quite a connoisseur over the years.
Pretty Neat: the buttoned-up way to get organized & let go of perfection by Alicia Rockmore & Sarah Welch is a fun-to-read, practical, usable approach to getting your life in order. First of all, the authors get the mom schedule, how we have to work in ten-minute increments around the rest of our lives. They get the fact that no matter what we do, our houses are going to look lived-in, not like a magazine spread. And they are OK with that, and that is the place we begin from. Amazing!
Their first pieces of advice:
develop your own meaning of organized
prepare yourself for imperfection
prepare rebuttals in advance
Can I get an amen?
The following family-friendly chapters include tons of personal anecdotes from women who have been there, done that, and found a working solution; as well as helpful tips for delegation of duties, learning to say no, mastering your to-do list, settling schedules, taming toys, winning the battle of the overflowing inbox, and mastering home-cooked meals.
This last chapter covers picky eaters, menu planning, the issue of time, and “how to hit the trifecta: healthy, good, and easy.” One of my favorite passages points out that processed food does not reduce average preparation time, it just gives that illusion since it reduces prep work like chopping.
This chapter all by itself is worth it. This is news you can use, friends.
And you can win it!
All you have to do is leave me a comment telling me something embarrassing that’s happened as a result of a cluttered house, a cluttered schedule, or a cluttered mind, so I don’t feel like the most disorganized slob in the world. (I didn’t even tell you about the day I missed my son’s parent-teacher conference.)
Or, an extreme you or someone close to you has gone to to try to overcome the clutter.
Or, if you can’t think of anything that fits, you can just tell me why you’d like to win this book. I’m flexible like that.
This giveaway will end at 11:59pm on March 20. One U.S. commenter will be chosen at random to receive a copy of Pretty Neat: the buttoned-up way to get organized & let go of perfection.
————————————–
And that’s not all! Know what else is pretty neat? Several other bloggers have also posted reviews and giveaways of this book. Once all the giveaway winners have been reported, one will be chosen at random from across all blogs to receive a $200 gift card (same as cash) plus a selection of Buttoned Up products (ARV: $50) to be used towards her own reasonable organizational goals for her life.
Yeah. That’s awesome. I totally hope you win.
————————————
Full disclosure: I received no compensation for this post, but I did receive a copy of the book to review (and highlight and dogear and otherwise get full use of). My participation in this Global Influence campaign puts me in the running for a $100 gift card (same as cash) plus a selection of Buttoned Up products (ARV: $50). I hope I win, too!
