How to Purge for a Move the Easy Way (Plus My Gorgeous Planter Giveaway)

If you haven’t heard Why We Are Moving yet…yes, we are selling our home here in Southeast, Michigan! I wrote all about it last week just in case you need to catch up you can click here. Meanwhile at the old ranch 😆, I can’t wait to share tons of surprising tips on “How to Purge for a Move the Easy Way”. You are going to flip when I tell you what we did, and how happy we were that we figured it out before we wasted too much time with a garage sale. I’m also having an exciting giveaway this week to give back to my readers, so this is an exciting post.

Okay let’s get to it with this first photo of our kitty, Spooky. She is definitely wondering what the heck is going on around here. She is really enjoying the clean, airy vibe in the hall. It actually looks great with no clutter, doesn’t it, Spook!?

Unfortunately, The First Step in Purging for a Move is Anything but Easy

I wish I could say that decluttering your home is easy, but we all know it is such a pain in the booty. It really takes so much time, energy, and can be emotionally draining, and even confusing at times. A couple years ago, I wrote about our first purging sale and I gave a bunch of information here: Operation Purge. The difference today, is that I decided NOT TO GO THRU WITH THE SALE. Actually, let me rephrase that. We decided to execute our purge in a completely different way. After we all went through every single nook and cranny of the house, this is what we ended up with in our 3-car garage (see photo below). It was absolutely insane, and extremely difficult to look at.

Don’t worry though, it gets better. After you get everything out of the house, there is hope even without a garage/purge sale. However, if you still want to go thru all of the organizing, pricing, selling, in a hot garage sale, for the entire weekend, waking up at 7am dealing with germs, and sometimes crabby people yelling at you because you priced the chair too high, okay then, you can do it and I give tips here 😊: Garage Sale Tips.

I Just Said, “No, I Can’t Do Another Garage Sale.”

I’ve completed around 6 garage sales in my life (I think I blocked out a few) and actually the day after my 53rd birthday I just said to my family, “No, I can’t do another garage sale.” My husband looked at me in a way that said, “I can tell you’re serious. It’s okay. We will figure this out.” He knows me best…he knew all the stress was getting to me (keep in mind we are moving, my mom is not doing too good, and our kiddos still need help). I was actually losing weight without trying which was unlike me. Fortunately, everyone understood how mom was feeling and we all pulled together to figure this out. I have an incredible supportive family.

How to Purge the Easy Way

So, now what? We had to figure out what to do with all that stuff in our garage before we put our house on the market in a couple weeks (stay tuned I’m sharing everything with you right here). Well, we talked it out at our kitchen table while researching options, and decided on 5 things…

1. SELL COLLECTIONS, VALUABLES, APPLIANCES & FURNITURE ON FACEBOOK MARKETPLACE OR OTHER APPS (BIG CASH QUICK)
2. DONATE BY SCHEDULING AN AT HOME PICK-UP
3. LOAD THE CAR 2-3 TIMES AND TAKE TO LOCAL THRIFT STORES (WRITE IT OFF!)
4. GIVEAWAY CURBSIDE (YEP YOU HEARD THAT RIGHT)
5. TRASH THE REST

Guess what? It worked! Here’s our garage today…

Sell Collections, Valuable Items, Appliances & Furniture

When we first started talking about how to get rid of it all, believe me I was at the point where I was ready to give it ALL away. However, I knew I had some items in there that could really bring in some cash. So, the following weekend we started making piles. Piles of stuff that we could sell, and piles that we would let go of easily. Lucky for me, our kiddos know of an app called “Mercari” where you can also sell things online a lot like Facebook Marketplace. Between the 3 of us, we have made almost $2500 selling collections like Legos, furniture we no longer need/use, and appliances (big & small).

Below you will see our “extra fridge” saying it’s good byes before a nice local man from Facebook Marketplace picked it up for his wife. He said she would be so excited 😊. We made $200 on it (it’s from 2008). See ya later, big guy.

Donate by Scheduling an at Home Pick-up

Okay, so next up is scheduling local charities to come and pick up as much as they will possibly take. Here in SE Michigan we have one company that takes almost everything except furniture and appliances. You can schedule everything on line and then leave a pile out for them. The best part is that ALL OF IT IS A WRITE OFF. This will be beneficial come tax time, and ends up saving us just as much only way easier, and helping folks that need jobs & help. If you’re interested, search “FREE JUNK PICK UP SERVICE” and you should be able to find what free pick-ups are are available in your area (don’t forget to get a receipt and fill it out promptly. I bet your neighbors are already doing this.

Load the Car 2-3 Times and Drop Off at Local Thrift Stores

You would think that after selling some of the good stuff, and donating a ton to the local charity pick-up services that we would be done by now, but we still had quite a bit left. You see, most of the pick-up services do not take seasonal items, and I have a ton of that from this blog. Rick and I got smart one afternoon on our break from work and stuffed the car with what we could to take to the local thrift stores. It felt so good to let this stuff go, and our garage was almost clear!

Giveaway Curbside

Okay, finally the best part. Remember up there I mentioned that we began to make piles of things we could sell or not sell? Well, we worked into the evening that day and I decided on a whim to take some of the good items down to the end of our driveway. I was just so ready for this stuff to be GONE. Bonus…I can help folks in our community by just giving it away for free. So, I posted a photo similar to the one below on Facebook Marketplace and said it was all free. First come, first serve.

Let me tell you, with in 45 minutes cars were lining up. Not only did they take everything, but they took most of the leftovers we had in our garage. There was one little girl who had Christmas in July because she got all the jewelry, and toys. It felt great, and was so much easier. Our son actually got so excited, he began to wheelbarrow items down for people to pick from. It was a beautiful lesson for him, and I loved seeing the enjoyment he felt helping others.

Trash the Rest

All this purging has really killed 2 birds with 1 stone. Clearing out my brain from all the “stuff”, and losing weight from all the work has felt so “freeing”. I’ve been wearing my watch and I’m recording sometimes over 6,000 steps a day 🤭. That brings me to the last part. It’s the easiest one…if you have anything left after everything I mentioned above…throw it in the trash. Let’s let all that stuff go because you worked hard, and so you can win more stuff here today 😆…

Yep! I’m giving away my special DIY Candelabra Planter to one lucky reader!

Redhead’s Summer Candelabra Flower Planter Giveaway

FYI-this is one of four giveaways I will be doing over the next 12 months. I’m doing a seasonal decor item for each season that I created myself! So, Summer, Fall, Winter, and then finally Spring. I just couldn’t resist saving these items for my readers when I went through all of my seasonal decor because they received such a wonderful response when I posted them. Sign up here so you don’t miss all 4 seasonal giveaways!

This giveaway is for US residents, and you must be 18 years of age or older to participate.

Giveaway runs from 7/15/22 through 7/31/22 at 12pm EST.  Winner will be chosen randomly, and notified by e-mail by the redhead herself.

1 winner will receive the exact candelabra flower planter in the mail approximately 2-4 weeks after giveaway ends. I wish I. could get it to you sooner, but we are in the middle of selling & moving.

Enter by doing 3 things:

-Leave a comment on this post so I can contact you. Tell me what you will use the planter for.

-Subscribe to my redheadcandecorate.com newsletter HERE.

-Join my Redhead Can Decorate Facebook Group HERE.

I WISH YOU LUCK! 🌺