No script today. You can totally do this one without even opening your mouth.
Just take the box of clutter, stick it in your trunk, and drive over to the nearest donation place.
Basically, it’s the Declutter Now, Answer/Avoid Questions Later approach.
Click here if you can’t see the video.
I have had WAY too much fun doing these videos this week. Y’all have helped make it fun with your responses, but the very best moment was when my oh-so-cool almost-thirteen-year-old laughed out loud (several times!) when I made him watch them.
I’m brainstorming another video series for later this fall . . .
If you can’t bring yourself to just donate without letting the gifter/guilter know first, check out my other posts from this week with strategies to help you move past that point of paralysis:
Help! Please Save Me From My Stuff!!
When All Else Fails (If Snark Is Your Style . . . )
And here’s a podcast about Clutter Guilt.
--Nony
LOL!!! My preferred method for sure! HA! My version of ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’!!!! I do love your vids.
A pre-emptive conversation I have had with some family & friends is about how sometime we pass objects on that we can’t throw out ourselves (emotionally) and sometimes it’s easier to throw stuff out for each other. We have an unwritten rule of once passed on “don’t ask!”. My mother in Law knows that if she wants it back if I don’t need it she needs to say otherwise don’t complain …
I think that people in my family have that problem as well. Each time I moved out of the house, random relatives offered me furniture. (Fortunately I knew enough to look at it and choose only what I wanted.) I think it’s implied that once you pass it on, you have no say in where it goes next.
Borrowing is completely different, and does have responsibilities.
Yay! That was an elegant finale. Can’t wait to see more skit series!
I think that maybe there is something to add to the etiquette of passing stuff on. The giver should say “pass it on when you are done with it.” Or the givee should prompt, “I have use for it now, but what should I do when I am done with it?” during the exchange.
Yep. Totally agree.
LOL…too funny! I read your post to say “Just take the box of clutter,…and drive over it!” I thought “well that is ONE way to get rid of it.” I had to slow down and reread it again. Good advice, but I so can picture you out there just ‘driving over it’.
This is in line with my favorite approach to the “it’s too good to throw out, but I really don’t need/want it in the way any more” scenario. Just leave it in reach of the kids for a little while and then it definitely can’t be used again… The kids get half an hours entertainment with a new “toy” and I get to throw it away guilt free!
yep, i tltally do that too… let the kids play with stuff i want to get rid of. and the other way around, sometimes i purposely won’t clean up junk toys so that accidentally someone steps on them or rides their bike over them…
usually i just declutter and get rid of the stuff without telling the giver (or sometimes my kids) and usually they don’t notice that the thing is missing. out of sight out of mind. however if my kids or see the things i want to throw out before i do, they will most of the time protest and demand to keep it. one reason to send them to school, so mom can declutter freely 😉 same goes for MIL, i must make sure that she does not see the donation box with the stuff i want to get out when she comes over, or she will tell how nice and usefull all these things are…
Hmmmm, that IS a good idea . . .
Better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Most of the time this really works.
“YOU DON”T HAVE TO WEAR SHOES-JUST GET IN THE CAR. YOU WON”T EVEN BE GETTING OUT” True Statement- flies from my lips on a weekly basis.
I had a good chuckle at that one. I don’t think I had heard someone say it in exactly the same way before. I also have the preferred method down- just drive and drop- no asking, no discussion, no debate over who is goes to next- just get it OUTTA MY HOUSE- NOW!
and yes- I am a slob too (messy not dirty most of the time, although in this past year I have found some messes after I declutter)…like this morning when I paid my 8 year old $2 an hour to help me declutter the masterbedroom while my husband was at the county fair ($2 is fair pay for an 8 year old who has very little concept of money and we shop garage sales so $2 goes a LONG WAY- plus come on… I’m her mother-she wants to help right?!?!) What did I unearth in my decluttering- something I said I wouldn’t do…….dirty mugs that I left in my bedroom after sneaking a late night mug of ice cream. She even asked as she was carrying the mugs to the kitchen (in true slob fashion placed on the counter and NOT in the dishwasher mind you)….”Mommy these mugs look like they had ice cream in them-do you eat ice cream in your bedroom?”
BUSTED.
Both of utter slobdom
and
Sneaky Mother Practices
Well…moving on now =)
Hahahaha on being busted!! I’ve been there!
Thank you for the idea’s and for all the laugh’s.My 20 yr old very seldom laughs at anything I show him but he loved your skit’s and said, now you know how to handle Mamaw’s junk she is always giving you and then constantly checking to make sure you still have it.
Nony, these were great! I donate stuff, and rarely, if ever, have I been asked about the fate of anything (except by a kid.) I have found that phrasing is everything: I never say “I got rid of that” (sounds so harsh!) I always say “Hmmm…I don’t think we still have that” (just an observation, doesn’t sound like a judgement) and it’s always gone over well.
I once gave a dishwasher and hutch to a neighbor who claimed they needed it. A few weeks later, they sold them in a rummage sale. I was almost offended, but then I thought … I gave it to them. What they chose to do with them was their business. They were out of my house and that’s all I cared about.
If someone dumps something on me, I figure it’s mine. If I choose to run it to the Hospice store or Goodwill and they don’t like it … oh well. Maybe they’ll stop trying to pawn their stuff off on me. The only thing I can’t manage to do that with is a large electric roasting pan my mom gave me, but another few days and that sucker is OUT of my house … after almost ten years of taking laundry room and pantry space.
You are hilarious. Videos have been so fun…. the wigs, the dialects, the rolling eyes….. thank you!
I’ve had fun watching all of these, Nony, but I did just want to note for everyone that I’ve heard (don’t know for sure) that Goodwill is actually a for profit store, whereas someplace like Salvation Army, you are truly donating to folks who need it. We don’t have either option where I live, so I usually donate to the Big Brothers Big Sisters boxes, where I’m assured they are taken someplace where they are sold/used and whatever profit there is stays here in our area for our local BBBS group. So that’s good enough for me. I mainly want things to be used, somewhere, and not sent to the landfill!
That stuff about Goodwill being “for profit” is from an anonymous email circulated in 2005. It was a crock then, and it’s a crock now. Just google “Goodwill for profit” and you can read about 50 debunkings.
I can’t imagine what agenda the person who made this stuff up had but don’t be taken in.
Thanks very much for the info–I just did a Snopes check and it was eye opening. I appreciate learning about this. As I said, we have no place here to donate, other than local thrift stores or the Big Brothers Big Sisters group.