Declutter By Staging A Mock Buy-Back

If you have trouble getting rid of stuff this simple exercise forces you to put a hard figure on the worth of your possessions and assess whether you really want them or not.

Photo by sufinawaz.

Earlier this week we shared the "This Isn't My Stuff" approach to decluttering with you, courtesy of the organisation blog Unclutterer. One Unclutterer reader offered an interesting decluttering strategy a friend used to help her purge her place.

I'm rubbish at decluttering, but I had a girlfriend help me do my place.

She brought $US20 in coins to start me off, and put everything I owned to one side of the room. If I wanted to keep anything, I had to buy it for a dollar (Just one dollar!) at a time. You soon realise that you wouldn't pay a dollar for that CD in a junk shop - so why are you keeping it? All the money I paid went to charity, the amount of stuff I didn't want also went to a charity store. It's amazing how unappealing that old sweater looks when you have to pay for it.

This technique has all the makings of a solid decluttering strategy. It forces you to attach real—not emotional—value to things, it appeals to your sense of altruism by both a cash and a physical donation to charity, and it involves an outside party to keep you from slowing down or cheating the system. Have a favourite decluttering strategy to share? Let's hear about it in the comments.

Reader Uncluttering Strategy: Buy Back Your Stuff [Unclutterer]