Countdown to Preparedness

Most of us would agree that most of us have . . . way . . . too . . . much . . . stuff. Clothes, books, movies, gadgets, paper clutter, the list goes on and on. The typical American home is just swimming in stuff we don’t need, don’t use, and could easily get rid of without ever missing it.

This week, you’re going to start purging. See, preps not only require investments of time and money, they require space. Having a year’s worth of food on hand is wonderful, but do you want all of it sitting in boxes in your living room?

This is one assignment you won’t likely be able to accomplish in just one week. You’d quickly become overwhelmed trying to do that. Instead, make this an ongoing project and work on it a little at a time.

Start with your coat closet. My own rule of thumb when it comes to clothing and outerwear: if I haven’t worn it in the last year, away it goes. Naturally, you may have some specialized gear, and you don’t need to get rid of that. But you don’t really need six different winter parkas, five light jackets, and four pairs of boots. That vacuum cleaner that stopped working three years ago? Either fix it this week or get rid of it. The bags for the vacuum cleaner you owned ten years ago and don’t fit what you have now? Bye-bye.

From there, move through the rest of the closets in your home. If the clothes don’t fit right now, toss them in a box. The only exception should be if you have kids and you plan to pass down clothes from one child to another. Otherwise, get rid of them. The clothes, not the kids.

Eventually, you need to go through every closet, every drawer, every shelf in your home. Think about it like this—if you get rid of something, you no longer need to dust it, store it, or deal with it.

Movies you’ve seen and realistically don’t plan to watch again? That’s precious shelf space right there! This goes double for those of you who still have VHS movies but don’t have a working VCR!

Books? OK, this is the one I struggle with the most. I have tons of books I haven’t read yet. I have boxes of books I’ve read and hope to read again someday. I also have shelves and shelves of books that I should get rid of. And I’m doing so, but very slowly. And, should any of my faithful readers be looking for a home for any books featuring some sort of end-of-the-world plot, please drop me a line.

What do you do with all this stuff that you want to go away? Movies, books, and other things that are still in decent shape you might consider selling on eBay or Craigs-list. If you go that route, take whatever money you make and put it toward preps.

Stuff that isn’t quite as good, you might think about unloading at a rummage sale in a couple of months. But promise yourself that anything that doesn’t sell still has to go, one way or another.

Things that might not be worth much money but still have a lot of use could go to someone in a local Freecycle group.

FREECYCLE

Freecycle is a great way to get rid of stuff you don’t need and sometimes to acquire stuff you do. The system works via e-mail. Go online and surf over to www.freecycle.org. There, you can search for active groups in your local area.

Once you’ve joined a group, you’ll receive e-mails from people who either have stuff they want to discard or are looking for specific items. If you see something that interests you, send the owner an e-mail to discuss it. When you have stuff to donate to someone else, you’ll send an e-mail to the group with that information, then wait for replies.

Generally speaking, the system works fairly well. These groups are full of great people. Occasionally, you’ll run into an administrator who takes his or her role entirely too seriously and rules the group with an iron fist. This person will demand that you follow a certain format and admonish you if you so much as forget to cross a t. Gotta take the good with the bad.

Whatever is left can go to Goodwill, the Salvation Army, or the trash (which is probably where much of it truly belongs).