My husband and I are starting our second round of Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University and we’re super excited.  If you’re familiar with Dave Ramsey, one of the pieces of advice he gives is “Sell so much stuff that you’re kids think they’re next!”

In honor of starting Financial Peace University, I decided to start a De-Clutter Challenge:  1,000 Things by Thanksgiving!  Dave’s advice about selling things is usually to help people quickly establish a baby emergency fund.  My husband and I already have our baby emergency fund, so any money that we make during the De-Clutter Challenge will go toward our Christmas fund.  I plan to go through closets and the pantry and maybe even the garage during the next 10 weeks until Thanksgiving.  1,000 “things” may seem like a lot, but I honestly think this will only make a small dent in the items that we’ve accumulated in the 7 years we’ve lived in our current home (not to mention the items that we brought along with us that are probably still in boxes).  I figure that this will take about an hour a week if I get rid of 100 items each week.  I can tackle the 100 items all at once or I can get rid of about 15 items per day!

I plan to use three bins as I go throughout the process:

• SELL – This will be for items that are in good condition and that I think we can quickly sell.  Some of the kids clothing and toys will likely fall into this category.  My “rule” is going to be that I have to list the items within the week that they go into the bin and they must be sold within 2 weeks.  Otherwise, they go to the donate bin!
• DONATE – This will be for items that are in good condition, but I wasn’t able to sell them or I don’t think it’s worth the time to try to sell them.  I plan to drop off donation items once a week!
• TRASH – This is for items that are broken or not in good condition.

I plan to report on my progress each week including how many items I donated, trashed, and sold and an update of how much we made selling items!  I would love for you to join me on this challenge and share your experiences, too!  I’m starting tonight and I will report back next Sunday evening about my progress for the week!  I’m actually really excited!

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