Sell it, donate it or trash it? How to declutter, according to professional organizers

Sell it, donate it or trash it? How to declutter, according to professional organizers

If you’re like my boyfriend and me, you’ve decided that now is the time to get rid of the various crap that has accumulated in your home over the winter.

Maybe you’re not going full Marie Kondo, but at least want your coffee table to be free of papers, your closet floor to be clear and your kitchen cabinets rid of anything that’s starting to turn green.

But once you’ve identified what needs to go, you may run into a dilemma: How do I get rid of it? Generally, you have three options: sell it, donate it or trash it.

A useful framework may be to think about the most efficient ways to spend your time and energy, says Lori Reese, a professional organizer and owner of Consider It Done in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

“When I’m sorting through items with clients and making recommendations, I’m looking at what’s going to be the best return on their time investment,” she says. “If an item is only going to bring in $10, I don’t think it’s likely worth my time or my client’s time [to sell].”

Here’s how to maximize your time and money while decluttering, according to organizing pros.

Sell it

Of course, the financially optimal way to get rid of anything is to sell it. After all, getting something for an item you don’t want is better than nothing.

But think about what it might take to make a small sale happen, says Reese. “Selling things, especially clothing and furniture, takes time,” she says. “You have to put in a lot of detail, field a lot of inquiries. There could be scammers out there. You have to weigh that.”

One easy way to save time is to set a price limit for anything you’re going to list for sale, says Gayle Goddard, a CPO and owner of The Clutter Fairy in Houston, Texas.

“Maybe you don’t even try to sell it unless you can list it for $100,” she says. “Assuming you can sell a really fancy pair of shoes or a television or a sterling silver tea set, it could be worth your time.”

But even stuff you think might be worth some cash – say, heavy furniture or inherited china – might not be as valuable as you think, she adds. “The truth is, the market for that stuff is not really there.”

One way you can boost your return on otherwise low-value items: bundling.

“You can have better luck selling items if you group them together as lots,” says Mindy Godding, a CPO and owner of Abundance Organizing in Richmond, Virginia. “Instead of, say, one little phone case, it’s actually more attractive if you have, for instance, a box of office supplies. If you have broader categories, you tend to have more buyers who are interested.”

Donate it

If it’s going to be too much effort to sell an item, don’t default straight to tossing it. On a superficial level, you can claim the value of any item you donate to a charitable organization as a deduction on your taxes, provided you itemize.

But more generally, it’s worth it to put your unwanted stuff back out in the world if it can help people, says Godding.

“When we work with clients who are going through a purge, we do anything we can to keep things out of a landfill,” she says.

If done right, making a bulk donation can be a relatively frictionless experience, too, says Reese.

“There are some organizations that will come and do pickups of a lot of clothing and household items,” she says. “You’ll have to do a little research to see what they will and won’t take. But it’s great and time-effective if you can find an organization in your area that will come and pick up your stuff and take it away for you.”

Even things you think you might belong on the curb may be put to use elsewhere, experts say. Goodwill, for instance, accepts clothing that isn’t in good enough condition to resell to recycle the textiles, Reese says.

If you’re cleaning out your junk drawer, those long-abandoned power cords can be donated, too. “Do an audit and make sure you’re keeping the ones that actually work with your current devices,” says Godding. “But then all those types of things can be donated in many different ways.”

Best Buy, for instance, will generally recycle up to three household items per day.

Even personal care products, such as shampoo, could potentially find a new home. “You may be able to donate these to a men’s or women’s shelter,” says Goddard.

Trash or recycle it

Some things simply can’t be donated or sold.

“I have found people who think they should donate anything regardless of its condition, because somebody will want it,” says Goddard. “The truth is, if you think it’s trash, somebody else is going to think it’s trash, too.”

That means anything that’s mildewed, smelly, stained, peed-on or broken beyond repair is likely a candidate for a bin.

But even then, it’s worth taking a beat to make sure you’re using the right bin. “That may mean breaking something down to its parts and recycling it,” says Godding. A spiral notebook, for instance, cannot be recycled as-is, she says. If you separate the paper from the metal, “then all the elements can be recycled.”

You may even consider listing borderline items on your local Buy Nothing or Craigslist pages to see if anyone wants to come pick them up before the garbage collector does. Given the choice, err on the side of putting an unwanted item back into the world if it can be of use to someone else, says Godding.

“Trash should be the smallest category of the three if you’re doing it right.”

Want to make extra money outside of your day job? Sign up for CNBC’s new online course How to Earn Passive Income Online to learn about common passive income streams, tips to get started and real-life success stories. Register today and save 50% with discount code EARLYBIRD.

Plus, sign up for CNBC Make It’s newsletter to get tips and tricks for success at work, with money and in life.