Heather,

I tossed almost an entire garbage bag of t-shirts including the one my ex used to wipe the dipstick under the hood of his car with. I've had that shirt 6 YEARS! You can do it, and you will LOVE the new amount of space you will have to put other stuff in.

Tiki.

Lizzi, the bigger the file "storage", the more junk you keep. A neighbour gave us one of those HUGE vertical office file cabinets. It's about 4 feet wide and 6 feet high with 5 massive drawers containing THOUSANDS of hanging files. God, it's STUFFED with crap! If you want it, it's yours.

LMAO I am an expert at the file boxes, I worked at the Depot for four looooong and agonizing years. I just have a cheapass for a husband that doesn't want to spend the 15 bucks it would take to get those things.
Ellis - that thing would be the size of my livingroom! We'd have to eat at it and sit on it and put the Tv on it. Think it'll do all that too?

Tossing fat dressy office clothing is very difficult for me! Any hints on how to do it? without it breaking my heart! Or should I get it taken in?

Noodles, good idea for Lanaii1, somebody could probably use them. another idea is to donate them to "Dress for Sucess" helps woman get dress clothing for job interviews and such, beats throwing them away.

I have a local used clothing store in town that sells on consignment. I clean out and put things in the consignment store bag or the thrift store bag. I don't put my nicest stuff in the thrift store bag because the employees go through them and take what they want first. I'd say they probably pay their quarter, but it just goes in a garage sale marked up or in their own closet and not to the person that needs a cheap outfit.

I probably sound bitter, but charity should be charity. I know a woman that worked for "a national charity clothes/household goods" store and when the drivers got 'good stuff' they'd call ahead to the store and the employees would be waiting to get it off the truck instead of taking it into the store. She had very nice furniture and a big screen TV for practically nothing. That's a shame because somebody donated this stuff and were actually selling it to a paid employee for a few bucks. She also bought baby items and clothes for almost nothing and she has 3-4 garage sales each year and makes a bundle. Just not right!

How about contacting social services or local women's assistance groups to see if they can use them.

There may be some agencies that are looking for business attire to help women in need to be properly dressed for job interviews to get back into the workforce.

I know what you mean Jen. I took some books that were in mint condition to a local used book store chain....they paid me 3 to 5 cents per and told me it was because they were in poor condition .....and then I noticed that they were only charging $1.00 off the original cover price of the books they were reselling...so they pay 5 cents for a book and then charge people $4.75 for that book when the original retail price was $5.95...grrrr!

From then on I gave my books to the local library for their used book store...at least the profits from that are going towards buying new books for the library so that people can borrow them for free especially for people who can't afford to buy books.

Getting down off my soapbox now....

Mauvais : What a kynd thing to do

Well, I would rather see them put to good use in fact I just dropped off some crafting books and cook books there after work this evening.

My husband gets mad because I won't throw things away unless they are ripped or broken. I just can't stand to see perfectly usable stuff be tossed in the trash so I donate it to charity or put things like magazines down in our building's laundry room so people have something to read while they are down there....other people in the building do it too so it is like a community sharing of reading materials

I actually found the book "She's Come Undone" down there and will read it then pass it along to someone else.

I read a magazine article once where some people would buy a softcover book, read it, then leave it somewhere public for someone else to pick up - I think they either had a space at the back to sign their name or a note inside to let people know that the book was free and to pass it along when they were done reading it. I thought that was a neat idea!

My work has a bookshelf in one of the breakrooms and people bring in books and magazines. It works pretty well, I've managed to get rid of some books that have been sitting at my house rotting. Also I have taken a few great books home that I probably would have never noticed in a book store.

that does sound like a good idea, i love to read and always have tons of books laying around. i really like the idea of leaving it laying somewhere for someone to find. kind of like a book faery.

It's called Bookcrossing.
http://www.bookcrossing.com/

A friend and I do it.

My husband used to put books in people's mail slots in Holland. He thought it was fun to make them wonder where it came from, and hopefully give somebody a nice surprise. However, here in the US you can't touch a mailbox, and if you left it on somebody's porch they'd probably be suspicious! Or maybe that's just me.

Thanks for the link ellis- very cool! I bookmarked it to visit it again