Once a month I pick a section of my house that I like to collect in. I decide to put together one box or bag of items I don’t need. Then I freecyle them or donate them to value village or goodwill.

This is a good habit because it keeps you thinking about your clutter and how much you have accumulated.

I am a pack-rat myself, but I have made substantial progress on getting rid of stuff.

I suggest not worrying about the “frugal” thing to do being have a garage sale or such, unless there’s a big neighborhood-wide “garage sale” coming up. The real frugal thing to do is get rid of that stuff as quickly as is reasonable.

Why? Because you’re paying out the nose, monthy, for that stuff by paying via rent or mortgage payment for that space you can’t use. It also takes up “space” in your head (and your husband’s head) by stressing you out for having it when you see it or feel you should get rid of it.

I wish you luck. Getting rid of things can be very hard in the moment, but it truly is freeing, as stated above. Once a lot of these things are gone, you’ll forget you ever had them, and thus you just won’t miss them.

Unless you actually like doing garage sales (which it doesn’t sound like you do), I am a big fan of just donating things – Goodwill, Savers, Salvation Army – and the benefit of this is that you can fairly estimate the value of what you’re giving and write it off as a donation on your taxes. All in all, it’s probably a wash as far as what you get on a tax break vs. a garage sale, and you probably feel better about yourself too donating it.

I also agree that if you do have a high-value item sell it individually on eBay or Craig’s list or something like that, but it didn’t sound like you were talking about that.

Finally, I really do stick to the “5 year” rule – if I haven’t looked at or used something in 5 years, I get rid of it. There are certain exceptions – I do keep a single box of newspaper clippings, yearbooks, awards, etc. from my life, memories that are important to me, and of course I keep a couple of boxes of photographs. But all in all, I keep things pretty cleaned out. The digital age is helping this a lot – I am able to be a “digital” pack rat with digital pictures, music, online statements, etc. without really feeling guilty about it because that takes up no physical space.

My suggestion is don’t purge all at once. Purge a little bit every week and make it a weekly stop to go to Goodwill or some other thrift store to drop stuff off. DON”T leave the stuff you want to purge in a pile somewhere in your house because it will tend to stay there until it finds itself back in the closet it came out of originally. Any individual item that has some value should be posted on craig’s list or e-bay immediately. You might also want to consider freecycle. We have gotten rid of a number of things that way and the people that want it usually come and pick it up (I leave it on my front porch for them).

Good luck with the purging of stuff. It really is very freeing. And, as a side benefit, you get a better idea of what you actually have in your house and then tend not to buy duplicates anymore.