One of the most common excuses I hear from my decluttering victims - I mean friends who graciously agree to let me help them declutter - is that they can't get rid of something because they might need it one day. Well, friends, let me reassure you that if you haven't found a need for it in the past year (as indicated by A. the inch of dust covering the item, B. the fact that we found it buried in the way back of your closet underneath an unopened 2008 calendar, or C. your exclamation of "I didn't even know I had this!"), it's pretty safe to assume that you won't ever need it - so get rid of it!
I have been getting rid of stuff from my home for a few years now and I can't think of anything that I ever regretted giving away. If you ask my husband the same question though, he will immediately bring up the Soup Pot. He loves to tell people the story about how I gave away a PERFECTLY GOOD SOUP POT, only to have to borrow his mom's every time we wanted to make soup, until we finally got our own as a wedding gift from my mom.
So now I'm sure you're all siding with my husband and feeling so sorry for him that he has to deal with his crazy wife who gives away all of their prized possessions. Well let me tell you about this fabulous soup pot. It was useless! You couldn't even cook with the darned thing because the bottom was warped and it wouldn't sit flat on the stove top! How do you make soup in a lopsided pot?!?! And here's the other part - all those numerous times that we had to borrow his mom's soup pot? About 5 times. In a year. Remember my last post? I don't cook!
In reality though, my husband is pretty great about my whole decluttering obsession. So if his Soup Pot story is the only thing he's going to tease me about, then I feel pretty lucky!
The moral of this story is this - despite your protests, you won't use it, so give it away to someone who actually needs it.
The other moral of this story is that decluttering wives are always right. :D
