Every summer and winter I switch out the clothes in my closet to keep down the clutter. The only problem is that every year I end up with more clothes because of Mother’s Day, my birthday, etc. By the time summer rolls around my drawers are usually unorganized and needing to be purged. Warning these pictures of my drawers are pretty shameful! This year the weather kept getting hot, then cold, then hot again so my winter and summer clothes are all thrown in my drawers.
Purging is hard though because it’s difficult to part with a clothing item, even if you haven’t worn it for the entire last season! Fortunately I discovered a great motivator for purging my unused clothes, it’s called thredUP. Have you heard of it? I’m in love with the idea because you send in your unused items and then get money in return! Yeah, now I’ve got your attention. 🙂 You get money and an organized closet, double win!
So here’s how I keep my closet organized for the seasons and use thredUP as the ultimate motivator.
Step 1
Empty out your unorganized drawers, and while you’re taking items out, make 3 piles, a keep pile, a thredUP pile and a donate pile.
Do the same thing with your hanging clothes. Look through them to see which items you haven’t worn in a long time. If you haven’t worn it in a year, it’s time to pass it on (and get money for it!).
Step 2
Organize your clothes into piles on your bed or the floor. By doing this it will make it easy to put similar items together in the drawers. I like to lay everything out so I make sure I have looked at every item to know if I will still wear it, and if it fits or not.
Step 3
Fold up all the clothes you’re going to keep, from the past season and put them in a large storage container. We keep ours on the top shelf in our closet but you can also store them under your bed.
Step 4
Put your clothes back in the dresser drawers, making sure to keep similar items together. I have my middle drawer separated into shorts, jean skirts and tank tops.
The bottom drawer is all my sleeping shorts, sweat pants, sleeping tanks and layering tank tops. In this drawer I used IKEA SKUBB organizers and 2 large box lids to keep the items in the right places, instead of getting cluttered together.
Step 5
Now that your drawers are all organized it’s time to cash in on the clothes you want to get rid of! Head over to thredUP.com and order a Clean Out Bag. While you’re waiting for your bag to come in the mail, check the clothing calculator to see about how much money you will earn from selling your clothes.
Also double check to make sure that your clothes are acceptable brands and quality. You can look around on the What to Send page to find these answers. They also accept children’s clothes so if your kids’ closets need to be cleaned out you can make a little extra money off of those too!
Step 6
When you receive your Clean Out Bag, load all your clothes and shoes into the bag.
Seal it up.
And drop it off at the nearest FedEX office or give it to your USPS mail carrier!. You don’t have to pay anything, just hand it over!
Step 6
Wait for thredUP to receive your items, watch for your items to sell and then wait for the money to come in! Before you know it you’ll have more money to spend on new clothes and you’ll be ordering another Clean Out Bag for your other old items. You can also shop their site and get all kinds of HUGE deals on fabulous clothing items, bags, shoes, etc.
Now your closet is organized and you’ve got money on it’s way. I’m curious if you’ve ever used thredUP before? What was your experience and did your items sell?
