A graphic of a room filled with boxes labelled donation
Episode 305 – Overcoming donation roadblocks

Passing on your unwanted items so they can have a second life can make you feel so good, but often we do all the hard work decluttering, bag up all our unwanted items but never quite get around to donating them to a charity or thrift shop. In this podcast we’re going to talk about how to overcome donation roadblocks.
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Transcript of this podcast episode
00:00
Passing on your unwanted items so they can have a second life can make you feel so good. But often we do all the hard work decluttering backup all of our unwanted items, but never quite get around to donate them to charity or thrift shop. In today's podcast, we're going to talk about how to overcome donation roadblocks.

00:34
You're listening to the declutter Apple podcast, bringing you tried and tested no nonsense tips and advice from the leading experts in decluttering and organizing your home. Now here are your hosts, Ingrid Jansen, and Lesley Spellman.

00:57
Hello, and welcome, listeners. I'm Ingrid. And I'm Lesley. If you're new to the declutter hub podcast, you're so welcome. What you'll find is that we try and find a fun factor in the serious business of decluttering. And if you've been here for a while, you know exactly what we mean. So thank you so much for listening. If

01:17
you'd like to get involved in conversations related to this podcast, it all takes place in our Facebook group. So come and join our lovely, warm, supportive community. To find the Facebook group go to declutter hub.com, forward slash group to find out more, or you can search for the declutter hub community on Facebook. Well,

01:36
Lesley, I'm excited because today we're talking about donation. But we're talking about donation roadblocks. I don't understand why people have roadblocks. I love donating stuff. I love going to the charity shop and going, I have a car boot or a trunk full of stuff, and I want to donate it to you I feel lighter, it makes me feel good.

01:57
Definitely. And I think it I wish more people did it. Because there's a lot of people who get to that stage. And they do all of the hard work in terms of decluttering and organized and get it all back to make decisions about things. And then it hangs around. And it doesn't get to its final place, really. So it's really important to make sure that that forms part of your decluttering and organizing session. Ideally, we're big advocates of doing that on the day that you declutter, factor in that end. So if you, you know, if you do a decluttering session during the middle of the day, and you've got a little bit of time at four or five o'clock in the evening, try and drop that off on the charity shop, because it's the final piece of the puzzle that makes you feel so good. But the alternative that we see so often is that people have got to go pick the kids up, they can't do the donation. So they then put them in the garage. And then six months later, we still find them in the garage or in the hallway cluttering up the hallway. And it just never gets done. And so it's that's why we really wanted to talk about roadblocks today, because it's such a critical piece of the puzzle, right?

03:03
Yeah, I mean, we all see those memes, right from this this like, oh, it's been living. I've been driving around with my donations for the last four months. And it's like, that's not good. You know, first of all, because your car is heavier, so you use more petrol. But secondly, it just keeps niggling in the back of your mind that it's one of these jobs that still hasn't been done. So when we always work with our members. And when we give advice about decluttering. And organizing, we always say the final step and what was what we call on the cycle of success, is you need to donate the items and whether that's ideally on the same day or the next day. But like, like let's just said, don't leave it in your garage for six months, because then you can't remember what's what and you're like, what's your random bag of stock doing here? Oh, my gosh, that is still stuff that need to drop a championship or I don't know what it is. Let me go through it again. And then you've got you're doing the same job that you did six months ago, again, going through stuff that should have been in the charity shop already.

04:10
So that part is not happening Ingrid for some people, not for everybody. There's lots of people who are meticulously dropping their donations up unweld on you. But I think let's talk about why things don't happen. So even so we've talked very much about bagging things or putting them in the boot the car and send them on the way. But there's actually a bit that comes before that as well, which is actually getting to the stage of donating and there are roadblocks roadblocks already apply. So let me ask you a question. Ingrid. Do you think it's important to have things ironed and washed to go if it's clothes right to go to the charity shop?

04:50
Oh, that's a good question. Definitely washed. I would definitely you know, because what happens a lot is that I wash clothes and then when I'm doing My folding I go, Oh, these these books shorts have a hole or these socks have a hole. So I immediately take filter them out to put in my donation station so I can drop it off to the charity shop. So it's definitely clean. That's definitely. And if I am decluttering my wardrobes when I'm doing for example, a swap over because I'm moving from summer to winter, winter to summer, things will be nice because everything in my wardrobe is Ireland. But I and then I do fold it up neatly, but I'm not gonna re iron everything before I put it in a bag because that makes no sense to me. But sometimes, so sometimes, but it's always clean. Because

05:40
we now enter the real world, the world that is not in good Johnson and go. Okay, so your donations are going to be meticulously folded pristinely washed, ironed at some point, but maybe not today. So what if you are in a room that's got tons and tons of stuff, you've been trampling over it. So we're talking about a floor drub scenario where there's things there, we're not quite sure whether it's clean or dirty, and we're making strides to go through that and organize it, but we've got big volumes, do you think the washing should hold you back from sending stuff to the charity shop?

06:14
No, I think for me is that the most important thing is that you create space when you're decluttering. And I think when you go through the items, you know, this is not about doing everything perfectly. So when I'm with my clients, and they've got lots and lots of clothes, and some of it has been in heaps, and we don't know if it's clean or dirty, I think the priority, I mean, of course we want to give the charity shops, good clothes. But on the other hand, my priority at that moment is with my client to make sure that they feel that they can move forward. And a big thing, then is just that I'm not going to then if it's already in a heap, crumbled, I'm not going to go out and iron it and fold it and do it, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna put it in bags and go, this note can go in the back and I just put everything in the bag. So that is what one there's lots and lots of volumes, because you can't have that holds you back.

07:11
I think it's really important that you hit the nail on the head that Ingrid, which is that you need to become as your first roadblock, you need to become your priority, and not somebody else. And so what we see so often is that people are prioritizing other people a the recipient of an item that you have kindly donated to charity before yourself. And so that's the first roadblock. And it's something that if you were in that scenario where you've got, you know, sometimes hundreds of items on the floor, and you've got the kind of momentum going, you're starting to let go of things if you then all of a sudden had to incorporate all that into your weekly washing and do seven, eight loads of laundry to get that through, then the you're never going to get that done. And so better to be able to send those things to charity, hope that they are in salable condition, which nine times out of 10, they will be anyway, the charity shops often have steamers and things like that to make sure things look at their best anyway. So I mean, it's not really an issue for most charity shops, and you need to pass it on. And if something is not saleable, then the charity shop can make a decision about what they do with that, which might be on a lower tier, so they might send it to rags or send it to a different charity shop or whatever. So I think the first thing the first roadblock is favoring yourself over others. It's so important. We don't want to do the wrong thing. And so we don't want to do things that are reckless or, you know, we don't ascend things that are absolutely filthy. That's not the goal here. But if there's a bit of like, oh, it's not ideal, but it's better gone than it is stayed in my house, we would urge you to do that. Yeah, wouldn't we, Ingrid? Yeah,

08:50
definitely. I mean, I've seen mountains and mountains of socks that nobody knows what the partners are anymore. Nobody loves this loss sock mountains. And it's like, you know, we've spent we've gotten the most obvious ones out all the other ones, we're going to bag up and we're just going to put them into charity shop, because they can still make money even if it's rags. So what I often do is I create a separate bag if there's like towels with stains, I mean, they are clean, but they have stains in them from I don't know, whatever happened. And I put them in a bag and I just put a sticker on rags. So the charity shop knows are these are random socks, underwear, towels with stains, or tops or T shirts with stains. We can't sell them but we can still sell them off as rags and they get repurposed.

09:42
So I think one of the very first things that you need to do when you are you know, deciding on what you know when you're undergoing a big decluttering project and you know that you're going to have a lot of things that you want to give away is to do your research about the charity shops in your local area. It might be obvious you might have had a charity have used for years, or there might be one that's that's, you know that you've seen. But do your research and find out what kind of things do they do, because we're talking all the time about racks. And we're here in the UK, not every charity shop in the UK takes racks, but many of them do. Okay, so, and we, as professional organizers would make sure that the charity shop that we were using, did take racks, because that makes our life an awful lot easier. And it means that we can pass more of our stuff on to charity for them to get money for, rather than putting it into landfill. So it's not just that it's easy for us, because it's rocks or send it to the charity shop, they will make money out of it, hopefully. And so we do that with the best of intentions. And so, so that's the first thing that's really important when you're thinking about charity shops is do your research and find out what the situation is. Because many charity shops are so different. We've got different tiers of charity shops, even within even within, you know, we do a podcast with the lady from the charity shop think we didn't didn't way back in the day. Yeah. And she told us exactly what they do. And she was very much of the opinion that they want to make the decision about what they do and don't want to sell because they feel like they can find gems that perhaps you wouldn't think was a jam. And so they were like send it all to us. And then we'll do what we need to to do at the other end, then you get all the people who are like, Absolutely not, we've got so much stuff we want to go through, we want the only the best of the best. We've got some shops that will take electrical items, because they've got people who do electrical testing on site. We've got some people who can't sell those kinds of things in their shop, but they've got several shops in their kind of circle that will sell those kinds of things. In Manchester, for example, we've got if I send one to my local charity shop in sale, it's quite a sort of middle class area, they will sell send things, there's a higher tier one where you know, where it's in a really wealthy area. So if there was something that was design or stuff, they would probably send it there, they've got more vintages stuff that they would send to the local student area, you know, and then there might be a little bit more of a working class area where they would send some stuff. And so it depends on what it is. And they know what's going to sell in each of those locations, because they're the experts. And they've got the infrastructure that they can kind of tap into. And so it doesn't mean that when you send your donation to your local charity shop that is necessarily going to be sold there. I think that's really important, isn't it? Yeah.

12:26
And I think it's amazing. I mean, because some some charities really, you know, some of them won't take furniture, some some are focused on crockery, and on BRIC a BRAC and others are focused on books, but I always try to find a charity, that takes a lot, because then it makes it easy for me to go right, I'm going to bring it there. And I know they've got a separate shop for furniture and a separate shop for Electricals and stuff. But because they advanced driving around back and forth in between the different shops all the time, so then it works so much better.

13:00
And they also have opportunities to sell. So you'll find a lot of charities have got arms, which will sell on things like eBay. And so they will siphon some stuff off, and they'll find a different way to sell it as well. You know, if they feel that it's not going to sell on the high street, perhaps they can sell it through eBay or vintage or whatever. So there's loads of different options. And so the most important thing is to do your research. And we talk a lot about opening up a dialogue with a charity shop owner. So it's useful maybe not to be a volunteer, because sometimes the volunteers just come in and out, you know, just after a couple of hours trying towards the charity shop manager or someone who's in that, you know, a position of authority in the charity and go right. This is what's coming. I'm about to do a big declutter of my whole house or this room or whatever. Tell me what you want. What would you prefer? Do you want me to do this? Do you want me to do that? Do you want all the rags? Do you not? Do you want electricals? Do you not? Do you want me to throw random foreign coins into the bottom of the bag? Have you got an outlet for that or not? Those are the kinds of things that they can tell you straight from the horse's mouth. Yep, just throw them in the back. And we'll deal with them because we want them. And that's what's important to have that. Have that dialogue with them. Yeah.

14:08
And also, let's see what also can be a good question. What are items you absolutely do not want. And the things that we see coming back time and time again, is things like we don't want pillows, we don't want quilts or do vase. We don't want plastic hangers or iron hangers. We don't want I don't know video cassettes. We do want DVDs, but we don't want. So asking what they want is good. But also what are things we do because I sometimes make a mistake as well. I had an item from a client that I thought I'm sure the charity shop will take it then they were like, out of health and safety. We can't take this item. So it was really a shame. And in the end, I was able to find another outlet for that item. But I was like Oh, I thought that would take it. So you know even asking the question is always good. Yeah,

14:57
and different associations are gonna have different In health and safety regulation, they shouldn't really they should or should be across the board. But, you know, a lot of them won't take things like car seats and params, and scooters and bikes for health and safety reasons. And so and then you walk past a charity shop, and it's got a car seat outside. And so you never know until you ask that question. I think that's the important thing. And it gives you a little bit of clarity to know what you're doing. And then when you're at the stage of decluttering, and organizing, you can put things in the right bags for the right places, right?

15:28
Yeah, definitely. And talking about bags, it can be really helpful, because that's what I see with my charity shop. They really like it if you put like all the clothing items together. And then kind of in another bag or box more the crockery and the books and all the other stuff, because I have a feeling they're kind of two different streams of so they kind of have this is a container for all the clothing and this is a container for everything else. So yeah, if if that is something that can be helpful for you. But on the other hand, if you're like, I can't do that, don't overthink it, they rather have to stuff than nothing at all. So yeah, a good conversationalist. Well, let's take a break for a moment. And we've got more where this is coming from after the break. We'll see you soon. Hi, everyone, welcome back. After your break, we are talking about donation and charity and some of the roadblocks that have that people have in their way of donating. And we're trying to say, boss through these block roadblocks, because it's so important to donate. And maybe one thing that's really important is to find a charity that you love. Is there a thrift shop goodwill charity that you think you know what, I would love my items to go there. Because here in the UK, we've got lots and lots of choice. I mean, so many different charities. And I think when you find one that you kind of support yourself, whether that's Oxfam or Eleanor, or the British Heart Foundation, or cancer research or whatever it is, it makes you feel so good, doesn't it when you know that the money goes to that charity? Yeah,

17:05
absolutely. And so I think as well, you know, do when you're going to that charity shop, do fill in spend, you know, 510 minutes to fill in that gift aid form. This is UK only, of course. But I'm sure there will be similar schemes right around the world, and it might operate in a different way. But basically, it's so that a charity shop can get the benefit of tax, yeah, not explained it very well, because not really a tax person. But Gift Aid means that they can claim the tax back on that donation right out of your tax allowance or something, and then you get some kind of tax benefit from it as well. So do fill in the Gift Aid form that you're given if it feels like a bit of a faff, because it's just another thing to do. But it's well worth it for the charity to give them that extra that extra sort of 20%, or whatever it is. And I know I think in the States, there's some kind of form that people have got to fill in, she's sort of different. So you know, some pop it into the comments what that is in, in your country, because we'd be really interested to find out about how it works elsewhere. So I think that's about the kind of that makes you feel good. If you find a charity that you really want to donate, they've got a personal connection to which a lot of people have. And if you do that gifted, then it takes it up a level. I think that's really important. Yeah, I think you know, this is kind of along the lines of what we've been talking about before already Ingrid, where it's really important to find somewhere that takes lots of different items. And so if you can find the perfect one that you support, you might be limited in terms of what they will accept. But then there are lots of charity shops, do a bit of more of a catch all and do all of the things you know, they do the furniture, they do the brick back, they do books, DVDs, clothes, kids things, buy all those things, these massive charity shops. And so that can be you know, while you might get to a stage where you like back to the one that you really want to support. But for the purposes of your big mammoth declutter, if that's what you're doing at the moment, it might be useful to be able to go with your 20 bags, bags in the back of the car and just drop them off and not think about them. So sometimes it's very much about convenience. Now, as professional organizers, Ingrid and I are all about the convenience. And so one of the things that we'll discuss with the client, when we first meet them is we'll say we will take stuff to charity shop for to a charity for you after our decluttering session because that's very handy for them as well. We take it off the premises for them. And many professional organizers do the same. But if there's a specific charity that they want to do, then that will be their responsibility to take that stuff to charity because for us, it needs to be convenient. It needs to be something that we can drop off on the way home that we don't have to go to several places. So maybe start to think along the same lines as we are as professional organizers, which is for the purpose now of the my big declutter, perhaps I need to look for convenience rather than sort of finding the perfect charity. I think that's really important because people get really bogged down with that right angle. it.

20:00
Yeah, I think we definitely see that a lot, right? It's like, oh, but I saw this amazing charity where I can send bras and there's another one that wants pens, and there's another one that wants stationery and the books can go to my kids school and I can put blah, blah, blah, it's like, it's just too many things. And I know we want to do our best. And I know we want to think about the environment, and we want to make sure that our items go to absolutely the perfect place. But when you're doing a big declutter, like we said before, please think about yourself for once and just go Okay, in this round, I might not be able to do it perfectly. And that's okay, because I'm doing it perfectly. For me, I'm doing it perfectly, I'm doing the best that I can. And then once the clutter levels go down, and you get more space, you get more time you get more energy, you get more luck, less clutter in your head, and all of these things, then you go, Oh, hold on a minute, they're doing a drive at school, because they want to have some empty notebooks and pens too, for a project, or, Oh, I'm typing up my craft room. And I'm seeing all of this cool fabric that I can maybe send to a sewing circle or and then you can go let me do a shout out on my local Facebook group to see if anybody wants this. Or maybe like I recently did a declutter with a client. And she had lots of these bits and bobs that I thought, oh my gosh, I'm going to ask my friend who's a teacher? And she's like, yes, give this all to me. So then you can kind of really almost micro organize and do the math. I'm gonna I'm gonna call it micro donating. Lesley. Yeah,

21:45
that's a good term for it,

21:46
I think, yeah, I think the when the first run through, when you've got piles of stuff everywhere, and clutter everywhere, you're in total chaos, just get it out. And you can do that micro donating later when you're more organized. Yeah,

22:00
so the micro donate center is going to come at the same stage as you set up a donation station in your house. And so, you know, we talk a lot about donation station. But that donation station is not something to do to have when you're donating things in large quantities or donation station is when you've kind of more or less done with your big declutter, and you're just keeping things ticking over and finding things as you go that you throw into a donation station, and you only go into a charity shop once every couple of months or something like that. And so that's, you know, so then then you can start to be a little bit choosy and, and if it takes you three did, you know to go to three different places to donate the stuff that's in your donation station, then that's achievable. But the problem is, when you've got all of these different options for charitable drop offs, it's just more jobs, more actions that you need to take to get to the end of your decluttering. And that then is a roadblock. And that is what means that it's in your car not done. And that means the decluttering is not finished, and we are effectively just churning it from one place to another. So until it's gone until it's actually out of your kind of, you know, your ownership, then it's churning, it's churned, it's changed from the house, into the garage into the car on the bucket bag, you're walking into your trolley, if you you know, on the on foot, whatever that is until it leaves your ownership. It's not actually been decluttered at that stage. And so we need to make sure we back to that very much into our daily projects.

23:31
Definitely. So also when you are having stuff in your if you're listening, you're like, Yep, that's me, I've got loads of stuff on my car, find a charity where you can park easily some charity shops are on the High Street, which is busy where parking is limited. Maybe you have to drive a little bit further out. If I'm talking a few minutes, I'm not talking about 50 miles, right, just a little bit further out, where you can just easily plug the car in from the shop and you have the shortest way of carrying stuff in especially when you've got a lot all these things just help you. And by the way, if you're not driving at all, because there are people who live in inner cities and don't have a car at all, see if you can find a charity shop that collects some charity shops only collect furniture and beds and things but other charity shops also collect bags. So have a little ring around and but for those collections you often have to make an appointment. So if you're like okay I am nearly at the point of donating some furniture. See if you can set an appointment for a week or two weeks down the line until you have that in the diary and it's a great motivation booster as well to get that decluttering and organizing done.

24:51
Absolutely. So tell me what we and this may also be UK based only, I don't know so apologize for anybody else's anywhere else in the world. What do we think about the bags that come through the letterbox and grid? Or

25:04
I don't use them. I don't know. I just find it so old that I mean, when I used to live in at home when I was young in the Netherlands we had with it was called a bag for Max. I don't know, maybe a random, very random, but we all knew it. And that was the only bag that will be dropped in and they would collect it and you'd see the same people all the time. But here in the UK over the last 15 years, I find these random bags for charities that I've never heard of in my letterbox and I'm like, I don't know who you are. I never see you picking anything up. I never see the van. And when did you come in? Everybody's what's happening here?

25:46
No, then you see bikes outside gateways, like, what with the rain? And yeah, it just, it's like a bit of a dark Ha, like, we don't really know what's going on do weigh. Yeah, you're right. I've never seen anybody collecting. And then you hear about things where it's not quite a charity, like so someone is maybe taking those bags and then selling the stuff, you know, so I think that's definitely a roadblock for me. You know, I mean, when I've got alternatives, so I'll take it to a charity or get it collected or, you know, give it away or whatever. But I think that was definitely a roadblock and something that I never ever used. But I saw one right outside my neighbor's yesterday. I mean, but that is if that is legit. That is a super handy way of getting, you know, you just drop it off at the end of the driveway. How nice would that be? But um, I just have a slight nervousness about it. Yeah, that's fine. I'd love to know if anybody works. These places. How does it actually work? Like why? You should ask it in the professional organizer communication way, like, so nervous about it in the same way that we are? Oh, yeah.

26:53
I use the bags to buy you stuff, I

26:56
think to the charity shop free bag. Yeah, it's just a free bag. Right? Yeah, exactly. Oh, I

27:01
think Yeah. And what about we've got just leading on from that. Also, possibly just UK base, but I suspect that they're elsewhere as well. There's the things where it's charitable, like bins, like, you know, like banks of stuff where you like, post things through? Yeah, we think about those. Yeah,

27:20
there's a lot like, I've got a Mauritian close by, and they've got like a glass bank, and they've got a recycling bank. But there's also one specifically for clothing. So not for BREAKUPBRAD. Because you're going to have to open a thing and just chuck it in. So BRIC a BRAC, and things like that would not be good. But like clothing and shoes is something that you could put in there. I try not to use them, but I completely understand that people use them. But I do something. I've seen people climb in them and pull stuff out. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, this feels dangerous.

27:55
So I would, I would I mean, they do have charitable Brandon on them. So they are often British Heart Foundation, or whatever. So I would kind of be more trusting of those. And particularly if it was on like a Morrison's or a Tescos. Car Park, I would I would trust because of the process that that is a legitimate thing. But it's very similar to what you find at the at the recycling centers, right, where you also post clothes through. And they then typically go to rags, right and don't go to charities. And so I'd like to think that, you know, most of my clothes would be able to be sold rather than will be able to sell for rags, if that makes sense. And so, so I don't know. So charity shop is always my favorite one. But that doesn't mean to say that I've not ever put stuff through in those banks, because they're dead handy as well. Right? And you definitely can drive up to those, which is really handy. Yeah,

28:42
for sure. For sure. I had to I had to something recently in that thinking I'm like, I've kind of that can't think now where there's one and of course that later when you drive through, there's like, Oh, there's one there. There's one there. We have actually in the moment thing, what are your standards a bank for like recycling or something that it was just I don't know, it couldn't find them in? And of course, they're everywhere as soon as you started looking for them. But no, very good. But of course, there are a few bits that charity shops don't take. So what do you do with those items without immediately chucking it away? Lesley? Yeah,

29:15
you've got alternatives. Haven't you got things like we talked quite a lot about earlier. And we do think that earlier is elsewhere in the world. Now we've got freecycle freegle, which people will be familiar with. These are all done in different ways. Sometimes it's done on an app, sometimes it's a website, sometimes it's a Facebook page or something like that. But basically it's a way for it's a kind of a by cells, not by like a sell, not sell swap like a swap inside. Yeah. So you've got swap sites, you've got freecycle sites where people put things on that they want to give away, give away and then people will kind of say, Can I have that kind of that and that's basically the way that it works. And so and even on Facebook marketplace, people put things on there for free as well. So there's different things that you can do, which make it very easy Easy but of course, things like that also come with a risk and a roadblock, which is that people are nervous or people the wrong type of people come into your home. And so it's got to be something that you're familiar with, I'm fine because of the way that earlier works. And people are kind of often rated and reviewed. And so it's very much based on their previous history of what they've done, which I think is probably more handy than somebody coming in completely blind on a Facebook group with no kind of review scenario in place. And so I think, I think those kinds of things are options. And those are the kinds of things that if you've got odd things that you think a charity shop just doesn't have space for these kinds of things, or it's not something that was sell lots of so they wouldn't have like a category for that. I think it's perfect so I sell things like old lever arch files for my kids and you know, so it's great for stationery isn't it and good I've sold you know, there was a boost to see that I sold a few weeks ago not sold a gave away a few weeks ago and another charity shot wouldn't take that for health and safety reasons. But I knew that it was just a piece of plastic it was you know what I mean? It wasn't like a car it was just like a booster see wasn't even like a car seat with like things you know, with seat seat belts and stuff on it. And I sold an old petrol can somehow had like, you know, the petrol cans that you take to the petrol station for an hour petrol and like, I don't need to have those that you just need, like one one in your car, right? And so I had like a spare. So things like that. I mean, you're not going to sell that, or give that to a charity shop or Yeah, like a petrol car. You know. So those are the perfect things for earlier. Things like furniture. And you know, like, honestly, you can give away, blanks out your garden pieces. You've done old wood, haven't you, Ingrid, all those kinds of things are perfect for earlier somebody wants these things. And so do look at those kinds of things for donating have kind of weird and wonderful things.

31:49
Yeah, I mean, even you know, when you do like a little bit of a pantry tidy up in your kitchen, and you see some bits of tins or cans or packages you like, why on earth did I buy it? It's still in date, but I never see myself eating this anymore. OLIO is like, perfect for that. I've given away so many random things that I don't want to bring into the charity shop. But somebody else definitely can make some use of it. OLIO freegle? freecycle. Absolutely brilliant. So yeah, love it. Love it. Yeah, I think talking

32:20
about food as well. You know, it's always useful to go to food banks for for more standard food. banks typically want more basic stuff, they don't want like odd cans of like, lentils that you bought, like in Spain in like 2015, or whatever. They're more like the basic stuff and stuff. It's more unusual and stuff. That's where earlier comes in. And so yeah, there were so many options. And the thing is nowadays, if things need a solution, then some very clever person has typically found that solution. And so and it's there, and we just need to do the research and not kind of be scared that it's not out there. Because that's what's absolutely stuck in his in our decluttering tracks. And that's not what we want. So that's what today's podcast was all about. It was all about overcoming these roadblocks. Spending a little bit of time right at the beginning of your decluttering journey to work out your exit plan, you need to work out what we call your exit plan, which is where is this stuff gonna go? I want to declutter it. But I need to think ahead. I need to think about where and how am I going to get to the stage of donation with my things. So I can complete that cycle. And I can be highly motivated to continue on to the next project.

33:32
Yeah, and indeed, that don't let it be one of those things that you go down into a rabbit hole of finding the perfect place for everything. That's not what we want. You can always do that later. So yes, I've I've enjoyed your book as Lesley we like talking about this. So listeners, can you share with us your roadblocks for donation? Have you got a roadmap that we haven't talked about today? You're like, Ah, this is what's holding me up to share with us. We would love to know, let leave us a comment. Let us know because we would love to hear from you. And yes, it's been an absolute pleasure. And I'm coining the micro donation terms. So yeah.

34:15
Love it. Ingrid. Love that. Yeah. Well, thanks for using that. Well,

34:20
I think we'll come back somewhere, I think yes, that's

34:23
a donation. Macro

34:25
donation. Well, that's maybe in that first time when you're doing a big declutter, find one place macro donated and then you can always kind of micro donated later.

34:39
No.

34:41
I love it. Well, listeners, we hope you've loved it, too, and that this book has been helpful, and we'll see you next week. Thanks for being here.

34:54
Thanks so much for listening to the declutter hop podcast. Don't forget to subscribe to us in your podcast player. so you don't miss an episode, and we'll see you next week.
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Episode 390 – 10 changes that make the biggest impact in your home

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Episode 305 – Overcoming donation roadblocks

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Episode 387 – Our 2025 year in review – the big Declutter Hub round-up

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