If you haven’t been following our Downsizing Journey, head on over to our first post to learn more!

We actually took a full day to go through the entire garage. I didn’t think it was going to be so much work, but I suppose after having piled so much stuff in there, it was bound to happen.

For months I’ve been cleaning, reorganizing, and purging items from different areas inside the house. And every time I did so, I would pile up all the items – neatly – in the garage. We had stuff in bins and in bags, and they were all nicely labeled. Some were to donate, some were to sell, and two were to keep. The only problem was that as time went on, things started to accumulate real fast and we weren’t making any progress on donating or selling our things.

About two weeks ago, I decided enough was enough. I had to start selling some stuff. And just like that, I got right down to it. I started by posting some of my clothes online. Unfortunately, that didn’t go so well, probably due to the fact that most of the clothes I was giving away was summer-wear.

My next step was to put some other items for sale, basically anything we didn’t use anymore that I thought maybe someone else could use, and would be willing to pay money for. Like any mount of money. Mostly, I sold a lot of things for $5-$10. But you know what? After selling 10 items, that money starts to add up! Here’s a list of everything I have sold so far:

• Clothes ($15)
• Suitcase ($5)
• Monthly Chalkboard Calendar ($5)
• Crayons & Markers ($5)
• Airport Express ($40)
• Airport Express #2 ($30)
• Leggings ($10)
• Winter Jacket ($20)
• Old Camera ($10)
• Old Cell Phone ($5)
• Scarf ($10)
• Nikon Camera Lens ($50)
• Nikon Camera Lens #2 ($80)
• TV Stand ($45)

For a grand total of $330 so far. And I have plenty more items to sell that are in great condition, so I’m giving myself a goal of making $500!

I want to make it clear that we are selling and donating all these things (and more) because we are downsizing and are trying to live a more minimalism lifestyle. Some of these items were gifts, it’s true, and we appreciate the thought that went into buying them for us. But now that we have made use of them and realize that someone else could put them to better use, we decided it was time to let go. And that’s not an easy thing to do, so we hope that everyone can understand and respect why we are doing this.

That being said, if there’s anything that you know that we are selling or giving away and that you might need, please don’t hesitate to send us a private message and we would be glad to give away items even if they are posted for sale. We’re not necessarily looking to make a profit, we just want to help others, and at the same time save a little of money for our Tiny House Project.

Speaking of helping others, we are happy that we were able to do that for at least a few people. Some things that we ended up giving away include cat food, non-perishables that we realized we would probably never use, some furniture, lots of clothes, books, and much more. We finally made our haul just two days ago and dropped stuff off at a variety of locations to support local charities.

We still have some stuff left on the shelves in the garage, so unfortunately, we will have to get back at it another day. Even though I’ve sorted through most of the bins when we reorganized last winter, I know we might still need to pare down on our holiday bins. We currently have one for Christmas – not including the Christmas Tree, which by the way, we are keeping forever – and one for Halloween. Pretty sure the Halloween one is excessive, but I love dressing up at work so much, I can’t bear to give any of my costumes away!

We also have two bags of winter gear left on the shelves, some of which I might be selling at a consignment store – my appointment is only in November so we’ll have to wait and see. I might try selling some of the items online beforehand, see if that would work better. And beside those bags we just have the rest of the items I haven’t had time to post for sale yet – mostly kitchen items, if you know anyone who needs some.

My only tip when it comes to downsizing the garage is this: Take. Your. Time.