A quote I recently came across really spoke to me. It said, "Anything you haven't used in the last 6 months belongs to someone else." You hear a lot about donating when discussing minimalism, living simply, and decluttering, but let me give you a different perspective, one from the other side of it.
Growing up we were poor. Actually, poor would've been a step up. Until you've lived without a way to wash and dry your clothes in harsh winter climates, been without a table to eat on, had to live out of a cooler for months when the refrigerator breaks, spent many days where 3 meals a day was an impossibility, and had to wear hand me downs that were 20 years out of date and you were allergic to the material - but it's all you had - you can't imagine how important your donations are.
There would have been many Christmases without gifts from my single parent mom if it hadn't been for the generosity of the community donating to the Salvation Army. I had wonderful aunts and uncles that gave me a few gifts when the family gathered on Christmas Eve, but waking up on Christmas morning as a young child with nothing at "home", long before anyone ever talked about minimalism and materialism, it would've been so empty and depressing back then. Seeing that Salvation Army truck pull up and bring us a box (which I wasn't allowed to look through until things were wrapped and under the tree on Christmas)...it made me feel "normal". I already had a lot of reasons to be the outcast growing up. I was in my 9th school by 9th grade. Imagine ALWAYS being the "New Kid". We had no money to participate in anything, especially sports or after school activities. We had no car and my mother had no license for most of my life. My father was often in jail or living somewhere else. We were the house with that big block of government cheese you see in social media memes. Don't get me wrong - I actually don't resent it, I don't walk around saying I'm somehow scarred for life, or a victim, it actually taught me to be creative and resourceful. That's something that definitely came in handy as an adult.
Fast forward about a decade. I'm now married to a very hard-working man who agreed that the children and their education was important enough to have me be a stay-at-home, homeschooling Mom. That meant sacrifice. A family of 5 living on a single income, mostly in sales which as you can imagine, is either small feast or total famine. We got by okay for years with my resourcefulness to stretch money further, find free or close to free deals on things we needed, and by being okay with not having everything those around us had. But there came a time when the recession was really taking hold. My husband's job was not paying what it used to, and neither were the other jobs similar to his. Customers were holding onto their money, making due with what they had for longer periods of time, just like we were. In my husband's second year on the job, he made about half what he had the first year. We had to do something. He couldn't stop the only income stream to go to school, but I refused to put the kids in public school to work a minimum wage job and have them home alone with no family for hundreds if not thousands of miles away. I went to get a job. I knew I could find something eventually if I could just meet a manager or owner. I have skills, but what I didn't have were clothes decent enough to show up for an interview, let alone a job. That's where donations comes in.
I went to a few of the Goodwill stores near us. I had to find a few pairs of black pants and a few decent shirts without holes and stains. We had no extra money to do that. I had to skip buying groceries for two weeks just to buy a few $5 items, and hopefully find a few $1 items with the right "color of the day" tag. Many of the clothes I had to pick from either weren't in my size, already had stains or they had frayed edges. It was our only option and the donations people gave during a time when everyone was in need themselves were so minimal, it was very disheartening. I eventually found 2 pairs of pants, 3 shirts, and a job working in a tea house restaurant. Eventually it shut down because of the bad economy, and then we were in real trouble.
The third year my husband worked harder than ever, and he's very good at what he does. He was always in the top percentages of sales, salesman of the month, etc. but still in the recession, his 3rd year income was now only about A THIRD of what he made that first year. Then they told him he'd have to take a pay cut just to keep his job. It's something all the larger companies had to do to keep their doors open and not have to lay off ALL employees. I found another job, which also ended up closing for lack of income. Thank goodness we had Goodwill stores in our area. Our kids had grown a lot during those last few years and we couldn't afford to keep them clothed otherwise. We had several everyday appliances break and would've been in trouble without the opportunity to purchase (at a significant discount) things others had donated. We even had a time of almost two years where we had no option but to live in a rural area with no jobs and almost no income for about two whole years. Again, it was the donations in the thrift stores that saved us. It's how we got through it all.
As you're on your journey of decluttering and you think to yourself, "This is in such bad shape. No one will want or need this. I should just throw it away," remember there are families struggling beyond anything you may have ever experienced. They need your donations just to get by, to clothe their children, to buy one outfit to get a job, to buy that old toaster oven because they can't afford to replace a broken stove, etc. What seems old, out-dated, out of style, not the latest technology, just may be the very thing an almost starving, almost homeless family needs. Now imagine if you donated GOOD things you didn't need anymore. How about instead of going to an interview in the wrong sized pants and a frayed shirt, a homemaker trying to enter the workforce could put on a dress that looked fairly new? What about that Dad trying to support his family and now he can interview in a suit instead of stained jeans so he can get the better paying white collar job instead of the one that caused his back problems? What if a single mom could find shoes for her kids that actually fit? Even those trinkets around the house you don't need can help a kid like I was, who felt like the outcast, have something to give someone during a school gift exchange? For about a dollar, they get to feel normal for a day instead of having to sit at their desk instead of in the circle of chairs while the other kids exchange a Secret Santa gift. There's so many people doing without. They need your donations, especially the ones that are in good shape, you just don't need it anymore. Please, if you don't want to declutter your whole house at this point, would you consider donating at least one box of stuff, or a few clothing items, or maybe some extra pots & pans or utensils? People need your help. Thank you.
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