May's Monster Clutter Busting Challenge - Day #1

When I saw that Money Saving Mom was challenging readers to a clutter busting challenge for the month of May, I immediately knew that I needed to take part.  I'm not by any means a pack rat, but my life is full of clutter, especially paper clutter.  

Thank you to Goddess Groove for the awesome pic!

My husband and I are also expecting our first child in June and with all of the planning surrounding the Bean's impending arrival is the nursery transformation.  For that we are getting rid of some furniture, transferring other furniture to different rooms, and overall making some pretty big changes.  Sadly, the furniture to get rid of is currently stranded in the master bedroom, so despite the fact that normally I would not consider furniture to be "clutter", in this case I will make an exception.  

Finally, since combining households with the hubby, we have been storing random boxes in the basement, and they are in such a disarray.  When we set up the guest room downstairs, it meant that he had to give up his workout space and since the boxes are not well organized, there is nowhere to make a new workout space currently.  

So, my three priorities for the May Clutter Busting Challenge are:

1. Paper clutter
2. Master bedroom
3. Basement storage

I actually started the basement project last weekend when my mom and sister offered to provide some assistance.  It is so much easier to go through boxes and record donations with company.  :-)  Thank you, family!!  With their help I was able to cut down and eliminate about 4 boxes of stuff that is now ready to sell or be donated or has already been trashed.

Today I focused on clothes and found 5 shirts and 3 sweaters to donate to the People's City Mission.  Like others, I would prefer to donate to a community project where the items actually go to those in need as opposed to for-profit organizations like Goodwill.  However, many of the non-profits in my area only accept specific items, making it more complicated and time consuming to donate.  

I think the biggest difficulty I will have with this challenge is dealing with the massive amounts of "stuff" we have to add to our house for the Bean.  But at least it's cute stuff, right! :-)

How was your first day of the clutter busting challenge?  How are your weekly goals going?

photo credit