Sunday's Snapshots: Spring cleaning, selling and saving

It’s the last few days of spring and we’re heading so quickly into summer my head is spinning, although that may be the pollen. Already, we’re looking at pool hours and swimming lessons, at camping trips and vacations, at summer reading lists and summer camps. It’s also the time when everyone scurries to finish cleaning and decluttering, gearing up for the annual Sanders Saleing event next month.

The other day at the library, another mom and I were discussing the clutter in our homes, the need to really get in there and clean everything out, but how much of it was our kids’ stuff.

When it comes to kids’ stuff, it’s so hard. Some parents choose to go through their stuff for them, weeding the things they feel their kids have outgrown, then disavowing any knowledge of the items’ whereabouts if they’re ever brought up. Other parents require their children to fill a box to give away every spring and every fall. Still other parents, and I’m not above this myself, threaten to throw away anything that’s not put away - although I’ve never followed through on that specific threat, throwing away a toy only once when they wouldn’t stop fighting over it…it only kind of worked.

The thing is, I don’t feel their toys are mine, so the decision to get rid of some is up to them. Sadly, at five and eight years old, my kiddos feel they don’t have enough toys as it is, despite being unable to close all their toy box drawers, their games migrating onto shelves in the dining room where we play them, and, now that it’s spring, many things winding up on the back patio table where they’re played with day after day through fall.

My youngest especially has a hard time letting go of things. At five, he straddles a toddlers’ needs with a youths’ wants. Board books? Can’t get rid of them; they may be helping him read even if no one ever wants to read them. Faux tool set? Can’t get rid of it; it may be helping him with dexterity and hand-eye coordination even though screwing the boards never builds anything. Enormous set of Duplo blocks? Can’t get rid of them; they work with all the other block sets, too, even though everyone only plays with Legos now.

And that’s when this other mom I was speaking with gave me the best idea ever: kids’ garage sale. She said her child was reluctant to get rid of anything either, until they were told they might make some money by selling it. The idea of getting money for their things was a game-changer. Suddenly, there was a pile of things ready to sell. And it reminded me that I’d done the same sort of thing as a child.

In third or fourth grade, I’d wanted money for a Nintendo. It was the hot new thing, and “everybody” had one. But for ninety-nine dollars, it was way out of the price range for birthday or Christmas gift lists. If I wanted a Nintendo, I’d have to earn one. So, I had a garage sale of a bunch of things I no longer played with. I think I netted five bucks, but it was enough to have me hooked on saving my money and reaching for a goal (I never did get a Nintendo, my best friend got one instead and I played at her house, but the lesson of saving wasn’t lost on me).

Last year, my kiddos opened their first bank accounts. They brought their savings in and deposited them in their checking accounts. They save their weekly chore money and when it fills their piggy banks, we take it in to deposit it. When they save enough to afford whatever newfangled contraption they want, we buy it and move the money from their checking to their savings account (they don’t know that part, they just see the money disappear). In this way, they’re learning about saving and spending and delayed gratification, and we are giving them something to use for college or trade school, for a car or a plane ticket, for whatever it is they think they want to do at eighteen.

As an adult, how do you incentivize yourself to clean up, clean out, let go? Is it having one less thing to dust, the added income, the space for a longed-for new item? Do you give everything away or sell it? How do you know when it’s time to let go of an item you’ve outgrown?

There are no hard and fast rules for the Spring Clean, only the rules we follow ourselves. What are yours?

Sunday Dutro is an internationally published writer living in Thompson Falls with her beautiful family. Reach her at [email protected] or sundaydutro.com.