Published 12 January 2015 ● Last Updated on 6 April 2021
It’s time to sell.
The tree is in the compost, the trinkets and baubles have been wrapped and stored, the last of the turkey leftover finally eaten up, and your kids are already bored of the booty from Mr. Claus. The holiday season is officially behind us. In Singapore, the season starts with Diwali, Halloween, followed by Thanksgiving, Christmas and finally the madness of New Year’s Eve. Irrespective of where you were as the year wound down, clicking away in your cubicle like me, cooking a family Christmas lunch or sipping a margarita under a beach umbrella, you are now… back to real life. Sigh!! It’s a new year with new things to look forward to including the addictive pre-CNY sales. Before you bring in large loots from the discounts (yes, yes, it’s HOT in Singapore, but that’s why you wear boots in the freezing cold shopping malls!!), it is a good time for a quick edit, sell and re-organize, after all most of us are living in dinky apartments with limited storage.
Here are 4 ways to declutter your closet and if possible make a few bucks off the trading post.
1. Make-up moolah: Your make-up cabinet full of toiletries is the best place to start. This is an area where trends change the quickest, space is short and items have limited shelf life. Scour the shelves of unopened, unused items, the bottle of flowery perfume, the green eye shadow, small travel sized bottles you got from your sister’s aunt when she stopped over. If you haven’t opened them in 3 months, you will probably never use them. These need to be put on a sales platform – such as Facebook preloved groups, Carousell, etc – first. The best time to sell is now, because the longer you wait the less you’ll get for your loot. Next, check for items past their prime or nearing the expiry date. Junk these ASAP. Finally relook at the items that are left. Check for items you use sparingly, or you have two of a similar kind; ask yourself if you really need these. Keep only those items that you use regularly.
2. Seasonal sift: Irrespective of where you live, before you put away your seasonal clothes, have a close look at them. I am talking about all the outfits we tend to typically wear in only certain times of the year. Then there are those you will perhaps never wear again- the kaftan that looks like you are hiding the Duggar family under it, the bikini with sunscreen smear, the reindeer jumper that you didn’t wear in sunny Singapore. It’s wiser to ditch them now; vacuum sealing them won’t make them any more desirable or useful. They are destined for the trading post. Who knows, you could buy something nicer with the few bucks you make selling these Achilles heels!
3. Shoo the shoe: Tick the ones that apply.
a. Costs less than your half-a-day’s pay
b. You have not worn them in the last 3 months
c. More than 24 months old
I call this the 1/2 by 3 by 24 rule! If the answer to any two of these questions is yes, you should let it go. The days of ‘matchy-matchy my hair is scratchy’ fashion went out with the disco and strobe lights. You don’t need shoes in the hues of the rainbow. If you live in warm Asia you need about 3 styles of shoes excluding your trainers and flip flops. The ballet flats, the strappy sandal, the pump in a minimum of two heel heights in nude and black. Anything else is a fetish, and that’s completely justifiable, just be sure it’s worth more than the real estate it eats up.
4. Clothes clangers: By now you are probably super tired, so if making an inventory of clothing on excel seems like death by drip feed, get yourself a coffee, kick back and just focus on the 3 big spots.
a.T-shirts: We keep accumulating these, the funny slogan, the college fest logo, the T from the day I met my dog, the one from the marathon I never ran, tees I nicked from my husband’s closet. Yes we find all kinds of reasons to hold on to these. If a T-shirt has immense emotional value to you, frame it up and put it on your wall for heaven’s sake. If you cannot bear to see it every morning or are ashamed to have it up for the world to see, there’s no reason why it should eat up all your drawer space in your wardrobe. Junk it now.
b. Jeans: The skinny jeans, the maternity jean, stone-washed jeans from high school I watched Michael Jackson in. To be honest jeans aren’t the most flattering outfit for girls of a certain age with mortal proportions. They are too hot for weather like ours, take up lots of space, not casual enough and are a lot of work to dress up. (A nice formal pair of shorts looks sexy, is cool and looks formal when paired with nude heals.) Ditch all except for a max of two really great pairs, ensure both have a fantastic fit and have a good dose of lycra to give you a biteable ‘apple bottom’.
c. Little black dress: How many of these do we have? This is a tough one. Black, we are told by endless glossies, is the ‘go to’ color that never tires. However, I only go for it for late evening soirees when I have run out of time, imagination and Disney music repertoire trying to put the tot to sleep. Strangely black seems to stain and get dull much quicker than some other colors. Wear each of your black numbers, take a photo in each and keep 5 that are distinctly unique style, shape, length and detailing. Most importantly they all need to make you look at least 5 pounds lighter. If they fail the 5 pound test, they need to go.
Happy sorting and trading!
– Sushmita Munshi
Sushmita, our guest blogger, is someone who having moved 3 countries (and 3 houses) in 3 years,knows a lot about decluttering. She is an alumnus of National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India. An after hours food and lifestyle enthusiast, in her day job as a User Experience consultant at Accenture and WPP she helped Fortune 500 companies maximize their returns from their Digital initiatives. She currently heads up Distribution Technology and Strategic Projects for a leading insurer in Hong Kong.
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