Declutter Archives

Old fishing hat with lures resting on an open box from the closet beside a phone and coffee on a kitchen table

Decluttering Over 80 When Your Kids Live Far Away

“Is that Dad’s fishing hat?” That was the text my brother sent from three states away, the first Sunday we tried it. My mother was 82. She was sitting at …

Birthday card with a handwritten list tucked inside, banana bread, coffee and a shoebox of old photos on a kitchen table

The Decluttering Checklist I Wish My Mother Had at 75

This is the list I wish I had tucked into my mother’s birthday card the year she turned 75. She would have rolled her eyes at it. (She did not …

Yellow vintage Pyrex mixing bowl with pancake batter next to a stack of pancakes and syrup on a kitchen table

What’s Actually Worth Money in Your Kitchen Cabinets (Pyrex, Fire King, Corning Ware)

My older granddaughter was halfway through her second pancake when she picked up my mixing bowl and turned it upside down. “Grandma,” she said, “do you know what this is?” …

Small reading room with a chair, white bookshelves and three boxes of books labeled for the library sale, Little Free Library and nursing home

All the Books, and Nobody Wants Them: Where Mine Went

Eleven boxes of books left our house this fall, and I know where every one of them went. That still surprises me. For years, I thought nobody wanted old books …

Canvas donation tote filled with a sweater, sheets and a vase hanging on a hook in a laundry room

Who Actually Takes What: My Item-by-Item Donation Guide for Women Over 60

There’s a canvas tote hanging on a hook in my laundry room. Most weeks, something goes into it. A sweater I don’t wear. A vase from the back of the …

Cordless phone, coffee mug and a large-print crossword book in the middle of a kitchen table by a window with a bird feeder

Decluttering After 70 When You Live Alone

Every morning at nine, I called my mother. It started the year after Dad passed. She lived alone in the house she’d kept for forty years, and I lived a …

Breakfast on a rose-pattern china plate in front of a dining room hutch holding a gold-rimmed wedding china set and crystal glasses

Using the Good China Every Day Showed Me Which Dishes Were Worth Keeping

Until this fall, there was a set of dishes in our house that had never held a single meal. Gold rims, little gray leaves, and not one chip. My mother-in-law …

Kitchen table set up for sorting old papers with a Bankers Box of files, a paper bag for shredding, a green keep folder, a kitchen timer, and a recycling bin by the chair

How to Stop Hoarding Paper (When You Were Raised to Keep Everything)

“In case they ask.” That’s what my mother said every time I asked why she kept every electric bill, every bank statement, and every receipt that came into her house. …

Mother in a gray sweater and her grown daughter in a denim shirt talking and smiling at a wooden kitchen table with coffee mugs, a notebook, and an old wooden recipe box

I Finally Asked My Grown Kids What They Want From This House

For years, I tried to guess what my children would want from this house someday. I never once asked them. I’d already learned the hard way that my kids didn’t …

Smiling woman in a gray sweater holding her front door wide open for a white-haired friend in a navy vest who brings a jar of homemade applesauce on an autumn porch

The Doorbell Test: Could I Let Someone In Right Now?

The doorbell rang on a Tuesday afternoon, and my stomach dropped. Not because I was scared of who it was. Because I knew what was behind me. I was in …