Start With the Clothes

I first realized that I had too much clothes when I moved out of the house to live on my own.

Since I was moving gradually, I only brought enough clothes for me to wear until it was time to send things to the laundry – which was a week’s worth of clothes. After a year, I found out that I could actually live without 70% of my old clothes which I had forgotten at home.

Due to my commitment to find happiness in simplicity, I decided to start my decluttering with clothes. Due to the COVID pandemic, I moved back to my parents’ house and was confronted with my huge pile of pants, shorts, and tops. My clothes could not fit in my drawers and plastic containers; both were full to the brim and literally popping off already.

To start, I first decided that I would list some of my old clothes for sale on a shopping app called Carousell. I received some offers for shirts and bottoms, so I was able to sell them to other people for a fraction of the price.

Afterwards, I decided that I would donate the rest of the items to the people who need them more. I looked around for charities that I can donate to, such as Caritas Manila, where I used to donate my old clothes. However, no one from the Segunda Mana initiative replied to me, probably as they were swamped with their COVID initiative.

After some searching, I learned about Tzu Chi Foundation, which is a Buddhist foundation that is active in relief operations and accepts aid for the less fortunate. I was able to phone them and they informed me I could drop off my donation at any of their branches. Great! A colleague also vouched for them, saying that he knows they work a lot with the social work arm of the government.

This afternoon, I sat down and went through all of my clothes one by one, sorting them into 4 piles of Donate, Discard, Keep, and Unsure.

• Donate – in good condition but I did not want to use or had not worn for over a year
• Discard – in bad condition, e.g. moldy or had huge holes
• Keep – in good condition and worn often, or those that served a specific purpose (e.g. blazer for formal events)
• Unsure – I wanted them but did not wear them in a year

After sorting everything, I went through the Unsure pile over and over until I had arranged them into the other 3 piles. Then I packed all the Donate clothes in a box and sealed it for delivery, threw away all the Discard clothes in the trash, and hung the Keep clothes in my closet.

I have nothing in my plastic container now, and I freed up one whole portion of my drawers. Yay!

I’ll be shipping off my clothes tomorrow to Tzu Chi and I hope other people will be able to use my clothes well.