Parting With My Clothes

Over the past two months or so, I've been slowly but surely cleaning out my closet of everything that I just don't wear anymore. I have a lot of clothes. Perhaps not the most clothes (obviously), but I have more clothes than I need and they tend to just clog my closet and drawers underneath my bed. It's just a lot of unnecessary items that take up space that I don't have. Ever since I was a senior in high school, clothes and makeup have been the two things I spend a majority, if not all of my money on (now it's rent, let's be real). I used to only clean out my closet once or twice a year at most and give the clothes to my aunt and my cousin as my hand-me-downs to them. They always appreciated the shirts and sweaters and what not and then whatever they didn't take, my mom would donate.

As time has gone on and I've accumulated more clothes and gone through new phases and periods of my life, I've grown out of things, both physically and mentally. I don't have the same style that I had two summers ago, despite not having a set style. I've gotten to the point in my life where my personal attachments to certain things have sort of fiddled out into the realization that they are just belongings. I'm not a minimalist in the slightest, but I have gotten better at detaching myself from objects (and people, admittedly) over the years so make picking up and moving easier.

Since the start of 2016, I've been slowly cleaning out my closet in an attempt to start fresh. Or relatively fresh. I'm trying to part with as many things as I can that I just don't wear or that just don't feel like they fit who I am as a person (or fit in the truest sense of the word, my body has changed a lot since I started college). I don't need pants or shorts that are too big in the waist or dresses or rompers that gape in the wrong spots. I don't need brightly colored shirts or quilted puffer vests in every neutral shade. They're just not things that I'm interested in wearing anymore and having them in my closet to make it seem deceptively full and bursting wasn't making my life any easier.

Now I have less things to sort through in the morning when I'm going through my typical "I have nothing to wear!" sessions. I can go into my closet and physically see all of the things that I like to wear and choose to wear rather than five sweaters that I keep it in there because I don't know how to get rid of things. While that might have been true, I have no issues tossing my clothing items into a bag to rid them from my life.

Physically taking the clothes out of your closet is one thing. The next step is figuring out what to do with said clothes. Here's a few options that you could go through, depending on the items that you have:

1. Hand-Me-Downs Find a younger family member, friend, family friend, etc, and have them sift through your things. There's nothing better than seeing somebody wearing something that you gave them and being so genuinely pleased with it. 
2. Donations You can find a donation box at your local Salvation Army or some sort of center where they have continuous drop-offs. There are also probably plenty of smaller niche donation centers that you can research in your area as well. 
3. Sell online These would be more along the lines of special or rare pieces, but I suppose you could sell anything on eBay or resale apps that you want to!
4. Consign A process I didn't know existed until September, consigning is a really cool way to make the most money from your clothes through a secondary source. At our store, you receive a 50/50 split when the item sells. I sell some of my clothes at another shop that doesn't function like true consignment and only make 30% of the selling price, but I get paid up front. There are plenty of different stores like my consignment shoppe or places like Plato's Closet (I do not go here, but the store I do sell my pieces in works the same way). 

Do you ever struggle to clean out your closet?