Closet Cleaning Made Easy

As an aspiring minimalist, I’m continuously looking for ways to purge things I don’t use or need. And when it comes to my clothing, while some people tend to purge once or twice per year, I’m always at the ready to spot something that hasn’t been worn or no longer suits my style and needs to go. It’s not that I cycle through clothes quickly either — my friends have running jokes about me wearing clothes I’ve had since college. But whether it’s the smaller living space that comes with city dwelling or perhaps a desire to simplify as life seems to get more hectic, I crave to live with less.

When it comes to decluttering my closet, I’ve typically donated clothes to Goodwill. Jordan likes to tell people I make weekly trips there, with bags filled mostly with his stuff, all without his approval. (Good thing he’s not prone to exaggeration. And good thing I’m very prone to sarcasm.) The trips to Goodwill worked fine, but it was time-consuming and not very easy to round up items and transport them across town without a car.I was resolved to do the Goodwill thing, but then a friend told me about Thred Up, and everything changed (so dramatic, I know). The gist was that Thred Up would take my unwanted clothes and sell them online for a fraction of regular retail prices. And in return, I’d get a little cash with very little hassle. I thought, “That little fill-in-the-blank receipt you get from Goodwill is cool and all, but money is way better.”

Thred Up — sign me up! So here’s how this whole thing works…

You visit ThredUp.com to request a Clean Out Kit. Requesting and receiving the kit is free, and it comes in a neatly compact envelope.Once the kit arrives, you fill the enclosed bag with your high-quality women’s and kids’ clothes. You can also include handbags and shoes. You seal up the self-adhesive bag, and you can leave it for your mail carrier or drop it off at your nearest FedEx or post office. No matter the amount of clothes you place in the bag, the shipping is covered by Thred Up, and totally free for you. They even have an earnings estimator on their website so you can get an idea of how much you’re likely to get paid for each of your items.Once your bag arrives at Thred Up, they sort through your stuff and determine which ones meet their standards for selling on their site. They give fair warning that they typically accept less than 40 percent of the items they receive, as I guess they anticipate people might get in their feelings when all of their stuff isn’t accepted. (Like, how could they not want this hunter green crushed velvet sweater vest?!?!) It’s kind of cool to see what they accept. I wasn’t at all offended by their choices, but I was honestly surprised — for example, a pretty Banana Republic dress was rejected and a random pair of Old Navy shorts were accepted.

But the very cool thing is that they pass the unaccepted items onto their textile recycling partners, and the clothes are upcycled. And if you really want your unaccepted items back, you can pay the shipping fee to have them returned to you.

Here’s another cool thing: once Thred Up picks the items they’re going to sell, they give you a pay out immediately, before your items sell. You can transfer the money to a PayPal account, donate to a cause, or use it as a credit to buy clothes from their site (but, of course).

As your items sell, they email you updates like the ones below.Within a couple weeks, all of my accepted items were sold. My payout wasn’t huge — $25.80 to be exact — but much better than nothing at all.

And I felt great knowing that my closet was lighter and my old clothes either had new owners or were being recycled, as opposed to taking up space in a landfill.

This post likely reads like Thred Up paid me to write all of this, but no, I just think they’ve got a great service that’s really helpful. I rushed to tell my sister-in-law and a few fellow new mommy friends about it (buy/sell baby clothes!), so I wanted to share it with all of my friends here too.

If you’re interested in doing some shopping on Thred Up, use this link to receive a $10 credit.

And if you’re interested in selling your clothes on Thred Up, here are a few pointers for getting the best payout possible:

• Send women’s and kids’ clothing is great condition
• Send clothing from popular brands like J. Crew, GAP, or H&M
• Send clothes in season and on trend
• Clothes with tags are even better!