Skip to main content

Downsizing to save lives?

Downsizing can help others as much as yourself. Selling items is great, but donations can also have a huge impact.

You've probably heard of Movember, the charitable movement that tackles men's health issues of cancer, mental health and suicide.

Men around the country, and the world, grow a moustache for the month as a conversation starter about men's health and as a fundraiser for the issues.

My mate Phil goes a bit further that most and hosts his own fund-raising cricket match. How Australian is that?

I didn't play in the match, but did donate a new match ball I had sitting in a cupboard from my playing days.

I could have sold it earlier, but I liked the fact that it would save Phil the full retail cost of a new ball. Cricket balls can be expensive ($25-$90) so the money saved means more funds raised for Movember.

It's also good to see an item serving the purpose it was made for. In the same weekend, a lead singer bought my waistcoat for his performances and a guy bought my bike from my teenage years to fix up for riding. I hadn't used either in years, so it's good to see that someone else will.

PS. If you want to donate to Movember, here is Phil's page. He's really keen to help Movember reduce the rates of male suicide.

If you've are looking to sell items online, you may want to grab a free copy of my ebook
Less Clutter More Cash for tips.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How to waste a year's wages

A friend recently asked me why it is that so many people (on good incomes) are struggling to save. Often the big three money areas are housing, transport and food. In one sense these are necessary items. But what we spend on them is often way more than necessary. I crunched some numbers on how much extra my wife and I could spend on these things - if for some reason we wanted to burn our money. 1. Housing Our apartment is fairly nice, but also cost-effective. I've mentioned how choosing it saves us $1,800 per year , compared to a similar one we saw. The high end of 2-bedroom apartments in our suburb is $305 per week more than our apartment. Not $305 per week. $305 per week more than ours is. I cannot get over that. Sure it's new and modern-looking, but that's a lot of money. It's an extra $15,860 per year above what we pay. 2. Transport The Australian Automobile Association lists the costs of owning and running a car. It includes many often-overlooked c

Don't dump on charities

Netflix causes mass dumping. Here's an alternative. January is usually a big month for physical donations to charity. In 2019 it's been over-the-top (literally) as charity donation bins have been overflowing with items. The Netflix series "Tidying Up" by famous declutterer Marie Kondo (see her book ) has inspired many to declutter their homes. But in the process they've cluttered the streets. What's so bad about donating? When the bins overflow the extra items are thrown away. Having been in the weather, the rain and on the ground, they are classified as contaminated and cannot be sold. To make it worse, much of what fills the bins is not good enough to sell, and is also dumped. Bad donations hurt charities 13 million dollars. That's how much it costs charities to deal with all the junk we dump on them - 60,000 tonnes a year. Lifeline says half its stores have stopped accepting donations. We might think we're helping, but that's a lot

This could all be yours

This cartoon kind of happened to me on the weekend. Joking about death My dad has his own unique sense of humour. Flippantly he joked that when he passes away, the first thing I'll need to do is get a rubbish skip (maybe two) and jam it full with all the junk from the garage. I was reminded of Marie Kondo, who says in her book that we have to deal with items either now or later; so it might as well be now. For people who have retired, I guess there's a third option: Ignore it for a few more decades and let descendants deal with it. Don't get me wrong - my dad has plenty of years left yet. But from his joke I'm guessing he's reasonably happy to let it all sit there while he enjoys retired life. Why not deal with it? I can kind of understand. It's an overwhelming task (even to look at). There's also the "I might need that" factor. Which is fair enough, but even if an item is needed, is it findable in amongst everything else? About half the