Raise your hand if you have too much stuff in your house that you don’t need and that brings your precious little joy to hang on to. If you didn’t raise your hand, please consider doing a guest post here on how you live that way. Totally serious.

For the rest of us, we all know that we need to let go of some stuff so that we can make our house feel a bit less junky and a lot more peaceful. For a while I had a pile of donations kept in a basket in our laundry room/office. The problem with that method was that Darah would get into it and take things out and tote them all over the house. So basically, it was pointless! Also, since the pile of stuff I needed continued to take up so much space in my house, it didn’t really feel like I had made much of a difference in terms of de-cluttering.

So I came up with a new method for thrift store donations. Wanna hear my trick?

I put everything in the trunk of my car.

This immediately gets everything out of sight. Which I absolutely LOVE! If I’m ever on the fence about donating something, I can also put it in the trunk and there it will be if I change my mind. Let me tell you, I have put HUNDREDS of things in my trunk at this point, and I have yet to go back in and retrieve anything!

The other great thing about putting your donations in the trunk is that when you are out and about running errands and are going by the place where you donate things, you are always ready to drop some stuff off.

Now, my “put it in the trunk” strategy did have one critical flaw. As my donations grew, the pile became more and more out of control until it became too cumbersome for me to use my trunk for anything else. Boo. I realized that even my donations needed some organization. Here’s my before shot (don’t judge!).

And here’s my after shot. See if you can spy a super duper fabulous bag in the picture!

All of my grocery bags are over to the far right, and everything else but the stroller in the back are things to be donated. I’ve got the Reisenthel XL Shopping Tote which now serves as my donation bag. It is super cute, no? It’s also super big (26.8 ” X 17.9″) and super strong! It is the perfect bag to keep my trunk from getting too crazy. Plus, when it is full (like in the picture), that’s my cue to get my behind over to the thrift store and drop everything off.

This bag is also just the right size for holding sports or swim gear, which are other things that tend to stay in the trunk and make everything look a bit messy.

Reisenthel is a company that has been creating awesome reusable bags, carriers and home decor items for 40 years. That means that they were making reusable bags pretty much before anyone else! Their shoppers and tote are very popular in Europe and are making quite a splash here in the U.S. as well. The shopper I reviewed retails for $29.99 and can be purchased at Touch of Europe.

My BFF can attest to just how beautiful the bags are, as she was visiting when mine arrived. We used it to load up everything we needed for a day trip out with the girls, and after watching it in use, she said, “Are you going to give one of those away? Because they are awesome!”

Why yes, I am!