50 Things You Can Throw Out

Illustration by Nathalie Dion

- Spare contact lens cases
- Broken costume jewelry
- Dictionaries
- Wrinkled wrapping paper and crushed bows
- Latex paint (if it’s more than a year old)
- A bread machine
- VHS workout tapes
- Manuals for appliances and electronics (they’re all available online)
- Cookbooks you’ve cracked open once
- Random vacuum cleaner attachments
- Old remote controls you don’t recognize
- Scrunchies that have lost their scrunch
- Incomplete decks of playing cards
- Bridesmaid dresses (go to operationprom.org for info on how to donate)
- Take-out menus (everything’s online!)
- Picture frames with broken easel backs
- Road maps (there’s GPS on your phone)
- Mixtapes
- Unidentifiable keys
- Almost empty bottles of bubbles
- In-line skates
- Contents of goodie bags from kids’ parties
- Impossible puzzles no one has ever finished
- Free gifts from cosmetic purchases
- Orphan mittens
- Travel guidebooks
- Chargers for old electronics
- Wire hangers from the dry cleaner
- Dusty potpourri
- Chopsticks and soy sauce packets
- Your “fat” clothes
- Carpet remnants
- Filled coloring books
- Stretched-out bras
- Scratched nonstick pans
- Anything with an antenna
- Prescription eyeglasses that are no longer your prescription (go to lionsclubs.org for info on how to donate)
- Umbrellas with bent or broken spokes
- Allen wrenches from DIY furniture
- Checkbook registers
- Disposable cameras
- Musical instruments no one plays anymore (go to mhopus.org for info on how to donate)
- Business cards
- Smelly towels
- Fishbowls
- Fancy loose teas you received as a hostess gift
- The Yellow Pages
- Soccer uniforms the kids have outgrown
- Vases that came with delivered flowers
- Commemorative spoons and plates