Give Away Your Clutter Challenge: The 5-Minute Dash

Each month this year, I plan to give myself some sort of challenge, to try to improve how I'm doing in that particular area.  So far this year, here's how I've challenged myself:

• I did the Clean Out the Cupboards Challenge to use up the excess food in my pantry and spend as little as possible at the stores
• I challenged myself with the Drugstore Bootstrap Challenge to build up my Extra Care Bucks from CVS and my Register Rewards from Walgreens.  
• I tried to Give Back...One Coupon at a Time 
• I used up all the mangoes from my tree during the Mango Months.
• I did the You Link, I Comment Challenge, where I tried to check all the links from my three weekly linkups. 
• And for November and December, I will Give Away My Clutter, collecting items that are cluttering my house to donate and to deduct them from my 2011 taxes next year.

This week, I tried using the 5-Minute Dash to collect clutter.

I set my kitchen timer for 5 minutes and dashed.  I grabbed as much unneeded stuff as I could.  No time to stop and think, "Maybe I really need this?"  I got as much clutter as I could and put it in the center of my living room.

Once the time was up, I took a photo of my items and entered them into ItsDeductible.  Then I bagged up everything and put the items in the trunk of my car.

I did the 5-Minute Dash a few times this week, and then this morning, I dropped off everything at my local Goodwill store and got a receipt for my donation.  According to ItsDeductible, the items I donated have a value of $298.50.  This means that if I am in the 25% tax bracket, I will pay almost $75 less on my taxes next year... just for a few minutes of running around!

I'll be doing a few more dashes in the coming days!

Would you like to join me in my new monthly challenge?  Leave a comment below!