Complete Honesty #1: Shoe Clutter

As one of my first decluttering projects, and partially because of my blog name, I am tackling my shoe "collection". Here's the complete honesty part:

 

There are 2 white shoe holders stacked in my closet. They both have 15 shoe slots, I have all 30 slots filled, with AT LEAST 1 pair per slot, some have 2 or 3 pairs depending on flatness of the shoes.

 

Here is the floor in front of the shoe holders, another 18 or so pairs here.

 

This is another shot showing 18 pairs unique from the photo above. That makes an estimated minimum of 66 pairs of shoes in my closet.

 

There are also about 6 pairs floating around the house and in the garage.

Now here's the scariest part of all:

 

These two baskets are hidden in a corner of my bedroom in a cubby. I think they both have shoes in them. After I get them down I discover:

 

 

Indeed this one has flip flops in it. About 15 pairs or so. But:

 

This one contains shorts! Some workout shorts I thought I had previously gotten rid of. Plus, 1 pair of water shoes. These baskets bring the shoe total to about 88 pairs of shoes for 1 person in my house!

 

Since I don't wear shorts for my workouts, I got rid of 3 of the 4 pairs in this basket by donating them. I kept 1 pair of black shorts in case. I know, I know "in case" is not a very good reason, but bear with me this is my first de-cluttering project!

 

Now to tackle the shoes. I started by bringing all shoes into one place with a big open floor space, but I forgot to take a picture. :(

 

Now that they were all assembled, I started one "category" at a time, ie: heels, flats, wedges, etc. I put the ones I knew I was keeping back in the closet but I didn't organize them yet. Then I tried on the ones I wasn't sure of and made the decision based on comfort and if I had worn them in the past year.

 

After a couple hours, the project was done. Here is the trash bag:

 

 

There's 4 pairs of rubber flip-flops and 1 pair of totally worn out tennis shoes in there.

 

Here is the garage sale/donate sack:

 

 

It contains nearly 15 pairs of shoes!

 

 

Here are the after views of my project:

 

Only 1 pair per slot now and look at the empty carpet in front!

Half as many pairs on the floor of the closet now! Look at all that space, I can walk in front of my clothing bar now because there's not shoes blocking the whole thing.

 

 

This is the sandal/flip-flop basket. Before all it contained was the rubber flip flops, now it holds the rubber ones and the nicer dressy ones I can wear to work in the summer.

 

 

This is the basket that previously contained my shorts. Now all it holds is my water shoes for camping and outdoor activities, but I may move them to a different location anyway.

 

I decided to sell 2 pairs of shoes on ebay.

 

 

I posted them Sunday morning and as of this morning, both pairs sold! I will use this money from decluttering to go toward my savings goal.

 

Now that one project is done, I am so excited to see results and I can't wait to do more decluttering! Weigh in to help me decide what area to do next.

 

Update: I am continuing decluttering a little bit at a time. I find myself looking around with new eyes now thinking, "What do I have laying around that  I can do without?" or "What am I storing for no real purpose?" I am finding more and more things that fall into this categories.

 

On the debt front, I made 2 returns to different stores to get money back onto my credit cards. These will be reflected when new statements arrive!

 

Side note: You can find my shoe organizers here. (affiliate link)