Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa February/March 2019 | Page 60

SMART MOVES
How to declutter your
house, office and life
BY SARAH EBRAHIM
M
arie Kondo’s new Netflix show Tidying Up has the
Internet buzzing – and millions of devotees are
decluttering as a result. If you haven’t watched it,
Marie uses what she calls the KonMari method of tidying. It
involves sweeping your possessions into a giant pile and hold-
ing each one to see if it “sparks joy”. Anything that doesn’t
meet the joy test should not be kept.
In the very first episode, Marie visits the Friend family from
California and helps them sort through their cluttered garage,
kitchen and closets. Collectively, the Friend family throw out
7 garbage bags of (largely unworn) clothing, a full garbage bag
of toys and more.
When wife Rachel argues with her husband about throwing
out coat hangers because “we paid money for those”, you have
to recognize that part of the reason we hold onto items longer
than we should is because we hate wasting money more than
we hate clutter. Throwing away clutter is really throwing away
cash that could be recouped. The experts at Gumtree sat down
and did the math:
Clothing
We couldn’t see a detailed inventory of what was discarded,
but if we go with Kevin’s assertion that they were left with two
hundred empty hangers, the Friend family have given away
clothing with at least R10,000 on the second-hand market.
If 25% of their items were designer or name brand wear, that
value could go up to R50,000. And if they actually sold the
clothing hangers, they could have added another R1000 to
that figure for good measure
Toys
Toys are one of the best-selling items on the second-hand
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FEBRUARY/MARCH 2019 SA Real Estate Investor Magazine
market because they are a) expensive and b) usually in good
condition. One bag with 30 items could potentially have
fetched R6,000 second-hand. The two large teddy bears would
easily have fetched R1000.
Miscellaneous
We weren’t privy to the contents of the garage, but spied a
yoga mat, car seat, beach bags and box of CDs, worth roughly
R2500. Expensive car seats go for much more, potentially
upping the figure to R5500. Kitchen appliances can fetch
R200 each, and even broken appliances will sell for R30-R50
depending on the items. The pram could have fetched R1000
if it came from a popular manufacturer.
Books
Kondo’s harsh stance on books sparked tirades in The
Guardian, Washington Post and social media. The rule of
thumb is to keep about 30 of your best loved works on the
shelf. If you shelf 30 books, you could have given away R1,500.
That means that in one episode, R64 200 ended up in the
landfill. If that cash had been placed in a savings account at
an average interest rate of 8.80%, it would have earned an
additional R440 per month – R36 960 in 7 years.
While not everyone has as many goods to sell as the families
that Marie Kondo visits in the series, a 2017 survey showed
that the average South African has between R27 000 – R35
000’s worth of unused items in their homes.
It may take some effort to upload and sell those items but
then again, nothing sparks joy quite like cash in your hand.
SOURCE Gumtree