What To Do With Unwanted Clothes

Thinking about what to do with unwanted clothes and don’t know where to begin? Whether you want to make some extra money or donate your bags to charity, this list will help you declutter your home and streamline your wardrobe.

What can you do with unwanted clothes? You can sell them on sites like Facebook Marketplace, Let It Go, or eBay. Or if you’re looking to donate instead, consider your local church, the Give Back Box on Amazon, or local charity pick-up services in town.

It’s easy to end up with more clothing than you need. In fact, I would argue that the majority of people that frequent this blog have more articles of clothing than they actually wear stuffed into a wardrobe somewhere in their bedroom that they are ignoring.

Clothes that no longer fit
Clothes that no longer match their current style
Clothes that no longer match the current state of their lives

What To Do With Unwanted Clothes – 7 Ideas

It happens. We become moms. We join or leave the workforce. We stop working out. We gain weight. We lose weight. And then what? Do we just keep every batch in hopes that we will return to our former selves? Or do we let them go and pass them down to someone who might actually use them? Hopefully, it’s the latter.

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If most of your old clothes are in good condition, why not make some money in the decluttering process? There are a variety of websites that allow you to sell used items.

eBay and Poshmark

eBay and Poshmark are two that are very well known and have large audiences for used clothing.

Once registered on eBay, you get 50 free listings per month. As you list your items, you won’t get charged an insertion fee. So, start slow and list as much as 50 items a month free of charge! If you exceed the amount, you’ll have to pay a fee for every new listing.

On Poshmark, for each transaction under $15, the website takes $2.95. For a transaction above $15, Poshmark takes 20%.

To sell second-hand clothes successfully, it’s best to make them presentable (wash and iron them) and take aesthetically pleasing photos of the products. Of course, that might seem like a lot of work, but you don’t have to sell everything at once. You can start with a few clothing items at a time.

And when you see the results of the decluttering process – more money and a cleaner closet – you’ll find that the efforts are well worth it.

Other sites to consider include:

Facebook Marketplace
Let It Go
Mercari

Consignment Shops

Another way to sell your used clothes is to give them to consignment shops. When you do that, you’ll keep ownership of your items until the shop sells them or if they manage to sell them.

There is a time limit for your stuff to be sold – usually 30, 60, or 90 days. If your clothes are sold within that period, you’ll receive the money as cash or shopping credit, but you will have to pay the shop some sort of commission.

If your items don’t find their new owners within that time frame, the shop can sell them at a discounted price or return them to you.

Please note: some shops have a policy that you still have to pay a consignment fee if your clothing doesn’t sell. So, be sure to do some research before you proceed.

ThredUP

If you like giving your stuff to consignment shops but don’t have time to manage the trip, thredUP is another option. It’s an online consignment store that takes care of evaluating your clothes and selling them.

The process of sending your stuff to thredUP is as follows:

Order a Clean Out Kit / Print Out A Label – You can choose to order a cleanout kit or download a free shipping label from the ThredUp site. Due to COVID, you can only do labels for the time being. It takes several weeks/ months to have your clothes evaluated right now, but it’s still important to get the process started.

Fill Up Your Bag or Box – Items eligible for selling on thredUP don’t show any signs of wear, damage, and alterations. If you think that some of the clothes might not be up to the standard, you can buy a return assurance for $11. If your clothes are not found eligible, thredUP will return them to you. If you don’t include the return assurance, they’ll recycle those items for you which is nice.

Send your bag and wait for your items to be evaluated – Sending the Clean Out Kit to thredUP is free, and you can do that by scheduling a USPS pickup or dropping the bag off with FedEx.

Choose between getting a shop credit or taking cash – With thredUP, you won’t make as much money as you could with, say, eBay. But you’ll still get some money, plus, you’ll be able to get a lot of stuff out of your house at once without spending much time on it. I just want to reiterate that the amount of money you make on ThredUp is minimal. It’s more about decluttering than anything else.

Oh, and thredUP can also donate your items if that’s what you want. For each bag you donate, thredUP gives $5 to their partner charity and give you a donation tax receipt.

Give Back Box Amazon

Speaking of donating used clothes, Amazon has a great way to get unwanted clothes out of your house! How many Amazon boxes do you receive in a week? Think about it.

Well, Amazon has a Give Back Box which makes it very simple for anyone to donate clothing free of charge and hassle.

All you have to do is find an old Amazon box and fill it with the things you want to donate. Print a free shipping label here. Take the package to a UPS or USPS nearest location (the shipping fee will be taken care of) and mail it IN.

That’s it! With this simple task, you cleared your home of unwanted clothes and boxes and helped other people.

Donate to Churches or Charities

Head to your local churches, homeless shelters, or charities and give clean out of your closets of all the unwanted clothing you no longer plan on wearing. Believe me, they need it.

Looking for charity organization suggestions?

American Red Cross
The Salvation Army
Project G.L.A.M
Room to Grow
Dress for Success
The LUPUS Society

If your old clothes are worn out beyond repair, you can give them to animal shelters. They might want to use the clothes to make beds or as blankets for animals.

Family Members Or Friends

Donating or selling your used clothes aren’t the only options you have. You can also give your clothes a second life by gifting them to your family or friends. Start local!

I have friends in town that swap clothing for our children as they age. My neighbor up the block always gives me her son’s clothing as soon as he grows out of them. I love it! Saves me some money and I truly appreciate it.

Neighbor Swap

If you are all for giving your old clothes a new life, consider hosting a clothing swap. It’s a fun activity to participate in, and you’ll get a chance to walk away with a variety of new (old) clothes.

A few things to consider when organizing a local swap:

Set some basic rules about the number of clothes to bring for trading.
Consider inviting people who have children that are the same age.
Set up the swap location so that every clothing item can be easily accessed and checked out.
Discuss what to do with leftover items with other attendees and decide whether you’ll donate them or return them to owners.

If you do the local swap the right way, everyone will be happy with their new additions to their wardrobes, including you.

So these are the responsible things you can do with your used clothes. All of them will benefit our environment and future better than simply throwing away old clothes.

Don’t forget – there is a bonus waiting for you as well!

More space in your closet.
More money in your pocket if you decided to sell.
The satisfaction of knowing that you helped other people if you decided to donate.