Give Away Your Clutter Challenge: Books and more books

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 looked through my bookshelves to see which books I could pass on to someone else.  I love having lots books, but they are overwhelming my shelves.  I used a method I learned from The Dave Ramsey Show to decide which items to keep, which I'll describe tomorrow in my weekly tips post. (And no, it isn't "Get rid so much that your children will think they're next.")

These are the kinds of books I decided to keep:

• Reference works - even with the Internet, I still refer to a paper dictionary, thesaurus, atlas, and other works.
• Certain religious books
• Cookbooks that I use regularly
• Humor books - still funny after many readings
• Books that have some personal meaning to me
• Books relating to my hobbies
• Books about saving money

And these kinds of books I got rid of:

• Fiction books - these are available in the library if I want to read them again
• Older historical books = they're really out of date
• Other religious books which I will donate to my synagogue's library
• Other books that I simply haven't opened in years.

Where should you donate books?  Many would think that the public library would be a good place, because you could just check out your book if you missed it.  However, I've found that my local library does not add donated books to their collection.  Instead, they sell it in their book sale room.  Just keep that in mind!

Hospitals and senior centers can use your books.  I've been to libraries at both places and usually they have very few volumes.

If you have children's books to give away (I'll tackle those this week), a school or an afterschool program would be an excellent place to donate your books. Women's shelters would also be a good place - the books can entertain the children living there.

And of course, thrift shops will be happy to take your books as well.

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