30 things you can give away today (or store smartly).

Start with the wardrobe — that's where the most low-hanging clutter lives. What can almost always go:

• Shoes you never wear (donate them — they take 30+ years to break down at the dump)
• Formal clothes worn once for a wedding
• Accessories that turned out not to be your style (the paisley scarf from London, the studded bag)
• That giant pile of thin dry-cleaning hangers — replace with a set of wooden or plastic ones

Tip: hang everything you're keeping with the hook reversed. Whatever's still reversed after 6 months hasn't been worn — toss-pile candidate.

Paper piles up fast if you don't watch it. What can almost always go:

• Holiday postcards, thank-you cards, instruction manuals, old magazines
• Expired coupons and flyers
• Books you 'might still' read — Les Misérables, the beginner's Italian — off to the thrift shop
• Old iPods, Blackberries, chargers for devices that no longer exist, USB cables nobody uses anymore

Tip: electronics go to a recycling point — not the regular bin. Photos digitised? Boxes of negatives can go. And your great LP collection finally gets some breathing room.

The kitchen is full of small items eating up drawer space. What you never use can go:

• Pasta maker that's been on the top shelf for years
• Meat thermometer, mini meat slicer, or other impulse buys
• Spices you bought once for a specific recipe (sumac, asafoetida) — check the date

In the bathroom, everything has a shelf life, usually 12-24 months after opening:

• Expired shampoos and shower gel
• Sunscreen from 2021
• Old make-up and dregs of nail polish

Tip: separate plastic packaging when disposing — helps with eco-friendly removal. Result: more space for what you actually use.

This is the harder pile. Usually things where you assign value others don't see:

• Souvenirs from trips you no longer look at (the plastic Eiffel Tower, the Big Ben snow globe)
• Shirts from your university sports club or completed courses
• The china or dinnerware set that 'might one day be valuable'

Tip: photograph sentimental objects before you give them up — the memory stays, the object goes.

For things that do mean something but fit a different life stage — Christmas decorations from an inherited home, furniture from a parent who passed — storage is a better call than the thrift shop. Not lost, just out of sight.