Moving out: what to do with your unwanted clothes and belongings

Wow – June is here already and I could not be happier to have some time to chill out and enjoy the sunshine. With the sunshine comes clothes shopping! Since my wardrobe was full of warm grey and brown winter gear I decided to splurge a little bit on some colourful tops and summer dresses.

However, once I brought them home I realised I had a serious problem – my wardrobe was literally bursting. Now, one solution that occurred to me was to buy more furniture; however that isn’t really an option given the tiny size of my flat so I had to think of a better storage solution!

The answer came from my partner who suggested we buy some vacuum pack bags to seal the clothes in and then store them under the bed. It turns out that this is a genius idea and I am genuinely so impressed by these bags. They cost around £12 from Amazon Prime (which you can get a free six-month subscription to if you’re a student) and were delivered the next day. I went from having a big pile of clothes on the floor of my bedroom to two bags neatly stored away under the bed!

I then realised that for a lot of students, particularly those graduating this year, this is around the time that people start to move out of their houses. For those of you moving out I have one thing I would ask you to do: when throwing things away, consider if they would be better received by a charity shop instead!

When I moved out of my student house the street was lined with bins filled with unwanted stuff from student houses, and to see this is a real shame when there are so many people who could benefit from items such as clothes and bedding in particular.

If you live in the student areas in Portswood you are in luck because Portswood High Street is literally lined with charity shops, and you can pick any to donate your items to. Plus, if you go in you can ask for bags to put stuff in, which saves you using bin bags and many charities will collect these bags when full from your home for free, which saves you having to carry it into the town yourself.

The British Heart Foundation will also collect any unwanted furniture, which saves you the job of dismantling it and trying to carry it out of the house yourself.

Other charities that I really support are S.C.R.A.T.C.H, The Basics Bank, Jamie’s Computers, The Society of St. James and Two Saints which all support homeless people living in Southampton.
You can find information such as what donations they are most in need of, and how to donate to them on their websites.

Happy packing!

Emma