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PRESS RELEASE 27.5.09
With the recession starting to bite, those of us who had a de-clutter over the bank holiday weekend weren’t doing it just to make more space in our homes – we were doing it to make money out of our unwanted belongings.
The Clutter Clearing Consultancy (www.clutterclearing.net) – a company that teaches people how to clear their clutter, whatever their budget and wherever they live, has reported a significant change in people’s motivations for clearing their clutter since this time last year. They saw a significant increase in demand (6 times more than for the same bank holiday last year) during last weekends bank holiday, as 1/3 of us spent the weekend de-cluttering our homes to find things to sell.
Clare Baker, who runs The Clutter Clearing Consultancy www.clutterclearing.net says: ‘A year ago our top tip subscribers were telling us that their main motivation for de-cluttering was to get more space in their homes. Now they’re telling us that their primary reason is to sell unwanted clutter to make money towards the every-day bills. We’ve seen the number of people wanting to find out if their clutter is worth selling increase by 650% compared with this time last year, and there’s a 6 fold increase in the number of people taking their unwanted clutter to car boot sales, whereas rather than giving their unwanted clutter to charity like they did this time last yera.
This change of priority is also reflected in the demand for help. This time last year more people were able to afford one of our consultants to come to their home to help them de-clutter, but now we’re selling many more eBooks than help in the home, probably because they’re 1/20th of the price. People want to de-clutter and want help to do it, but ultimately need to make more money than the help costs, hence they prefer the cheapest type of help available.’
According to the company’s survey:
- 39.5% of people gave their unwanted clutter to charity in 2008, but now only 17.6% do
- 26.8% of people say they don’t know where to start with clearing their clutter
- 25% of people want to clear their clutter in one go with a weekend blitz
- 21.4% of people have had their clutter for 10 years or more
- 18% of people haven’t got a clue HOW to clear their clutter
- 17% of people struggle with finding the time to clear their clutter
- 7.9% of people look on the internet to find out if their clutter is worth anything (1.2% in 2008)
- 4.2% of people go to a car boot sale to sell their unwanted clutter (0.7% in 2008)
As Clare says ‘it’s interesting that the desire to clear the clutter has actually increased as a result of the recession, despite the change in motivation. People are literally banking on their unwanted clutter being another person’s treasure’.
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Notes to editors:
1. Clare Baker set up and runs The Clutter Clearing Consultancy – www.clutterclearing.net
2 Clare Baker is available for interviews, discussions, phone-ins etc on clutter clearing issues.
3. Clare Baker has contributed to articles on the issue of clutter for many well known magazines, newspapers and the BBC radio network.
4. The Clutter Clearing Consultancy has a weekly FREE top tip that people can sign up for on-line.
6. Details of unusual things found amongst the clutter (including a pickled monkey) can be found on the website at: http://www.clutterclearing.net/Unusual-finds.asp
Please call one of the following numbers to book an interview with Clare.
