Why I’m Selling My Teaching Supplies: The Story Behind One of My Biggest Decluttering Projects Yet

Decluttering the professional gear

I don’t know if I’ve shared this before, but I was a teacher. Now I am a stay-at-home mom, and I’m so thankful for the opportunity to be home with my munchkins. Once the boys are in school, I plan on returning to work, and I’ll probably be a teacher again.

When I started teaching, I didn’t have a lot of support or information about how to improve my instruction, so I read everything I could get my hands on that would help me grow as a teacher. I ordered books from Amazon like there was no tomorrow. As the years went by, my collection of teaching stuff grew and grew. I became a mentor teacher, and I lent out my books to new teachers. I was so happy to have such a great reference library.

But the truth is, I never really used it. I would read things once, and then put them on my shelf. I lent the materials out to new teachers, but I have a sneaking suspicion that very few of them actually read the stuff.

When I left my teaching position to be a stay-at-home mom, I brought all of my stuff home with me. I gave a few things away, but since I planned to return to teaching, I wanted to save all of my treasures!

So, they took up about a third of our garage. Then we moved them across the country. Now it’s been a little over two years, and I still have a lot of my teaching stuff. It’s a little ridiculous.

If you’ve been reading this blog, you know I’m on a mission to sell my stuff to make money to pay off my student loans. Last week I realized that a lot of the books I was holding onto could be sold on Amazon for a nice price.

By the time I go back to teaching, there’s a good chance that the materials I have now will be outdated. It’s time for them to go to someone who will use them. And, it’s time for me to recoup some of the costs I put into my old classroom.

I posted most of my reference materials for sale on Amazon, and I’ve been super excited to sell off some of the books. As I work through some of the other teaching materials I had, I’ve decided to donate them to my children’s school. It’s nice to get rid of some of the stuff, and make more room in our garage for other things…like our car.

Have you decluttered any special collections? How did it go?

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