If You Still Have These 11 Things In 2025, It’s Time To Let Them Go
It’s time to move on and free yourself up.
PeopleImages.com - Yuri A / Shutterstock Letting go of things that you don’t need anymore not only reduces clutter in the home, but it can reduce stress in your life as well. Holding onto things from the past does nothing but keep you stagnant when you should be opening yourself to new experiences. And if you still have unnecessary things in your life now that we’re well into 2025, it’s time to let them go.
The less clutter you have, the less maintenance your home will need on an ongoing basis. You can try making a list of things you plan to get rid of and checking them off as you go to give you a sense of accomplishment. It might even make you mindful of the things that spend your money on and whether or not you actually need those things.
If you still have these 11 things in 2025, it’s time to let them go
1. Sauce packets from restaurants
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Pretty much everyone has their own version of a sauce packet drawer — an area in their kitchen that is designated for sauces that they collect from restaurants. Most people collect these packets in case they might want them later or for a worst case scenario when the restaurant forgets to pack them in their orders.
In an article for Plastics Today, Rick Lingle reports that Taco Bell partnered up with TerraCycle to produce more sustainable packaging for their sauce packets. The packets now use polyethylene (PE), a water resistant, flexible, and recyclable material. There has been some debate over the years as to how long each sauce packet should be kept for expiration date purposes. The genuine consensus is that they last from six months to at least a one year if stored in a dry area.
We all love collecting the sauces from the restaurants because it gives us a sense of comfort that we will need to use them for later, but honestly, it’s time to empty out that sauce drawer.
2. Expired medicine
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Keeping expired medicine in the cabinet is not a great thing to do. In fact, it can be dangerous. Over time, medicines lose their potency and can lead to unpredictable results if consumed. While medicines that expire may still work, it is not recommended that you try, as there is a chance that they won’t work or, even worse, could harm you if digested.
Ideally, one would toss the expired medicine away, but this is not recommended as they are considered biohazards. Local pharmacies offer drug take-back programs where you can safely dispose of the unused medicine.
According to a survey by Mott Poll Report on parents who have disposed of expired medicine in the past five years, 65% threw the medicine in the trash, 16% flushed it down the toilet, and 30% took it back to a pharmacy dropbox. If throwing it away is the last resort, then it is best to place the medicine in an enclosed plastic bag to avoid spillage.
3. Thank you cards
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We’ve all felt the joy of receiving a ‘thank you’ card and the feeling of pride one gets in sending one out to someone else. However, the more we rely on technology, the more major retailers like Hallmark, Joann Fabrics, and Michaels have to close their store locations. In 2024, the Tampa Bay Times reported that Joann Fabrics and Crafts recently announced closures of five of their major Tampa Bay stores due to bankruptcy.
According to a study by the firm IBIS World, greeting cards saw a decline in sales by 4.3% between the years 2019-2024. Not to mention the market challenges that the industry faces against digital alternatives. All of this has some wondering if the gesture of gratitude is even worth it anymore.
Thank you cards are considered a nice gesture, but it's easier and more environmentally friendly to message someone on social media or text to thank them for the gift that you have received.
4. Unused toys
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What better way to teach your children the benefits of letting go of things than by donating their unused toys to charity. You can teach your children humility and compassion for others while at the same time teaching them about how to keep their spaces clean. This will also make them appreciate what they have and not to take it for granted.
Having your children contribute back to society by donating can also help the environment. A study by the organization Material Focus found that 7.5 million electrical children’s toys remain unused within U.K. homes, with 72% of the toys still functional. These could be donated to charity, and around 16% of broken toys can be recycled.
5. Old newspapers
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Collecting old newspapers in your home can lead to clutter and hoarding tendencies. Not to mention the condition of the newspapers will degrade over time, so when you finally get to the day that you want to re-read them or use them for moving they will be so brittle that they fall apart.
A 2019 study by Statista found that approximately 2.8 million tons of paper from old newspapers was recovered for recycling in the U.S. This is the lowest it has ever been in terms of recycling newspapers since 1995.
Most people hoard newspapers so that they have something to wrap their dishes in when they move. Others use them for arts and crafts in school projects. As versatile as newspapers are, you really don't need ones from ten years ago just taking up space around the house. Let them go and see how much space you can have without them there.
6. Takeout menus
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Keeping a drawer of takeout menus was smart when we all still used landlines, but with menus for every restaurant you can think of available online now, physical takeout menus are a thing of the past.
According to a survey by Toast, over 40% of adults order restaurant takeout 3-5 times a month. Despite this, online ordering seems to be where the market is growing the most. There was a time when local restaurants needed the extra promotion, but with companies like DoorDash and Uber Eats taking the food delivery service industry by storm, no one really uses takeout menus anymore.
So, get rid of those old takeout menus by recycling them and going digital. Ordering online is faster, more precise, and reduces our consumption of trees.
7. Fax machines
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The sound that is omitted from a fax machine stays in your mind forever. These machines are loud, clunky and take forever to send a message across. While fax machines are still used to fax documents to some institutions or business offices, keeping one in your home is unnecessary.
Fax machines are not all bad when it comes to using them for office and work purposes. According to a report by Cognitive Market Research, the global fax machine market was valued at $1.5 billion in 2023 with an expected rise in 3.6% by the year 2030. Many businesses are keeping the fax machine industry a float, often using them for professional reasons.
But you have a fax in your home, you really don’t need it, especially if you don’t have a landline that connects to it. Let technology that you don’t need anymore go.
8. Plastic utensils
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Like sauce packets, some people collect plastic utensils from different restaurants every time they order in because they tend to just eat with silverware anyway when they get it home. Over time, these things accumulate, and while they are useful to use when you haven’t washed your dishes in a while, they take up unnecessary space in your kitchen.
According to Habits of Waste, the United States uses approximately 40 billion plastic forks, spoons, and knives and discards them every year. They estimate that by 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish. This is alarming because restaurants often hand these plastic cutlery over to the public frequently.
Think how much restaurants could save on money without investing into cutlery for their customers or how better the environment could be if we all opted out of using them all together.
9. Old decorations
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It's time to say goodbye to your old decorations, especially if they are broken. We understand the sentimental value, but you're just going to cause clutter in your home. Holiday decorations are a big expenditure for many people every year, and the one that generates the most waste.
According to a report by Joint Base San Antonio, Americans increase their solid waste by 25% between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. The extra waste amounts to 25 million tons of garbage, or about 1 million extra tons per week. That is an insanely large amount of waste that we generate every year.
We can reduce the amount of waste by recycling our old decorations that we don’t need or use anymore. When the holidays are over and done with it's time to put things that you plan to reuse away and recycle anything that you don’t want to keep.
10. Worn out shoes
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How many pairs of shoes do you really need? It's time to look into your shoe closet and get rid of any pair that doesn't fit anymore or that is too worn down to fix.
Wearing worn-out shoes can increase your risk of injury. It can also cause your posture and balance to get worse if you aren’t wearing the proper shoes.
Tess DiNapoli from Unsustainable Magazine states that most people need to replace their shoes every 8-12 months, depending on the usage and shoe type. Some shoes get so worn to the point where they become slipping hazards for the person.
It's time to look into your shoe closet and get rid of anything that doesn't fit anymore or ones that are too worn down to fix.
11. Calculators
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Smartphones and computers now come with digital calculators installed in them, so there is no need for physical calculators anymore. With this new type of technology at our fingertips the need for a physical machine to do the work for us is unnecessary.
Requiring physical calculators in schools hasn’t helped children complete their math homework any more easily. Calculators are extremely helpful, but when you rely on them consistently it can make your cognitive development worse. In fact, it hinders performance as people may fail to develop mental math skills or a deeper understanding of basic arithmetic.
If you let go of these things in 2025, you won’t miss them and not only will you have less clutter, but you will have peace of mind.
Sylvia Ojeda is an author who has over a decade of experience writing novels and screenplays. She covers self-help, relationships, culture, and human interest topics.