You’ve Got Too Much Stuff. 3 Smart Ways to Declutter Your Home by 2024.

SMUG MINIMALISTS often tout the “one in, one out” rule, a clutter-control practice that involves removing one item from your home any time you add another. But during the amped-up accumulation of the holidays, even typically type-A housekeepers can find themselves derailed and searching for ways to cull the excess. “So much stuff is coming into our homes this time of year, along with pressure to be jolly,” said Chicago-based professional organiser Sarah Parisi of the Clutter Curator. “It’s a natural time to declutter.”

To help expedite the process, here she and other home experts share tips for deaccessioning effectively.

What to Do If…You Want to Make Some Cash

Prioritise. “The biggest question I ask my clients is what’s worth their time,” said Washington, D.C.-based decluttering expert Jenny Albertini. “Identify which pieces offer the highest return and focus your efforts on [selling] those.”

Local auction houses or upscale online décor marketplaces—like Incollect, 1stDibs or Chairish—are Albertini’s go-to for unloading particularly valuable furnishings. For everything else, New York-based interior designer Amy Lau prefers Facebook Marketplace. “It’s quick and commission-free,” she said—and though managing the selling process can be laborious, the payoff is usually worth it.

Craving a truly clean slate? Check EstateSales.org to find a house-clearing company to prep your home for a monster tag sale. “They’ll keep a percentage of the profit,” explained Albertini. “But you do much less work.”

What to Do If…You Want to Do Good

“The best way to get rid of stuff is whatever gets it out of your house fastest—usually donation,” said Dallas-based decluttering expert Dana K. White. For that reason, she encourages clients to think of organisations like the Salvation Army as service providers—and not to get hung up on which charity feels like a “just-right” match. Start with local homeless shelters, churches or Goodwill, which is as “ubiquitous as Starbucks” and a “good option for generalised donations,” Albertini said. Animal shelters sometimes accept odds and ends—like pillows and bedding—that other organisations won’t.

If you’re ready to part with an item but believe someone else could cherish it, steer toward organisations like Humble Design. This nonprofit—which operates in Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, San Diego and Seattle—collects donated furniture and household items either by drop-off or pick-up and stores the goods in their warehouse. Humble’s designers and volunteers later “shop” the warehouse to furnish homes for families emerging from homelessness. Similarly, to keep reusable household items from landing in landfills, Habitat for Humanity’s ReStores accept used furniture, appliances, housewares and building materials and resell them to the public at discount, using the profits to build affordable housing worldwide.

What to Do If…You Want to Do Almost Nothing

Does decluttering seem like just another chore? For clients who are loath to add another item to their to-do list, Albertini recommends OfferUp, a classified service akin to Facebook Marketplace that requires fewer fussy photos and descriptions. She also likes the consignment site Kaiyo; it will pick up, store, clean and deliver your furniture to its eventual buyer for a percentage of the sale price. For anything leftover, hire a hauling service like 1-800-Got-Junk, Dolly or Junk King, which do 100% of the heavy lifting for you. Bottom line, says Lau: “If you don’t love it or use it, lose it.”

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Berkshire began liquidating its big stake in the banking company in mid-July—and has already unloaded about 15% of its interest. The selling has been fairly aggressive and has totaled about $6 billion. (Berkshire still holds 883 million shares, an 11.3% interest worth $35 billion based on its most recent filing on Aug. 30.)

The selling has prompted speculation about when CEO Warren Buffett, who oversees Berkshire’s $300 billion equity portfolio, will stop. The sales have depressed Bank of America stock, which has underperformed peers since Berkshire began its sell program. The stock closed down 0.9% Thursday at $40.14.

It’s possible that Berkshire will stop selling when the stake drops to 700 million shares. Taxes and history would be the reasons why.

Berkshire accumulated its Bank of America stake in two stages—and at vastly different prices. Berkshire’s initial stake came in 2017 , when it swapped $5 billion of Bank of America preferred stock for 700 million shares of common stock via warrants it received as part of the original preferred investment in 2011.

Berkshire got a sweet deal in that 2011 transaction. At the time, Bank of America was looking for a Buffett imprimatur—and the bank’s stock price was weak and under $10 a share.

Berkshire paid about $7 a share for that initial stake of 700 million common shares. The rest of the Berkshire stake, more than 300 million shares, was mostly purchased in 2018 at around $30 a share.

With Bank of America stock currently trading around $40, Berkshire faces a high tax burden from selling shares from the original stake of 700 million shares, given the low cost basis, and a much lighter tax hit from unloading the rest. Berkshire is subject to corporate taxes—an estimated 25% including local taxes—on gains on any sales of stock. The tax bite is stark.

Berkshire might own $2 to $3 a share in taxes on sales of high-cost stock and $8 a share on low-cost stock purchased for $7 a share.

New York tax expert Robert Willens says corporations, like individuals, can specify the particular lots when they sell stock with multiple cost levels.

“If stock is held in the custody of a broker, an adequate identification is made if the taxpayer specifies to the broker having custody of the stock the particular stock to be sold and, within a reasonable time thereafter, confirmation of such specification is set forth in a written document from the broker,” Willens told Barron’s in an email.

He assumes that Berkshire will identify the high-cost Bank of America stock for the recent sales to minimize its tax liability.

If sellers don’t specify, they generally are subject to “first in, first out,” or FIFO, accounting, meaning that the stock bought first would be subject to any tax on gains.

Buffett tends to be tax-averse—and that may prompt him to keep the original stake of 700 million shares. He could also mull any loyalty he may feel toward Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan , whom Buffett has praised in the past.

Another reason for Berkshire to hold Bank of America is that it’s the company’s only big equity holding among traditional banks after selling shares of U.S. Bancorp , Bank of New York Mellon , JPMorgan Chase , and Wells Fargo in recent years.

Buffett, however, often eliminates stock holdings after he begins selling them down, as he did with the other bank stocks. Berkshire does retain a smaller stake of about $3 billion in Citigroup.

There could be a new filing on sales of Bank of America stock by Berkshire on Thursday evening. It has been three business days since the last one.

Berkshire must file within two business days of any sales of Bank of America stock since it owns more than 10%. The conglomerate will need to get its stake under about 777 million shares, about 100 million below the current level, before it can avoid the two-day filing rule.

It should be said that taxes haven’t deterred Buffett from selling over half of Berkshire’s stake in Apple this year—an estimated $85 billion or more of stock. Barron’s has estimated that Berkshire may owe $15 billion on the bulk of the sales that occurred in the second quarter.

Berkshire now holds 400 million shares of Apple and Barron’s has argued that Buffett may be finished reducing the Apple stake at that round number, which is the same number of shares that Berkshire has held in Coca-Cola for more than two decades.

Buffett may like round numbers—and 700 million could be just the right figure for Bank of America.

You’ve Got Too Much Stuff. 3 Smart Ways to Declutter Your Home by 2024.

Worried about new acquisitions filling up your home this holiday? Here, organisational experts share tips to jettison old, unwanted items—whether you’re motivated by profit, charity or sheer exhaustion.

What to Do If…You Want to Make Some Cash

What to Do If…You Want to Do Good

What to Do If…You Want to Do Almost Nothing

When will Berkshire Hathaway stop selling Bank of America stock?