Perhaps we should use the energy created by this past weekend’s Independence Day celebration to ‘free’ ourselves from the shackles of all the unwanted, unnecessary clutter clogging up our garages, storage rooms, attics, basements and minds.

Let me shine a little light on a bright new site that we can handily tap right into, called givmo.com. It’s similar to Freecycle, (which I used & loved when I helped a friend move), but there’s a big difference – Givmo is national, so you have a larger playing field.

You can donate items that you don’t need or want anymore and you can also look for pre-loved stuff. If you donate an item, the person who snags it for free, just pays for shipping — and if you find something you like, it’s free – you just pay the shipping.

Here’s how givmo essentially works – you send givmo a photo of the item, and when the item is “won” by someone who wants it, givmo sends you a shipping label. You put the item in a box, slap a label on it, and UPS takes care of the rest. Easy.

As if that weren’t enough, there’s more good karma — for every item you donate, givmo donates $1 to charity. The more you give, the more you get … and the better it feels, right? We also love how this approach keeps stuff out of the waste stream and landfills and into what I call, the use stream. Start using it and let your friends know about it, too.

(photo above: founder of givmo, Dustin Byrne)