Whether you've adopted our "Something Comes In, Something Goes Out" rule or you're planning a full-fledged overhaul after receiving your Christmas gift haul, after the holidays is the perfect time to get out from underneath unwanted clutter and start the New Year fresh.

Why New Years? Symbolizing the renewal of life, New Year's presents a time to release all that we've been hanging onto physically and emotionally, creating room for a fresh start.    

We have expanded our list of places to donate (always a good idea to keep one on hand) for just about every knick-knack, whim-wham, and shim-sham you've been dying to decommission.

Master Donation List For Getting Rid of Almost Anything:

Baby Goods: Baby Buggy provides baby essentials for financially insecure families.  
Batteries/Electric Goods: Battery Recycling recycles a host of batteries and electrical materials. 
Books: Got Books collects used books and donates them to Books for Troops and Books for Teachers programs 
Business Clothes: Dress for Success is an amazing organization that helps provide appropriate business attire for women trying to get on their feet professionally. 
Children's Toys: Good Counsel provides temporary housing and guidance for single mothers and their children in need 
Clothes: Goodwill, Salvation Army and Housing Works collect gently used, clean clothes and home goods for their thrift shops to aid the poor and those afflicted with HIV/AIDS.       
Furniture: The National Furniture Bank provides furniture necessities to families ensuring that no child has to sleep on the floor. 
Home Improvement Supplies: Habitat ReStores accept donated goods and resell them to the public for a song.  All proceeds go to building homes for the poor. 
Sports Equipment: Sports Gift provides equipment to underprivileged children throughout the world. 
Wedding Dresses: Brides Against Breast Cancer will take your dress, sell it and donate the proceeds to fund wishes for women and men with metastatic breast cancer.

Everything Else: Freecycle, Freeshare and Craigslist's "free" listing (you'll find it under your local "for sale" section) are great resources for finding recipients for your unwanted goods.

If you're doing a massive household overhaul and just can't bring yourself to parse out individual donations, but have a little cash, call 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, who will take away your haul for a fee.  They'll even dispose of it responsibly, which earns them savvy points in our book.

Bonus Episode of Savvy TV: Check out where the rich and famous donate gently used goods.