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The reason it is still in the cupboard is almost never that you might need it. It is that getting rid of it would mean admitting the money is already gone. Naming that honestly is what unsticks the decision, because the money left when you bought the thing, not when you release it.

The sunk cost problem, said plainly

An expensive thing you do not use is not an asset. It is a cost you have already paid, currently charging you rent in space and attention. Keeping it does not recover a single unit of value. It only spreads the disappointment over more years.

The question that helps is not "was this a waste of money?" — that answer is fixed and unchangeable. It is: would I buy this today, at today's price, knowing exactly how much I have used it? If the answer is no, you are not deciding whether to lose the money. You lost it already. You are deciding whether to keep paying storage on it.

An order of options, best first

Straight to the bin should be last, not first. In rough order:

Use it deliberately for two weeks. Some things are unused because they are stored badly, not because they are unwanted. Move it into the room where the relevant activity happens and see. This costs nothing and occasionally saves a genuinely good object.

Give it to someone specific. Not "donate someday" — a named person who has mentioned wanting one. This is the fastest route and the one that leaves the least residue, because the object continues its useful life and you get to watch that happen.

Sell it, but with a deadline. Selling is the most common way the unused pile becomes permanent: the item moves from cupboard to "to sell" box, and the box is still there next year. Set a date. If it has not sold by then, it goes to donation without further deliberation.

Donate. Fast, low friction, and requires no negotiation with strangers. For most low-value items this beats selling once you price your own time honestly.

Recycle or discard. For things nobody wants. Broken, expired, single-use, obsolete. Passing an unusable object to a charity shop is exporting the disposal cost, not being generous.

The rule that makes the decision small

Do not decide about the object. Decide about a date. "If I have not used this by the end of March, it goes" is a far easier sentence to say than "I will never use this." It is also more honest, because you genuinely do not know yet, and it converts an identity question into an appointment.

This is where knowing the last-used date changes things. "I think I haven't used this in a while" invites negotiation. "This has not been touched in 412 days" does not. The number does the arguing for you, and it removes the possibility of quietly resetting the clock every time you consider it. Kept surfaces exactly this as an idle list with the days attached.

The category that needs different treatment

Sentimental objects should not go through this process at all. Applying a usage test to your grandmother's letters produces a wrong answer, because their function is not use. Keep them, and keep them properly — in one bounded container, treated as a collection rather than as things you failed to sort. What makes sentimental objects a problem is not their existence but their spread. One box, respected, is not clutter.