Downsizing...

My husband and I used to love flea markets, garage sales and I would buy stuff? intending on selling when I retired. While working I sold quite a lot and enjoyed doing it , now that I am retired I am not interested so I still have stuff? Once in a while I consign, considering how much I got rid of with our last move I find myself surprised at what I have left.
 

Post retirement downsize took almost a full year. Had to clean out basement, workshop, attic and rooms in a 2800 SF house. Not easy but I was motivated to get to recently purchased 900 SF condo near ocean.
Best thing was I bought a burn cage
(husband hoarded papers; school notebooks, canceled checks, junk mail..etc..)
I'd wait for a not-too-cold winter night and get that burn cage roaring with hundreds of papers. I'd stir with tree branch till it all became ash. Very Cathartic.
Glad to be out of a house that took up way too much of my physical and mental energy. Parting with stuff turned out to be a huge relief.
 
Ronni said:
We live in an 1800 sq ft home, all on one level. A step up to the kitchen and a step down to the den (older home added on to before us) and so easy to ramp if it became necessary. Driveway leads to back patio which leads to back door all one level.

As we’ve renovated the house we’ve pared down our belongings and given away to the kids and friends, or otherwise gotten rid of things we can live without. We’re still in that process and it likely will continue because it’s so easy to accumulate stuff! But really we don’t have much anymore so when it comes time for the kids to take over it won’t be awful for the
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I agree wholeheartedly that a person's accumulated stuff should not become someone else's burden to deal with. Even if you're not downsizing or moving anywhere, it's only fair that your stuff should be cleaned up and dispersed by you.
You know those closets of old clothes, the broken vacuum cleaner you were meaning to fix and hundreds of old snapshots in bins? Yeah, your kids and grandkids don't want them either.
 
Our house is about 1622 sq. feet. We have two floors and a basement. We recently bought it, and we are now reluctantly agreeing that it is too much house for us. We plan to have a single level home next, as neither of us can bear living in an apartment ever again! As for downsizing, I am collecting a lot of stuff in the basement to donate somewhere. It will be cathartic, I am sure, to get rid of so much stuff!
 
Jeni said:
it is hard and increasingly harder for some. Had a friend determined to save all her junk in hopes of some day being valuable.
i see it all the time someone who finds some knick knack that someone else will pay a lot for.
who know what it will be so people seem to never get rid of items just in case.
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Yeah, but never getting rid of those knick knacks that "might" some day be valuable just means stockpiling a lot of junk in the meantime.
 
Downsized from a three story house four years ago, to a 1400 sq foot house 2 years ago and now in a 2 bath 2 bedroom apartment 1000 sq ft. Got rid of a lot of stuff and now just have the basics. Want to downsize next summer to a one bedroom one bath as its too cold to move now.
 
The old house was killing me so we upsized to a low-maintenance community. We doubled our square footage (thanks to a full-size basement). It was a year-long process. The new house has appreciated at least 20%, (good inflation). So, was it worth it? Yes!!! Upkeep now is minimal, as everything is new. The old neighborhood never looked more tired. And our new neighbors are now some of our best friends. We party a lot. But it's a ton of work and it took yet another year to pull the new house together. COVID and the supply chain didn't help. Sadly, the honey-do list is back, same day, just different stuff. Think hard, good luck. ;)
 
I have been watching videos on YouTube about doing this. It is such a big thing that people have started businesses assisting seniors who are moving to smaller places. Tons of videos about it. I don't think I have really learned anything new about it just that I didn't do everything I knew. Having had a huge job cleaning out my parents' home I was glad that I didn't keep broken or useless items ever. My father could fix things so would save broken things to use the parts. And yes, everyone went to him to fix some item that he had a part for.
 
I haven't downsized but do work at making my house and property more manageable.

For instance....every few years I had to restain my barn, big project. Three years ago I steel claded the entire building, never will I stain again. Four acres fenced in for horses, got rid of the horses, took down all the fencing so now I don't have to weed wack around 160 post every week.

I have always kept a clean and clutter free home so not much to get rid of but I have tried to centralize my living space. My house has three sets of stairs so to minimize going up and down stairs I've tried to set up my living space all on one level.

I would like to have a ranch style smaller home but I just don't want to give up my property.
 
We will be faced with that in a few years. I hope to clear away a lot of junk that is just taking up space, and give it to charity. The woman from whom we bought this house sold us the things she had left behind for staging, so we decided that if or when we decide to sell, we will use her stuff to stage too, then sell it to the new owners. We want to live in a single story home because the stairs are getting hard to manage.
 
I'm working at getting rid of things a little at a time. Donating some things and simply ditching others. None of the kids I know are interested in anything that's used, old, or "collectable". They want brand spanking new things. I have an unbelievable amount of tools to get rid of... my husband's tools, his father's tools and his grandfather's tools. I'm up to my eyeballs in tools. 😵 Every time I look at all the tools, I feel faint.

I'm not adding any more stuff to my home. The last thing I want to do is accumulate more stuff! I only buy what I need or replace something that's broken or worn out.

My house and property are too big for just me, and I'm tired of taking care of it by myself. Ideally, I'd like to move to a small ranch house on less property.
 
As we become less able to do things, it seems natural to want less stuff. For example, I don't want to sew any more, or bother with kitchen gadgets. It felt good to get rid of the kitchen items, and the person I gave them to was happy.

I was thinking about buying a shelf unit to deal with my storage closet. The shelf would cost CAD 200 plus tax. It's probably more sensible to reorganize or get rid of some things.
 
I have moved across the country a few times so no stranger to downsizing. 18 months ago I sold my house because of a divorce and moved into a 850 square foot condo. I came with some furniture and 60 medium size containers. I have 3 closets and they aren’t all full. I find it really easy to keep it clean and it’s fast.

I have helped friends and family downsize and my ex had a ton of stuff that became my problem when the house sold in a few days and I had to empty it in a month.
 
I have joined Freecycle in my area (4 cities) and have started adding things to offer. It is free. The person who wants what I am offering will meet me across the street at the library or park in front of the courthouse. I cannot sell anything any longer or it will affect my rent. So I am giving it all away and I don't really care. I just want open spaces so I can get around with my walker easier. And it will be easier to clean and use. I hate having to take everything out of a cupboard for one thing. Easy access is what I need. I saw what they do here when a person dies with nobody to take their things. They put it in the dumpster and good furniture was donated to the local charity.
 
katlupe said:
I have joined Freecycle in my area (4 cities) and have started adding things to offer. It is free. The person who wants what I am offering will meet me across the street at the library or park in front of the courthouse. I cannot sell anything any longer or it will affect my rent. So I am giving it all away and I don't really care. I just want open spaces so I can get around with my walker easier. And it will be easier to clean and use. I hate having to take everything out of a cupboard for one thing. Easy access is what I need. I saw what they do here when a person dies with nobody to take their things. They put it in the dumpster and good furniture was donated to the local charity.
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Happy to hear what you’re doing to make your life and living easier.
But…..
I’m sad to hear, that you can’t sell items without having to claim as income.
Here, there is nothing like that……unless if someone sells on a place like EBay, someone here had mentioned that.
It’s terrible you can’t sell a few things, even to get a little extra money.
 
MickaC said:
Happy to hear what you’re doing to make your life and living easier.
But…..
I’m sad to hear, that you can’t sell items without having to claim as income.
Here, there is nothing like that……unless if someone sells on a place like EBay, someone here had mentioned that.
It’s terrible you can’t sell a few things, even to get a little extra money.
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I know. I used to sell on fb marketplace but they even request your SS# now. If you sell more than $400. in one year you have to pay taxes on it. You also go into the computer system that means that any type of help you get, like my rent, is affected by it. So now I am just looking forward to making more room and giving things to people who might really want or need them. At least I don't have to package them up.
 
katlupe said:
I know. I used to sell on fb marketplace but they even request your SS# now. If you sell more than $400. in one year you have to pay taxes on it. You also go into the computer system that means that any type of help you get, like my rent, is affected by it. So now I am just looking forward to making more room and giving things to people who might really want or need them. At least I don't have to package them up.
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Even on FB Marketplace, we don’t claim or pay taxes.
I’m proud of your generous heart.❤️.
 
We downsized from 2250 square feet to 1525 square feet, and negotiated a cross Canada move to be closer to family. I made a few thousand dollars selling stuff. The selling process took two years…and I didn’t sell enough. I donated carloads of stuff to various charities.

I had a process. I made lists of items in each room and noted whether each item was either a keep, a give to family/friends, a sell, or a donate. I always asked people first before unloading my stuff on them. I systematically went through the house room by room doing this process. When I broke it down like that, it didn’t seem quite so daunting a project.

In the end we decided to sell all our furniture but our bed and two living room tables, and start new again in our new home. We also didn’t take any window coverings.

We saved a lot by not taking furniture, but the movers were a bit stumped on how to pack things so boxes would not be crushed. Normally I guess they pack over and under furniture. We ended up moving half a moving truck of boxes. Still plenty of stuff!

Now we’re here we continue to sort and get rid of stuff. We still have too much for this house. I gave eight scrapbooks about the kids to the kids. I gave some artwork to siblings. I’m sewing up as much of the quilting cotton as possible, and have severely limited any new purchases. Books etc,…I can’t believe I moved them!…are being gifted to whoever can use them. We’re going through photos and narrowing it down to ones the family might want, or ones we want.

These might seem like small things, but Hubby’s hobby is family history. We’re talking five banker’s boxes of loose photos and 9 linear feet of photo albums. He’s become the photo repository for both his family and mine.

Anyways, those are a few of the things we have done.
 
The lady wants to downsize, we bought this place on the edge of The New Forest, near the market town of Ringwood, twenty-five years ago. It belonged to a former soccer star, who spent money on it like it was going out of fashion. Originally it was a single storey, two bedroomed bungalow. In this area two story houses are not allowed, something about the sensitivity of the forest, not a clue what that means.

What the soccer player had done was to remove the roof, double the floor size square footage then the new roof was a steeped pitch, like a church, that made room for a second floor but as the lowest part of the roof line is the same as it was, the property is technically a bungalow.

People on here talk about off loading all of life's accumulations, it's going to take some doing, we have filled this place, a home with twelve rooms, three of them are bathrooms, two of the bedrooms have an en suite bathroom, there's also the master bathroom. I told you that the soccer player just spent loads of money on the place. I'm hoping that we can put off downsizing for a while, I do love this place.
 
horseless carriage said:
The lady wants to downsize, we bought this place on the edge of The New Forest, near the market town of Ringwood, twenty-five years ago. It belonged to a former soccer star, who spent money on it like it was going out of fashion. Originally it was a single storey, two bedroomed bungalow. In this area two story houses are not allowed, something about the sensitivity of the forest, not a clue what that means.

What the soccer player had done was to remove the roof, double the floor size square footage then the new roof was a steeped pitch, like a church, that made room for a second floor but as the lowest part of the roof line is the same as it was, the property is technically a bungalow.

People on here talk about off loading all of life's accumulations, it's going to take some doing, we have filled this place, a home with twelve rooms, three of them are bathrooms, two of the bedrooms have an en suite bathroom, there's also the master bathroom. I told you that the soccer player just spent loads of money on the place. I'm hoping that we can put off downsizing for a while, I do love this place.
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You have six bathrooms or three? Your post is unclear. I don't really know what you mean by 12 rooms. Kitchen, guessing 5 bedrooms, a living room, a family room or den, a dining room and 3 baths. That adds up to 12, right?

Truth is, I haven't heard anyone refer to the number of rooms in a house since I was a small child, and even then I wasn't sure what counted and what didn't. Does an entryway foyer count as a room? Eat in kitchen - one room or two? Is a breakfast nook half a room?

In any case, I feel for your wife. She's probably tired cleaning a huge space and dusting all the accumulated possessions. My grandmother used to say that after a while you stop owning your stuff and it starts owning you. She was a very wise woman.
 


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