downsizing advice please

P

paxtonstafford

New Member
Location
midwest
Looking for advice suggestions etc from folks who have had real good and bad experiences with downsizing, prep to moving to smaller quarters-what I think I would like is a very part time helper to help sort organize and pitch-stuff for toss, to donate, lots of garage sale type stuff what to do with that.

Do no want more hassle -the whole idea is achieve downsizing from two houses both fairly well pack ratted -in addition to the regular stuff- antique furniture and pieces worth a significant amount of money according to eBay etc.-

Seems like I think I want an eBay type person who has the time, motivation, to assist me part time over a several month period of time in order to maximize the money involved -lots of expenses beside paying a percent to a helper- shipping, moving etc- this furniture is old oak very heavy and has to come up steps-I don’t want to have to pay someone to take several thousands dollars worth of antique furniture off my hands. Of course I will need that money to relocate - thanks all.

in other words a part time experienced downsizer hobbiest
Again some one with first hand experience dealing with similar situations- thank you all for your advice-
 

First I would decide what I wanted to keep and then I would contact the best auctioneer in the area and ask them to auction off the remaining contents of both homes.

Auctioneers are not inexpensive but they work to get the highest price for your goods and when the auction is over everything is gone.

Good luck!
 
I agree with Aunt Bea. I’ve read about many people using auctions to get rid of stuff that they have inherited and very successfully
 

I have a friend who does this part-time but it's not her favorite thing to do, LOL. We live in a high labor market so she charges $25/hr. She just helped a woman who was a hoarder - a SERIOUS hoarder - move to another city. It took her client much more time, even with considerable help, than planned.

I think her advice would be:
1) Start NOW. A gigantic task is more manageable if you break it down into small projects. Start with a single wall, for example. Don't just move things around. If you haven't used (or even really looked at) an item in a year, it's not something you need.
2) Don't get caught up in the "...but this is worth $$$$$$" trap. It's worth nothing to anyone just sitting there. Divorce yourself from the ego/pride of ownership.
3) Prioritize - you'll have limited space and energy. It may be nice to have it, but in a small space everything counts. What you take with you must be worth the space it takes up and the energy to move it. It might help if you imagine having half the space you have now. What are the things which will make that smaller space feel like home to you?
4) Categorize those possessions. There are "must haves", "nice to have", "pretty but for someone else to appreciate". Don't rush through it, but don't dawdle interminably, either. Restrict yourself to, maybe, two hours a day. Two working hours, not two "oh I remember the story of this" time-wasting. Then stop. Go make yourself a cup of tea or coffee and read a book, or watch TV.
5) Lay in a supply of Scotch tape and Post-its. Anything you can't move yourself, tag it with the category.
6) The next time you start working, take 10 min to look over what you did last time. Is there too much in the "must have" pile? Is there something you want to move from one category to another? Do it now. Then start work on a new wall/corner/room.
7) At the end of a week's worth of work, check over how much is in each pile. You'll have multiple days' worth in your "must have" pile - now you can look at those items against one another. Maybe you marked Object A as a "must have" on day 1, but on day 3 you also marked Object F as a "must have". But they're both big, and sort of similar. Maybe F is a better choice to keep than A. So you move A into the "nice to have" pile.
8) Downsizing is choosing. First priority is what you love vs what you like. Concentrate on what you love. The other two piles can be taken care of later. Auctions, estate liquidators, Craigslist, Next Door, eBay, Habitat for Humanity, charities, neighbors, friends/family - lots of options.

If my friend's client had done this for even a couple of weeks before calling her, she probably could have saved at least 40% of the money she spent hiring her. The steps above were really all my friend helped in clarifying*. The actual decision-making had to be the client's responsibility (e.g., yours and only yours).

(* well, that and moving boxes around. Her client had some physical handicaps which prevented her from doing everything herself.)

HTH! Good luck with your efforts. We're downsizing too, and it's a job, for sure!
 
Right before we put our home up for sale, we had a garage sale. The goal was to get paid to have people haul off what we no longer needed, not make money. We were very successful. My only issue was I had to keep reminding my cousin who was helping us that the goal was to get rid of stuff, not make money. She kept complaining my prices were too low. We were able to get rid of all of it in about 4 hours! We still have too much stuff and we are going through it once more before we make our last move to our new retirement home so we will have even less to move.
 
paxtonstafford said:
Looking for advice suggestions etc from folks who have had real good and bad experiences with downsizing, prep to moving to smaller quarters-what I think I would like is a very part time helper to help sort organize and pitch-stuff for toss, to donate, lots of garage sale type stuff what to do with that.
Do no want more hassle -the whole idea is achieve downsizing from two houses both fairly well pack ratted -in addition to the regular stuff- antique furniture and pieces worth a significant amount of money according to eBay etc.-


Seems like I think I want an eBay type person who has the time, motivation, to assist me part time over a several month period of time in order to maximize the money involved -lots of expenses beside paying a percent to a helper- shipping, moving etc- this furniture is old oak very heavy and has to come up steps-I don’t want to have to pay someone to take several thousands dollars worth of antique furniture off my hands. Of course I will need that money to relocate - thanks all.
in other words a part time experienced downsizer hobbiest
Again some one with first hand experience dealing with similar situations- thank you all for your advice-
Click to expand...

I would hire someone that does not have the "attachment" to the things you've "hoarded". Much more of an unbiased approach to getting rid of your "stuff".
Personal attachments to the things you've accumulated will make your decision to keep or sell very difficult.
A second person with no personal attachment will help you with the decisions to continue "hoarding" forgetting rid of the stuff.
Doing it by yourself will be very difficult.
Best of luck!
 
I have posted this before but it's some of the best advice I've ever been given. I visited a 105 year old postal patron after she had a mild stroke. She said " you know, when I went from a five bedroom house to a one bedroom apartment it was SO stressful. All that worry and stress about what to keep, give up or donate and THIS is what we all wind up with (and she pointed to each) a bed, a dresser, a TV and a chair".
That was our mantra when we downsized.
 
We are downsizing, in order to move. Many things are going to local Goodwill, a few things to neighbors and somethings into the trash. My wife was the "saver" before we met. She has told me (straight out), "get rid of things you know we won't use again, but just don't tell me about it." I've done just that. 99% of our loose photos are now on flash drives aka usb's.

We were hoping that our apartment complex would have another garage sale before we left, but management seriously doubts that will happen. Not enough people were in the garage sale and most didn't make enough money to even be in it. So, without a garage sale, things have to go somewhere. We don't want to pay to have things moved, just to get rid of those things where we move to. Now, that IS a waste of moving money.
 
The Salvation Army will come out and pick up what you do not want. Just schedule a time online and tell them how many boxes of books, clothes, kitchen items, etc you have and they will pick up and give you a receipt for taxes. Very easy for me. I just kept what meant something to me. The kids got first pick and The Salvation Army the rest.
 
Garage sales / Yard sales. It's helping me get rid of a lot of things. What we can't sell we'll probably donate - or simply toss. Have to "downsize" the budget as well. Still want a landline but need to reduce telephone bill, so switching to VOIP to cut the bill in half. Dumped cable TV bill and started streaming.
 
When we retired and downsized we kept pot & pans, cooking gadgets & valuables. Our kids had the run of the house to choose what they wanted. Everything else was donated to charity. It's amazing how great it is to do without the clutter that can accumulate over the years.

Advice would be to realize stuff is just that stuff that doesn't get buried with you. There is no value in anything once you die.
 
We went from 2200 SQ FT 3 BR home and 1500 SQ FT of garage and workshop to 234SF of 5thwheel camper and 625 SF of storage building.
Must keep pile.... Moved to storage/camper. thus said pile needs gone through again... LOL
Several yard sales, Craigslist listed stuff.
Remaining pile.... donated most of it to Hospice and a secondhand store for domestic violence.
 
It can be a brutal process. But so freeing! In the last year, I've cleaned out one drawer, one shelf, one area (more or less) a day. I lost track of the bags and boxes of stuff I've donated. Truth is, I don't miss any of it. Heck, I don't even remember most of it. Doing it a little at a time, but every day, worked well for me. Once a week trips to the charity shop, so I couldn't change my mind. We're staying put, so I don't need to technically downsize, but getting rid of the clutter has been great.
 
I am a published author. I have copies of my published work, mostly magazine and newspaper articles, that I've saved for 20-30 years without looking at it. Now it's time to downsize. It is painful to get rid of stuff that is part of my past life. I don't know if I should discard it or keep it another 20-30 years without ever reading it again.
 
smilingmore said:
I am a published author. I have copies of my published work, mostly magazine and newspaper articles, that I've saved for 20-30 years without looking at it. Now it's time to downsize. It is painful to get rid of stuff that is part of my past life. I don't know if I should discard it or keep it another 20-30 years without ever reading it again.
Click to expand...
Hi there. :)
This is an old thread from 2019, so it will not likely get answers from those people who had posted in it, back then;

but it is fine to restart it, by putting your post on the same topic, here.

If it were me, I would keep those items you mentioned, and try to get rid of other stuff instead. When I sort out, with goal of discarding and downsizing, I usually decide to hang on to things like those that have great meaning for me.
If I toss enough other items, I feel okay about it, and I know that I wouldn't be happy discarding those that remind me of who I was.
 
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Kaila said:
Hi there. :)
This is an old thread from 2019, so it will not like get answers from those people who had posted in it, back then;

but it is fine to restart it, by putting your post on the same topic, here.

If it were me, I would keep those items you mentioned, and try to get rid of other stuff instead. When I sort out, with goal of discarding and downsizing, I usually decide to hang on to things like those that have great meaning for me.
If I toss enough other items, I feel okay about it, and I know that I wouldn't be happy discarding those that remind me of who I was.
Click to expand...
To remind me of who I was. What a wonderful thought. I thought I was downsizing to have a new life and to forget the past, but you make me realize that I was someone worth remembering.
 
I sold my place and bought a place in a huge city and love it. Walmart, Costco, all the shopping I could dream and all the advantages of living in a large city. Small 3-2-2. 1983 model. Remodeled it slowly and love the place. Best thing I ever did. I live in a very rich city and paid cash for the place. My taxes just dropped by 3000 / yr. I live here basically for nothing..
 
That was very good advice by @Lethe200.

Slowly I’m working at whittling things down around here and evaluating what will be most important to me when the time comes to move. Also, getting rid of some of the junk now so the kids don’t have to deal with it in case I’m not here.

In the opposite season, I move my clothes to a second closet. Recently I brought all the clothes to one. It’s crowded and is forcing me to thin things out.
 
3 years ago I downsized to a 855 sq ft condo. I have emptied a in-laws house, helped my mom downsize and a few friends. It’s very liberating to live with less. My clothes take up half of a closet. When I buy something new a similar item leaves.

I like some home decor items because I dislike a minimalist look. However, many people have too much stuff. I love how easy it is to keep clean and find anything I need quickly.

When you read the what have I bought thread it’s very enlightening. It shows what people value and prioritize. Personally I tend to spend money on big purchases like home improvements, furniture, vacations, etc.

I also spend a lot of money on my two dogs. Some people say that they can’t afford pets. What most really mean is that they aren’t willing to sacrifice in other areas to be able to afford them as they aren’t a priority for them. They are my highest priority and bring me that much happiness. Others may not feel that way.

Other’s much prefer items that make daily life easier or feel better such as lots of new clothes, frequently dining out, concerts, etc. There’s no right or wrong of course as long as you can afford what you’re buying. I find human behavior all very interesting.
 

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