Moving and getting rid of junk/stuff!
 

Cleaning out the garage and attic as a start to our move. She's picking out stuff to save. If you haven't thought about it sitting in the attic of this house for 20 years, or it was moved from the attic of the house we lived in for 10 years before that, do you really need it/want to save it?

She's finding stuff to put in the RV that we can "use", I think most of the cabinets are already pretty full. I think she wants to turn the RV into a new attic.

Life's life. If that stuff helps make her happy, how big an obstacle is it to your happiness? This is a big move/change, I can only imagine the stress.

Storage Facility in BFE. If it's been in the attic for 20 years you don't need it in the RV. When we downsized a few years ago we cut our sq/ft in half and actual storage even more. We have ~ 10 medium boxes of "memories" related to the kids in our attic. The rest I dumped on the sly. She never asked to see it before...

Problem solved.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1493513510.jpg
Seriously, we've talked about moving to a warmer climate when we retire, and I have no idea what we're going to do with 90% of this stuff. Probably the same thing you're doing.

Nice looking RV, what is that? Yeah, tax records in boxes going back 30 years,(my employer will do free shredding on those). 30 or more years of paperback and hard back books, text books from College 39 years ago, Unbelievable amount of stuff/junk. I can seen keeping a few Statistics, Chemistry and other technical text books, since I still work in the engineering field, but....

Save the original artwork, fine furniture, family heirlooms, I get that. But junk, junk, junk gotta go.

When we were getting ready to move I told the wife that everything had to fit into a 26' uhaul.

We let the kids, reatives, and friends have first crack at the furniture. All free, but they had to haul it off. Sold or gave away much of the rest. Our new house is just as large as our old one, and accationally I'll miss a tool or something. But we should have gotten rid of more, I'm sure I've put stuff into the attic that we will never see again.

We gave the kids some other stuff that they were going to inherit anyway. Now when we leave this house there really is nothing we really worry about losing. It's just stuff, and we have insurance.

But it's been three years and I've noticed we are accumulating again.

Shredding tax papers feels ReALLY good.

I have a rule that gets broken like all the rest of my rules. Nevertheless, the rule is that when something new comes into the house, something old leaves it.

It works in theory.

I'll take the books, I can use it as set dressing. None of that porn stuff though! :)

Sorry, already tossed.

We have gotten rid of massive amounts of stuff in the past 6 months. We don't miss a thing. If you can buy it later IF you need it - get rid of it

Books and clothing are hard to get rid of. I've made an effort myself to sift through what I have accumulated over the past 20 years I have been in this house.

It's a mindset more than anything else.....

Did giving away your garage things jump start this? It's a good thing. We've pared down a lot of our stuff, and one advantage I have is that I don't have an attic. One thing I did last year was to take old photos and slides to Costco and have them transfer them to DVD's. Then I packed away those I wanted to keep & tossed the rest. Felt good.

When I moved out of West Stockbridge, I found boxes from college, that I packed in 1988.

I just googled "Motorhome Stacker trailer" and went with that pic. I know motorhomes have basements, but that trailer gives you an attic for all your stuff.

After a quick search it looks like it's a Beaver Monterey, looks like it has slides on both sides.

I'm struggling with what to do with old family photos, I suppose the answer is to scan them, but that takes time and I have trouble letting go of a physical photo.

My kids will need to have an "estate" sale when I die. Cleaning out my house will be a nightmare!

Personally, I am of the opinion that personal and family photos are worth the trouble to keep. I have a couple boxes of them and I keep thinking if there's ever a fire (God forbid) I want to grab those - along with my pups of course. :)

Going to estate sales is one of several factors that made my wife and I decide to do a massive downsizing. We'd walk through some of these houses and, well, they looked a lot like our own :rolleyes: Tons of 'stuff'. Not hoarders by any means, but just accumulated stuff. Material stuff that is absolutely meaningless to us at this stage of our lives.

The tough part is actually getting rid of it all. We've been working on it for over 2 years and are just finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Even giving it away is hard work and time-consuming. It's liberating to not own anything but a few essentials. When we're done, my entire wardrobe will fit in a duffel bag.

BTW, I've heard from many people who go full-time in an RV and fill a couple of storage units with 'stuff' they just don't want to get rid of but don't have room to take with them. In every case, after a year or 2 they sold off everything in the storage units as well and never looked back.

letgo.com

If you have it your area its amazing what other people will pay to make your junk, their junk.

Y'all need to wear masks when you go in the attic and other dusty spaces.

moving confronts you with the stuff you have acquired
I remember move out of the parents with a pillow case and a paper bag
6 month later a GF and a mountain of stuff required a truck

later moves grew to multi-truck epics
maybe when I sell this place I will do it furnished
and reduce to a minimum level

I tough one for me was my Fathers clothes. His final years before retirement were big $$ earning and he loved nice clothes. I took 25+ huge plastic bags of really nice stuff, not my size or my son, to the salvation army donation center. Got a good tax write off but honestly it was gross how much money that represented. Maybe Tabs has a few pairs of his shoes...Dad was not into Dragon Jeans.

When you are done with your place Hugh, come on over and help me with mine.

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This is tabs idea of jean therapy....:eek: Disposing of many old dragging azz jeans...

So it sounds like part of your job is hoarding - in hopes that one day - you'll use it! :)

:eek: You're lucky you're not married to MY wife JavaBrewer. You'd have to relive this every six months. I just introduced her to a clothing consignment store in Westlake Village. At least I'll get 5 cents on the dollar back now.

trust me.

there is crap that you will lovingly wrap up, and box away..label it carefully, and put into a moving truck..only to take it carefully out of the moving truck to...NEVER even get around to opening that box. you know what that stuff is. if you're lucky, you packed something you DO need in that same box to even get you to open it.

i was lucky. i packed up and moved into a crap apartment. i had boxed up everything. at the apartment, i just stuffed the boxes into a bedroom walk in closet and never thought of that stuff again. until i got my house and had to move. i opened the boxes, took a quick peek in..and took it to the Goodwill folks. i should have never packed it in the first place.

purge..purge now.

Photographs? Not sure what will happen to mine when I am gone. Our daughter has never met some of my relatives so the photos may no longer have any meaning to her.
As for myself I love looking at old relative pics.

Books? If I have not read a book that I purchased 10-15 years ago for a while and I read it now it is like reading them for the first time.

Clothes? If they don't fit or if I have not worn them for 2 years then I give them to goodwill.

So yes the house is becoming a bit of a time warp.....:eek:

No condo living for this boy.

Actually they will ask for it exactly two weeks to the day after you toss it!

I am by no means a hoarder but I am sort of cluttered, so I am fortunate to have a partner who is fanatically organized and ruthlessly minimalist. I am in the middle of moving and she made it her mission, as I was preparing to move out of my old home, to make sure that I didn't move anything that I didn't need to. Her tendency is sort of a reaction to her parents' maximalist tendencies; eventually, going through their house (and her dad's hangars) is going to be a bit of a nightmare.

Write their names and significance on the back of the picture, approximate dates also. Do it soonish

Well said! Soonish?:eek:

I guess I'm sort of lucky. Our house isn't cluttered. My wife is the type who keeps things simple. I don't have much in the way of clothes. My wife's 8x13, walk in closet is full of her stuff. I only use one shelf and a sparsely populated, three foot hanger section on the bottom half of one corner. My only clutter isn't something I consider excess right now anyway. The tools in my garage are the result of half a century of accumulation, my tractors and yard equipment are things I consider necessities. The only other things are my store of car parts that I'm slowly getting rid of.

My wife and I purged big-time before we moved to Germany. Between a yard sale, donations and giving stuff to friends, I thought we did a good job. It was quite liberating. Yet, we get to Germany, rent a larger than average (for a German family) house and it still feels full. Maybe, I'll purge again, lol.

I want to start a big building project but need to clear out a load of stuff before.

Buying up Porsche parts is much easier than selling them but I just can't bring myself to throw it away

My wife has been into the minimalist thing lately.
She decided my stuff was a good place to start ....