The Stages of Eliminating Stuff

Posted May 10th, 2012 by kerri and filed in small house living
Tags: , ,
64 Comments

One of the pieces I didn't want to part with

 

 

Stuff.

We buy it, we find room for it in our homes, we clean it, pack it, move it, store it and sell it.

For most of us, stuff becomes an obses­sion until we no longer own it, but it owns us.

When we moved to Our Little House from a 1,100 square foot house packed with stuff, we real­ized just how lit­tle room we needed once we got down to it.

We were acci­den­tal in the Small House Movement, find­ing out through liv­ing it how free­ing liv­ing with­out our stuff could be.

The prob­lem became what to get rid of, as I not only had our stuff we had accu­mu­lated through 21 years of mar­riage, but we had my mother’s stuff, some of it sen­ti­men­tally priceless.

Here’s the process by which we elim­i­nated (and con­tinue to elim­i­nate) stuff from our lives:

 

  1. Sales and dona­tions: When we decided to move, we knew we would be down­siz­ing some­what. We also needed to rid our house of clut­ter in order to stage it to place it on the real estate mar­ket. I went through every­thing, includ­ing the back of clos­ets and kitchen cab­i­nets left vir­tu­ally untouched since we moved into our house 17 years prior. If I didn’t need it in that length of time, I didn’t need it. We sold what we could and donated the rest. We went through the same process with my mother’s things. What I didn’t want was either sold at a sale at her senior liv­ing apart­ment or was given away. What I couldn’t yet part with was boxed.
  2. Storage: We had two stor­age units, one for our stuff and one for Mom’s. This is a good route if there are things you don’t think you can yet part with, or that may be valu­able and you haven’t decided how to sell. While this option does cost money, it’s best as it gives you time to sep­a­rate your­self from the sentimentality.
  3. Donations, round 2: I was more ruth­less on the sec­ond round of dona­tions, giv­ing over 50 more boxes of stuff to the Salvation Army. We had room on our prop­erty to move the stuff from our stor­age units to build­ings we had here, sav­ing us money and giv­ing me more time to weed through all of the stuff and let go. A fun fact is that after I made a huge dona­tion to the Salvation Army, I began see­ing some of my mother’s things in a retro shop in our small town. The owner had pur­chased the goods from the char­ity and was re-selling it once again to peo­ple who like retro dec­o­rat­ing. It made me feel good that I got a tax deduc­tion for the dona­tion, the char­ity received its ask­ing price, the busi­ness owner kept the cir­cle of busi­ness going by reselling the items, and peo­ple were pur­chas­ing goods that were already made and on the mar­ket, which helps the planet!
  4. Letting go of the rest: I think the final stage of down­siz­ing is let­ting go of the rest. I had long known which items I could not ever part with of my moth­ers, includ­ing an antique dresser, her china, her bean pot, an antique dry sink and a lamp she used for read­ing by her bed­side. I knew I had to make these items func­tion in our small space. I could not keep any­thing for just “looks,” so I found a way to make them work in Our Little House or in The Belle Writer’s Studio.  The dry sink (in the photo) is a cof­fee stand in the studio.
  5. Documenting: I’m tak­ing pic­tures of the rest. While Mom’s huge din­ing room set was one of her most prized pos­ses­sions, it was not a very expen­sive set to begin with, and years of use, mov­ing and stor­age had taken a toll. Even if I had room for it, the set would need some repair for use again. I’m tak­ing pic­tures of it and film­ing it, along with prized art and other antiques I can­not use. The pho­tos and film will allow me to still have the stuff, for­ever in my mem­ory, with­out the trou­ble it takes to main­tain or the space needed for storage.

Have you down­sized? How did you, or how do you plan on free­ing your­self of stuff?

64 Responses to “The Stages of Eliminating Stuff”

  1. Tim and Leslie says:
    May 27, 2012 at 8:01 am

    Kerri,
    We will be fin­ished with the con­struc­tion of our lit­tle 540 sq. ft. cot­tage in about a month or two. We are mov­ing from a large Victorian. Most of our antiques have been col­lected over our 38 years of mar­rage, but some of them are fam­ily heir­looms. As has been said, it's just "stuff". Nobody can take your mem­o­ries. I am really tired of main­tain­ing, heat­ing, cool­ing and car­ing for space that is used once a year, if that. My wife is tired of tak­ing every day she has off, just do dust rooms that havn't been touched since the last time she dusted it. We are get­ting excited to move and sell…this.…house! :-)
    Check out our blog at: http://​www​.lit​tle​house​on​the​hill​.wee​bly​.com

    Tim and Leslie

  2. Martin Goff says:
    May 17, 2012 at 9:55 am

    I have antiques from Great Aunts/Grandpartents/parents who worked hard to buy them–they came Ireland with noth­ing and from what you are work­ing to go to as a life style.I would find it is dis­re­spect­ful to dump these things-they are more than sentiment–they are fam­ily his­tory. With that said-there are so many other things I real­ize I can and will part with, but not the fam­ily history!!

    • Kerri says:
      May 17, 2012 at 1:55 pm

      We all must decide for our­selves what is impor­tant to us and what we need to keep, for sure, Martin, and I can see not part­ing with heir­looms that you may be able to pass down to your chil­dren one day. We have to con­sider this though, although my par­ents worked hard to buy the antiques my mother had when she died, we do not have room for it, nor do I want to have a great big house to main­tain those items (we're talk­ing a huge pie safe, a very large din­ing room set that seats 12 peo­ple, a match­ing china hutch, a large spin­ning wheel…very large items) and I know my par­ents would also not want those items to be a bur­den to me. They are, really, just things. My nephews do not want them and we do not have chil­dren here in the states to pass them on to. When we are gone, it would be up to our execu­tors to then sell and deal with. But I def­i­nitely agree that if you have heir­looms that should remain in your fam­ily and fam­ily that wants them, you should do every­thing you can to pre­serve your family's legacy.

  3. Jennifer Margulis says:
    May 16, 2012 at 10:52 am

    We have not down­sized but I am so want­ing to GET RID OF MORE STUFF. I'm read­ing this at just the right time: my neighbor's hav­ing a yard sale Sat and we're think­ing of pig­gy­back­ing and haul­ing some boxes of stuff to her house. I don't care about get­ting money for it. It's just so FREEING to get it out of the house…

    • Kerri says:
      May 17, 2012 at 5:45 am

      Oh, def­i­nitely, you should do it, Jennifer. No mat­ter how small or large your home, it's always good to elim­i­nate the unnecessary.

  4. Connie says:
    May 16, 2012 at 5:59 am

    Just read your post.…we down­sized from a 6 br/3bath Victorian home to a camper! sold every­thing at a pub­lic auc­tion. Almost our entire home was fur­nished with fam­ily heirlooms.…heavy oak pieces.…and a baby grand piano that was my mother's 5th birth­day present from her par­ents. Though I didn't really have a prob­lem let­ting them go.…when the auc­tion was over, for a fleet­ing moment, I thought "WHAT DID I JUST DO!!". (none of my rel­a­tives wanted any of the fur­ni­ture.) You have a good sug­ges­tion of tak­ing pic­tures of every piece.…I wish I had done that. Of course I do have pics of fam­ily gath­er­ings where you can see some of the fur­ni­ture, but I don't have indi­vid­ual pic­tures of each.….oh well.…live and learn. This is a great idea for any­one who is down­siz­ing and I would highly rec­om­mend cat­a­loging and tak­ing the pic­tures.
    Onward we go.

    • Kerri says:
      May 16, 2012 at 8:04 am

      Honestly, Connie, I prob­a­bly wouldn't have thought of this had some­one here had not sug­gested the pho­tos. That's what is so great about our com­mu­nity, the shar­ing of ideas. Congrats on your down­siz­ing and I hope to see more of you here. :)

  5. Merr says:
    May 14, 2012 at 6:40 pm

    I can get very sen­ti­men­tal about items, but find that it is more my mem­ory than my attach­ment that is in play. I've found that tak­ing pho­tos can be very lib­er­at­ing and help­ful in my letting-fo process. I was heart­ened to see that you wrote about photo snap­ping as well.

  6. Cindyt says:
    May 14, 2012 at 8:53 am

    WoW Kerri I think you hit a nerve here for a lot of your read­ers. So many of us are need­ing to down­size either by choice or because it has been forced by eco­nomic rea­sons. I am enter­ing into my sec­ond round of major purg­ing since mov­ing to my lit­tle cabin on the Lake. Not only do I have my stuff to go through, I too have my mother's stuff that when I 'acquired aka was dumped at my place' when she had to go into a nurs­ing home. I just haven't wanted to deal with and is in two lit­tle stor­age build­ings on my prop­erty plus tak­ing up valu­able space in my clos­ets. I have decided to finally tackle it one box a week at a time. So much stuff! and it is such a free­ing feel­ing as yet another box hits the 'road jack'. Looking for­ward to hav­ing less! :) and more breath­ing room!

    My toma­toes out on the fish­ing deck are doing fab­u­lous BTW and my egg plants are get­ting babies on them! My squash suc­cumbed to some­thing. But my cucum­bers and pep­pers are healthy and pro­duc­ing! Yeah Fresh Veggies are just around the cor­ner. I did so far har­vest some Basil,lettuce, cucum­bers and about 8 nice ban­nana pep­pers! I am excited to have fresh food from my back yard and the two decks from con­tain­ers! Whoo Hooo! Love Farmer Cindyt

    • Kerri says:
      May 14, 2012 at 2:56 pm

      Good hear­ing from you, Cindy! Yes, most peo­ple have too much stuff and a lot of them are look­ing for ways to purge that stuff. It's a never end­ing bat­tle, I think. They say a good way to hit your goal is to make those small goals. Start with 1 box in a cor­ner and work your way out, etc. So glad to hear all of your veg­gies are doing good. I like the idea of those plants on your deck. I'll have an update on mine tomorrow.

  7. MyKidsEatSquid says:
    May 12, 2012 at 12:54 pm

    I just went through my kid­dos rooms today and bagged up too-small clothes to donate. I don't tend to get too attached to stuff but it's amaz­ing how quickly it can accu­mu­late on its own if you don't pay atten­tion care­fully. I'm find­ing we're get­ting more and more elec­tronic stuff. How do you keep your elec­tronic stuff to a minimum?

    • Kerri says:
      May 14, 2012 at 5:48 am

      My mom always went through my closet just before we went school clothes shop­ping in July or August. As for techie gad­gets, I quit buy­ing desk­top com­put­ers and now only buy the most com­pact lap­tops. I also don't have kids to worry about here, but one e-reader and an iPod is good for me. My hus­band isn't a techy so no wor­ries there. Maybe some of our other read­ers will have ideas.

  8. sarah henry says:
    May 12, 2012 at 8:54 am

    When you live in small spaces, as you and I both do, that old adage about if some­thing comes in some­thing else has to go out is a smart one to live by. I'm con­stantly prun­ing so we have room to move.

  9. Alisa Bowman says:
    May 11, 2012 at 12:45 pm

    I'm not too attached to most things, but one of my biggest prob­lems is not want­ing to put stuff in land­fills. So if I can't donate it or find some­one to take it, I tend to hold onto it. For instance I have old tro­phies. Does any­one take things like that?

  10. Sheryl says:
    May 11, 2012 at 11:09 am

    This came at the appro­pri­ate time — just when we're ready­ing our house to sell it and down­size. I appre­ci­ate all your tips. It's so hard, though, to part with things!!

  11. Irene S. Levine says:
    May 11, 2012 at 9:44 am

    Wonderful post. I really like the idea of pho­tograph­ing the things you really don't need and hate to part with.

    I'm also very mind­ful of "adding" any­thing more to the too much stuff I have!

  12. Nicki says:
    May 11, 2012 at 8:00 am

    My hus­band linked your blog post to me as he fig­ured I'd enjoy read­ing it. Which I did. I wrote on my blog recently about this as well. It's true, our stuff becomes an obses­sion and owns us. I wish more peo­ple could expe­ri­ence how free­ing it is to finally be back in con­trol of our stuff.

    • Kerri says:
      May 11, 2012 at 8:22 am

      Thanks, Nicki, I'm glad you enjoyed the post! It not only becomes free­ing for us, allow­ing us to live bet­ter, but in the end, as described in the com­ments below, it also helps our chil­dren and those we leave to deal with our stuff after we're gone.

  13. Liz T. says:
    May 11, 2012 at 7:34 am

    I had a crash course in sen­ti­men­tal­ity about 18 months ago when my new hus­band died, fol­lowed by his (sin­gle) older sis­ter a few months later. They had very lit­tle other fam­ily and I was shocked to real­ize that every­thing they had (they were in their 50s-60s) imme­di­ately became worth­less. I had only been with my hus­band a cou­ple of years and knew noth­ing about his v]clothes, books, and the boxes and boxes of stuff in the base­ment. Where did it come from? Is there some­one who might want it for sen­ti­men­tal rea­sons? No clue. Luckily I didn't have to clean out his sister's house, but once her nephew and other brother gath­ered a few things, they had to hire some­one to come and take it all away. A few things were auc­tioned, but most were donated or went to the land­fill. Really opened my eyes. I've been able to let go of a lot of stuff since then (reform­ing pack­rat here) but I still have a long way to go.

    • Kerri says:
      May 11, 2012 at 8:20 am

      Those inci­dents really do open our eyes, Liz. When my mother became ill, I can remem­ber cry­ing and telling her, "Don't make me go through all of this stuff after you're gone." She finally let go of some of her stuff, but not a lot of it. The process with her stuff was really more stages than I describe above. We moved her to a senior liv­ing apart­ment and took stuff she didn't want to part with or she would give to me. I had a sale at her 3 bed­room duplex, we boxed and stored the rest. We had another sale at her senior liv­ing apart­ment and boxed and stored more. We moved most of it down here and have had two rounds so far of dona­tions. I'm work­ing on the last round now, sort­ing items with value from more dona­tions. It's been an exhaust­ing, 6-year process.

  14. Ascyna Talking Raven says:
    May 10, 2012 at 9:12 pm

    I so enjoy your thrifty ideas for liv­ing the New American Dream–Less is More…My Beloved John and I got really tired of pay­ing all of our money to take care of stuff and a place to house it…so, we bought a 29' 5th wheel with one slide out, and love it…We live in a sweet RV park in Coburg, Oregon with the back of our "home" to the woods.…it is par­adise, and if we don't like it.…well,we can just move down the road..By the way, we got our 5th Wheel off Craig's List used…it is a great lit­tle home.…and the bonus is..we will never be homeless…

  15. Pam says:
    May 10, 2012 at 8:28 pm

    I ask myself the ques­tion "will either of the boys want this when I'm gone?" If no, I get rid of it. Makes it pretty easy, but I have a long way to go! I have a full base­ment apart­ment that my Mom lived in until she passed, and I decided to rent it since it would be wasted space. Forced me to get rid of alot, so 1 floor down, 2 to go! My prob­lem is I don't know the best way to deter­mine the value of things, so inde­ci­sion takes over and I do noth­ing! eBay, Craigslist, garage sale, or Salvation Army — aaaack!

    • Kerri says:
      May 11, 2012 at 5:07 am

      It can be con­fus­ing, espe­cially when deal­ing with antiques. The Internet and eBay have told me what some things I have are worth. Good luck, it's a long process!

  16. Sheryl M says:
    May 10, 2012 at 8:12 pm

    Great blog! We have now entered the seri­ous part of down­siz­ing — I just got a job work­ing where are retire­ment prop­erty is — and we can now see the light at the end of the tun­nel, if we can get rid of the stuff.
    So far we've not rented stor­age space, and I'm hop­ing we can get rid of things with­out doing that. I've taken pic­tures of fur­ni­ture we want to get rid of and texted them to friends ask­ing if they want any­thing. Giving our stuff to friends is a bet­ter solu­tion (to me) than giv­ing to Goodwill — at least I'll see it again some­day (maybe). :-)

    • Kerri says:
      May 11, 2012 at 5:06 am

      That is great and if you can help a friend all the bet­ter! Glad you found us over here at Living Large!

      • Marcia Weber says:
        May 11, 2012 at 6:58 am

        I remem­ber all too well the process of elim­i­na­tion, when three years ago I sold my large farm­house and moved into my wooden rail­road caboose (337 sq. ft). I, too, started with a stor­age unit, then when my chil­dren started up their first house, I was able to give them a large chunk of the antiques, piano, etc. I also gave away to sev­eral friends, and when I visit them, I also visit my belong­ings. The hard­est part for me was what to do with the things my chil­dren didn't want. It was dif­fi­cult to under­stand why they didn't want some things that were so pre­cious to me, but I have come to terms with the fact that in the big pic­ture, it's the peo­ple who mat­ter, not the things.

  17. Jane Boursaw says:
    May 10, 2012 at 7:10 pm

    I always love that phi­los­o­phy from "Your Money or Your Life," I think the book is. Stuff is just stuff. And don't love any­thing that can't love you back. I do tend to get owned by my stuff, and it's time to make a change.

  18. Sian says:
    May 10, 2012 at 6:54 pm

    When down­siz­ing some of the hard­est things to part with were books. Here's how I went about that process. I use the library a great deal, so if I knew I could rent the book from the library, it was donated. This helped me so much! Hope it can help some of you as well.

    • Kerri says:
      May 11, 2012 at 5:04 am

      Thanks for your post. We have a lot of read­ers here, so I'm sure your sug­ges­tion will help. We've talked a lot about eread­ers as well.

  19. Melanie @ Frugal Kiwi says:
    May 10, 2012 at 2:46 pm

    I love the idea of tak­ing pho­tos of things that are part of your mem­o­ries but no longer phys­i­cally fit into your life any­more. Fabulous tip.

    • Kerri says:
      May 10, 2012 at 4:31 pm

      Thanks, Melanie. Someone here in our com­mu­nity actu­ally sug­gested that one a cou­ple of years back. It's brilliant!

  20. Maureen says:
    May 10, 2012 at 11:54 am

    We just moved from 20 yrs in a huge 4000 sq ft house, on almost an acre, to 1250 sq ft… sold much of the big fur­ni­ture… still have tools, gar­den stuff, glass­ware, and soft blan­kets and stuff.… donated and sold and gave away.… it was hard, but now I think/ why did I have all of that stuff?? I have so much more time now with­out it…It is dif­fi­cult but worth it. I did not want to rent a stor­age and waste more money so I was ruth­less in let­ting go… now at the rental, we want to buy some­thing even smaller.… Thanks for your site.

    • Kerri says:
      May 10, 2012 at 2:21 pm

      Thanks for your com­ments, Maureen. If peo­ple can be ruth­less the first time around, it does ulti­mately save you time and money. But many peo­ple have a hard time with get­ting rid of every­thing all at once. I give you kudos for being able to do it! Good luck on down­siz­ing even more.

  21. Kerry Dexter says:
    May 10, 2012 at 9:05 am

    not so much down­siz­ing here (I live in a space about the same size as yours, Kerri) as con­sid­er­ing a move after being based in one place for a long time. slightly dif­fer­ent in focus, but still con­sid­er­a­tions of what to keep, what and how to let go, and what's really nec­es­sary to look for in a new place.

    • Kerri says:
      May 10, 2012 at 10:20 am

      Although we purge on a reg­u­lar basis, if we were to move again, I know I would find more stuff to elim­i­nate. It is very impor­tant thing to do when we move, no mat­ter the size of place we cur­rently have.

  22. Heather L. says:
    May 10, 2012 at 9:04 am

    What a good post to dis­cover just when I was con­sid­er­ing spring clean­ing. I like your strat­egy of going through the "stuff" more than once. I would really like to tackle the garage this year as there's so much in it that has no use­ful purpose.

  23. Becky King says:
    May 10, 2012 at 8:52 am

    we are mov­ing into a 360 sq foot 5th wheel for our retire­ment jour­ney… after 40 years of mar­riage and 32 of them in this house.. we are down to four live­able spaces until the final move (with very lit­tle furniture)…bathroom, bed­room, livn­groom and kitchen all the other rooms are painted and close up…it taken me nearly a year and many g-sales and dona­tion trips.. (never donate to GOODWILL) I love it.. we now know liv­ing in a RV for 5 years will be easy peasy for us.. we love that we are only sur­round by the things we love most and how easy our world has become because we declut­tered our lives… we are so HAPPY and CONTENT… and will be more so once we rid our­selves of more stuff.. I enjoyed your story!!

    • Kerri says:
      May 10, 2012 at 10:18 am

      Thank you, Becky! I'm glad you enjoyed it. I like read­ing about your down­siz­ing jour­ney as well. Ah, how much stuff can be accu­mu­lated over decades. I remem­ber when my mom and dad moved from our tiny bun­ga­low to a larger house after they had been mar­ried nearly 35 years. Oh, my. I applaud your efforts.

  24. Sue says:
    May 10, 2012 at 8:25 am

    The photo books you can make on shut­ter­fly, snap­fish, & other sites are great. I am in the process of mak­ing some from the kids art­work and school­work that I saved through the years. The advice about ask­ing the kids if they want some­thing is good as I have found most of the times they don't. Their tastes are dif­fer­ent and they don't always have room either.
    It does help to know that some­one is enjoy­ing the things we might only store for­ever so that eases the pain of donat­ing things with mem­o­ries!
    And I strongly agree that the things you do keep and have all have mean­ing or pur­pose. I love to dec­o­rate but there is just no place in a tiny house for exces­sive decor with no mean­ing. Rule #1 — if you don't love love love it, don't let it make it to the first round of down­siz­ing! Take a photo, make a book called Memories or My Favorite Things or Things I Loved and Lost and then send the item out into the world to find a new home!
    Enjoyed your arti­cle, as always, Kerri. It helps to have sup­port when a per­son down­sizes. Sort of like a Downsizers Anonymous!

    • Kerri says:
      May 10, 2012 at 8:37 am

      Great sug­ges­tion on the photo books, thanks, Sue! I like the title, "Things I loved and Rehomed" bet­ter than using the term "lost." When I was in a weight loss pro­gram once, they told us not to use the term, "lost weight," because it makes you think you need to find it and get it back. :) I like Downsizers Annonymous, maybe we need a 12-step program!?

  25. Susan Flynn says:
    May 10, 2012 at 8:05 am

    We just con­verted our 2-car garage to an office/guest space, so we lost a lot of stor­age. We rented a Pod for the dri­ve­way to store tem­porar­ily what had been in the garage until I could go through it and weed it out (my hus­band was in the mil­i­tary and we had a lot of stuff from our tours over­seas etc; some of it had been stored unopened in the garage since we came home from Korea in 2000! Yes, I'm not proud of that.) I also had boxes from when my mom and dad died. It has been hard to let go, but I donate what­ever my daugh­ters don't want, and I feel good that some­one will be able to use what I can't keep any­more. I like it when my daugh­ters take some of my prize items, since I can "go visit" them at their housees.

    • Kerri says:
      May 10, 2012 at 8:35 am

      I agree, Susan, going to visit your stuff at some­one else's house is bet­ter, espe­cially when you don't have to dust it any­more! :) It's always hard to let go of some stuff, espe­cially that of our parents.

  26. Steph Auteri says:
    May 10, 2012 at 7:38 am

    Some things — like my clos­ets — I'm good at purg­ing. In fact, twice a year, I do yet another purge of my closet and send my bags off to the VVA.

    Other things — the things with sen­ti­men­tal value — are tougher to part with.

    Though I am learn­ing more about what I don't need.

    Two years ago, we put out condo on the marker, and we've been try­ing to sell it ever since. In order to stage our condo, we've put A LOT of our stuff in stor­age. It's inter­est­ing to see what I've missed dur­ing the past two years (my books, my bread bin, and my food proces­sor) and what I haven't (pretty much every­thing else!).

    • Kerri says:
      May 10, 2012 at 7:54 am

      Storing stuff for stag­ing a house gets you in that purg­ing frame of mind, for sure! It is funny what we truly miss and things we thought we would, we don't.

  27. Alexandra says:
    May 10, 2012 at 7:03 am

    I down­sized when I moved here from France. I had already left a lot of "stuff" behind when I got a divorce from my French hus­band, and 20 years ear­lier, when I left the USA for France. I actu­ally took an arm­chair from my child­hood bed­room to France, then trans­ported it to my new husband's home in Sweden for safe­keep­ing. Over the years, I have come to feel less attached to it. Moving seems to be the life change that makes us encounter this type of sit­u­a­tion. I rec­om­mend keep­ing impor­tant per­sonal papers, let­ters, etc., in a spe­cial place. My mom threw out let­ters from my first boyfriend and memen­tos he had given me once I no longer lived in her house. They meant some­thing to me. Family pho­tos and per­sonal papers are what can­not be replaced and used to be what peo­ple are advised to grab in case of fire. Now that we all have so much saved on com­put­ers, I think the com­puter is what I would save as well if a fire were to break out.

    • Kerri says:
      May 10, 2012 at 7:53 am

      Thanks, Alexandra, for your com­ments. YOu bring up sev­eral impor­tant points. The first being is "out of sight, out of mind," it's funny how we think we are attached to some­thing until we no longer can see it every­day and then that attach­ment grows less. I think that's why it's impor­tant for peo­ple to first store things and they can expe­ri­ence that for them­selves. Important papers, yes! I still ahve diaries from my child­hood packed some­where in the stor­age build­ing here. My mother also kept all of the let­ters she exchanged with my father while he was in WWII. I hope to do some­thing, though I do not know what, with them. Possibly put them in abook form for my nephews and great nieces and nephews to have and pass down. Things like that can never be replaced, for sure. I agree with the com­puter, one rea­son i went to a lap top. In case of a wild fire, it would be much eas­ier to grab and get on the boat than that huge desktop!

  28. Kerri says:
    May 10, 2012 at 6:57 am

    I know that prob­lem very well, Carol. My mother was a col­lec­tor of antiques. While none of them are worth a whole lot, they all have a spe­cial place in my mem­o­ries. I chose the things I just could not ever part with and had to let go of the rest. They're bet­ter off with some­one who wants them, has room for them and can dis­play and appre­ci­ate them as my mother did.

  29. Brette Sember says:
    May 10, 2012 at 5:52 am

    These are good tips. I'm at the point where if I don't want some­thing I should save it for my daugh­ter who is 20 and will be, at some point, get­ting her own place. Fortunately my par­ents have some stor­age space I can use.

    • Kerri says:
      May 10, 2012 at 6:06 am

      That's good you don't have to rent the stor­age space, Brette. One thing I would rec­om­mend is ask­ing your daugh­ter if she might want some­thing when she moves out. That way, you are not stor­ing it for noth­ing if she wouldn't want it.

  30. Carol says:
    May 10, 2012 at 5:38 am

    Thank you for this arti­cle. I'm in the process of down­siz­ing and your tips are great. I'm going through the first purg­ing process, things I really don't need and should sell or donate. One room at a time so I don't get over­whelmed. I'm also keep­ing an eye on things that I will still use in this house, but when we move to our lit­tle house, I won't. It's a tough process but I'm actu­ally find­ing I can be bru­tal about what needs to go. And it's kinda fun. I have 37 months (who's count­ing) until I retire and we move so there may be lots of steps.

    • Kerri says:
      May 10, 2012 at 6:05 am

      Counting down the months, very fun, Carol! :) At least you're get­ting a run­ning start at it. When my mother passed away and we decided to move, it was all very sud­den, so I only had 2 months from the time we began the process until we moved as the house sold within a week of being put on the mar­ket. I wish I would have started as early as you, that gives you much more time to process what to keep and what to give away.

      • Carol says:
        May 10, 2012 at 6:28 am

        My biggest prob­lem is that in my lit­tle house, there are many sen­ti­men­tal things. My par­ents built it in 1954. Many of the things there remind me of my mother and may be hard to part with. But I have lots of pic­tures and there is noth­ing of great value. So I'm fol­low­ing your advice, pic­tures help mem­o­ries, and I don't need to keep everything!