You sold everything! Really?

[Mr. M]

Like many of the you, after 40 years of non-stop work, the freedom of the road calls to me.

Now, I'm not a hoarder, nor am I overly sentimental when it comes to possessions. However, over the last couple decades of home ownership and raising 2 babies into fine adults, my 2000 square foot suburban house is full of... stuff!

To those of you who made the transition of unanchoring yourself from the typical suburban based life, however did you do it? Really.

[MaverickBBD]

While on a 7 month 15,000 mile trip a year and a half before we decided to fulltime, DW turns to me and asks how much are your guns worth? I asked her why she wanted to know. She said our friend whose husband just died didn't know how much to ask for his guns. I replied, forget the guns. The money is in the tools in the shop. I am (or was) a gun, knife and tool collector. She say o.k. if anything happens what do I want done with my tools. I told her to give my two buddies "right of first refusal". Anything after that just go ahead and sell. Fast forward a year and a half and we have made the decision to fulltime. We call the same estate sales folks that liquidated her father's household. They came in and took one look and said we had too much stuff for one sale. They would do one for the household and one for the shop. Each consisted of three days of sales. Anything that didn't sell after that then would either take to their consignment store or donate to charity. We were going to get a storage unit for wedding china, photos, etc. Against what everyone online advised. Turned out we ended up with about six plastic bins. Then my sister stepped up and said we could store that in her basement. We refer to that as the P.O.S. (pile of s.... or stuff).
In doing research everyone said it is just things. Don't get hung up on it. Also, fight the urge to be anchored with a storage unit. Then don't try and do it yourself. Bite the bullet and let an estate sales outfit have their cut. It is worth it not to hassle with it.
Good like and you will be amazed how painless it can be when it is behind you.

[Bubwheat]

I didn't sell anything, I gave it to family, and what they didn't want, I donated.

[j2m2]

Originally Posted by Mr. M

Like many of the you, after 40 years of non-stop work, the freedom of the road calls to me.

Now, I'm not a hoarder, nor am I overly sentimental when it comes to possessions. However, over the last couple decades of home ownership and raising 2 babies into fine adults, my 2000 square foot suburban house is full of... stuff!

To those of you who made the transition of unanchoring yourself from the typical suburban based life, however did you do it? Really.

We made the decision to go FT from our 4 level split S&B with an attached garage and fully landscaped front/back yard complete with a pond that was almost 4ft deep (1500 gal). The house belonged to my hubby ( I moved in years later with very little stuff) and his kids took most of the stuff in it as is belonged to them anyways. I gave my son 21 liquor boxes of stuff, a waterbed & old cupboard when I got rid of my stuff. I should say that my hubby was a packrat (so was his previous wife) and I really thought he would have a hard time letting go. He made the transition admirably. We have lived in our 5er for over a year and a half now & he still gets the urge to bring home things but I just give him that look. He then reconsiders. I still have all the family geneology from my mom stored but it is at my sisters place which is 3 miles away. I have finally moved all the CD's to a stick, which frees up more space and I am working on putting my pictures on an external drive. I have never really been attached to anything (never did have china/silverware/crystal) so didn't have to worry about that. I kept a few dishes/glassware that belonged to my grandmother and picked one or two prime things that came from my mom's stuff. We really pared down things because of space in HOWie. Even on our trip to the east coast this summer we still were careful about what we bought because of space. It worked out great because we saw alot of things we wanted but it came down to how much can we realistically take back and where in gods name were we gonna put it? That is the big thing as we have no counter space to display things so it makes decisions easy. I am constantly rearranging things around in here to give more space as I look at it this way if I have not used it in the past year then I do not need it that bad. I am a crafty kind of person so I had to downsize my 12x12 room of stuff. I put my sewing machine a rubbermaid tub & fit my iron beside it, then packed it with stuff & that was what I took for sewing. I kept a small toolbox for my jewelry making supplies and put the dremmel tool, hot glue gun & stuff in another smaller rubbermaid tub. I did keep my craft paints but really downsized on those as well. They are in a rubbermaid tub as well. That was the extent of my crafts. I was brutally realistic in what I wanted to do when we retired. My husband had a full workshop of tools & such and the only thing we regret is giving away the air nailer/stapler. But then again for us we couldn't bring everything with us over the Rockies when we moved west. So we just have to resign ourselves to the fact that we have to buy some things again....so be it. Long winded I know, but I hope it helps. Cheerio, Jeannine & Joe

[powerboatr]

Originally Posted by Bubwheat

I didn't sell anything, I gave it to family, and what they didn't want, I donated.

us to
then magically we have a good portion if it back at the rv port now
tools never left, bit lots of furniture did and then some came back over the years

we built the rv port to house the tools and a place to do resets and get out of the rv and do maintenance and doctor stuff

[Mrs.M]

Jeannine,

I've a sewing room with an entire wall devoted to the fabric stash. Since we've decided to start prepping for full timing, I've decided to start clearing out the stash. It was hard to let go of the gorgeous cotton velveteen I've been saving for a particular project for almost 20 years (I donated it for a theatrical costume). I haven't quite gotten the hang of it yet though, because I couldn't resist the herringbone weave linen I scored at a dollar a yard... It's a good thing I have a couple more years to work on this getting rid of stuff. And yes, a sewing machine will be coming along with us when we full time.

Mrs.M

[WheelingIt]

Well we DID end up with a small storage, but mostly for momentos. We got rid of pretty much everthing else using Craig's List, paperbackswap.com (for books), local charities, friends and freecycle.com (for anything we couldn't sell). Started ~3 months before we went fulltime and just kept at it until it was all gone.

All our electronics - gone (it'll all go obsolete in a year anyway)
All our furniture - gone
Most of our clothes - gone
Most of our Books - gone (we're all Kindle now)
DVDs - put into a CD holder and took with us

What we kept was some of Paul's financial books, paintings/momentoes and a few other things.

Now wish we'd gotten rid of EVERYthing because even the small storage is taking $$ every month

[Mr. M]

@ MaverickBBD- the estate sale agent is a great idea, I never thought of that. Of course holding your own estate sale is kinda like attending your own funeral, which kinda weirds me out.

James

[sfrantz]

We offered it all to family first - mostly free except some large furniture.
We sold lots of craigslist, some on ebay.
Then we held lots of garage sales.
Lots of garage sales.
Then we gave some valuable items to charity.
Then at the end, we held a "pay what you want" garage sale.
Finally we held a free garage sale. It was painful to see the scrappers take it all for scrap metal.

We were helped along the way by a thief who broke in and took most of the valuable stuff while we were out of town. Thanks to USAA replacement value insurance it actually helped us!

We own nothing that doesn't fit in our motor home and tow vehicle. It is all gone. It is very liberating. We love it.

It was hard getting rid of heirlooms, but if family didn't want it we sold it.
It was hard getting rid of all the books, sewing equipment, tools, etc.

We don't regret it at all.

For every item that we wish we'd kept (only a few) we still have many that we really don't need. We are still downsizing even after 18 months full time.

[dropframe]

We gave the things that meant something to us to our friends and family. Everything else we just gave away to people in need. It's just stuff, and we have been much happier without it all. You can read about our process at our blog.

Ultimately even my 11 year old kid is glad to be without a lot of stuff. The time and money spent maintaining 'things' can be bigger then we all want to admit. We are currently enjoying not taking care of stuff and just enjoying the moment.

[CampDaven]

House was under contract. What to do with all of the stuff we had forever and owed us nothing? Found a "picker". All house contents were listed, price per item agreed, he wrote a check and hauled it away, same day.

The kids inherited everything early (except money) and we drove off into the sunset.

Have fun now. You'll be dead a long time.

[Mr_D]

Well, my parents moved from a 7,000 sq ft house to a double wide, they had several sales and we took some.
Then they downsized and moved to a retirement home, so they downsized some more.
Then we had to move them to assisted living so we took some more of their stuff.
Then they died so we got the rest of what was left, stored it in a rental storage area. Got tired of paying the $120 a month rent so we moved what was left to our house.
Then my step daughter died so we moved her stuff and two grandkids into our house.
We were running a business but with the two grandkids both in school it was just too much so we quit the business. Still have the inventory and displays in the house.
Been trying for four years to get the wife to have a sale and sell what we don't want/need but so far no go.
We can't even use the family room, dinning room and living rooms as they're too full of stuff!!
One grandson did move out but that didn't help much, he didn't even take his bed with him!
I've been sorting stuff out to donate and my van has some stuff in it now, but with the wife's health going downhill I haven't had time to take it in.

[lenkerb]

We are in the last stages of selling/giving our possessions away and have a potential buyer for our house. We have been living in our RV since March and are really enjoying it. The time and effort necessary to keep a house/yard maintained while we are on the road was the reality check we needed to move on with our lives. It really was liberating to go through our things and decide why we needed it...not too hard to part with. We are in our early 60's and have found the work/camping programs make life on the road very interesting and economical.
Enjoy whatever makes you happy...we love travelling and seeing the country!

[jzick]

We are not quite full time - we winter in a small stick and brick in FL, but we have basically had major downsizing three times. First we moved from a 240 acre farm with several outbuildings with a machine shop, a garage with lift and inside space for 12 vehicles, and assorted other machinery and shops. We used an auction company to sell all the outside stuff, including my fire truck.

Our next downsize was after the kids moved out. We moved from a 6000 square foot home to a 1200 sq foot home. We told the kids that they had 90 days to get their stuff still stored at the house - after that we were going to sell it, and we did. Again, we used an auction house and gave what was left to charity.

Now we have duplicate stuff in a motorhome and a small stick and brick. The really important stuff, to us, fits into one small suitcase that we carry back and forth between the motorhome and the winter stick and brick.