Adventures in Down-Sizing
How-to for Getting Rid of Excess Stuff
One important step in deciding to live full-time in your RV is realizing how much downsizing you will need to do. When we first started RVing, we had two houses equaling about 4,800 square feet of space. We had accumulated decades of stuff within those houses, and with a total of six children (Greg has 4, I have 2), who also accumulated stuff and are now adults, the task of down-sizing was very daunting. It is very freeing to get rid of stuff, but it can be a very large project.
It is understandable that some folks will have trouble getting rid of their material things – after all, it did take years and years to obtain these things that seemed important to you at the time. If you are having any reservations about getting rid of some of those things, consider the following:
• Having fewer things reduces clutter and gives you less to worry about. It is calming when your living space is free of clutter and mess.
• Most of your possessions are non-essential. Think about what you actually need to live: food, clothing, shelter.
• Less stuff means less work to do and more time for yourself. You will have fewer items to be dusted, cleaned, sorted. You will also save time by not having to search through excess clutter to find the things you need!
Once you’ve decided to downsize, it is good to have a plan of action in place before beginning. I will say that you need to be “organized” about getting organized!
I will also say that if we accomplished this, then anyone can. I know of few people that have more “stuff” than we did before we began our RV adventures. I have the pictures to prove it!
WHAT TO DO
Several steps can help you sort through all your excess possessions:
1. Tackle one room at a time
Getting one room finished helps you feel organized and accomplished, giving you energy to move on to the next one!
2. Sort items into four piles to begin with:
• Items that you can throw out
• Items that you can donate
• Items that you can sell (try to keep this pile to a minimum – only larger, more expensive items. Otherwise, it will take far too long to try to sell each item.)
• Items that you MAY want to keep
3. Go through items you MAY want to keep again, and pare the pile down more.
Do this several times until you have just essentials and things you absolutely love. I had to go through clothing a few times, and dishes / kitchen gadgets until I got down to just those that I used most often. Remember that if you need an item later, you can always go to the local resale store to pick something up.
4. Have a sale
Now you can deal with the items that you’d like to sell in a couple of different ways:
Hire an estate sale service
You can hire an estate sale service to have a sale at your home, or some estate sale companies will purchase items and resell them. Hiring someone to do an estate sale for you is a real time saver, as many of these businesses will handle the pricing of items, setting up everything for you, advertising the sale, and even getting rid of the remaining items after the sale is over.
Do-it-yourself sale
You can have your own estate / garage / moving / yard / rummages sale. We chose to go this route but there are some things that we learned that we should really share here.
• Don’t waste time putting prices on items unless they are larger, more expensive items. People will talk you down on price anyway, so in my opinion it is a waste of time to try to price every item. We had a “make an offer” type sale, which worked much better for us.
• If you call your sale an estate sale, be ready for people to walk through your house and go through everything. We placed items that we did not want to sell in several rooms that were locked during the sale. We also used yellow caution tape to put across any cabinets or closets that we did not want people to go into.
• We used walkie talkies during the sale so we could be on two different levels of the house, the main level and the basement, and be able to ask each other questions about prices, etc.
• Keep your money on your person at all times. Use a zippered pouch that you can put around your waist (I hate to say fanny pack but that is what I’m thinking of here.)
• If you have people who can help, definitely ask them to! We had people steal items, like a TV remote. Then they offered us a lower price because the remote was missing!
• Large items can be sold on craigslist, Ebay, Facebook Marketplace, Nextdoor, letgo. Collectibles are best on ebay. Large items that we didn’t want to ship sold well on Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace or Nextdoor.
5. Get rid of the rest
Go ahead and get rid of the items that are ” junk”, and take your donatable items to your local Goodwill or other organization that you would like to donate to. If you’re like us, you may need to rent a dumpster. For ideas on where to donate, see our web page NewLifeRV.us/minimize.
6. Don’t look back!
This one is important. Don’t worry that you sold some things too cheap, or that maybe you should have kept some things. Remember, they are just THINGS and can be replaced if really, really necessary. Someone else will get good use of it.