Downsizing; Getting Rid of Stuff
Decisions! I had a lot of stuff! And since we had elected to sell the house to eliminate a house payment and the hassle of maintaining a home when we are on the road, we would either need to get rid of a lot of stuff or get a huge storage unit at a huge cost. We didn’t want the extra monthly cost. We want as much money available monthly for our new full time RV life as possible. So stuff had to go.
I was prepared to take my time over the next 3 years, which was how long I had calculated I could have all our dept paid off and we would be ready to retire. But then something changed that would speed up my downsizing. We ended up retiring from the County jobs we had and Jerry became the manager of a Christian conference center located on a beautiful ranch in the high desert in Boulevard, CA. We would do this for 5 years and then hit the road full time in January of 2022.
As part of the salary package, we are living in a 1 bedroom, 1 bath, small house on the ranch. When we accepted the position at the ranch, we gave our 2 week notice for retirement, and moved in to the small house. I had to make decisions right then about what I really needed and wanted to take with me because everything I had in our 2 bedroom, 2 bath house with a huge extra storage room would no way fit into this small house.
So this was different from moving from one place to next where you pretty much can take everything with you. A positive note is that I already knew I was going to have to downsize to go full time RVing, so I had already started preparing mentally for it, and this was a good transition step for that. The same techniques I used are now being used again as I prepare now to go from this small house to the RV, since I will not be able to fit all that I have in this house into the RV. It may be small, but it’s not as small as the 31 foot motorhome we will live in.
So, what to keep and what to take with me?! Decisions, choices, and balance!
- Trash – This part is the easiest. If I don’t ever use it, and nobody else would want it, trash it!
- Decide what I absolutely can not live without. As I packed for the new home, I started with only the things I knew I could not live without. With every item I went through, I asked myself if I could live without it, and I was pleasantly surprised at how few things there really were that I absolutely could not live without. And obviously, at this step, if I hadn’t used it in a long time, I obviously could live without it. Also, if I have 2 or more of something, maybe I only need one. And lastly, if I have 2 items that both do the same job, or I can narrow it down to the items that take care of multiple jobs in one, then that’s the one to keep.
As I am now downsizing again to live in the RV, I will be renting a very small, affordable storage unit for only those items I can’t live without but would take up too much space in the RV; and I won’t need them while RVing (a small amount of furniture, collectables, valuables, etc.) On a side note-sad story, I had started this process and the storage unit caught fire and we lost $35,000+ worth of items and received a $5000 payout for it. But that’s another story. So needless to say, I don’t have as much to store any more. Very sad. Oh well, it’s stuff. - How much space do I have left for some wants? Now I would ask myself, with the space I will have left, which things would be next on my list to take if have room. In this small house, I could bring all of the collectables and decorations, etc. sentimental things that I didn’t feel I could part with and donated a lot of other things that I felt I could part with. It gets tough here, because I wanted to keep everything, but I had to keep reminding myself that this move we were making was a good move and it was what we wanted, so getting rid of some things was worth this exciting move. And as I prepare for the RV, the same is taking place again. Going full time RVing is so exciting, it is worth this somewhat uncomfortable part of the downsizing.
- Donate, sell, give away – Items that I didn’t keep or trash were donated or given away and Jerry is selling some electronics and some of his hot wheel collection.
So, choices, decisions, balance, etc. always keeping in mind our exciting goal ahead, traveling the country full time!! We’re exchanging some things for other exciting things.