Here's the Easy, Pain-free Way to Get Rid of Your Stuff
"A house is just a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff."
~ George Carlin
You can take it with you -- but you can't take all of it.
I don't know how many times I've heard someone say, "I could never live in an RV -- I have too much stuff." If this describes your thinking, remember the stuff doesn't own you. You own the stuff.
People say this with so much conviction like they would say that one leg is longer than the other one. They act like they were born that way and that there is nothing they can do about it.
If you say, "I choose to have all of this stuff," then you own the situation or problem. It's easier to deal with when you look at it that way. Your stuff can all be classified into one of four categories, A, B, C and D:
Category A: Things you really are going to use and take with you in your RV -- and remember a class A motorhome can hold a lot of stuff.
Category B: These are the things that you can sell -- your dining room table and chairs, the sofa you bought two years ago, your riding lawnmower. In fact, you can sell almost everything and it doesn't take long to do it.
CraigsList is a great way to sell larger items. If you price the items right and include pictures, they will usually sell within a week. If an item doesn't sell within a week, lower the price by at least a third and list it again. Be sure to list a phone number where you can be reached most of the time.
When someone is ready to buy something, if they can't get you on the phone, they will call another person selling essentially the same type of item you're offering. I have sold a lot of items using CraigsList. The system works great. You get a fair price and you get it sold quickly.
For smaller items, you can use eBay. For both CraigsList and eBay, be sure to show several good quality pictures. Pictures make items sell in a hurry. With eBay, you can set a reserve price, or you can just auction it off and take what you get. After all, usually, whatever it sells for is what it's worth and that's what you wanted to do in the first place -- sell the item for whatever it's worth.
I like to run an eBay auction for three days and start the bidding at $1. That gets a lot of people bidding. You can also offer a "Buy it Now" option with eBay. A lot of people don't want to wait. They want to buy your item and be done with it.
Category C: These are the things that you put in a garage sale one Saturday and then take what doesn't sell to Goodwill. This way, at the end of the day, everything in this category is gone.
Basically Category C items are things that you could buy at Goodwill for almost nothing IF you ever really needed them. In this category would be tools, old furniture, clothes, shoes, items you bought at garage sales because they were such bargains, all the extra dishes and cookware that you might use if you every had 30 people come to visit, all of the extra towels and linens, and how about all of the things on the top shelf in the kitchen cabinets that you haven't touched in years? You probably don't even know what's up there. The list goes on, but get rid of these things in a hurry.
Category D: This category is for sentimental things. A few of these things you can take with you -- but very few. Pictures and photo albums can all be scanned and put on a thumb drive. If you don't know how to do this, your kids will know how or there are businesses that offer this service at a very low price.
There's grandma's sewing machine, great grandma's lamp, the afghan that Aunt Sarah made for you, etc. Most people think that things on this list are the hardest get rid of. But in fact, these items can be the easiest to get rid of if you follow the procedure described below.
First of all decide who you want to have each of these things when you're dead and gone. (I know, you consider that to be a long way off, but think about it this way anyway.) Then give the items to them now. If they won't take the things now, you know what will happen to them as soon as you're gone. They will give them to Goodwill, sell them in a garage sale or just throw them away. If you have a few items that you want your children to have when they're grown, you can put these items in storage if you can't find a relative who will keep the items for them.
I know that it's hard to accept the fact that a lot of things you cherish will not even be considered worth keeping by other people when you're gone. That's just the facts. Don't blame your relatives. It's not their responsibility or duty to like or value the same things you like.
Remember when you give someone something, it's his or hers. Be sure to tell them this. If they want to sell it in a garage sale, that's fine with you. Of course, that's probably not the way you feel, but there's no need to lay a guilt trip on them and insist that they keep the item and cherish it. Even if they do keep it for a while, it may get thrown away later.
A lot of the things you will be giving people will be things that they will love and really enjoy having. By giving them the items now, you will get to see them enjoy the things and you'll know the items went to the people you wanted to have them.
By all means don't just put things in storage -- at least, not more than what will fit in the smallest storage unit they make, and not without setting a date to determine whether you're staying as a full time RVer.
So if you do put things in a storage unit, a year from now consider getting rid of even those things. Some people have found it easier to get rid of sentimental things in a two step process like this, but don't let it drag out into years and still have your belongings in storage.
In other words, put those things you think you just can't part with in storage for one year. At the end of a year decide if your future is full-time RVing. If so, give everything that's in storage to your relatives. If they don't want it, sell it. If it doesn't sell, give it to Goodwill or throw it away. I know of one couple who put things in a storage unit and didn't even see any of the things for seven years before they finally decided to go back and empty out the storage unit. The items in their storage unit were not sentimental things -- just stuff.
I also know a woman who has a very large storage unit that she pays $200 a month for and she has had it for over 5 years. That's over $12,000 she has paid and I wouldn't give $200 for everything in her storage unit. Most of it's not even sentimental items -- it's just things that she thinks she might need someday. Don't fall into this trap. Even $50 a month for five years is still $3,000 and $3,000 will buy a lot of stuff.
Look at it this way, if you put a big new storage building behind your house, how long do you think it would be before it would be full? We all tend to store stuff until all available space is filled.
Even with the limited storage space in my motorhome, I find from time to time that I have accumulated a lot of stuff -- things like the cardboard box that my backup camera came in (I thought I might want to return it sometime) and the power supply for the electric razor that quit working. I threw the razor away, but I still have the power supply. Who knows, I might need it for something sometime.
I think we are all pack rats by nature, but we can change. It will feel like a tremendous burden is lifted from your shoulders when you have gotten rid of all of the stuff you didn't really need. One person said he got rid of a lot stuff by following two rules as he went through the stuff.
Rule 1. If I didn't know I had it, out it goes.
Rule 2. If I haven't used it in the last year, out it goes.
Surprisingly, this got rid of about 90% of the stuff.
One thing that helps in getting rid of things is to set a date when everything has to be gone. For a storage unit that can be easy, just say, "I'm not going to pay another month's rent. Everything has to be out by the 31st.
Bottom line: You have all of this stuff because you choose to have it. Therefore, you can choose to get rid of it. You may not believe it now, but it's such a big relief when you get rid of all of the stuff that you've been hanging onto for years.
I know one couple who made a picture of their empty storage unit and then threw a party and invited their friends to help them celebrate the big occasion. It was a fun time.
Plan your party now to celebrate your freedom form STUFF!