Selling house, changing lifestyle

I haven't done it, but my mom and dad did. Huge house with lots of mementos and what not. Mom was the sentimentalist, and dad was the practical one. They wound up giving most of the memorable items to family. Their thoughts were "why should we wait until we're dead for these things to pass on to our heirs?". I still have my great grandma's china along with several other items that have a lot of meaning.

Mom and dad did great. Once on a while, they'd stop by for a holiday, and you would see mom's eyes light up when she'd get the china out for Thanksgiving or Christmas meals. They full timed for eight years before mom passed away. Dad is 85, and still going strong. He doesn't miss being encumbered with "stuff".

By the way, thanks for your service in Korea. My son spent a year there also.

It was like a huge weight lifted off our shoulders. It's so liberating to get rid of all that 'stuff' collected over the years and never used. We've never regretted it.

WE danced a jig in the front yard as the stuff was auctioned off.

It was 'stuff'.......stuff that had been taking up space for years. Stuff that we thought was necessary----even though it hadn't been used routinely. Stuff that we soon learned had been a burden.

It was so liberating to get rid of that stuff.......we sold everything!

When we went full time we gave everything to the kids and grandchildren.....furniture, dishes, everything right down to all the boxes of important stuff we just had to save and have not even looked
at in 30 years(but it was there). Do I miss the STUFF....no we still have the memories. Boxes and albums of pictures I scanned and put on disk, well that started taking to much room now I have them transferred to Thumb drives much better.

Stuff is Stuff! We've lived without it in our motorhome for going on 9 years.
Never want to accumulate "stuff" any more

We're less than a week from selling the house. Can't wait. Been living several months without 90% of the stuff. Have done several long trips not wanting to return "home". Freedom of taxes, upkeep, insurances, same house boredom and liabilities. Should have done this 3 years ago. Will see more framily now.

We also were worried. But we came to the conclusion, and the rule we went by, was that "if we had not touched, thought, needed or wished we had something for six months" it was obvious that we did not need or want it and it when into the for sale pile. And we had one heck of a yard sale! We do have a 5 x 10 storage for things like her mom's dishes and the like but that's it.

Now we are free and not tied to "stuff".

We decided to not go fulltime because we didn't want to live on the road. But even when downsizing...take a look at your stuff and decide why you want it. It you have family heirlooms...take what you really want and have room for, then give some of it to family. Look at it all as if you were about to evacuate during a nature disaster and had time to move some items...what do you want the most? If a lot of it falls into that catagory then you'll have some tough soul searching to do.

I've been to a lot of household and farm auctions where almost everything was sold. There were tears involved and the folks who buy the items know there are memories stored within!

Lets face it some of the stuff made today won't last but items from the past are rare and should be cherished. I hope you can deal with this decision without a lot of pain.

Decide what is most important in your life and realize when we are all gone everything will go on to new owners that will either cherish it or junk it. Its impossible to see how society will accept the stuff from the past. I do not believe in junking out the older stuff, tear down and build new...I believe in renewing the older stuff because in many cases it's worth it! If we don't history is lost and once it's gone then we've lost more than we can ever know!

IF ONLY WE COULD READ THE FUTURE. In 2000 we went full timing for a year to find the perfect place to settle down and spend the rest of our allotted time. Put everything from a big house in storage near San Francisco. 13 years later we purchased a small 1450 sq. foot 4 bedroom home in Las Vegas. $26000.00 later in storage fees we moved most of what was in storage to Vegas. Move most of what we had in the MH to the Vegas home. Donated two truckloads of unwanted stuff to local charities. Lot of stuff to the dump. Big garage sale. Still stuck with 20/30 year of furniture that doesn't fit. Buying new bedroom stuff, living room sofas, wide screen tv's. Should have sold everything 13 years ago and given special stuff to the 4 kids then. Still have never used dinner ware, hummels, leaded glass ware, silver sets, 1954 army uniforms, 1945 skis, yada, yada. Just sitting there or hidden in closets. MY ADVISE--- give it away or sell it now. So we live in the Vegas 4 months and now we are in Colorado in the MH for 4 or 5 months helping our baby as she has her third baby boy. Just as we have done for the other 7 grand kids. PLAN, PLAN, PLAN--Screw the plan. We just take it as it comes now.

Disposing of family heirlooms is the hardest. Not because I want them but because no one else does, either, and I wouldn't feel right about tossing them. I have two huge portraits of my great grandparents that I've been lugging from house to house and storage unit to storage unit for about 30 years. :( So I have a small storage unit, the contents of which the kids can someday sort out as they see fit. ;)