I posted this over on the RV.NET site and thought I would post it here also. The process of transitioning to full time has been an eye opener. Well, we have finally made the decision to pull the plug! Read that "The wife has caught up and is ready to retire!". I retired a few years ago. We are a couple weeks into the purge or a life time of "STUFF". I don't remember acquiring all this STUFF. Why would anyone need so much STUFF. We gave the kids a lot of STUFF. We had a big sale last weekend and got rid of a whole lot of STUFF. The problem is there was a lot of STUFF left over. I have STUFF for sale on craigslist and on ebay. We hauled a load of STUFF to Habitat For Humanity. We still have a lot of STUFF. There is another large pile of STUFF waiting to be hauled to the Mission. We have boxed up the good STUFF, which will be stored in a container at the daughter property. Once the battle against STUFF is over, I will fine tune the stix and brix, it then goes on the market. The wife will give notice as soon as the house closes and we will start the next phase of our life together! I have a brand new respect for those of you who have already won the battle over STUFF. We hope to see you all on the road by the end of the year.

Good luck with your plans. We're already trying to do that, as we're probably 3 years away from hitting the road. You're right when you ask how we got all this stuff.

Congratulations!It was amazing to me that the STUFF I thought I had to have over the years ended up not meaning much at all when it was time to hit the road. Times change, we change, and that's a good thing. One of my mottoes: collect moments, not things. The best of luck and the best of times to you!

We're working on our STUFF right now......I agree, I admire anyone that has accomplished this!!!! LOL I'm going from "sell it on Ebay/CL" to "take the damn stuff to xxxx"......:) :)

We gave family & friends notice.........come get what you want NOWThen we had an estate auction and it was GONE......DONE all in one weekend day.We got rid of everything, put a nice chunk of change in our pockets and didn't have to lift a finger.House went up for sale that weekend.......person at auction bought it.We hit the road and found out we STILL had too much STUFF. That was resolved the first 6 mos. of travel :B

I sincerely hope you get all of your STUFF worked out! We have just recently decided that we will try to go this route in the hopefully near future, and that will be a major challenge for us as well, all the STUFF. Where does it all come from??

A lot of respect! | Good Sam Community

cpd520
Explorer
Jul 24, 2014
The process is going well. We have had our big garage sale. We have had the kids in. We have given to local charities. We are now wading through all the paperwork we have amassed as well as boxes of papers, pics and videos left by the MIL. Still hope to have the houses on the market in 3-4 weeks.

EXCITING!
cpd520
Explorer
Jul 21, 2014
Thanks for all the good wishes and positive input. The process has been a lot of work and much more cathartic than I anticipated.

Been a productive week. Lots of STUFF gone! Once the STUFF is out of the way I can get on with the cleaning, paint touch and general prep to get the house ready to sell.

I goofed, meant to say I had posted it on rvnetwork.com also.
Don_Shar
Explorer
Jul 21, 2014
The STUFF we had was things we thought we needed to have a good life and a bunch of memories packed in boxes in the holes we could find to put it. When I retired we had 3 children and 6 grandchildren. The Grandchildren were at the age they were starting to get married and move out. We told the family what we were doing, come and get what they wanted and what was left we would hold a yard sale......NO SALE NEEDED. The family came to our house and completely cleaned it out.
Baby clothes in boxes, to photos in boxes(god a lot of photos)a bunch of memories and now the kids have to take care of them.....WE ARE FREE of STUFF.
bilmarde
Explorer
Jul 21, 2014
Our house sold in one day last year and we had to get to our summer jobs. We took what we wanted and our daughter took what she wanted. Had a couple of garage sales and then called an estate sale person. We left things in drawers and closets and cabinets. They had the sale, sent us a check and disposed the remainders. It was simple for us but if we didn't have to head to our jobs, might have done it differently. We did store a few boxes in our daughter's barn.
SCR
Explorer
Jul 20, 2014
Shiny STUFF ... If it Shines or has more then two lights on it it's gold. If at least one light blinks it's a best seller.

The retailers sure have people trained. Kind of sad when you stop to think about it.
ITguy
Explorer
Jul 20, 2014
This is the new "American Dream". Whatever ails ya', the cure is more "STUFF".

Work stressing you out? Get a bigger TV. You wouldn't be stressed if you could watch your sitcom re-runs on 6 more inches of screen. But don't throw the old one away, put it in the "guest room". See a commercial on TV for a cool gadget that you'll use once every 3 or 4 years? Better buy it, wouldn't want to be without fresh baked "organic" buns when you finally (you never will) invite the neighbors over to grill burgers... How embarrassing to grill a burger and serve it on a store-bought bun. God forbid.

"STUFF" is a trap. We live in a world where we are taught from birth that the measure of your value as a human being is how much stuff you can acquire. I fell for that for many years. I didn't get rid of my "STUFF" by choice, it was forced upon me. But I'm grateful, I've never in my life been happier and slept better at night than I have since I didn't have all the "CRAP" to worry about.
2oldman
Explorer II
Jul 20, 2014
cpd520 wrote:
I posted this over on the RV.NET site and thought I would post it here also.
This is the same place.
Dufus
Explorer
Jul 20, 2014
We got rid of STUFF and sold the sticks and bricks. Now we live full time in a fifth wheel full of STUFF. Oh well.....
Barbilou_and_Fu
Explorer
Jul 20, 2014
When the kids didn't want hardly any of our STUFF, we made the mistake of thinking the rest of our STUFF was too valuable to just give away. Rented a storage unit for it, visited it every summer to swap out STUFF, paid $90/month for 5 years. All of that STUFF together was worth way less than that.
SCR
Explorer
Jul 20, 2014
retispcsi wrote:
Stuff is funny. Nine years ago my wife and I sold her home and my home in the Midwest and got rid of a lot of stuff. Sale, donation etc. So we moved to Fla. and I had an 8 x 24 Ft. car hauler full of stuff. Then we built a new house 4 bedrooms 3 car garage etc. and we filled it with stuff. Well last Friday we closed on that house and are once again full timing. We sold stuff. Gave stuff away to neighbors and friends. Donated the rest. Had the Salvation Army come over with a 20ft. Box truck. They filled in from front to the back door. We still have a 10x20 storage room to clean out over the summer and winter. We leave for the road in the spring when DW retires. Oh yea and we are still fine tuning the stuff in the fiver. How many pens does one need. Anyway we will conquer our stuff. My rule now is if you don't use it in the next 6 months you don't need it.

You never need it till you get rid of it, that's the nature of STUFF.