I feel like we have a lot of stuff. We don't have a huge house so it seems like we have more stuff than we really need because of it. I have friends who say "oh they don't have much stuff." But when I point out that having a 4000-5000 sq ft house you probably have more stuff than our 2000 sq foot house it's hard to argue. Mostly I argue this point with my mom, who has aforementioned 4000 sq ft house and 600 sq ft condo.
So there they are with two homes packed literally to the gills. Stuff is in every cloest, every cabinet, everywhere. There is no dealing with the amount of stuff. Patient saver got me thinking as she managed to get her hands on her mother's art. The sentimental value is astronomical. That being said will her own children value it the same? Or will they only focus on maybe 1 piece?
I was thinking about what it means to have all this stuff. My neighbor I walk with is an only child. Her dad passed 3 years ago and her mom is in a facility since January 2019. This year around September she went to her parent's home and rented a uhaul and drove to a storage facility everything she thought was important and valued. Everything else she left. The interesting part is she hasn't done anything in the past 2 years. Her mom moved into a facility with 4 suitcases 2 years ago and they "pretended" that she was just trying it out and my neighbor would take her back to clean her house. It never happened. I can't help but think that might be me. Avoiding the experience of actually cleaning the house but rather instead just waiting until the person passes even if they don't live in the house to go through things.
So here's an interesting tibit to chew on 8.5 years ago my grandmother moved out of her apartment and into my aunt's home because she couldn't live alone anymore. But my mom and aunts instead of cleaning the apartment and throwing stuff out literally packed everything in boxes and put it in my aunt's garage. They promised that one day they would go through it with her. 8.5 years later they haven't unpacked most of it. Instead she lives in a tiny with only a few things and everything that was SOO important to throw away they just shoved into a box and went on living.
I know that's what my neighbor has done as well. I wonder is that the fate of my parents things? For me probably not. By the time I have to deal with it, my dad will for sure be passed and my mom at 69 well I don't know. My dad is 90 and when he passes can she really deal with it? I doubt it. Will I do the same thing? I don't know.
But how do you actually get rid of all the stuff? And how do you let go enough to give things to people? I'd love a few of my grandmother's art pieces she made (at least 1) but no one wants to give anything up...it might be valuable. So instead it's hung onto.
Ideally i think it'd be nice if parents would ask kids before they are forced to deal with it. What to do?
February 26th, 2021 at 02:44 am 1614307486
February 26th, 2021 at 04:33 am 1614314018
February 26th, 2021 at 01:40 pm 1614346850
February 26th, 2021 at 01:46 pm 1614347178
People who help you sort and deal with stuff are not cheap (but can be very helpful!).
This thread is reinspiring me to continue to get rid of!
February 26th, 2021 at 04:43 pm 1614357816
Bigger problem is all of my stuff. I have been going through and throwing out stuff for about 2 years. Still have way too much stuff, though going through it all has convinced me to not buy anything for the past few years. That extra money has been great for my investments.
February 26th, 2021 at 05:51 pm 1614361871
Haha the jokes on them she'll live another 10 years with them. And here is all this crap never been touched or looked at. My mom says she'll sit down and go through box after box while my grandmother is still alive but I doubt it'll happen. I mean why after almost 9 years? It'll never happen. When she dies they will still likely not touch it until they absolutely need to maybe when they themselves go into a facility.
I mean my great grandmother has been dead 11 years (right before my dk1 at 101) and my mom still has her stuff in her house. She barely wanted to get rid of her furniture and said "oh it's in such good shape. They don't make furniture like that anymore." But gave it away to another family member who needed furniture and my mom was like "i should never have given it away."
February 28th, 2021 at 03:18 pm 1614525536
We have a very unhealthy and unreasonable attachment to stuff. We put far too much value on physical things. We get hung up on sunk costs - "Oh, I can't give this away/throw this away. I spent $XYZ on it".
I haven't read the death cleaning book but DW and I have both read Marie Kondo's book and watched her Netflix series. We've used her method several times to get rid of certain categories of things. Admittedly, we haven't done it as much as we should or need to but it definitely helped.
Over the past 3 or so years, I've really been working on getting rid of stuff. It's a slow process and it's kind of hard to see the results. I highly recommend taking before and after pictures to stay motivated. I know our garage is way better than it used to be even though someone looking at it today would still think it's a mess. Also, keep some sort of log of stuff eliminated. You don't have to write down every single item but even something like "3 bags of clothing and 2 boxes of stuff to Goodwill" helps you recognize your progress.
Over the past few years, we had 2 big yard sales. Each time, I vowed that anything that didn't sell was being donated. When each sale was over, I loaded the van with 10+ cartons each time. Various other times I've taken cartons to donate. All together, I've probably taken out 50 cartons of stuff - and the house is still a mess. It's outrageous how much stuff accumulates over a lifetime.
February 28th, 2021 at 03:44 pm 1614527074
We've made a lot of use of our local Buy Nothing group. I've also sold numerous items on Facebook Marketplace which is way easier than Ebay. I encourage anyone trying to declutter to make use of both of those resources.
February 28th, 2021 at 08:03 pm 1614542628
When my mom died, I was still working full time, DH was working full time, so we made a decision. We called a guy and sold him everything. I took 4 things out of the house simply because I had plenty of stuff of my own. The deal with the guy is he took it all, except the clothes which were not worth keeping and we pitched. If I had spent the time piecing it out and listing it we probably would have made more money, but all I could picture was boxing it up, putting it in storage, and dreading it, so taking a lot less was far worth it. The four items I took, well, one was a radio that I used until it died, one was a large Coke bottle that I held on to awhile and then sold to another collector, and two spoons. One was a slotted spoon I use all the time for vegetables, and the other is an oversized spoon that belonged to my dad; he claimed it belong to his mother and it is basically useless, but it is one of the few things I have from my dad's side of the family. I could not see paying to store the stuff nor could I see already filling my house with even more. I read an article about how many of those storage units there are in America and how much people are paying to store stuff they hardly use. No kidding!
February 28th, 2021 at 08:17 pm 1614543455
March 1st, 2021 at 04:00 am 1614571248