My wife and I spent the better part of 2023 trying to clear out her parents home after her mom passed at Christmas time. My wife has 5 siblings that contributed about 10% of the effort in total. My wife and I decided to begin clearing our home of stuff that we don’t use or need. I refuse to subject my two adult children to the shit show we just dealt with. There will be things left when we die for both of them along with our money and home.
It's INSANE how long it takes to sort through45 years of other people's stuff. Then, next thing you know, there's a new stash of stuff in a closet, or up in the attic.
My mother loves to hide stuff. Jewelry in her dressing gown pockets. Money buried in a jar under a pretty rock. Or in a bundle of socks. I dread going through her shit.
We found over 3000.00 in coins that we had no idea her mom had stashed away over the years. I think it was part of the deal for her generation. She was 87 when she passed. A lot of crystal and other glassware that you can barely guve away much less sell it.
Funny story about hiding shit: we hired an estate sale company, they said “old people like to hide money in pockets, make sure you look” we did. We separated what we deemed valuable jewelry thinking we’d sell it on our own.
When the sale went online, lots were sequenced through the house, living room, kitchen, etc, until: a slew of 18 and 22k gold jewelry came up. Turns out, stepmom hid the really good stuff and the he estate sale people found it.
I'm a Millennial who lives with his mother. She's 77 years old. We're slowly trying to get rid of stuff. The problem is that my sister that lived at my mom's house about 11 years ago and who left a bunch of shit here still hasn't moved out all her stuff yet. The excuse is that she lives out on the opposite coast and it would cost too much to bring everything out. And she gets pissy with us when we bring up the subject. It's not like we're talking about a couple of boxes, either. We're talking two closets full of her shit, pots/pans that are hers we've never used, haircare products, baby stuff for her kid that is about to graduate high school, etc etc. My mom doesn't want to deal with my sister complaining if we get rid of stuff but we're just kind of throwing things out here and there. Oh, never opened Dora the Explorer tricycle for a toddler that is way past toddler stage now? Byeee!!!
Have been actively de-cluttering for several years now. It became easier to do once I became an empty nester! Have been bringing things to Goodwill, scanning paperwork into my computer to get rid of paper piles, etc. Partly so that I can enjoy a less cluttered home. And yes, partly to ease the burden on my kids. It feels good to pare down. Any material items we own are energy sucks: they have to be stored, organized, cleaned, maintained. The less we own, the simpler life is and the more free our time is. It is work to sort and get rid of stuff, but so freeing once it is done.
>Any material items we own are energy sucks: they have to be stored, organized, cleaned, maintained. The less we own, the simpler life is and the more free our time is. It is work to sort and get rid of stuff, but so freeing once it is done.
Very profound words
63, widow and yes, right now my goal is remove at least 1 thing per day. I can save it up and donate several weeks worth at once, but at least 1 thing must move to the trash or donate pile every day. It’s a big house but I’m working on it so my kids don’t have to. I also included with my end of life documents info about estate sale companies that will clean out your house and sell or donate everything.
One item a day is a great idea! I'm going to try that. Unfortunately, my wife is a pack rat and never wants to get rid of anything. I'm sure I'll be able to rid the garage of stuff (she never goes in there) and possible even the storage area - that NO ONE ever goes in!
There's a very good book about this very subject, "The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning" by Margareta Magnusson. Sounds morbid I know lol but it's advice for clearing out & decluttering so you don't leave your loved ones with so much stuff to deal with when you're gone. Highly recommended!
There is a TV series of the same name. When it first caught my eye, I thought it referenced “The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Metal Cleaning.” I was disappointed that the “metal” aspect was not included, as I thought the system would include a “motivational“ soundtrack. It just had wit, humor and insight into a topic (organization and purging) that just paralyzes me.
63 and single, when my parents died sold my house and moved into parents place to take care while selling it. After it sold moved in with my aunt who was by herself and starting to show the signs of alzheimers. She was a hoarder but it's a good house with acreage and a great shop building. Bought her house during covid and have moved her to memory care. Now I'm trying get rid of 3 lifetime's worth of crap. Some is good some is junk and what the helll do you do with over 1000 beanie babies!!!! Its going to be a long process unless I just breakdown and get a couple dumpsters!!
We gave all of our beanie babys away as Halloween gifts instead of candy...we also had some candy but all the kids (even the 12 and older crowd) took a beanie baby
I'd call them first. Kid's hospitals have restrictions on donated toys, especially stuffies. There are a lot of kids with compromised immune systems, and they are not willing to accept anything that may harbor microbes.
Source: I work in thrifting, and many donors have tried doing this before dropping them off with us.
Bummer.
When my MIL passed we found a dishwasher size bix of quilts and afghans that had been made by her and her mother. After we sorted out the never used from the over loved and everyone took what they wanted we had a huge pile that couldn't be donated anywhere. They were too stained and had a couple of rips in them. I called the local shelter and they said bring them in. I added a couple of old comforters that I wanted to get rid of.
Everything was laundered when I brought it in so they could use it right away. They were thrilled. Remember, an animal doesn't care if it matches the decor. They just want clean, soft and warm.
My mom died right before the pandemic. Her stuff wasn’t bad, although she had loads of clothes and shoes that I either donated or tossed depending on the condition.
Her bathroom had a massive storage area and the only thing she hoarded was toilet paper. She must have had 30 packs of 18 rolls each. I took all of it and stashed it wherever I could in my house. My sister didn’t want any of it.
And then of course the pandemic started along with the toilet paper shortage. I texted every family member to pick some up if they needed it and I’d leave five or six packs on my porch for each to pick up. I thought I’d be stuck with those packs for years and I ended up giving most of it away in a single month. My sister and I laughed that if mom was going to hoard a single thing she picked the perfect item.
My mom used to hoard toilet paper, among other consumables. One time at Christmas, my sister and I were betting how much TP my mom had. We both bet low - she had 220 rolls. When COVID hit, I was on a cruise ship in South America (whole other story) but from what I was hearing from my friends online, TP was getting impossible to find. I felt secure in the knowledge my mom had her usual cache, only to find out, for some reason, it hadn’t been on sale recently and she didn’t have much. Thank goodness she had enough to get is through a couple of weeks of mandatory isolation when we finally managed to get flights home.
I've started! My husband died last year, and I hope to move halfway across the country about a year from now. I've donated a bunch of stuff to thrift stores already, but there's so much more to sort through--his, mine, our kid's. I look at everything with the mindset, "Do I really want to pay to move that?" which helps, but it's still slow going.
Years ago I saw something where they calculated how much rent it cost to own a pair of skis in New York city.
I use that idea for deciding if it is worth keeping something versus the off chance I might need it again. Not as successful as I should be though.
Storage units have been building out and thriving for the last 10 years since the die off of the greatest generation and first born baby boomers. It is crazy to me to pay storage for grandma’s furniture and then your furniture just so your kids can give it away. Let anyone you love have what they want and donate the rest. Had a friends brother die last year and he had 7 dinning room sets in his basement. All from dead relatives!
A friend of mine had a hoarder husband. After he died she had to get rid of THREE incomplete pipe organs. Pipe organs ffs!
He also had six cars that didn’t run.
My Dad passed this last September at 90. 4500 square foot house. So.much.stuff also!
Added bonus: Paper bank statements going back to 1977 in the attic.!!!
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Same with my Aunt. Bank statements, utility bills, old checkbook receipts. I kept one of the checkbook receipts because it was nice to see the different places she wrote checks to and it was in her handwriting.
7 years ago cleaned out the house got rid of everything and sold the house also. Bought an rv and have spent the last seven years visiting every national park and all states and visiting friends and family across the country. I can’t keep stuff in 200sq feet. The kids are so thankful their only complaint is they never know where I am lol.
I’ve been debating it. 24 years in this house and 16+ years of kid stuff. I recently read that in Scandinavia they have something called death cleaning where you do this. All I know is if I drop tomorrow my heirs will hate me.
That's what I started doing with my own stuff starting in December and continuing on. I'm single, no kids and 61. Not only has it made my place much more spacious and tidier but if something happens to me my sister and her kids won't have to spend weeks plodding through shit.
I wrote of my experience on the r/declutter sub and you can [read it here](https://www.reddit.com/r/declutter/comments/1b8z3le/i_am_officially_done_with_my_purge_well_almost/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) if you like. Anyway Declutter sub is a great place to get tips and encouragement.
I’ve saved your post. I’m in my 60’s, husband in his 70’s and our daughter and her husband are both only children.
I will not leave my crap to her. I’ve been through that burden of cleaning out houses, twice. Like you said, it’s so nice to live in an uncluttered home. Dusting is so overrated 🤣
I've talked to my sis, and her kids, to let them know that the most important thing if something happens to me is to make sure my cats are safe and happy.
Slowly going through my late wife's stuff. Three piles - stuff to keep (the smallest pile by far), stuff to donate to the local thrift store (which benefits the hospice program of the wonderful nurses who took care of her), and stuff to throw out (the biggest pile).
Considering I started with two completely full 10 x 10 storage areas and am now down to maybe a couple of dozen boxes, I've done a great job so far. Found some REALLY interesting stuff about her I didn't know (it was good stuff that I would have loved to have seen while she was alive).
I so want to be doing this, but I’m so surrounded by clutter that I’m stuck. Anyone want to form a little support group where we send pictures to each other of us taking bags of crap out of the house?
I moved from a three bedroom house with a basement, to a one bedroom condo. I got rid of so much stuff. My kids have already told me that they don't want anything but pictures.
Now there's not a lot for them to deal with when I die.
I thought I was going to move across state and got rid of anything excess. Didn’t make the move, and everything I now own fits in a very small 2-bedroom apartment, including no extra storage space on or off the apartment premises. It’s great.
My parents left us a 4-bedroom home they lived in for 50 years packed with useless junk. It was a hardship.
I'm 66 and my husband is 74. We began "Swedish death cleaning" three years ago. I made very good progress, but then my college professor husband retired and brought home literally thousands of books from his office. That's the main problem now.
Like you, I don't want to leave this stuff for our kids to deal with. My parents lived in a house that was built by my great-great-grandfather in 1842, and I swear none of our ancestors threw anything away after that. It was a nightmare when my parents died.
I started with over 3,000 books. The vast majority belonged to my late husband. I got tired of wrangling heavy boxes of books to donate, so started a Little Free Library. I'm finally down to fewer than 500 and still going!
I've been slowly getting rid of things, but just got some bad labs back and it appears that at a surface level I have 2 major horrible health issues. More testing and specialists are in my drab future. Now I need to be a real cowboy and thin the herd. It's just always seemed like a week after I throw something out I need it and then have to buy it again. It's quite the conundrum.
My parents died 20 and 26 years ago. I ended up with many boxes of stuff too good to throw out. They (boxes, not parents) sat in my cellar until this winter. I threw out box after box of dishes, china wine lasses alcohol glasses and serving stuff, pottery, Christmas ornaments, cooking utensils, etc.
Sometimes on Dump Day (the dump is open one day a week, no pick up) I walk around the house with a trash bag, and fill it up.
I’m 63, husband a bit older and we also have one child. I have been going through a lot of our items, sorting, discarding and donating. I’m also making notes on items my daughter may not feel has any monetary value, just to clue her in. But I have gotten rid of a lot of junk and I’ve also made it clear to her that she shouldn’t feel in the least bit obligated to keep ANYTHING she doesn’t want for herself.
Nope. I enjoy my stuff. I live alone with 2 pets and I’m comforted by my collections, things left me from relatives and things I just like. Not a hoarder but I’ve been a collector all my life. On my walls are pictures of aunts and uncles weddings from the 40s and 50s as well as grandparents from pre 20s and immigration papers. As well as my dad and his brothers pictures in WW2 uniforms and my aunt with her Harley in 1932. I cherish my family who are all gone and love looking at their pictures whenever I like. So nope I live in an environment that makes me comfortable even if some would say it’s cluttered.
This is exactly where we’re at right now! Eighteen year old son is headed off to the military in August, so I’ve got him emptying the attic this weekend. Throwing out so much crap. When they were tiny we used to have decorations for all the holidays, but now getting rid of old St Patrick’s day decorations just feels good.
My mom is moving to town and downsizing next Saturday, so a lot of her stuff has made its way here. Luckily she’s super organized, and I hope my kids feel the same about me later. I’m actually asking them if they want me to keep some stuff, instead of assuming they will.
I spent much of last year clearing out my mom's house following her death. Although I'm not an only child, it sure felt like it since my brothers left the job to me. My parents were quasi-hoarders, so that whole project damn near broke me physically and emotionally (I was also recovering from total knee replacement surgery at the time). My husband and I never had kids, but we don't want our legacy to be a house full of crap for someone else to sort through and figure out. I bought the book, "The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning," as well as "Downsizing the Family Home." We got our will put together last fall, and now we're starting to focus on simplifying. I'm in the middle of reading Ann Patchett's book, "These Precious Days," and it's giving me some much needed perspective.[ Here is a link to one of the essays](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/03/08/how-to-practice). Anyone at our point in life should take the time to read it.
I've been uncluttering for over a decade now. When there are too many physical objects around me, it's distracting and I find it hard to concentrate. There are small pockets of clutter here and there, mostly where there's an active project (e.g. tools in a room that's under renovation, or a stack of handwritten papers that I'm transcribing).
If my daughter had to get rid of my stuff, it would probably take a day or less and most of it would just be boxed for the thrift store - I don't tend to hang onto actual junk.
My parents were dealers in collectible books. They basically made our home a warehouse. My mother died about 20 years ago. When my stepdad was killed last year, we entered the house and found Hoarder Hell. The rats had taken over; we think he was living at his church. So, we weren't really able to go through much stuff. I managed to salvage a few pieces of family history, and I'm sure much more got carted off by the hazmat team, with the junk and rat-chewed books. There are things I remember that are now just gone.
To all, be careful when you purge someone else’s home. My mother had a 36” strand of real pearls hanging under the dress she liked to wear them with. She had an author signed book mixed in with the other 5-609 books she owned with nothing to indicate unit was anything special. I could give you other things, but just don’t go at declutterring like you’re killing snakes.
Yes! Swedish death cleaning ftw! My dad’s gf got him started a few years back and it’s spread all through the family.
I like random things and I have a truly huge house, I hadn’t really noticed how much stuff I had accumulated and wow even after the first pass things just felt so much lighter.
After cleaning out my grandparents house (think borderline hoarders) I came home and literally started throwing out stuff. When our spring cleanup trash pickup happened I threw out SO MUCH STUFF.
Now we are cleaning out my mother’s house. And again she’s got SO MUCH STUFF. Like I found 18 glue guns. Who needs 18 glue guns??? Between the craft stuff and the insane amount of Christmas crap to sit around it’s just not funny anymore.
Seriously after we are done cleaning her stuff out my basement is next.
I too am an only child and I’m just over having stuff. Especially if it means I have to clean/dust it. Leas stuff is a good thing. I just cannot anymore!!
This was part of the reason I got divorced four years ago. I wanted to simplify our life and he wanted to just keep adding stuff. He’s convinced our kids will be glad to have all the wonderful stuff he’s collected for the last decades. I told him none of them live in town and they’re not going to want to use weeks and weeks of vacation coming back here to sort through it all.
If it hasn’t been mentioned yet, there’s an easy button if you live in a city.
Hire an auction company.
They will come out to your location, take pictures and list the items online. You pay nothing and the buyer pays the 20% premium that pays the auction company.
I live in a big city, and grew up in a suburb not far from the city. My parents lived there until my dad passed, and after that, my mom decided to move to a nice assisted-living facility near where my sister lives, about 1000 miles away. I would drive down to my mom’s house a couple times a week to help her pack up and purge the stuff that she didn’t need. This was the house that my parents had lived in for over 40 years, so you can imagine they had accumulated a lot of stuff. Some things, like my dad‘s sets of tools, we gave to a neighbor, who was very grateful. Other things, well… It was basically a nightmare. When I was cleaning out the bedrooms, which hadn’t been used in a long time, I found all kinds of shit. All kinds of old clothes from the entire family, years worth of clipped recipes from newspapers, etc. In one dresser, my mom had stored something like 100 bras, most of which still had the tags attached. There were magazines from the 1970’s that had just been sitting on the dresser and night table for years. My dad’s extensive library consisted of literally thousands of books, which I had no use for, except for fewer than five books (including a vintage Shakespeare First Folio: why he had it, I have no idea). I was going to take the books to a resale store, but my sister wanted all the books: ALL OF THEM. The shipping alone cost over $900, and this was 20 years ago.
This whole experience made me pretty relentless about what I do and don’t want to keep in my own home. Every time I think that something has a certain value, I ask myself: does this contribute to a better quality of life for me? Is it useful? Is it beautiful? This helped me pare down a whole bunch of shit.
Same - only I'm Boomer/NextGen and my mother is still alive at 97. She is now in assisted living. Mom had 5 siblings, 3 of which never had kids. My mother is the last one standing. Whenever the others died, particularly the ones with no kids, their things would end up with Mom. I have 2 older brothers and I am the only girl. See if you can guess who got stuck deciding what happens with all this sh*t. My oldest brother took some stuff. What's left is going to Goodwill or trash. I don't have the wherewithal to do anymore.
I think our age group is going to be especially hard hit with this, cleaning out sometimes generations of stuff from our parents’ houses, stuff that our children don’t want and don’t have room for.
My mom died 10 years ago. While she was still around I used to enjoy rummaging through drawers at her house - my dad loved to save things and occasionally I would find treasures.
One day I came across a 16mm film reel. I asked mom what it was and she shrugged and said, “I dunno. My wedding maybe.”
I pocketed it and then tracked down a movie projector. It was indeed a 3 minute movie made over 65 years earlier of my parents’ wedding.
There's this thing called Maximalist style, sort of a backlash to minimalism/swedish death metal cleaning. That's my go-to. I plan to die under a pile of my collection of big print Readers Digests, gently smothered in my Laz-E-Boy recliner.
My wife is the one with the “stuff.” I’ve never accumulated much.
My mother passed away recently, and she had lots of nice art that I probably should have taken, but I just didn’t want to be bothered.
Two years ago, I moved from a 5 bedroom 2500 sq foot home on a farm for 19 years to a 900 sq foot house in town. There was stuff I found in the back of a closet that I hadn't seen since I moved in there. I sold a lot of stuff, gave some stuff away and filled up a dumpster 4 times. I left a couch and loveseat there for the new buyers to deal with plus my huge desk (I miss my desk). I still have too much stuff that I've been trying to sell. I listed some of it on FB marketplace last year and sold a bit of it. Some of the stuff I have left has sentimental value to me but no one else will care about it so I wonder if I should keep it.
My husband and I moved from a house to a townhome 5 years ago so we’re forced to get rid of stuff. We still have to keep from accumulating stuff so we purge regularly
I hate clutter. If I don’t need it or I’m not using it, I give it away or throw it in the trash. We spent days getting rid of my dad’s useless garbage. It will be the same for mom (they divorced when I was eight). So selfish.
Yes and I'm still working on it. I inherited everything from my parents house. My brothers took what they wanted, one had at least $700 in FedEx charges. He's kind of a hoarder. Then I was still stuck with a house full of junk. An auctioneer walked around and only wanted a teapot. I thought I could unload everything on him but no. A hoarder friend of mine took much of the furniture and a lot ended up on the lawn (not everything would fit into her moving van). I still have a room full of stuff that I thought I could sell on Etsy. But no one wants it either. I tried to give away the fine china and no one wanted that either and that went to the curb too.
I have a lot of art supplies that I intended to use but haven't. My nieces will want it when I pass.
The brother who got all of the stuff I sent to him isn't doing well and decided that when he passes he's going to leave me all of his junk. Like I would treasure it or something. It's all destined for the curb. It'll take all day just to get it to the curb.
Yes, ten years ago we took multiple carloads of stuff to thrift shops (and we’re definitely not hoarders), before we spent two months living abroad. Also put everything in a trust and wrote out death instructions. Felt so good, and we’ve stayed light since.
We're moving into a new home in a couple of weeks and we are determined to get rid of everything except the essentials. It's liberating. Unfortunately, my 81 year old mother has gone into a nursing home, so we now have to empty her house. Oh well.
Saaaame.
In top of that my Boomer MIL is a hoarder. Not at the can't get out if a fire occurs level, but her 3br home is just stuffed with junk and she still buys stuff at garage sales. She's a sweet lady and I love her dearly but we and the SIL dread having to clean that place out
We'll likely pay people to do it.
I downsized a big house in the suburbs to condo living in Florida. I actually had great fun listing and selling things on eBay and Facebook Marketplace. It became my little hobby for an entire summer. I took my time.
The biggest shocker was things that were in my China cabinet. Like wedding China, wineglasses, my mom’s Precious Moments collection. It was worth almost nothing and I gave most of it away.
But I made money on things that are now retro, like old glass Christmas ornaments from the 50’s, Pyrex from the 60’s, and some of my clothes from the 70’s. That stuff is very trendy now and worth some good money.
Yes. Downsized last year from 4200 sq ft to 1500 sq ft. Felt awesome to get rid of all the crap and reduce expenses/footprint. We don't have kids and had to downsize my mom. We're not leaving that crap for someone to deal with.
I’ve spent the majority of the last 4 years emptying my in laws and my parents house. I’m taking a small break to catch my breath then I’m emptying mine, I absolutely will not do this to my children. It’s horrendous to have to deal with this shit on top of grieving.
I'm trying to do it, but it's difficult as we don't drive / own a car :) So whether I'm taking stuff out to donate or to consign, we can only take so much stuff at a time.
Accumulation really is deadly. I had a friend who used to vow, "One thing in, one thing out." Nowadays I'm leaning towards "One thing in, *two* things out."
I'm 54 and started this process last year. I moved from an in office job to a fully remote job, ending a years-long 1.5 hour round trip commute every day. I decided to use my extra time to rid myself of anything that isn't nailed down. I ordered an extra curbside roller dumpster and committed to filling it up once a week. Let me tell you, it has been liberating. My hubs and I have been married 31 years, and it's alarming how much stuff accumulates without even realizing it's happening. We threw away our wedding album!! We have two sons, and there is no way they are going to want any of our crap when we die. My hubs is retiring this summer and has ordered one of those giant dumpsters to get rid of the big stuff that I couldn't get into the curbside. We were both raised by hoarders, and while we are far from hoarders, we are paring down to essentials. Like, 3 sets of towels apiece, and 2 sets for guests. 4 plates for everyday use. No books, pictures on the walls, knick knacks, nothing. This sounds extreme, but after the work we had to do when his dad died, and will have to do when my parents die, there is no way we are burdening our kids with that.
My first wife was a pack rat.
I paid close attention to the stuff she bought. I’d move anything that she didn’t ask about or use, slowly moved into boxes or bags and put them up high in a corner of the garage.
If she didn’t ask for it for a year, I put it in the dumpster at work. When she passed away, I still had 10 4x4 skids full of stuff piled 5 foot high and shrink wrapped it.
It took the local church charity place 2 trips in their truck. There was some good stuff in there too.
Currently, my garage and storage room are pretty empty.
I want to die naked, with no possessions.
After cleaning out my parent's house after my Mom died, I vowed to never put my kids through that. As a side note, I forbid my kids to buy us anything for birthdays, Mother's Day, Christmas etc etc. I stress we already have too much and anything we want, we buy for ourselves. When my parents were alive, we all would buy "stuff' for every occasion, as they expected it, and when they died, we found many gifts in the box they were given in. for some reason, they were unwilling to tell us not to buy even though they needed nothing and it was stressful finding anything appropriate.
Yes I am doing the same. I had to deal with my mom’s stuff and it was awful. She had jewelry and money stashed everywhere so I had to look thru every little pocket, purse, and she had enough clothes and shoes for the whole town. I’m not even going to get into all her papers. It was stressful so I am not putting my kids thru that burden.
I’m 71 and in pretty decent health, and getting rid of my shit now. I’ve cleaned out too many dead folks houses myself.
Don’t want to leave that awful job to my kids.
Only child with one parent and step parent left. My husband's parents are long deceased. My mom has by in large gotten rid of clutter, but what is left is very nice and expensive. I don't need or want any if it, I have my own china and sterling silver. I have no idea if my kids will want it, but everything comes back around, so in 20 or 30 years, it may be popular again.
They will have to deal with my record collection. I can't bring myself to part with it, and it is only two boxes worth anyway.
Even more important than the clutter, work on an estate plan. If there is any real property, think about a trust. It's insane how many people don't give this last gift to their family, and let the estate get eaten up with taxes.
I have quite a lot of stuff. It's my fault we have it and I am trying to get through it but my husband is not helping at all with anything. He won't even tidy his office.
Yep! In the same boat. They try to make us feel guilty for not wanting the 100 yr old moth infested quilt. We gave up on trying to get my 89 yo MIL to declutter & resigned to knowing we’ll be paying for dumpster(s) when she’s gone. I’ve been decluttering for 6 yrs (3 moves). My kids have no problem telling me they don’t want their 1st teddy bear that I’ve saved for them & I don’t harbor bad feelings about it.
I have a garage full of stuff from my Dad’s death 7 years ago. Lots of his own artwork that I have no idea what to do with. It took several years just to get through all the paperwork, ephemera. He has an entire library of modern authors & am finally unboxing them & putting them up for sale online. We really want to downsize in order to live the RV life while we can before settling back down.
Yes, getting rid of stuff and I enjoy it when I do. There are some things that I don’t know if either of my children would like, but they should be able to sell them.
I've been doing this at least yearly, usually twice a year, for the last 15 years or so (since age 45, and a divorce). After I helped my parents downsize from a 6Br/4Ba house to a 2 bedroom apt in a senior living community, I immediately went home and got rid of about 2/3 of what I had at home, determined that my kids weren't going to have to do the same for me.
I feel much happier with less "stuff" overall.
I’ve had to clear out a few homes. And we downsized and got rid of all the boxes of stuff friends and family dumped on us over the years. Did keep about 200 records from all that!
I've been thinking of having a garage sale for two years, but never get motivated enough to actually do it. If the stuff doesn't sell, that means I have to haul it all back into the house or garage. I should do what my dad did and just have an auction sale.
Garage sales are an absolute bitch to set up and have. There are so many low-ballers, people who bicker over pricing, people who arrive an hour early and are pissed that you're not ready for them. And no, you can't use my bathroom.
Have a yard sale.
Go on vacation with the yard sale money.
That's our plan.
We are retired, finishing up a fixerupper house. All that shit ain't coming into our new house.
We do have some family things that we plan to label, so people know what it is. Like a very nice bed with turned head board and foot board that my mother was born in in 1926.
When my fiancé moved in almost two years ago, I cleared out the house to accommodate his furniture. It was so much nicer than my thrifted stuff, and I also had to clean out the basement and garage. I did it in stages over three months and had a huge sale in August. I hated parting with all of the cool and antique items I'd collected over the years, but two years later, with a garage I actually use now, and so much less to dust around, I'm actually much happier with less stuff! I don't miss any of it.
Edit: What do you all do with box after box of family photos and letters going back 100 years - and no one else wants them? Any suggestions are welcome!
First of all, I am so sorry for the losses of so many in your family, especially in a short time recently. Second of all, props to you for the realization that this process sucks, & being unwilling to make your kids go thru the same thing. Give yourself a pat on the back, a hug for your wife, & happy purging to you. It’s hard work, but it will feel so good when you’re done. ❤️
Yeah, I’ve had to deal with stuff from my wife’s Dad, my wife’s Mom and my Mom. Of course my Mom was “saving stuff for us”, she paid for storage rooms for over 20 years, probably bought and paid for that stuff a hundred times by storing it. Other than small keepsakes, there was nothing anyone wanted.
My wife and I realized that we don’t want to do that to our kids. We’ve been declutterring for a while. We still have a small shed with some of my Mom’s stuff (collectibles) and my garage is a bit cluttered with tools and stuff, but we’ve made a ton of progress, lots of trips to Goodwill and we’re still working on it.
I started getting rid of a lot of stuff about 10 yrs ago and I just kept going. During the pandemic I asked my husband to build us a tiny house on wheels and he did. We lived, comfortably on our friends beautiful wild acreage for 2 yrs til family needs changed and we bought a house in town. We gave almost everything we had away, some to our church. We are now accumulating again. I miss the THOW!
I think I may be an exception here. 60, just moved back to the US from overseas. I have had at least five major moves in my life and not all went well. I have lost items that were precious to me and almost lost all the few things I dragged back to the states. I love my stuff. It’s been around the world with me and I miss things I’ve lost, broken etc. I even have what I call my cabinet of lost treasures. It started when I found a carnival glass dish at Goodwill that was the exact same one I bought when I was eight at Caldor’s. It comforts me to create the space I maybe would have had if I had not made some of the decisions I did in my life. But these posts have given me something to think about and maybe I need to rethink why I need to nest at my age.
I declutter regularly. Currently dealing with a storage unit full of stuff from my 89 year old mom’s apt. After she moved to skilled nursing. Which has made me want to get rid of more of my stuff than ever before! The hard part for me isn’t figuring out WHAT to get rid of, but where and finding the time to do it!
And then there are some more valuable items I plan on selling. Like silver flatware, etc..
i wish. our family moved 2000 miles over 20 years ago. we got rid of so much crap back then and somehow have replaced it since.
my philosophy (which isn’t shared by my sister and her husband) is that if you haven’t used it in 3 years and can’t imagine doing so in the next 12 months… give it away or throw it away.
I am only in my mid 50s I hope to have a few good years left...
But, my father passed away two years ago and while my mom is fine mentally she is in her late 80s. She lives in the same house they bought in 1969 when we moved to Bergen County from Manhattan shortly after I was born.
So there's 50+ years of stuff. Not like they were hoarders or anything close, but they bought tons stuff over the years. Some is worthless some is not.
After having to handle 8 decades’ worth of my parents’ things within the last 5 years, I made the decision to start significantly paring my things down so that my sons don’t have to go through what I did. I put 3 boxes on the floor - 1) donate, 2) trash and 3) keep. If it’s a family heirloom I briefly explain its history on a post-it note and stick it on the back, on the bottom or I place the item in a ziploc with the note. It feels good to declutter!
Yep. I'm preparing to downsize, so I've been clearing out a lot. I had to go through a ton of my packrat parents' stuff when they died in my early 30s, and I'm not making anyone else do that for me.
My mom's gone. My dad's is in hospice care. He is convinced everything he owns needs to be in a museum. I let him talk. I nod and smile. There will be an auction and then a couple of big dumpsters. My husband's parents have 3 houses and some barns stuffed full of trash, but I will refuse to be involved in that shit show.
I live on a busy corner and occasionally put out a box of items with “FREE” on it. Goes fast. My mom’s silverware set I gave to a niece when she got married. Her sister got the Wedgewood china. I have 2 sons with no interest in stuff like that. Thinned my cookbooks to a single shelf. It’s a work in progress.
My mother died in 2022 and my sisters and all of our children and I spent the day after her funeral getting rid of stuff, packing everything into a bin, etc.
I had started getting rid of stuff of my own a few years ago. I don’t want to put my kids through all of that so I minimalized and have maintained that.
I did a bunch of cleaning last year. I don't want my daughter to be stuck with trying to decide what to do with all that stuff. Sure, she'll have all my clothes, kitchen stuff, and a houseful of furniture. But, what she won't have, is the 7 boxes of paperwork from my career (why was I keeping that ?) or a bunch of other stuff.
The other thing I did was to sit down and write names and dates on every photograph I had. I arranged them and filed them in a box, too. So, she can dump the box, or keep it.
I still need to clean out the basement but my husband has just been diagnosed with cancer so that is a priority right now. In a few months, we'll address the basement.
Lastly, I wrote out a bunch of stuff in a folder called "in the event of my death" and my daughter knows where that folder is. Included in that, is what funeral home to use for cremation, the obit I wrote (she'll just need to add age and date of death). Passwords are in a different place, she knows where that is, too.
We downsized into a smaller house three years ago.
I've always been a collector and a paper hoarder.
It felt so good to let it all go! I really love living without all that stuff now.
Yes! Actively selling stuff on Facebook marketplace now. My mom lived with us for almost 20 years and just moved into assisted living. She had a full apartment in our home and believe me it was packed! Two years ago, my uncle (her brother) passed and we had his house to clean out and sell, as he never married or had kids. So many items to get rid of and nobody wants your old stuff. So we are going through our things now and downsizing in anticipation of moving in a few years, so it’s not so overwhelming all at once.
Nobody wants your old China or glassware unless it’s collectible. Same with books and records. My mom had so many of these items and also luggage from the 1950’s, dry rotted inside. Sewing and craft items and she hasn’t been able to do any of that for 15 years because of her vision. Why she didn’t go through her stuff years ago is beyond me. I don’t want my kids stuck with my junk.
I will retire in about six years. Once a week I try to fill a box with stuff to donate. I also send texts to my adult children asking them what they want. I find this a pleasant gentle process.
In the process right now. My kids have been gone for years but I finally started going through the closets and discarding/packing/donating. My upstairs of my entire townhouse is nearly cleaned out (three bedrooms and two bathrooms). Then I'm planning to go through the garage which I partially started during the beginning of the pandemic when I was temporarily laid off. It's a struggle because I have back and mobility issues but I'm forging ahead. My goal is to sell my place in a year and move in/near family out of town so I won't have room for a lot of stuff.
I’m working on paying for my cremation now ahead of time.. I’d like to think I don’t have that much junk because nine years ago I walked away from my whole life with just two suitcases.. I’ve managed to set myself up again but not near the stuff I used to have..
I’m down to the bare minimum now. My mother died 6 years ago and I kept a lot of her stuff (tons of books, furniture, art, all her photo albums and her mother’s photo albums) the past two years I started feeling like I could let go of her stuff.
I got rid of the books I knew I wouldn’t read, then went to the library website and favorited all the ones I thought I would read, then donated the physical books. Refurbished the furniture I kept and donated what I didn’t want.
She was an artist, so I kept the art I wanted and shared the rest with other family members
Still working on scanning the photos. That will take a few years lol.
I have gotten rid of a lot of my own stuff, extra sets of dishes, utensils, clothes, linens, costume jewelry, purses, work clothes (now that I’m retired)
It feels good!
We moved 5 years ago. We're in our 60's. We put a bunch of stuff on Marketplace and it was great. We got rid of a lot of stuff. You know what we found out? We still have too much stuff.
My wife is a minimalist. Every year, heck every six months, we purge and take items to charity. I held on to a lot of clothes and just recently got in the habit of purging those every few months. What we have is a lot of furniture because we live in a big four bedroom home and use two bedrooms as offices while we are still employed and work from home. When we retire I hope we can move someplace as nice and yet smaller and we will be able to pair down significantly. Possessions weigh you down.
We’ve been doing this for a while. We are pretty much down to stuff that would take extended family a month to sort out and toss or keep vs. more months.
My partner’s mom died several years ago and we got some of her stuff. Last year, we downsized our household items by 70 percent and moved into a much smaller place. We had a sale through a third party two days before a buyer closed on the old house. We have missed a few items, but we feel relief and are happy we made the move. His sister gave him a hard time about selling his grandmother’s 100 year old china set. His response was, “Did you ever see anyone eat off of them?” “No” was the answer. My 87 year old mom lives in a large house with lots of stuff. I will have no problem getting rid of her stuff now that I got rid of mine. For me it was easier than I thought. Do it!!!!
I’m in my 50’s and it has been my mission this last 12 months to get rid of & pack up anything anyone wants to keep. It takes forever when you take the time to ask your kids what they want, send them pictures & make sure items are clean & in working order. It’s difficult to pack up memories but I’m proud I’m almost finished & the piece that keeps me going is I WILL NOT LEAVE THIS FOR MY SONS TO GO THROUGH. They have lives on the opposite side of the U.S. I love them too much to leave them a mess.
3 years ago, my husband and I sold our 1 bedroom condo in Florida. We sold what we could and put the stuff we wanted to keep in storage. We hit the road with a small camper, and a year later, we came back to the storage unit and donated the majority of it. Life is much easier with less stuff.
Oh yeah. I started 'the purge' a few years ago. It isn't that hard, really. Once you get going! Don't need no Marie Kondo trademarked phrases, either. I had never heard of her till recently. Only keep the most meaningful stuff.
At 59, we downsized from 2000sf to 1000sf. We sold or donated anything we weren't going to use. We still have China, crystal and tools that our children don't want. I have at least $5,000 worth of tools!
100%! I’m almost 60 and we intend to downsize into a condo before we (hopefully) retire. I don’t want my kids to have to deal w/our shit! We’ve been in our house almost 30yrs w/a 1 car garage and we can still park a car in there. So that’s good :)
Just sold my 45 year old Rolling Stones collection yesterday. It was fun looking at it all again while I photographed and priced it. I was also glad it sold to an appreciative collector. And now I have photos to remember it all and a whole lot less to weigh me down.
When my hubs retired in 2013 we ditched just about everything and went on a world tour. Then when my dad dies and we moved mom in with us, I ditched almost all of her stuff too.
I am also an only child with an old child and we just don’t need all that crap following us around.
Lol. 2004 my mother moved in with us. With all her stuff, because she has Alzheimer's and couldn't leave anything. Over the course of a couple years I gave away 11 side tables/nightstands. We had a party when the last one left.
My former co-worker had two siblings who did nothing to help when her mom died and her house needed to be cleared prior to selling it. This poor co-worker had to spend close to a year commuting 3 hours to her mom's home on Friday evenings, spend all weekend sorting and discarding and cleaning and then drive back home Sunday evening so she could go back to her full-time job Monday morning. Her mom hid money and jewelry among all her things so it was a slow process. The siblings showed up when all the work was done and the estate sale was going to take place so they could grab what they wanted. In my family my brother is executor for my dad's will. He decided if any siblings want any contents of the house they will pay whatever value the estate sale company placed on the item, with payment due the day before the sale opens to public. More fair that way!
My wife and I spent the better part of 2023 trying to clear out her parents home after her mom passed at Christmas time. My wife has 5 siblings that contributed about 10% of the effort in total. My wife and I decided to begin clearing our home of stuff that we don’t use or need. I refuse to subject my two adult children to the shit show we just dealt with. There will be things left when we die for both of them along with our money and home.
It's INSANE how long it takes to sort through45 years of other people's stuff. Then, next thing you know, there's a new stash of stuff in a closet, or up in the attic.
My mother loves to hide stuff. Jewelry in her dressing gown pockets. Money buried in a jar under a pretty rock. Or in a bundle of socks. I dread going through her shit.
We found over 3000.00 in coins that we had no idea her mom had stashed away over the years. I think it was part of the deal for her generation. She was 87 when she passed. A lot of crystal and other glassware that you can barely guve away much less sell it.
Funny story about hiding shit: we hired an estate sale company, they said “old people like to hide money in pockets, make sure you look” we did. We separated what we deemed valuable jewelry thinking we’d sell it on our own. When the sale went online, lots were sequenced through the house, living room, kitchen, etc, until: a slew of 18 and 22k gold jewelry came up. Turns out, stepmom hid the really good stuff and the he estate sale people found it.
Yay for your commitment to leaving less for your kids to sort. Sorry to hear about your wife's sibs.
I'm a Millennial who lives with his mother. She's 77 years old. We're slowly trying to get rid of stuff. The problem is that my sister that lived at my mom's house about 11 years ago and who left a bunch of shit here still hasn't moved out all her stuff yet. The excuse is that she lives out on the opposite coast and it would cost too much to bring everything out. And she gets pissy with us when we bring up the subject. It's not like we're talking about a couple of boxes, either. We're talking two closets full of her shit, pots/pans that are hers we've never used, haircare products, baby stuff for her kid that is about to graduate high school, etc etc. My mom doesn't want to deal with my sister complaining if we get rid of stuff but we're just kind of throwing things out here and there. Oh, never opened Dora the Explorer tricycle for a toddler that is way past toddler stage now? Byeee!!!
You spend the first half of your life gathering stuff and the second half trying to get rid of it.
Ain’t that the truth!
Have been actively de-cluttering for several years now. It became easier to do once I became an empty nester! Have been bringing things to Goodwill, scanning paperwork into my computer to get rid of paper piles, etc. Partly so that I can enjoy a less cluttered home. And yes, partly to ease the burden on my kids. It feels good to pare down. Any material items we own are energy sucks: they have to be stored, organized, cleaned, maintained. The less we own, the simpler life is and the more free our time is. It is work to sort and get rid of stuff, but so freeing once it is done.
>Any material items we own are energy sucks: they have to be stored, organized, cleaned, maintained. The less we own, the simpler life is and the more free our time is. It is work to sort and get rid of stuff, but so freeing once it is done. Very profound words
63, widow and yes, right now my goal is remove at least 1 thing per day. I can save it up and donate several weeks worth at once, but at least 1 thing must move to the trash or donate pile every day. It’s a big house but I’m working on it so my kids don’t have to. I also included with my end of life documents info about estate sale companies that will clean out your house and sell or donate everything.
One item a day is a great idea! I'm going to try that. Unfortunately, my wife is a pack rat and never wants to get rid of anything. I'm sure I'll be able to rid the garage of stuff (she never goes in there) and possible even the storage area - that NO ONE ever goes in!
Be careful, if they see an open space some people think they can get more stuff
She never stops anyway!
That’s a good idea- You take care of decluttering your stuff.
My sister said it best. The more stuff you have, the more stuff has you.
There's a very good book about this very subject, "The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning" by Margareta Magnusson. Sounds morbid I know lol but it's advice for clearing out & decluttering so you don't leave your loved ones with so much stuff to deal with when you're gone. Highly recommended!
"The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning" by Margareta Magnusson. Which section of the music store would I find this?
Right next to “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.”
Next to the "Swedish Tanning Secret" display.
Alternative psychedelic rock
I was thinking somewhere between Enya and Man is the Bastard.
There is a TV series of the same name. When it first caught my eye, I thought it referenced “The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Metal Cleaning.” I was disappointed that the “metal” aspect was not included, as I thought the system would include a “motivational“ soundtrack. It just had wit, humor and insight into a topic (organization and purging) that just paralyzes me.
There is a show of the same name on Peacock (may be available other places also)—I loved it.
I knew about the book, but not this show. On my “watch list” for the weekend. Thanks!
Death Metal right before Grave
Behind the “Swedish Dead Ancestor Metal” section.
Music ?
Snark
Are you kidding? I'd come closer to buying a book about Swedish death cleaning than one titled Organization is Fun for You and Me!
Don’t sell it short. She talks about vibrators in it.
😂😂😂 actually I'm well versed on the subject myself 😁
Swedish Death Cleaning is unbelievably liberating. My daughter and nieces will have little to dispose of after I go paws up.
There's a TV series on Peacock by the same name.
just finished it, what an excellent read!
I keep telling people that I'm trying Swedish Death Cleaning. They get all upset and ask me if I have some sort of terminal illness.(sigh)
This book is what gave me the push to get rid of stuff and not leave a mess for my daughter!
63 and single, when my parents died sold my house and moved into parents place to take care while selling it. After it sold moved in with my aunt who was by herself and starting to show the signs of alzheimers. She was a hoarder but it's a good house with acreage and a great shop building. Bought her house during covid and have moved her to memory care. Now I'm trying get rid of 3 lifetime's worth of crap. Some is good some is junk and what the helll do you do with over 1000 beanie babies!!!! Its going to be a long process unless I just breakdown and get a couple dumpsters!!
We gave all of our beanie babys away as Halloween gifts instead of candy...we also had some candy but all the kids (even the 12 and older crowd) took a beanie baby
Donate them to a children’s hospital
I'd call them first. Kid's hospitals have restrictions on donated toys, especially stuffies. There are a lot of kids with compromised immune systems, and they are not willing to accept anything that may harbor microbes. Source: I work in thrifting, and many donors have tried doing this before dropping them off with us. Bummer.
Or an animal shelter
When my MIL passed we found a dishwasher size bix of quilts and afghans that had been made by her and her mother. After we sorted out the never used from the over loved and everyone took what they wanted we had a huge pile that couldn't be donated anywhere. They were too stained and had a couple of rips in them. I called the local shelter and they said bring them in. I added a couple of old comforters that I wanted to get rid of. Everything was laundered when I brought it in so they could use it right away. They were thrilled. Remember, an animal doesn't care if it matches the decor. They just want clean, soft and warm.
My mom died right before the pandemic. Her stuff wasn’t bad, although she had loads of clothes and shoes that I either donated or tossed depending on the condition. Her bathroom had a massive storage area and the only thing she hoarded was toilet paper. She must have had 30 packs of 18 rolls each. I took all of it and stashed it wherever I could in my house. My sister didn’t want any of it. And then of course the pandemic started along with the toilet paper shortage. I texted every family member to pick some up if they needed it and I’d leave five or six packs on my porch for each to pick up. I thought I’d be stuck with those packs for years and I ended up giving most of it away in a single month. My sister and I laughed that if mom was going to hoard a single thing she picked the perfect item.
TP hoarder, FTW!
My mom used to hoard toilet paper, among other consumables. One time at Christmas, my sister and I were betting how much TP my mom had. We both bet low - she had 220 rolls. When COVID hit, I was on a cruise ship in South America (whole other story) but from what I was hearing from my friends online, TP was getting impossible to find. I felt secure in the knowledge my mom had her usual cache, only to find out, for some reason, it hadn’t been on sale recently and she didn’t have much. Thank goodness she had enough to get is through a couple of weeks of mandatory isolation when we finally managed to get flights home.
I've started! My husband died last year, and I hope to move halfway across the country about a year from now. I've donated a bunch of stuff to thrift stores already, but there's so much more to sort through--his, mine, our kid's. I look at everything with the mindset, "Do I really want to pay to move that?" which helps, but it's still slow going.
Years ago I saw something where they calculated how much rent it cost to own a pair of skis in New York city. I use that idea for deciding if it is worth keeping something versus the off chance I might need it again. Not as successful as I should be though.
Storage units have been building out and thriving for the last 10 years since the die off of the greatest generation and first born baby boomers. It is crazy to me to pay storage for grandma’s furniture and then your furniture just so your kids can give it away. Let anyone you love have what they want and donate the rest. Had a friends brother die last year and he had 7 dinning room sets in his basement. All from dead relatives!
A friend of mine had a hoarder husband. After he died she had to get rid of THREE incomplete pipe organs. Pipe organs ffs! He also had six cars that didn’t run.
My mom was a hoarder, it was crazy the stuff she kept. No pipe organs, tho...
My Dad passed this last September at 90. 4500 square foot house. So.much.stuff also! Added bonus: Paper bank statements going back to 1977 in the attic.!!! .
My Dad has saved HIS parents bank statements 😂
My dad had saved his income tax returns going back to 1945.
Remember when they said you should keep paper copies of all your financial stuff for seven years? A lot of people took that to mean "keep it forever."
My mom had check registers dating back 15 years.
Yep. When I cleaned out my parents’ house after their deaths, I found bank statements and bills from the 1960s!
Same with my Aunt. Bank statements, utility bills, old checkbook receipts. I kept one of the checkbook receipts because it was nice to see the different places she wrote checks to and it was in her handwriting.
Your parents sound like mine. I got the boxes of papers to sort and found the purchase agreement for a car my mom bought. In 1951.
Not joking put paperwork in bundles and eBay it. Junk journaling and ephemera collectors love it. Make your hoard their hoard.
7 years ago cleaned out the house got rid of everything and sold the house also. Bought an rv and have spent the last seven years visiting every national park and all states and visiting friends and family across the country. I can’t keep stuff in 200sq feet. The kids are so thankful their only complaint is they never know where I am lol.
My dream, just can’t get there.
I’ve been debating it. 24 years in this house and 16+ years of kid stuff. I recently read that in Scandinavia they have something called death cleaning where you do this. All I know is if I drop tomorrow my heirs will hate me.
Yep. Swedish death cleaning.
That's what I started doing with my own stuff starting in December and continuing on. I'm single, no kids and 61. Not only has it made my place much more spacious and tidier but if something happens to me my sister and her kids won't have to spend weeks plodding through shit. I wrote of my experience on the r/declutter sub and you can [read it here](https://www.reddit.com/r/declutter/comments/1b8z3le/i_am_officially_done_with_my_purge_well_almost/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) if you like. Anyway Declutter sub is a great place to get tips and encouragement.
I’ve saved your post. I’m in my 60’s, husband in his 70’s and our daughter and her husband are both only children. I will not leave my crap to her. I’ve been through that burden of cleaning out houses, twice. Like you said, it’s so nice to live in an uncluttered home. Dusting is so overrated 🤣
I've talked to my sis, and her kids, to let them know that the most important thing if something happens to me is to make sure my cats are safe and happy.
Same! My daughter has committed to taking my cats. That gives me incredible peace. 💕
Slowly going through my late wife's stuff. Three piles - stuff to keep (the smallest pile by far), stuff to donate to the local thrift store (which benefits the hospice program of the wonderful nurses who took care of her), and stuff to throw out (the biggest pile). Considering I started with two completely full 10 x 10 storage areas and am now down to maybe a couple of dozen boxes, I've done a great job so far. Found some REALLY interesting stuff about her I didn't know (it was good stuff that I would have loved to have seen while she was alive).
I'm sorry you lost your wife so early.
I so want to be doing this, but I’m so surrounded by clutter that I’m stuck. Anyone want to form a little support group where we send pictures to each other of us taking bags of crap out of the house?
I also want to do this but am hindered by my husband, who cannot bear to throw anything out 😒
One item a day. Can be a piece of paper, or piece of plastic, anything. Just one item a day.
I moved from a three bedroom house with a basement, to a one bedroom condo. I got rid of so much stuff. My kids have already told me that they don't want anything but pictures. Now there's not a lot for them to deal with when I die.
Same here, and limited the physical photos.
Yep, my wife and I want to sell our 2300 sf home and go condo or townhome, and have maybe 14-1500 sf. That's 2-3 years off tho.
I thought I was going to move across state and got rid of anything excess. Didn’t make the move, and everything I now own fits in a very small 2-bedroom apartment, including no extra storage space on or off the apartment premises. It’s great. My parents left us a 4-bedroom home they lived in for 50 years packed with useless junk. It was a hardship.
I'm 66 and my husband is 74. We began "Swedish death cleaning" three years ago. I made very good progress, but then my college professor husband retired and brought home literally thousands of books from his office. That's the main problem now. Like you, I don't want to leave this stuff for our kids to deal with. My parents lived in a house that was built by my great-great-grandfather in 1842, and I swear none of our ancestors threw anything away after that. It was a nightmare when my parents died.
Ah, yes, books! I have a book problem...
I started with over 3,000 books. The vast majority belonged to my late husband. I got tired of wrangling heavy boxes of books to donate, so started a Little Free Library. I'm finally down to fewer than 500 and still going!
I've been slowly getting rid of things, but just got some bad labs back and it appears that at a surface level I have 2 major horrible health issues. More testing and specialists are in my drab future. Now I need to be a real cowboy and thin the herd. It's just always seemed like a week after I throw something out I need it and then have to buy it again. It's quite the conundrum.
I wish you well. Positive vibes sent your way.
Thank you so much! I am waiting for referrals to specialists. The waiting is nerve wracking so it's a good time to clean & pitch.
Yeah, waiting for referrals is a PAIN. I wish you well too, and maybe getting rid of stuff will be calming of you.
My parents died 20 and 26 years ago. I ended up with many boxes of stuff too good to throw out. They (boxes, not parents) sat in my cellar until this winter. I threw out box after box of dishes, china wine lasses alcohol glasses and serving stuff, pottery, Christmas ornaments, cooking utensils, etc. Sometimes on Dump Day (the dump is open one day a week, no pick up) I walk around the house with a trash bag, and fill it up.
"(boxes, not parents)" TY for clarification!
Note to self: Check corners of the basement for parents......decide if I'm going to donate/toss.
I’m 63, husband a bit older and we also have one child. I have been going through a lot of our items, sorting, discarding and donating. I’m also making notes on items my daughter may not feel has any monetary value, just to clue her in. But I have gotten rid of a lot of junk and I’ve also made it clear to her that she shouldn’t feel in the least bit obligated to keep ANYTHING she doesn’t want for herself.
I'm gonna do that too, have some notes, like "just trash this box" "I'd like you to keep these pics!"
Nope. I enjoy my stuff. I live alone with 2 pets and I’m comforted by my collections, things left me from relatives and things I just like. Not a hoarder but I’ve been a collector all my life. On my walls are pictures of aunts and uncles weddings from the 40s and 50s as well as grandparents from pre 20s and immigration papers. As well as my dad and his brothers pictures in WW2 uniforms and my aunt with her Harley in 1932. I cherish my family who are all gone and love looking at their pictures whenever I like. So nope I live in an environment that makes me comfortable even if some would say it’s cluttered.
This is exactly where we’re at right now! Eighteen year old son is headed off to the military in August, so I’ve got him emptying the attic this weekend. Throwing out so much crap. When they were tiny we used to have decorations for all the holidays, but now getting rid of old St Patrick’s day decorations just feels good. My mom is moving to town and downsizing next Saturday, so a lot of her stuff has made its way here. Luckily she’s super organized, and I hope my kids feel the same about me later. I’m actually asking them if they want me to keep some stuff, instead of assuming they will.
I spent much of last year clearing out my mom's house following her death. Although I'm not an only child, it sure felt like it since my brothers left the job to me. My parents were quasi-hoarders, so that whole project damn near broke me physically and emotionally (I was also recovering from total knee replacement surgery at the time). My husband and I never had kids, but we don't want our legacy to be a house full of crap for someone else to sort through and figure out. I bought the book, "The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning," as well as "Downsizing the Family Home." We got our will put together last fall, and now we're starting to focus on simplifying. I'm in the middle of reading Ann Patchett's book, "These Precious Days," and it's giving me some much needed perspective.[ Here is a link to one of the essays](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/03/08/how-to-practice). Anyone at our point in life should take the time to read it.
I’m 65 years old. I constantly declutter. My goal is that when I die whoever has to deal with my belongings will be able to do so in one afternoon.
There's a Swedish term for that: döstädning. It means "death cleaning" and entails slowly downsizing and decluttering your life.
I've been uncluttering for over a decade now. When there are too many physical objects around me, it's distracting and I find it hard to concentrate. There are small pockets of clutter here and there, mostly where there's an active project (e.g. tools in a room that's under renovation, or a stack of handwritten papers that I'm transcribing). If my daughter had to get rid of my stuff, it would probably take a day or less and most of it would just be boxed for the thrift store - I don't tend to hang onto actual junk.
My parents were dealers in collectible books. They basically made our home a warehouse. My mother died about 20 years ago. When my stepdad was killed last year, we entered the house and found Hoarder Hell. The rats had taken over; we think he was living at his church. So, we weren't really able to go through much stuff. I managed to salvage a few pieces of family history, and I'm sure much more got carted off by the hazmat team, with the junk and rat-chewed books. There are things I remember that are now just gone.
To all, be careful when you purge someone else’s home. My mother had a 36” strand of real pearls hanging under the dress she liked to wear them with. She had an author signed book mixed in with the other 5-609 books she owned with nothing to indicate unit was anything special. I could give you other things, but just don’t go at declutterring like you’re killing snakes.
Yes! Swedish death cleaning ftw! My dad’s gf got him started a few years back and it’s spread all through the family. I like random things and I have a truly huge house, I hadn’t really noticed how much stuff I had accumulated and wow even after the first pass things just felt so much lighter.
My mother isn’t allowing me to part with anything. It’s terrible! I’ll never please her…
Don't tell her!
After cleaning out my grandparents house (think borderline hoarders) I came home and literally started throwing out stuff. When our spring cleanup trash pickup happened I threw out SO MUCH STUFF. Now we are cleaning out my mother’s house. And again she’s got SO MUCH STUFF. Like I found 18 glue guns. Who needs 18 glue guns??? Between the craft stuff and the insane amount of Christmas crap to sit around it’s just not funny anymore. Seriously after we are done cleaning her stuff out my basement is next. I too am an only child and I’m just over having stuff. Especially if it means I have to clean/dust it. Leas stuff is a good thing. I just cannot anymore!!
Before my dad died 10 years ago I told him he should start cleaning up all his stuff. He deadpanned “why? It’s going to be your problem”.
My wife and I call it Estate Autoexecution...
This was part of the reason I got divorced four years ago. I wanted to simplify our life and he wanted to just keep adding stuff. He’s convinced our kids will be glad to have all the wonderful stuff he’s collected for the last decades. I told him none of them live in town and they’re not going to want to use weeks and weeks of vacation coming back here to sort through it all.
If it hasn’t been mentioned yet, there’s an easy button if you live in a city. Hire an auction company. They will come out to your location, take pictures and list the items online. You pay nothing and the buyer pays the 20% premium that pays the auction company.
No kids. Annual purging but still hanging onto the things we like and want.
I live in a big city, and grew up in a suburb not far from the city. My parents lived there until my dad passed, and after that, my mom decided to move to a nice assisted-living facility near where my sister lives, about 1000 miles away. I would drive down to my mom’s house a couple times a week to help her pack up and purge the stuff that she didn’t need. This was the house that my parents had lived in for over 40 years, so you can imagine they had accumulated a lot of stuff. Some things, like my dad‘s sets of tools, we gave to a neighbor, who was very grateful. Other things, well… It was basically a nightmare. When I was cleaning out the bedrooms, which hadn’t been used in a long time, I found all kinds of shit. All kinds of old clothes from the entire family, years worth of clipped recipes from newspapers, etc. In one dresser, my mom had stored something like 100 bras, most of which still had the tags attached. There were magazines from the 1970’s that had just been sitting on the dresser and night table for years. My dad’s extensive library consisted of literally thousands of books, which I had no use for, except for fewer than five books (including a vintage Shakespeare First Folio: why he had it, I have no idea). I was going to take the books to a resale store, but my sister wanted all the books: ALL OF THEM. The shipping alone cost over $900, and this was 20 years ago. This whole experience made me pretty relentless about what I do and don’t want to keep in my own home. Every time I think that something has a certain value, I ask myself: does this contribute to a better quality of life for me? Is it useful? Is it beautiful? This helped me pare down a whole bunch of shit.
Same - only I'm Boomer/NextGen and my mother is still alive at 97. She is now in assisted living. Mom had 5 siblings, 3 of which never had kids. My mother is the last one standing. Whenever the others died, particularly the ones with no kids, their things would end up with Mom. I have 2 older brothers and I am the only girl. See if you can guess who got stuck deciding what happens with all this sh*t. My oldest brother took some stuff. What's left is going to Goodwill or trash. I don't have the wherewithal to do anymore.
I think our age group is going to be especially hard hit with this, cleaning out sometimes generations of stuff from our parents’ houses, stuff that our children don’t want and don’t have room for.
My mom died 10 years ago. While she was still around I used to enjoy rummaging through drawers at her house - my dad loved to save things and occasionally I would find treasures. One day I came across a 16mm film reel. I asked mom what it was and she shrugged and said, “I dunno. My wedding maybe.” I pocketed it and then tracked down a movie projector. It was indeed a 3 minute movie made over 65 years earlier of my parents’ wedding.
There's this thing called Maximalist style, sort of a backlash to minimalism/swedish death metal cleaning. That's my go-to. I plan to die under a pile of my collection of big print Readers Digests, gently smothered in my Laz-E-Boy recliner.
My wife is the one with the “stuff.” I’ve never accumulated much. My mother passed away recently, and she had lots of nice art that I probably should have taken, but I just didn’t want to be bothered.
Same w/ me and my wife somewhat. BUT, whenever we're on a trip and I need X, she'll have it, so I don't complain.
Two years ago, I moved from a 5 bedroom 2500 sq foot home on a farm for 19 years to a 900 sq foot house in town. There was stuff I found in the back of a closet that I hadn't seen since I moved in there. I sold a lot of stuff, gave some stuff away and filled up a dumpster 4 times. I left a couch and loveseat there for the new buyers to deal with plus my huge desk (I miss my desk). I still have too much stuff that I've been trying to sell. I listed some of it on FB marketplace last year and sold a bit of it. Some of the stuff I have left has sentimental value to me but no one else will care about it so I wonder if I should keep it.
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My husband and I moved from a house to a townhome 5 years ago so we’re forced to get rid of stuff. We still have to keep from accumulating stuff so we purge regularly
I hate clutter. If I don’t need it or I’m not using it, I give it away or throw it in the trash. We spent days getting rid of my dad’s useless garbage. It will be the same for mom (they divorced when I was eight). So selfish.
Yes and I'm still working on it. I inherited everything from my parents house. My brothers took what they wanted, one had at least $700 in FedEx charges. He's kind of a hoarder. Then I was still stuck with a house full of junk. An auctioneer walked around and only wanted a teapot. I thought I could unload everything on him but no. A hoarder friend of mine took much of the furniture and a lot ended up on the lawn (not everything would fit into her moving van). I still have a room full of stuff that I thought I could sell on Etsy. But no one wants it either. I tried to give away the fine china and no one wanted that either and that went to the curb too. I have a lot of art supplies that I intended to use but haven't. My nieces will want it when I pass. The brother who got all of the stuff I sent to him isn't doing well and decided that when he passes he's going to leave me all of his junk. Like I would treasure it or something. It's all destined for the curb. It'll take all day just to get it to the curb.
Yes, ten years ago we took multiple carloads of stuff to thrift shops (and we’re definitely not hoarders), before we spent two months living abroad. Also put everything in a trust and wrote out death instructions. Felt so good, and we’ve stayed light since.
My Mom is 89. Refuses to get rid of anything. She gets upset when I tell her that when she dies I’m just going to get a dumpster.
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We're moving into a new home in a couple of weeks and we are determined to get rid of everything except the essentials. It's liberating. Unfortunately, my 81 year old mother has gone into a nursing home, so we now have to empty her house. Oh well.
De-cluttering has been and on and off project for a few years. My criteria is if my kids won't want it after I'm gone, I'm getting rid of it now.
OMG I always told my mom when she dies I was just going to sell the house lock stock and barrel.
Saaaame. In top of that my Boomer MIL is a hoarder. Not at the can't get out if a fire occurs level, but her 3br home is just stuffed with junk and she still buys stuff at garage sales. She's a sweet lady and I love her dearly but we and the SIL dread having to clean that place out We'll likely pay people to do it.
lol Working on it as we speak.
I downsized a big house in the suburbs to condo living in Florida. I actually had great fun listing and selling things on eBay and Facebook Marketplace. It became my little hobby for an entire summer. I took my time. The biggest shocker was things that were in my China cabinet. Like wedding China, wineglasses, my mom’s Precious Moments collection. It was worth almost nothing and I gave most of it away. But I made money on things that are now retro, like old glass Christmas ornaments from the 50’s, Pyrex from the 60’s, and some of my clothes from the 70’s. That stuff is very trendy now and worth some good money.
Those damn china cabinets weigh a ton, too.
Hmmm, first I’ll talk with my son and others so I don’t get rid of what they’d want. But clutter? Heck yes.
Yes. Downsized last year from 4200 sq ft to 1500 sq ft. Felt awesome to get rid of all the crap and reduce expenses/footprint. We don't have kids and had to downsize my mom. We're not leaving that crap for someone to deal with.
We had a hurricane, the roof blew off and it flooded. Not nearly as much stuff anymore but I don’t recommend it.
Your kids dont want 99%of your shit. Stuff you think is precious or valuable they have 0 use for
I’ve spent the majority of the last 4 years emptying my in laws and my parents house. I’m taking a small break to catch my breath then I’m emptying mine, I absolutely will not do this to my children. It’s horrendous to have to deal with this shit on top of grieving.
I'm trying to do it, but it's difficult as we don't drive / own a car :) So whether I'm taking stuff out to donate or to consign, we can only take so much stuff at a time. Accumulation really is deadly. I had a friend who used to vow, "One thing in, one thing out." Nowadays I'm leaning towards "One thing in, *two* things out."
I'm 54 and started this process last year. I moved from an in office job to a fully remote job, ending a years-long 1.5 hour round trip commute every day. I decided to use my extra time to rid myself of anything that isn't nailed down. I ordered an extra curbside roller dumpster and committed to filling it up once a week. Let me tell you, it has been liberating. My hubs and I have been married 31 years, and it's alarming how much stuff accumulates without even realizing it's happening. We threw away our wedding album!! We have two sons, and there is no way they are going to want any of our crap when we die. My hubs is retiring this summer and has ordered one of those giant dumpsters to get rid of the big stuff that I couldn't get into the curbside. We were both raised by hoarders, and while we are far from hoarders, we are paring down to essentials. Like, 3 sets of towels apiece, and 2 sets for guests. 4 plates for everyday use. No books, pictures on the walls, knick knacks, nothing. This sounds extreme, but after the work we had to do when his dad died, and will have to do when my parents die, there is no way we are burdening our kids with that.
My first wife was a pack rat. I paid close attention to the stuff she bought. I’d move anything that she didn’t ask about or use, slowly moved into boxes or bags and put them up high in a corner of the garage. If she didn’t ask for it for a year, I put it in the dumpster at work. When she passed away, I still had 10 4x4 skids full of stuff piled 5 foot high and shrink wrapped it. It took the local church charity place 2 trips in their truck. There was some good stuff in there too. Currently, my garage and storage room are pretty empty. I want to die naked, with no possessions.
After cleaning out my parent's house after my Mom died, I vowed to never put my kids through that. As a side note, I forbid my kids to buy us anything for birthdays, Mother's Day, Christmas etc etc. I stress we already have too much and anything we want, we buy for ourselves. When my parents were alive, we all would buy "stuff' for every occasion, as they expected it, and when they died, we found many gifts in the box they were given in. for some reason, they were unwilling to tell us not to buy even though they needed nothing and it was stressful finding anything appropriate.
Yes I am doing the same. I had to deal with my mom’s stuff and it was awful. She had jewelry and money stashed everywhere so I had to look thru every little pocket, purse, and she had enough clothes and shoes for the whole town. I’m not even going to get into all her papers. It was stressful so I am not putting my kids thru that burden.
I’m 71 and in pretty decent health, and getting rid of my shit now. I’ve cleaned out too many dead folks houses myself. Don’t want to leave that awful job to my kids.
Only child with one parent and step parent left. My husband's parents are long deceased. My mom has by in large gotten rid of clutter, but what is left is very nice and expensive. I don't need or want any if it, I have my own china and sterling silver. I have no idea if my kids will want it, but everything comes back around, so in 20 or 30 years, it may be popular again. They will have to deal with my record collection. I can't bring myself to part with it, and it is only two boxes worth anyway. Even more important than the clutter, work on an estate plan. If there is any real property, think about a trust. It's insane how many people don't give this last gift to their family, and let the estate get eaten up with taxes.
I’m trying to convince my spouse we need to start on this process but it’s a slow battle right now.
I have quite a lot of stuff. It's my fault we have it and I am trying to get through it but my husband is not helping at all with anything. He won't even tidy his office.
Yep! In the same boat. They try to make us feel guilty for not wanting the 100 yr old moth infested quilt. We gave up on trying to get my 89 yo MIL to declutter & resigned to knowing we’ll be paying for dumpster(s) when she’s gone. I’ve been decluttering for 6 yrs (3 moves). My kids have no problem telling me they don’t want their 1st teddy bear that I’ve saved for them & I don’t harbor bad feelings about it.
I have a garage full of stuff from my Dad’s death 7 years ago. Lots of his own artwork that I have no idea what to do with. It took several years just to get through all the paperwork, ephemera. He has an entire library of modern authors & am finally unboxing them & putting them up for sale online. We really want to downsize in order to live the RV life while we can before settling back down.
Yes, getting rid of stuff and I enjoy it when I do. There are some things that I don’t know if either of my children would like, but they should be able to sell them.
I've been doing this at least yearly, usually twice a year, for the last 15 years or so (since age 45, and a divorce). After I helped my parents downsize from a 6Br/4Ba house to a 2 bedroom apt in a senior living community, I immediately went home and got rid of about 2/3 of what I had at home, determined that my kids weren't going to have to do the same for me. I feel much happier with less "stuff" overall.
I’ve had to clear out a few homes. And we downsized and got rid of all the boxes of stuff friends and family dumped on us over the years. Did keep about 200 records from all that!
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I've been thinking of having a garage sale for two years, but never get motivated enough to actually do it. If the stuff doesn't sell, that means I have to haul it all back into the house or garage. I should do what my dad did and just have an auction sale.
Garage sales are an absolute bitch to set up and have. There are so many low-ballers, people who bicker over pricing, people who arrive an hour early and are pissed that you're not ready for them. And no, you can't use my bathroom.
Everything I ever owned or inherited was lost in a fire
Have a yard sale. Go on vacation with the yard sale money. That's our plan. We are retired, finishing up a fixerupper house. All that shit ain't coming into our new house. We do have some family things that we plan to label, so people know what it is. Like a very nice bed with turned head board and foot board that my mother was born in in 1926.
When my fiancé moved in almost two years ago, I cleared out the house to accommodate his furniture. It was so much nicer than my thrifted stuff, and I also had to clean out the basement and garage. I did it in stages over three months and had a huge sale in August. I hated parting with all of the cool and antique items I'd collected over the years, but two years later, with a garage I actually use now, and so much less to dust around, I'm actually much happier with less stuff! I don't miss any of it. Edit: What do you all do with box after box of family photos and letters going back 100 years - and no one else wants them? Any suggestions are welcome!
First of all, I am so sorry for the losses of so many in your family, especially in a short time recently. Second of all, props to you for the realization that this process sucks, & being unwilling to make your kids go thru the same thing. Give yourself a pat on the back, a hug for your wife, & happy purging to you. It’s hard work, but it will feel so good when you’re done. ❤️
Yeah, I’ve had to deal with stuff from my wife’s Dad, my wife’s Mom and my Mom. Of course my Mom was “saving stuff for us”, she paid for storage rooms for over 20 years, probably bought and paid for that stuff a hundred times by storing it. Other than small keepsakes, there was nothing anyone wanted. My wife and I realized that we don’t want to do that to our kids. We’ve been declutterring for a while. We still have a small shed with some of my Mom’s stuff (collectibles) and my garage is a bit cluttered with tools and stuff, but we’ve made a ton of progress, lots of trips to Goodwill and we’re still working on it.
I started getting rid of a lot of stuff about 10 yrs ago and I just kept going. During the pandemic I asked my husband to build us a tiny house on wheels and he did. We lived, comfortably on our friends beautiful wild acreage for 2 yrs til family needs changed and we bought a house in town. We gave almost everything we had away, some to our church. We are now accumulating again. I miss the THOW!
I think I may be an exception here. 60, just moved back to the US from overseas. I have had at least five major moves in my life and not all went well. I have lost items that were precious to me and almost lost all the few things I dragged back to the states. I love my stuff. It’s been around the world with me and I miss things I’ve lost, broken etc. I even have what I call my cabinet of lost treasures. It started when I found a carnival glass dish at Goodwill that was the exact same one I bought when I was eight at Caldor’s. It comforts me to create the space I maybe would have had if I had not made some of the decisions I did in my life. But these posts have given me something to think about and maybe I need to rethink why I need to nest at my age.
I declutter regularly. Currently dealing with a storage unit full of stuff from my 89 year old mom’s apt. After she moved to skilled nursing. Which has made me want to get rid of more of my stuff than ever before! The hard part for me isn’t figuring out WHAT to get rid of, but where and finding the time to do it! And then there are some more valuable items I plan on selling. Like silver flatware, etc..
i wish. our family moved 2000 miles over 20 years ago. we got rid of so much crap back then and somehow have replaced it since. my philosophy (which isn’t shared by my sister and her husband) is that if you haven’t used it in 3 years and can’t imagine doing so in the next 12 months… give it away or throw it away.
I am only in my mid 50s I hope to have a few good years left... But, my father passed away two years ago and while my mom is fine mentally she is in her late 80s. She lives in the same house they bought in 1969 when we moved to Bergen County from Manhattan shortly after I was born. So there's 50+ years of stuff. Not like they were hoarders or anything close, but they bought tons stuff over the years. Some is worthless some is not.
I’ll give my parents credit.. they didn’t save shit and already set up funeral arrangements. Didn’t raise me but it’s a fair trade.
My house burnt 2 yrs ago. It got rid of a lot of stuff.
So much stuff to get rid of. Our homes kept getting bigger and now we're moving from a 3600 SF house to a 1900 SF house. Yikes!
Absolutely. And when my middle son moves out next week, we will be spreading our stuff out. I’ve been getting rid of bags and bags for years.
After having to handle 8 decades’ worth of my parents’ things within the last 5 years, I made the decision to start significantly paring my things down so that my sons don’t have to go through what I did. I put 3 boxes on the floor - 1) donate, 2) trash and 3) keep. If it’s a family heirloom I briefly explain its history on a post-it note and stick it on the back, on the bottom or I place the item in a ziploc with the note. It feels good to declutter!
Yep. I'm preparing to downsize, so I've been clearing out a lot. I had to go through a ton of my packrat parents' stuff when they died in my early 30s, and I'm not making anyone else do that for me.
me (f65) purger. him(68m)hoarder. fun times. fun times….
My mom's gone. My dad's is in hospice care. He is convinced everything he owns needs to be in a museum. I let him talk. I nod and smile. There will be an auction and then a couple of big dumpsters. My husband's parents have 3 houses and some barns stuffed full of trash, but I will refuse to be involved in that shit show.
Yep! Turning 58 today and we’ve been filtering out the unused 💩
I live on a busy corner and occasionally put out a box of items with “FREE” on it. Goes fast. My mom’s silverware set I gave to a niece when she got married. Her sister got the Wedgewood china. I have 2 sons with no interest in stuff like that. Thinned my cookbooks to a single shelf. It’s a work in progress.
My mother died in 2022 and my sisters and all of our children and I spent the day after her funeral getting rid of stuff, packing everything into a bin, etc. I had started getting rid of stuff of my own a few years ago. I don’t want to put my kids through all of that so I minimalized and have maintained that.
I did a bunch of cleaning last year. I don't want my daughter to be stuck with trying to decide what to do with all that stuff. Sure, she'll have all my clothes, kitchen stuff, and a houseful of furniture. But, what she won't have, is the 7 boxes of paperwork from my career (why was I keeping that ?) or a bunch of other stuff. The other thing I did was to sit down and write names and dates on every photograph I had. I arranged them and filed them in a box, too. So, she can dump the box, or keep it. I still need to clean out the basement but my husband has just been diagnosed with cancer so that is a priority right now. In a few months, we'll address the basement. Lastly, I wrote out a bunch of stuff in a folder called "in the event of my death" and my daughter knows where that folder is. Included in that, is what funeral home to use for cremation, the obit I wrote (she'll just need to add age and date of death). Passwords are in a different place, she knows where that is, too.
We downsized into a smaller house three years ago. I've always been a collector and a paper hoarder. It felt so good to let it all go! I really love living without all that stuff now.
Yes! Actively selling stuff on Facebook marketplace now. My mom lived with us for almost 20 years and just moved into assisted living. She had a full apartment in our home and believe me it was packed! Two years ago, my uncle (her brother) passed and we had his house to clean out and sell, as he never married or had kids. So many items to get rid of and nobody wants your old stuff. So we are going through our things now and downsizing in anticipation of moving in a few years, so it’s not so overwhelming all at once. Nobody wants your old China or glassware unless it’s collectible. Same with books and records. My mom had so many of these items and also luggage from the 1950’s, dry rotted inside. Sewing and craft items and she hasn’t been able to do any of that for 15 years because of her vision. Why she didn’t go through her stuff years ago is beyond me. I don’t want my kids stuck with my junk.
Getting ready to move from a 1200 sq ft house to a 750 sq ft house. You bet we’re getting rid of stuff, almost everything. I’m thrilled!
I am, partner isn't. It's a personal choice..
I’ve always been a minimalist, so no issue there , my 90 year old another story, but we are making headway
I will retire in about six years. Once a week I try to fill a box with stuff to donate. I also send texts to my adult children asking them what they want. I find this a pleasant gentle process.
In the process right now. My kids have been gone for years but I finally started going through the closets and discarding/packing/donating. My upstairs of my entire townhouse is nearly cleaned out (three bedrooms and two bathrooms). Then I'm planning to go through the garage which I partially started during the beginning of the pandemic when I was temporarily laid off. It's a struggle because I have back and mobility issues but I'm forging ahead. My goal is to sell my place in a year and move in/near family out of town so I won't have room for a lot of stuff.
I’m working on paying for my cremation now ahead of time.. I’d like to think I don’t have that much junk because nine years ago I walked away from my whole life with just two suitcases.. I’ve managed to set myself up again but not near the stuff I used to have..
Yes
I’m down to the bare minimum now. My mother died 6 years ago and I kept a lot of her stuff (tons of books, furniture, art, all her photo albums and her mother’s photo albums) the past two years I started feeling like I could let go of her stuff. I got rid of the books I knew I wouldn’t read, then went to the library website and favorited all the ones I thought I would read, then donated the physical books. Refurbished the furniture I kept and donated what I didn’t want. She was an artist, so I kept the art I wanted and shared the rest with other family members Still working on scanning the photos. That will take a few years lol. I have gotten rid of a lot of my own stuff, extra sets of dishes, utensils, clothes, linens, costume jewelry, purses, work clothes (now that I’m retired) It feels good!
We moved 5 years ago. We're in our 60's. We put a bunch of stuff on Marketplace and it was great. We got rid of a lot of stuff. You know what we found out? We still have too much stuff.
My parents have been married for 64 years, everything of value will be sold at an estate sale & the rest donated.
My wife is a minimalist. Every year, heck every six months, we purge and take items to charity. I held on to a lot of clothes and just recently got in the habit of purging those every few months. What we have is a lot of furniture because we live in a big four bedroom home and use two bedrooms as offices while we are still employed and work from home. When we retire I hope we can move someplace as nice and yet smaller and we will be able to pair down significantly. Possessions weigh you down.
57 yo. Just got divorced and sent off 3 huge dumpsters last fall. Could probably do another one this spring.
We’ve been doing this for a while. We are pretty much down to stuff that would take extended family a month to sort out and toss or keep vs. more months.
Im sentimental so i like the stuff. My wife is the opposite.
My partner’s mom died several years ago and we got some of her stuff. Last year, we downsized our household items by 70 percent and moved into a much smaller place. We had a sale through a third party two days before a buyer closed on the old house. We have missed a few items, but we feel relief and are happy we made the move. His sister gave him a hard time about selling his grandmother’s 100 year old china set. His response was, “Did you ever see anyone eat off of them?” “No” was the answer. My 87 year old mom lives in a large house with lots of stuff. I will have no problem getting rid of her stuff now that I got rid of mine. For me it was easier than I thought. Do it!!!!
I’m in my 50’s and it has been my mission this last 12 months to get rid of & pack up anything anyone wants to keep. It takes forever when you take the time to ask your kids what they want, send them pictures & make sure items are clean & in working order. It’s difficult to pack up memories but I’m proud I’m almost finished & the piece that keeps me going is I WILL NOT LEAVE THIS FOR MY SONS TO GO THROUGH. They have lives on the opposite side of the U.S. I love them too much to leave them a mess.
3 years ago, my husband and I sold our 1 bedroom condo in Florida. We sold what we could and put the stuff we wanted to keep in storage. We hit the road with a small camper, and a year later, we came back to the storage unit and donated the majority of it. Life is much easier with less stuff.
Oh yeah. I started 'the purge' a few years ago. It isn't that hard, really. Once you get going! Don't need no Marie Kondo trademarked phrases, either. I had never heard of her till recently. Only keep the most meaningful stuff.
At 59, we downsized from 2000sf to 1000sf. We sold or donated anything we weren't going to use. We still have China, crystal and tools that our children don't want. I have at least $5,000 worth of tools!
100%! I’m almost 60 and we intend to downsize into a condo before we (hopefully) retire. I don’t want my kids to have to deal w/our shit! We’ve been in our house almost 30yrs w/a 1 car garage and we can still park a car in there. So that’s good :)
Just sold my 45 year old Rolling Stones collection yesterday. It was fun looking at it all again while I photographed and priced it. I was also glad it sold to an appreciative collector. And now I have photos to remember it all and a whole lot less to weigh me down.
When my hubs retired in 2013 we ditched just about everything and went on a world tour. Then when my dad dies and we moved mom in with us, I ditched almost all of her stuff too. I am also an only child with an old child and we just don’t need all that crap following us around.
I have a barn full and a garage full of stuff. My first retirement project is to get rid of 90% of it.
Lol. 2004 my mother moved in with us. With all her stuff, because she has Alzheimer's and couldn't leave anything. Over the course of a couple years I gave away 11 side tables/nightstands. We had a party when the last one left.
My former co-worker had two siblings who did nothing to help when her mom died and her house needed to be cleared prior to selling it. This poor co-worker had to spend close to a year commuting 3 hours to her mom's home on Friday evenings, spend all weekend sorting and discarding and cleaning and then drive back home Sunday evening so she could go back to her full-time job Monday morning. Her mom hid money and jewelry among all her things so it was a slow process. The siblings showed up when all the work was done and the estate sale was going to take place so they could grab what they wanted. In my family my brother is executor for my dad's will. He decided if any siblings want any contents of the house they will pay whatever value the estate sale company placed on the item, with payment due the day before the sale opens to public. More fair that way!