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In addition to wading through all the thousands of framed photographs from all four parents (parents and inlaws), I have stuff that belongs to my adult kids who are still in the military and living overseas and transient sorts of lives. I have, in no particular order - childrens' toys, a guitar, a drum set, a wedding dress, a hooka (don't ask), a rug, two antique rifles that are inoperable, oh, I can't even remember it all.
Thankfully I never kept things such as report cards, etc. Each kid had a pocket folder and when their picture or name was in the newspaper I cut it out and saved it. As my kids outgrew their toys and clothes as a social worker I passed them on to needy families. I helped my mom clean out a home full of stuff from 30 years before and that was sufficient to not let that be me.
I moved across the country once they were grown and left their stuff with their dad. It’s wasn’t a lot and eventually he required them to take it. When my parents died I only kept maybe 10 pictures from their albums. When my mom was dying after all of us took the pictures we wanted she threw the rest in the dumpster.
My MIL had a trunk for each kid that she filled with their special momentos and childhood belongings - pictures, report cards, schoolwork, awards, favorite toys, etc. Whatever didn't fit inside those trunks got tossed I'm sure.
When each of her kids got established in their own home, she had them come and get their trunks. My husband had a lot of fun going through his own trunk and rediscovering treasures from his childhood. He has shared some of the toys in that trunk with our children.
I thought that was a wise way of handling the "kids'" stuff. I think we'll do something similar for our kids.
We also moved ourselves across the country a few times for our careers so you can only rent and drive their biggest uhaul so that also restricts how much junk you can save. People that don’t move or only move locally probably keep more stuff. I have helped friends clean out houses like that and it’s always a overwhelming task. It’s probably how the junk removal companies got started because if you live far away from your parents you can’t handle the task or choose not to. Most people only wear 20% of their clothes and I wonder if it’s the same with using their possessions.
This is an informative thread although I am very sorry to the OP for the reason for it. My condolances. I am moving in a year when I am a single, empty nester when my daughter goes off to college (downsizing from 2000 sq ft to about 400 sq ft). I am not reducing down to two suitcases, but I am getting rid of the vast majority of my stuff. I've already thrown out quite a bit as I really don't care about most of my stuff much. I think the total was close to 40 trash bags of stuff thrown out over the course of three months. But there is going to be so much more to eventually get rid of (I am using most of it for now, until I move).
It's the family memory souvenirs that are hard to part with. For example, I really need to pare down the boxes of stuff like artwork made by my daughter, her grade school journals, report cards, awards, and such. I have two whole bins of her stuff and two of my own like that, plus one of just photos. It could be less. I am also keeping furniture my granddad made, some antique end tables that were my grandmothers, and clothes and stuff like that. My guess is what I am keeping would fit in the back of a big pickup truck if it wasn't for the couch and chair my grandad made.
The hard part will be getting rid of the heavy furniture (dining room table, family room set, bedroom sets, etc). I can't even move some of it a few inches without help, let alone move it out of the house. But I have some ideas from another thread I started before I saw this one.
But I have a lot more to get rid of and I need to go over the ideas in this thread with a fine toothed comb.
Last edited by WalkingLiberty1919D; 05-19-2021 at 04:03 PM..
If donating was that easy, I wouldn't have 2 bags of clothes sitting in my back room. They will eventually move to the car, where they will also sit for awhile.
I get it. I put stuff on a Buy Nothing group and even that's a pain. Is it going to blow away before they get there? Will someone else take it? Oh look, it's still there 3 days later, now I have to contact them again.
Stuff wears one down after awhile.
A few of you will appreciate this:
The other day I was getting gas and happened to catch the traffic the right way as I left the gas station. ie I was able to turn left, and hopped into Goodwill across the street.
Yes I bought a few things.
No I did not have my bags of donations with me (they are in my car now though, for a completely different reason)
And speaking of the Buy Nothing groups, 2 weeks ago I posted a bunch of stuff and got bites on just about everything. A week later I'm reaching out to two of the people who had completely forgotten about their stuff. Another week later I still have one of the items and I think it's going in my scrap pile. How much work do I need to do for something I've giving away?!
Walking into this without having read all the replies ...
OP, two years after moving into our condo, a water pipe broke in the middle of the night and flooded the place to the depth of about 6". Luckily, the structure is built on concrete and one level. I did check with adjacent neighbors to make sure no water went under the walls.
We had to evacuate everything to the garage immediately so the disaster contractors could get in, tear out the flooring and pull off the baseboard and begin placing fans so the drywall would suffer less damage.
Spouse and I looked at one another and said "thank Bob we got rid of all our stuff before moving here."
The year before we sold our house and moved to a condo, both Spouse and I lost our mothers. My MIL lived in the same house for 60 years. She had an accumulation of a life and expected that the tribe of grandkids, great-grandkids, great-GREAT-grandkids would come in and divvy up all her stuff. Know what? All those people and none of them wanted anything of hers. What could be sold in a yard sale went; the money put toward MIL's final expenses; but several small dumpsters were rented and filled and finally a huge ass one was brought in and all her furniture - worn, but MIL figured the youngsters might want it - was tossed.
That showed us that assumptions shouldn't be made. We got rid of just about everything we knew wouldn't be needed and I did a ruthless purge on all else. We purposely chose a small dwelling - about 800 sq ft - so the temptation to once again buy/collect stuff wouldn't happen. And then we had a disaster that pretty much destroyed whatever we kept from our former life. I'm glad I scanned all the photos from almost 40 years of memories. They are now on a hard drive instead of the dump. Crafting stuff I kept telling myself I would get back to? That went to a humane society thrift store. Ditto with our antique furniture. Victoriana is no longer in style, but someone will take it from the Habitat Restore and that organization will get a few dollars for it.
I know we can never predict the future, but sometimes the worst does happen. Because we had been realistic, the impact of the water damage wasn't as severe. It still took almost three months for repairs and to get our lives back to normal, but I didn't mourn as much because we didn't have much to lose.
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(they are in my car now though, for a completely different reason)
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