Did you throw away lots of things when you retired? (grandparents, dump)
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It's ongoing. My husband doesn't like to throw stuff away unless it's justified and that's a long process. So every week, I sneak stuff into the trash and every week he says the same thing. "Boy that trash felt heavy." (wink)
I started a year before my retirement move. I sent books from 2 floor to 12ft ceiling bookcases to the library book sale. They filled up over 10 library carts. 14 large department store bags filled with business clothes, shoes and purses went to the Volunteers of America - back to work program (some to use in the program, some went to their store for sale to fund training programs). The Salvation Army came twice to pick up furniture and household goods. My friends inherited my TVs. The only things I couldn't part with are two boxes filled with "memories" and my art pieces. Even with all that I still had 137 boxes of "stuff" and about 20 items (small tables, dresser, bedframe, dressers, vacuums, etc.) that I moved across the country. I haven't missed any of the items I gave away, and probably could have culled out another 10 boxes without feeling it.
This is a good reason to not delay downsizing. Do it while you are still healthy enough to deal with it.
Unfortunately, getting rid of stuff is a major problem for most people. That stuff invokes pleasant memories from their lives.
I too have a wife who just cannot part with the unusable antiques that she inherited from her grandmother. They just consume space and will not fit in a smaller house. Our kids don't want them because they do not evoke an emotional appeal.
So I do whatever I can do. I throw out my junk first.
Sometimes I wish I could just hire Louie "the Torch" to burn the sucker down and get a check from the insurance company..
Are you sure you can afford so much empathy for your wife's feelings? You know, no one is forcing you to downsize to the point that she loses her connection with her youth and her past.
I gave to Good Will and the church youth group received the valuable items for fund-raising. Then I had an open house garage sale for the neighborhood. Two days later I called junk removal service and that was that! I have not missed any of it. I am currently in a townhouse and will continue to get rid of "stuff" because the next dwelling will be a one bedroom apartment. I did buy new furniture when I arrived at current location. However, the junk did not come with me. I am actually looking forward to not having to maintain a house ever again. I have children in some pretty amazing cities and I will rent a very small studio for a few months in each city. After a few years of that, I will probability be in assisted living (or someone's basement).
We have moved frequently through the years so we were used to a bit of purging but when we came to Hawaii from the mainland and had to pay about one dollar per pound of stuff to get it here, we discovered we had way too much stuff/junk/useless crap.
Unfortunately we also found it doesn't take long to fill your new space to bursting levels, so now the goal is to have at least a small Empty area on shelves, in drawers, etc. - it's a challenge, one of the great 'first world problems' too much good but ultimately unnecessary stuff!
We got rid of everything except our clothes, electronics, and art. The kids didn't want the family stuff (old family pictures and antiques) and our newer furniture was too stuffy for our retirement lifestyle. We gave away everything we could to family and friends first. Then we gave all that was sellable to the local animal shelter for their upcoming garage sale. The rest went to the dump. We moved into our retirement house with little more than our clothes, art, and electronics. Starting from scratch was liberating!
Getting ready for the great downsizing myself in two weeks. What doesn't sell in the weekend garage sale will be donated to whatever organization will come pick it up.
Fortunately about five years ago I started selling off a sizeable guitar collection. I now have only four to move. I don't even want to talk about the fishing tackle shop in the basement however!!
We tried garage sales and Craigslist and abandoned that - way too much time and effort for very little money. Not worth it. So we donated many truck-loads of stuff to Habitat for Humanity and to Goodwill.
You have to set aside all sentimentality when getting rid of stuff. A lot of it has memories associated with it which make it seem more valuable than it really is. We would get really harsh and throw everything in the bin and take it to the Goodwill but when I would hand it over to them I would always end up plucking an item or two back out and taking it back home.
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