I really don’t consider myself a packrat, but I’ve lived in our house since 2005.  That’s thirteen years of accumulation for me and nine years for Brian.  Thankfully, I’ve gone through things a few times over these years including when Brian moved in, when we renovated the basement to make a master suite, and a year later when the main sewer line below our house collapsed on itself.  Since I don’t consider myself a packrat, I’m kind of looking forward to the purge.  But where do you start?   

We chose to start in the garage since we knew winter was coming.  We made four piles: one for things to sell, one for donations, one for recyclables, and a big one by the curb for trash.  Anything that we felt we needed before selling the house and/or that we planned to take with us, has found its way back on a shelf in one section of the garage.  I arranged for Vietnam Veterans of America to come pick up all kinds of things we would neither need nor have room for.  I made a couple of trips with the car packed full of recyclables to the area recycling center.  And I returned over $30 worth of empty soda cans and sparkling water bottles.  Brian mentioned something about eBay for the items that we will sell which are now in a corner of the garage.  A separate donation of Brian’s old truck was made to a charity who came and towed the truck away.  With it and all the rest of our stuff gone, we can easily park both cars in the driveway and still manage to get the trash and recycling cans out each week. 

In preparing for the VVA’s pick up, I pulled out a brand-new garden shovel thinking it might have a chance to sell at future estate sale.  I let the rest go with the driver.  The next week’s list of calls to make towards downsizing included calling estate sales companies.  My questions were simple: When should we have an estate sale?  What things can you sell?   The responses to this question ranged from, “You’d be amazed at the things that people will buy” to  “One man’s trash really is another one’s treasure.” From cleaning supplies to clothing (things I was certain to have on my list of donations) to furniture, towels & sheets, I was told all of these are things that potentially sell at an estate sale.   

In fact, in lieu of sorting out the things to get rid of, I am now starting to look at it as sorting out the things to keep.  It’s a whole different perspective.  And one that I believe will ultimately work better for downsizing to an RV.  What do I really need??? After I set up the Christmas decorations for the last time, I cleared off a three-foot-wide set of shelves in our storage room.  My goal as I go through things is to limit the items that are meant to keep, to this set of shelves.  Everything else will either be trash because it is personal and of no value to an outsider (you know the bins or boxes of things that you’ve moved from place to place mostly collected from your school years) or it will be packed up and readied for an estate sale.   Now to get that ball rolling before those Christmas decorations need to go back to the storage room.