Stuff
When we left the US, we brought with us only what we could carry on our backs. The remainder was sold, donated, or discarded.
Except of course for those extremely critical items we would definitely need again some day. No, these most cherished of items were stored in a friend’s basement, because how could we possibly live without them?
Now 6 years later, we cracked open this most precious of Time Capsules, thereby rediscovering the things we think we truly need.
The Things We Think We Need
What were the few remaining items that we decided to keep all of these years? What was so important that it required long term storage?
After scrounging around in a crawl space for 30 minutes, I emerged victorious with 2 boxes, a rice cooker, an acoustic guitar (w/ amp & pedals), and a fine veneer of cobwebs and dust.
“The things you own…”
Box 1 was full of photography and cook books. It took about 15 seconds to recognize only one of these would be read again.
Box 2 was a bit more interesting….
- ten years of tax documents (do it yourself, yo)
- photo albums and a few pics of mini Winnie
- several journals
- paper copies of documents from purchase & sale of my Seattle home and rental property
- sweet french press
- handheld bicycle air pump
- complete set of 1990 Score Football cards, with Barry Sanders rookie and Bo Jackson B&W (mint condition)
Mini Winnie
How to get rid of stuff
The human animal is a strange one, in that we get attached to physical items.
Digging through this pile of stuff, we were both a little dumbfounded… we kept all of this crap?
The family photos obviously have sentimental value, but literally everything else is homogenous, mundane, and replaceable. So I reflected on our process and methods for getting rid of stuff…
Step 1 – divide everything you own into 3 piles – Keep, Discard, and To Be Determined (TBD)
Step 2 – get rid of everything in the Discard pile – donate, sell, recycle, whatever…
Step 3 – push everything back into one pile and repeat until everything is obviously in the Keep pile
Any documents or photos should be scanned/digitized, and the originals shredded and recycled.
—
This method helps to overcome irrational attachment:
– first, it requires no hard decisions. The TBD pile allows us to ease into downsizing
– second, it allows momentum to build. By discarding even one item, it becomes easier to get rid of the 2nd and the 3rd and so on..
In hindsight, this method also has some minor flaws:
– it is easy to keep the cycle going indefinitely, until you end up with 2 boxes of mostly crap in a friend’s basement
Next Steps
Sifting through the things we didn’t successfully eliminate from our lives was a fascinating exercise. Who knew these things were so important?
We head back to Taipei in a few days, and the family photos, guitar, french press, 1 cook book, and the bike pump are coming with us. I’m debating what to do with the football cards.
Everything else has been shredded or found a new home. I guess you could say we just ran through Steps 1, 2, and 3 one last time.
It’s almost like we should have done this years ago…
Have you successfully downsized? What do you think you need?
Great post, and perfect timing – I’m currently dithering over what to do with my car, so your photo of car in garage really struck me. We’re rarely at home (we spend most of our time travelling Europe by motorhome) so the car now does well under 1000 miles a year. The debate I’m having with myself is whether to continue to maintain and insure it (not really financially justifiable) or sling it in the garage (not really morally justifiable? poor car….)…. and if I sling it in the garage will it just end up looking forlorn in a blog post one day? Decisions, decisions….
Not driving the car causes the gaskets and seals to dry out so you will have major oil leaks in every place it could leak oil. Sell it soon…
If you really need to drive, couldn’t you use the RV for it? We have only one car and it is a camper van (probably smaller than your RV).
Yep, realistically there’s no sensible reason to keep it….. Thanks for the prod in the right direction 😀
I thought I had successfully downsized when we moved from a large apartment to a Manhattan studio, but then when we were packing to move across the country I found even more things to give away. And now that we’re in Seattle my friend said she was going on a donation run and I easily came up with SIX trash bags full of things to donate. I carried all this stuff across the country?! I like your method and will be using it when I reach retirement. My goal is to only have a backpack as well.
Sounds a bit like the Kondo method. I feel like it is a constant battle to keep up with the growing piles of junk sometimes. Primarily, now that we have a kid, we have to be very careful and mindful about what we let into the house. The toys, stuffed animals, and clothes pile up very quickly and the little one only needs so much!
re: kid stuff – we have more than doubled the amount of stuff we carry around the world. Jr has his own full-sized check in suitcase full of books, toys, clothes, etc… It seems like a lot, but compared to the quantify of stuff his cousins have it is a pittance.
Here is the way I downsized my massive collection of books:
1. Split the collection into two piles: a) give away; b) will probably read again.
2. Take stack b and go back to step 1.
Repeated these steps until I could fit all the books to keep within a manageable 2 boxes. I’ve been transitioning to books on Kindle over the past few years, so it’s made downsizing easier.
IRS gave us a tax write off on our book donation. Just saying.
if you itemize… I think only about 4 million households will itemize post TCJA
Would love some advice on electronic storage options. I too have scanned/digitized old photos, documents, records, etc. However, now my PC (Yes – my C: drive) is a hodge podge of somewhat organized records from years ago, transferred from computer to computer (some files don’t even open any more, lol). I just can’t bring myself to have to pay (gasp) for a cloud storage solutions. But this process of keeping things indefinitely in the good old “windows file explorer” is not sustainable. Aside from HOURS of sifting through to delete old/obsolete records, it will just continue to grow and grow.
So – the ask – please give practical (FI’ish) advice on electronic document and photo storage, please!
I’m fond of Dropbox, though I use Digital Ocean ($5/month) because I’ve configured a running instance for other tasks than just data storage.
If you don’t want to pay for Dropbox ($100/year), you could consider sending files to your Gmail account (15GB limit for free) with meaningful subject descriptions to make them easier to search, e.g. “Hawaii vacation photos 2017”.
Both Dropbox and Gmail will allow you to access your documents on a mobile device, which can be useful.
Google photos gives free unlimited storage up to very high resolutions (but now RAW files). https://photos.google.com/apps. Just spent the weekend uploading to them.
Docs are generally not large and can easily be managed in a free Dropbox/Google drive account for modest collections of files.
Do the desktop and mobile versions of Google Photos work together, like they’ll both sync to same cloud space for retrieving?
Having depression-era parents, this is easily explained but yet hard to execute for me. They gave me DNA that says “I might need that one day”, and as a frugal person I HATE spending money on something I just threw out.
But I’ve been getting better at this, baby steps…
This is why I like the process described above. Even if the Discard pile has only 1 item in it to start, it makes it easier to get rid of Item #2 and so on. I am 100 times better at discarding today than I was 10 years ago.
After reading the book, “Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less“, I look at stuff differently. I’m always trying to de-clutter because the reality is that we do not need most of the stuff we have. Great post!
Sunk Cost Fallacy as well…
I started going thru the “stuff” in our basement. I snapped photo’s if items to sell on facebook marketplace while I was doing this process. Holy Crap! People started texting to buy stuff the entire time and I made enough money to pay for 3 days in Vegas (also using miles to fly). I feel so much lighter. I am looking at the storage and closets, asking myself would I want to pay to store or move this? (I’m not moving btw). It helps to down size. Thanks for your article.
I think of Craigslist as our online storage. People pay us to store our stuff, and then if we need it in the future we buy the same or better quality item back later at a lower price.
I have these same football cards in a safe. Troy Aikman that year too. Every few years I look up the value of the Barry Sanders rookie card and it’s usually around $20 (seems to have dipped to closer to $10 now). I have a pile of stuff to make my son sell in about 10 years when he’ll be old enough to do that and want extra money. I’ll say, “here’s your allowance, sell these old Lord of the Rings hardcovers and these Stone Temple Pilot CDs”
Why not sell them now and invest the cash and in 10 years maybe he will have some real money.
I’ve recently emptied a file cabinet, threw to the recycle bin a bunch of crap, took pics of many medical records and other documents (that became backed up in the cloud) and I ended up left with a pile that needs shredded (already put in my calendar an upcoming free shredding day nearby) and too many years of tax returns (an accountant friend tells me to keep these…). Now I need to get rid of the cabinet (only stayed this far because it doubles as a nightstand)
If it was up to me, I’d get rid of 90% of what’s in our home. Mrs. RB40 is attached to everything. I want to throw these junky kindergarten projects out, but she wouldn’t let me. Oh well, happy wife, happy life. Right?
We’ll toss out a lot of stuff when we move.
Mrs. RB40 can scan or photograph the children’s art and make a Snapfish or Shutterfly book for a keepsake, then get rid of the original art.
The photo of Winnie is absolutely adorable.
I think so too :)
We’re on a constant war against stuff. Defense is key. Not buying stuff helps in that regard.
On the offense front, we get into fits of hard core purging occasionally. This fall when it cools off we are planning on cleaning out our 8’x12′ shed. I can barely fit 5 bikes, our push mower, and a few other odds and ends in there.
I now live in a 540 square foot home, and it’s still too big for me!!
It was nice meeting you in Seattle tonight, Jeremy. I hope you will zip me an email, sometime.Would love to talk with you just a little bit more -Linda
We have been retired and traveling the world since 2011 AND paying on two storage sheds. One will be emptied out next month. We are confident not much of value will be found. Plus we are renting a truck to haul some stuff back to our ‘home’. None of it is worth the $3,600 paid to store it. We have downsized a couple times and are not collectors of anything. Might write a blog on what we find…
@Harold Wow!, thanks to you writing about the travels and life of Lynn Martin I’ve just opened 8 tabs on my browser reading and learning about how she sold everything in 2011 and went full nomad. Oh, and I’m reading your site’s budget section right now too. Nothing like added value by reading all the comments in GoCurryCracker’s blog post. Thanks!
I spent the first half of my life collecting ‘stuff’, thinking I’m creating the perfect second part of life. I was working to spend. The second part of life, I’m spending it getting rid of the stuff I collected in the first part of life. The more I think about things, I realize I relly need less to live and be happy. The more I own, the more headaches I have.
“The things you own end up owning you.”
“It’s almost like we should have done this years ago”
TELL me about it! Nearly 7 years ago I too sold most everything save what would fit into a rollie and a small backpack, and bought a one-way ticket to Vietnam. Turns out it was the BEST.THING.I’VE.EVER.DONE. and I fully intend to be a nomad for the rest of my life (though I’m now on different continent: Ecuador in S.A.)
Trouble izzz… While it was easy to dump 99% of my “stuff” – at the time, (like you?) I wasn’t 100% certain I wouldn’t come screaming back to my beloved Seattle in 6 months, so… I kept a handful of the basics (bed, etc. just enough to swiftly furnish a studio should I return) plus a boatload of my handmade art quilts (no way could I part with them for a pittance at a garage sale). Just enough to squeeze into a 6 ft. x 6 ft. storage locker in Seattle for $35/mo.
HA! It’s been more than 6 YEARS now, and I now know I’ll never go back to the States. But… every year I think… “Ya know, I should go back to Seattle to clean out that storage locker”, yet… at little more than $400 per year, I keep putting it off. Besides, the air ticket to Seattle, could more sweetly used to get me to say… Ethiopia. ;)
Come to think of it – hey, YOU’RE in Seattle, no? How’d you like to clean out my storage locker too (there’s at least a couple of fabulous art quilts in the deal)? ;)
I would clean out your storage locker, but I don’t think you could afford my hourly rate ;)
While we didn’t go to this level, my wife and I recently went through out entire house and got rid of a lot of stuff. We thought we were pretty minimalist, but it’s amazing how quickly things can add up (especially after you have kids). I can now happily say that I know exactly where everything I own is and it’s a pretty amazing feeling.
Minimalism is definitely the current fad of the times. I suppose it’s better than keeping everything though.
We went through a digitizing phase here a few years back. It seemed like a great idea until technical problems erased thousands of our old photos. Now we wished we’d kept those old physical copies. They didn’t take up that much space after all.
The key is having redundancy and a backup solution. Anyone keeping irreplaceable files on a single drive is just asking for it to be lost.
We lost some photos when I dropped a hard disk drive going through airport security. Kinda sucks, but we had another copy of most of them in the cloud. Redundancy is key. My grandma lost a whole bunch of photos because of moisture and mold, so physical copies aren’t really permanent either.
I don’t know if it is a fad or not, as I don’t really care what other people do. Does having less stuff help or hinder my own life, that is what matters.
True…True…True:) I spent 20 years traveling around the world as a Cruise Director and living on luxury Cruise Ships and can tell you first hand the value in owning less and living more! Just last year my wife and I decided to transition off ships (she was a professional dancer for 10 years) and when we arrived into San Diego we had everything we owned with us…3 suitcases..that’s it. Spend your money on creating amazing experiences and memories….not stuff. Own less and Live more! I can tell you that we have a “Zero Add Rule”…that means that we don’t want to add anything else to our lifestyle so when we buy something we must donate, sell, or giveaway one item and so forth. This makes it much easier to manage…downsize and you’ll see the immediate benefits. Who cares about your finished basement and 3 cars…you’ve lost your mobility and can’t travel to Croatia with us for 2 months because you overspent on STUFF…don’t do that…invest in life:) Great read..thanks again.
JJ
Curious to hear what happens with the football cards. My asset allocation used to be 100% mid-80’s to mid 90’s football and baseball cards, that I was sure were going to make me rich some day. Who knew people didn’t jump from 30 to 70 HR in a year without steroids?!? For some reason, I held on to boxes of those cards until this summer, until making a x-country move from PA to UT forced me to get rid of stuff. I ended up giving the whole collection (4 massive moving boxes) that had been sitting in my basement to a neighbor’s grandson. Except I kept the same 1990 Score FB set, a 1991 Upper Deck FB set, and a mint Jerry Rice rookie. Now that I have them in UT, I’m wondering why in the world I kept them and WTF I’m ever going to do with them? Some times it’s hard to let go.
I think I’ll put them on ebay. Just have to get around to it
I also have a Jerry Rice rookie and a few others (Eric Dickerson, Ken Griffey Jr, … not sure the rest)
I currently rent, and all the moving over the past couple of years has left me with just the bare minimum I feel like. Moving is such a great way to force yourself to get rid of stuff!
That said, I visited my parents this past weekend and my mom said that even with 4500 ft^2 its still enough room. Perhaps I should send this blog post to her ;p
This blog post is Mom approved
Nice one!
We’ll leave the country in 3 months to move to the US. I’ll keep few things from my late grandmother (and some photos), daughters favorite toys and that’s it. Everything else will go to the trash bin, donations or will be sold.
A friend took a job in Japan on a 2 year contract. They were only allowed to take a limited amount of household stuff. The company paid to store the rest of there household goods. Fast forward 14 years and two more kids and they finally actually returned to CONUS. I’m guessing nothing that had been stored for 14 years was still wanted. Okay, family photos.
Great post. You are bang on when it comes to all the “stuff” we think is so crucial. We Our journey mirrors yours (to a certain extent) Thank you.
Love this! We downsized significantly in 2014 when we kicked off our digital nomad lifestyle. Since then, we discovered both the Minimalists and the FI community and have taken a few more passes using the same “Keep, Discard, Not Sure Yet” approach. We don’t own a single couch or television. If it’s sellable on Craigslist or eBay, we’ll that first and take it with us as we road trip to different states for long-term house sitting. If something doesn’t sell (too heavy to ship, too obscure for CL etc), it feels great simply giving it away to someone who will find value in it. Great article, as usual!
To finish the quote in the second photo: “…end up owning you.” Or as Thoreau puts it, “a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”