Empty Nesters Purging Homes Experience

[ERD50]

We have a friend that owns a large resale/antique store on one of those small town near a BIG city Main Streets that are so popular. We talked to her , a few months ago, about all of the VERY nice VERY expensive ( new) China sets that we have. She told us that , rather suddenly, fine china sets have become darn near worthless. Boomers all over the country are looking at getting rid of their 2 mothers + 4 grandmothers etc high end china sets. ...

Sure, and 10-20 years later, this stuff will be all the rage, worth thousands, because we all threw it out!

The large furniture that people mentioned - there's a resale shop near us, they have beautiful fine furniture that goes for very low prices (they drop the price every couple weeks until it sells), it goes cheap. But since our house is furnished, I have no need, and kids don't want the heavy stuff.

I keep thinking about a business opportunity (for someone else, not me!) - I just helped our youngest move out (empty nesters!), and she bought some stuff at IKEA and I helped her assemble it. I know people like to knock IKEA furniture, but some of this stuff is fairly nice. But it is tedious to assemble, so many little screws and brackets. And some of those fasteners don't hold up to multiple assembly/disassembly cycles as these kids move.

So my idea is fairly nice (to very nice) furniture, that assembles and knocks down easy. DW bought me a nice little bookshelf years ago that has the sides and shelves on hinges. You just flip the shelves up, fold the sides in, and it's flat for moving. No tools, takes a few seconds. It's a nice piece, not quite 'fine furniture' as some of the brass metal brackets are exposed, but those could be designed with a little more aesthetics in mind.

-ERD50

 

[Texas Proud]

Sure, and 10-20 years later, this stuff will be all the rage, worth thousands, because we all threw it out!

The large furniture that people mentioned - there's a resale shop near us, they have beautiful fine furniture that goes for very low prices (they drop the price every couple weeks until it sells), it goes cheap. But since our house is furnished, I have no need, and kids don't want the heavy stuff.

I keep thinking about a business opportunity (for someone else, not me!) - I just helped our youngest move out (empty nesters!), and she bought some stuff at IKEA and I helped her assemble it. I know people like to knock IKEA furniture, but some of this stuff is fairly nice. But it is tedious to assemble, so many little screws and brackets. And some of those fasteners don't hold up to multiple assembly/disassembly cycles as these kids move.

So my idea is fairly nice (to very nice) furniture, that assembles and knocks down easy. DW bought me a nice little bookshelf years ago that has the sides and shelves on hinges. You just flip the shelves up, fold the sides in, and it's flat for moving. No tools, takes a few seconds. It's a nice piece, not quite 'fine furniture' as some of the brass metal brackets are exposed, but those could be designed with a little more aesthetics in mind.

-ERD50

Yea.... look up depression glass and see how much some of that stuff goes for... way back in the 50s when mom and dad work in the carnival, they used to give it away on penny pitch and some other game... he bought it by the cases... had plenty of it when they stopped going... I think it was in the 70s when he got rid of it.... now, worth some bucks...

 

[CountryGal]

When Dad passed, I dreaded cleaning the house out. I was working at the time and took one week's vacation to get it all done. Turned out to be a piece of cake. The realtor who was selling the house for me connected me to a service that would clean out a house and haul it all away for just the value of the "stuff." I spent a half day going through things and grabbed all the guns, a few of the tools, family pictures, purged confidential paperwork, etc. The next day the junque hauling guys came and cleaned the place to 100% empty in just a few hours.

Youbet - I was in a similar situation but local. It took 10 months to get rid of the stuff and prep the house for sale. Folks have a tendency to hide money in books, clothes and nooks and crannies. I would always suggest people go through everything before tossing it. ...we even found money in bandaid containers.

 

[Sunset]

I'm a little surprised at some of the responses here; being that most ERE folks are frugal and "value" seekers. By the time I'm done with something, it's usually used-up, broken, or thread-bare. No criticism...

My DW has clothes she bought for work and never wore, so those are getting donated. But me, I wear out my clothes until they are full of holes, stains, rips, and the collar worn out. Then I use them as rags and finally toss them in the garbage.

Just the other day DW told me I had holes under the arms of a UPS shirt I had bought at a garage sale (new) 12 years ago, glad it was only $2

 

[Souschef]

Youbet - I was in a similar situation but local. It took 10 months to get rid of the stuff and prep the house for sale. Folks have a tendency to hide money in books, clothes and nooks and crannies. I would always suggest people go through everything before tossing it. ...we even found money in bandaid containers.

I agree- When my MIL died. I took everything out of every picture frame. I found a dollar bill with the Hawaii overprint behind one.

 

[misshathaway]

Big ole giant formal wedding portraits...all the stuff that NO ONE except direct family would ever want. Well I am at the direct family and have been assured that none of the next generation wants any of it. They barely knew him. I just did not have the heart to throw all of this into th trash

I recently found a big box of sepia toned photos. Lots of the huge wedding portraits. I have no idea who any of the people in them are, although some of them resemble my mother or father. I guess I will scan them. Then maybe the bonfire.

 

[MRG]

My sister's FIL had cash hidden in the walls. Hubby knew his dad had his savings in the home somewhere. Few new sheets of drywall. That crazy guy had his life savings in the walls, can't trust banks.

 

[gauss]

My sister's FIL had cash hidden in the walls. Hubby knew his dad had his savings in the home somewhere. Few new sheets of drywall. That crazy guy had his life savings in the walls, can't trust banks.

But did the cash cover the cost of the new drywall?

 

[Capwest28]

Love the bonfire idea. I am able to shred lots of papers and other tree based treasures now but as the piles shrink the fire will definitely come into play.


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[dixonge]

We did a combo of all of the above, but -- we were not FIRE'd, just downsizing. We searched for things of value to verify, and things that had good value and were small enough to ship we sold on eBay. That alone was worth $3K or more. Then we Craigslisted a few things and gave friends 'first dibs' on household items. Then we garage-saled the rest. The leftovers went to charity or trash. Between furniture and appliances and motorcycles and one vehicle we may have cleared $15k-$20k. We did it in two waves a year apart, because we moved to an apartment for a year before hitting the road.

If we had to do it again and were fully loaded for ER we would probably skip some of the more labor-intensive parts, but the frugal habits are hard to shake.

 

[HFWR]

Speaking of purging, and bonfires, there are days when a match, and a little gasoline, sounds like the perfect way to downsize the whole shebang...

 

[Bobw235]

After my FIL passed in December, my wife and I spent the better part of four days just tackling the walk in closet where he spent so many hours over the course of his life before Alzheimer's slowly took him from us. He was the ultimate pack rat, saving everything from newspaper clippings to maps to brochures to political memorabilia, all the things of a life well-lived. He had hundreds of video cassette tapes of TV shows that were all labeled and piled on shelves. Hundreds of audio cassettes from over the years. Most of the stuff filled a dumpster by the time I was done, plus two full recycle bins for the paper. Quite a project and we're by no means finished. My MIL is still living, though with dementia and won't let us part with anything of hers.

 

[MRG]

But did the cash cover the cost of the new drywall?

In this case it did. His drywall skills were not great so it was fairly obvious to his son. IIRC there was about 15k hidden.

 

[W2R]

My sister's FIL had cash hidden in the walls. Hubby knew his dad had his savings in the home somewhere. Few new sheets of drywall. That crazy guy had his life savings in the walls, can't trust banks.

I don't know if he was old enough to have lived through the Great Depression, but I heard stories about that time from those who did. Apparently it was pretty awful. I probably would have hidden my money in the walls too, if I had lived through that mess.

 

[MRG]

I don't know if he was old enough to have lived through the Great Depression, but I heard stories about that time from those who did. Apparently it was pretty awful. I probably would have hidden my money in the walls too, if I had lived through that mess.

He would have been alive then but too young to actually experience it first hand(he was 10 years younger than my parents, who were 12 in '29). His family certainly did live it and shared the fears.

Sadly his views went to his son (sister's husband). Banks yes, mutual funds no way. They have a couple of small rentals but nothing other SS and a small annuity. But hey they seem pretty happy.

 

[brett]

We did downsized from a large home to an 8X8x16 storage container. Neither of our two children needed or wanted anything. Three bedrooms of furniture went, plus an office, a den, a rec room and storage.

Never had a garage sale. We have been fortunate in our choices and people have been good to us over the years. We gave everything of value away to people who needed it. What remained went to social services. The only items we sold were things that had little or no value and would have cost us money to dispose off. Like the 20 year old freezer.

And after we emptied the container we downsized even more. It has changed our life. No more hoarding or saving things that we have no use for. Books get donated to the library, clothes to social service agencies. Feels good to be clutter free. After all.....who really needs all that stuff. Now that we are retired it is more about experiences than it is about accumulating future garage sale inventory.

 

[Nords]

My question is related, but about the purging process of downsizing. How did you get rid of all your stuff? I am starting the process of purging and I keep getting hung up on thinking that I should try to get some money for some of the better "stuff". Have tried online selling with limited success and am starting to think it is not worth the aggravation. Do NOT want to have a yard/garage sale (can't stand the idea of watching people pick through my little treasures). I have no problem donating stuff and regularly schedule pickups when charities have trucks in my neighborhood. I think it's my frugal brain, which got me to ER in the first place, that keeps thinking "but it's worth something"! I've thought about an estate sale, consignment, but it seems like a lot of trouble and in the grand scheme of things, any $'s made would be insignificant (assuming I've planned as well as I think I have).

How can I retrain my brain to think it's OK to just give it all away?

One way would be cleaning out the home/possessions of an elder.

Having to paw through and dispose of all their junk, er, I mean "valued collectibles" will darn near turn you into a minimalist. Especially if you have to do it in conjunction with a deadline like paying rent on the apartment or selling their home.

My spouse and I dumped 4500 pounds (four plywood crates) of our personal property on our daughter. If your adult children are willing to pay for the shipping expenses, then they can have it for free! In our case it was our daughter's military home-of-record move to her first duty station, so when she arrived she had the full kitchen gear + furniture to set herself up.

When we visit her, it feels a little weird to see "my stuff" scattered around the bedroom and living room and kitchen. But I know it's in a good home.

Two other modern challenges are books and LP vinyl record albums.

Three years ago I went through all of my books, some of which I'd dragged around for four decades. (Tropical humidity, mold, and critters were wreaking havoc on the collection.) I gave a few hardbacks to the library, but I donated the rest to Goodwill. Before I hauled them away I entered the book name/author in a spreadsheet so that I could "replace" it with an eBook on my iPad Kindle app. However there's lots of new books out there every month and I've only bought one or two eBooks of my old collection.

I researched the LPs on eBay ("completed auctions") and learned that the vast majority were worth $5 or less. I hauled two egg crates of them to our local independent record dealer, hung out in a coffee shop for 90 minutes while he appraised all 180+ of them, and cashed his $150 check. Once again I have the LPs on a spreadsheet so that I can replace the tracks via iTunes, but there's a lot of new music out there. I haven't made the time to track down the 2-3 dozen albums that I was really reluctant to part with.

 

[MRG]

+1 Nords
I helped move a couple, she was a hoarder. They were piling up the junk in the two car garage for someone to pick up. Before the moving truck was full the two car garage was overflowing! Crap was piled to the ceiling. Very sad to see.