Downsizing

[lem1955]

My DW and I went to visit a CCRC a couple of weeks ago. It will be tough to leave our spacious home for an apartment or cottage less than half the size. Harder still will be disposing of so many accumulated possessions. However it's already becoming more than we want to deal with to maintain our home and yard. There's always something and often more than one thing that needs fixing and finding the right person for the job isn't always easy. And then there is mud season on our road, the lack of restaurant and theater options nearby, our concern about disability and life narrowing in later years, and being sure we don't want to leave the mess to our kids to clean up once we are gone.

In 4-6 years, the CCRC will be the right choice for us. So I've decided to start reducing my book collection and stereo equipment and CD's. Now that I'm working on it, I'm finding it addicting to type in an ISBN in BookSource and have it find a buyer - even if the offer is $.15! My best so far is $15.15. Ive already packaged up 10 boxes/packages of books and should collect about $163. Bingo, eh? Still have to find someone or someplace that will take the many more books no buyer wants. No libraries are taking donations this far into autumn. I may have to hold onto them until spring. What were your best options for keeping books and CD's out of the landfill?

 

[MC Rider]

Salvation Army. They helped one of my cousins. I have read a lot more of their money goes to charitable uses and not the execs, whereas Goodwill execs suck in a lot of the money for themselves.

 

[Brat]

Powell's purchased much of our collection, hard to know if they are buying much at the moment. They also accepted books that had no market value and had a network of non-profit recipients.

 

[Act2]

Half Price Books.

 

[Souschef]

We donated over 500 CD's to our local library. I sold my late wife's collection of Swarovsky crystal animals on eBay, along with a pewter tea service and a model of her ancestral castle.
I lived in a complex of 80 units, and put a "Free" notice on all the bulletin boards. That got rid of a lot of stuff.

 

[Midpack]

I can’t legally sell our 425+ CDs because songs I ripped from them make up over 80% of my digital library. But they all fit in a couple office cardboard boxes in the attic.

 

[sweetana3]

We are in a very similar situation. Last year, my husband finally decided to liquidate his "toy" collection. He offered it to a local dealer but they lowballed him. So he started up his ebay business and has sold most of it for more than 5 times the price he originally set and is still going.

He got me to look at my stuff and amazing to me, I have sold almost $2,000 net. We donated a huge amount to various groups and I have to say that I do not miss any of it. The stuff lived in boxes and now other people are happy to have it.

Taking that first step was hard but it has gotten easier. Still have stuff in boxes but we are working on it. I would like to have only what we can display in a couple of nice lawyer cabinets and what we use all the time. The rest can go.

Good luck on your journey.

 

[Jerry1]

We were able to give all of our books away, but in the process, I did find a place that specifically recycled books. Not much better than the landfill, but the reality is that books are not what they used to be given the e-readers and such.

 

[Amethyst]

The real estate agent knew somebody who loves and collects books. She got a huge windfall from us - every book in our basement (the best books, upstairs, went to FL with us). We never met her, but she sent us a photo of her holding some of our books, surrounded by others, and wearing a huge smile.

 

[brett]

Children's booked went to a local elementary school. Along with school supplies. Why we still had them was beyond me.

It took three passes to go through our books. Most went to a big local sale where the proceeds go toward helping adults to read.

It was hard. Some of those books moved back and forth across the country a few times...they had lots of air miles so to speak.

We have downsized. we intend to carry on. We no longer have the bookshelf space.

I have a box of new books that I will take to the library when they start accepting books again. I try to pass them on to anyone who wants them.

 

[Teacher Terry]

Donated a ton of stuff including 40 boxes of books to the Salvation Army. They helped many of my clients, take small salaries and most of the money goes to help people. They are awesome!!

 

[Calico]

In 4-6 years, the CCRC will be the right choice for us. So I've decided to start reducing my book collection and stereo equipment and CD's. Now that I'm working on it, I'm finding it addicting to type in an ISBN in BookSource and have it find a buyer - even if the offer is $.15! My best so far is $15.15. Ive already packaged up 10 boxes/packages of books and should collect about $163. Bingo, eh? Still have to find someone or someplace that will take the many more books no buyer wants. No libraries are taking donations this far into autumn. I may have to hold onto them until spring. What were your best options for keeping books and CD's out of the landfill?

I have never heard of a library that doesn't accept donations all year round; that's very odd. My local library holds three books sales a year (they stopped during Covid, but just restarted the sales) and they accept books at any time.

Thrift stores are an alternative if the library won't take your books.

 

[Sunset]

Salvation Army.
They were a big help to me when I was homeless, now they are the only place I donate stuff to.

I'm also trying to downsize. Turns out I was/am a pack-rat

 

[brett]

We sold our home and decided to store our possessions in a container while we traveled.

We downsized from a 3700 sq ft. home to an 8X8X16 container. Gave away lots of furniture, etc. Took us a while and several passes to get there. The container arrived on Aug 23. We had a week to fill it up and turn over our home to the new owners.

We pre staged boxes in our garage and some furniture. Filled it to the brim, last thing in was our mattress and box spring. It was a strange feeling seeing the container loaded on to the truck and leaving with all of our remaining possessions.

This worked really well for us. It set a limit. Even after coming back and unpacking a year later we were still giving things away.

We did exactly the same when we decided to travel with carry on only. We purchased international size carry on rollers and that was the limit. Forced us to make choices.

 

[RetiredHappy]

We took several hundred books down to Goodwill when we moved and they had no issue taking them.

 

[Jerry1]

Goodwill and Salvation Army and the like are saints. There is the obvious, that they help people in need. However, they are a blessing in how they take our "stuff" and deal with it. I've thought about volunteering just to pay back some of what they did for me by taking so much of our stuff. I'd also be interested in understanding what, exactly, they do with said stuff. I wonder how much of it still ends up in a landfill (no fault of theirs).

 

[ERD50]

I can’t legally sell our 425+ CDs because songs I ripped from them make up over 80% of my digital library. But they all fit in a couple office cardboard boxes in the attic.

I'm wary of storing my (also ripped) CDs in the attic. Though I probably will never touch them again, the heat could damage them (I didn't find any specifics on this, not sure how 'hot' is 'hot', but attics can get way up there).

And at some point, if you (or heirs) destroyed the ripped copies, the CDs could legally go to a charity.

-ERD50

 

[SumDay]

Truckloads of everything, including books and albums to Salvation Army.

We did this in 2015, and I wrote this post about lessons learned.

Good luck to you, and I hope you're as happy with your decision as we are!

 

[skyking1]

We sold our home and decided to store our possessions in a container while we traveled.

We downsized from a 3700 sq ft. home to an 8X8X16 container. Gave away lots of furniture, etc. Took us a while and several passes to get there. The container arrived on Aug 23. We had a week to fill it up and turn over our home to the new owners.

We pre staged boxes in our garage and some furniture. Filled it to the brim, last thing in was our mattress and box spring. It was a strange feeling seeing the container loaded on to the truck and leaving with all of our remaining possessions.

This worked really well for us. It set a limit. Even after coming back and unpacking a year later we were still giving things away.

We did exactly the same when we decided to travel with carry on only. We purchased international size carry on rollers and that was the limit. Forced us to make choices.

I look at your story as a perfect example of success. DW and I are not cut out to live abroad, but if we did you gave me a road map and I thank you for sharing it.

 

[Accidental Retiree]

We are sort of preparing for downsizing.

After our whole house flooded from a water leak back in July (just a few days before Calmloki went through the same thing), pretty much everything we owned was packed out and sent to storage.

After our forced purge, I am reluctant to let too much come back into the house. We lost much of our furniture, so I won’t have to “worry” about that, anyway, but other things have survived, so at some point pretty soon, we will have to make the call to restore or discard. Very little will be coming back.

We learned we just don’t need all that stuff, so belongings are already greatly downsized.

With our house soon being freshly painted and kitchen and bathrooms redone, it would be a good time to sell—if we can find another place we want to go.

We are really enjoying our time in San Clemente, and I’m appreciating being back in the area where I spent many happy years, so we are keeping an eye on the RE market here.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

This post got me thinking .... again. I just posted our High Quality Photo Printer in Craigslist. So much stuff to get rid of before actually selling our home.

 

[skyking1]

yes we are on an 18 month timeline to retire, sell this place, and build another. The downsizing has begun. The new place will be a little larger, but I don't want to move the duff in our lives.

 

[pacergal]

We go through closets, cabinets, bookshelves, etc. every year and have since retirement in 2016. Kids took some stuff originally, now it goes to Goodwill, they take pretty much everything if it is in good repair.

 

[meleana]

Used book stores will take what you have and sell them. You get nothing for them but who cares?

 

[chassis]

My wife and I live in a rented home that is 25% of the size of the house in which we raised our kids.

Getting rid of physical possessions has been hard but has paid off immensely in emotional, spiritual and physical freedom. Life is far easier and more flexible after significant downsizing.