When you're intentional about what you bring into your home, there's less of a chance that your possessions own you
Posted on 01/04/2011 9:01:53 AM PST by JoeProBono
When you declutter and organize your home, sometimes it's helpful to play a little game called "Let's Pretend We're Moving Overseas."
Armed with this mental filter, you analyze every item in your home by wondering if you'd pack it in your tiny luggage space. You ask yourself, Is this thing worth hauling 6,000 miles across an ocean and in to a new home? Is it providing that much meaning and value to my life?
If not, why bother having it now?
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
When you're intentional about what you bring into your home, there's less of a chance that your possessions own you
Well, I could tell you if I were moving 6,000 overseas, I sure as heck wouldn’t bring a pink houseplant with me!
We had this situation several years ago when Rita was thought to be hitting Houston.
List of stuff we took to SA:
Rifles
pistols
reloading equipment and supplies
Fishing gear
3 days clothing, rough wear, jeans etc.
one day’s supply of food
Jewelry
photos
Sheet music (lots of it).
Sheet music? Indeed, we found out that it was that valuable to us.
I have to admit, I’ve carted some really useless (eventually discarded) junk from house to house for far too long.
After all of the big stuff (coffee tables, books, bookshelves) and all of the valuable stuff (heirlooms, electronics, some handmade furniture made by her grandfather) was moved in, I had a rule....
....If some "thing" (replaceable and not of any value) went into storage, then I made room for it by getting rid of some "thing" else. 95% of the "things" gotten rid of, belonged to Mrs WBill (I'd already been pretty ruthless with my discards).
It's been several years since we put the house on the market and I started the process. We moved into our new house this year and cleaned out the storage facility. She's not missed a thing yet.
And really, how many broken plastic Made-in-China XMas reindeer that she's going to "fix some day" do we honestly need? :-) Ditto the wornout throwpillows, the broken sculpture that she found from somewhere, the box of 20-year-old college phone directories, the.....
I have a general rule. If I haven’t used it in two years, it gets tossed. This of course excludes collectibles, etc.
Yikes!
In 2000, Mrs. Cuttnhorse and I moved to South America for 5-years...when we left, we put a full house of crap into storage, then brought back a 20-foot sea container full of more crap and now have a two-car garage full of shipping and storage boxes loaded with stuff we haven’t seen in over 10-years. I doubt a vehicle will EVER be parked in the garage.
I’ve done this for many years — for real! As a (former) US government employee, I’ve been assigned to several different countries, for 3-4 years at a time.
This really teaches you how to triage all of your possessions: what you want to take overseas; what you want to store in the US; and what you want to throw away or sell.
I hate storage facilities. I feel like I’m buying my stuff all over again. If you leave it there long enough you have paid more than you did when it was new.
I’d rather just get rid of it. ;-D
You'd actually be surprised at how easy it was, esp. since most of it wasn't mine. :-)
The box filled with 20-year-old college phonebooks (cm'on, really? Seriously?) actually didn't even make it to storage. There was a dumpster behind the Gas Station around the corner that got some extra usage. :-)
It really worked out well for us. Needed to put the old house in a showable state, and that meant cleaning up excess furniture, taking photos off the walls, etc etc etc. Basically, getting rid of the stuff that made in "our house" and just turning it into "a house".
We sold the place, so I guess it worked. And, we still have all of the valuable things that I'd like to put back on the walls, etc.
You're right thought....long term storage is expensive and foolish, IMHO. If you don't look at a thing for 5 years (with certain exceptions) it's time to let it gooooooo.........
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