Between work and other life obligations, it’s taken more than a year to complete downsizing the home that I have lived in for 22+ years. It’s finally on the market and I’m now waiting for that perfect buyer. I’ve heard so many stories about how downsizing your home — or even just your life — can help you to fund your travel dreams. Can it be done? Well, I’ve learned that it depends.
Now if you’re selling your home and will get a little or big nest egg of profit in the process, it might be possible to fund your travel dreams, or even just a few trips. However, I think just selling your stuff to fund your travel dreams depends really on how much stuff you have. If your garage is stuffed with cars and jet skis or you have expensive jewelry, maybe you can fund some trips, but this might not work for everyone. More on this soon, but first let’s talk about the process itself.
What’s your plan?
First, downsizing is a process. The most important thing to have before you begin this process is a plan. For me, my plan is to downsize, sell my home, move into a smaller apartment, and buy an RV. Maybe your plan is to stay where you’re living, but you don’t want so much stuff, and you want to use any money you make to travel. Maybe your plan is like my plan. Maybe your plan doesn’t look anything like my plan.
You have to figure out what your downsizing plan is so you know what you’re going to do with all of your stuff. Some people have actually just put the stuff they want to keep into storage, get rid of their apartment, bought an RV, or just went and started traveling and figured they would land somewhere and then figure it all out. In addition, as part of my plan, I knew that I really wanted to get as minimal as possible. If it wasn’t useful or sentimental, it was gone.
But that didn’t mean I created a bunch of garbage. I made it a point that I would sell or donate everything I could so that I was creating as little trash as possible. I’ve seen people who move with those huge garbage bins outside of their houses throwing out perfectly good things just to get the downsizing process over with. I didn’t want to do that, so I started early and did this methodically.
One Box at a Time
Now it’s time to downsize. I will be completely honest that at times I cried because I never once thought I would get through all of these things. So my youngest daughter, Samantha, once said to me, when she saw it was all getting to me, “Mom, just take one drawer or closet or box at a time.” Of course, it sounds simple, but sometimes you need to just hear someone say it.
Start with one box, drawer or closet at a time. I have a moderate-sized raised ranch home that was stuffed with things for my three children, my mother who lived with me for a decade, my stuff and my stuff from my significant other. It was overwhelming so I needed to start small.
Eventually, one drawer becomes three, which becomes 10, which becomes done (okay, I still have some stuff lingering, but pandemic, ya know, so I slowed down a little). So on that note, what do you do with all this stuff?
Every single thing you look at, you should decide if you’re going to do one of three things: keep it, donate it, or toss it. Now, remember my goal was to toss as little as possible because I didn’t want to contribute to all the trash that’s out there. So I figured if I have to throw something away, maybe I could give it away for free. So there are really very few things that I’ve put in the garbage. Remember, one person’s trash is another’s treasure.
Now, maybe this isn’t you, but like I said, I also realized during my downsizing that I really want a minimalist lifestyle. Not an extremely minimalist lifestyle, but I just don’t need a lot of these things anymore. I kept what was important to me. Remember, if it’s not sentimental or useful, it’s gone. You might not think that way. But that’s how I think. So I was able to reduce a lot of what I have into those two categories.
And then, of course, my oldest daughter in a joking manner (I think? LOL) once said to me, “Mom, I don’t want to deal with all this stuff after you die.” All right, maybe she was joking, but I actually took what she said to heart because I thought, why would I want to leave all of this stuff for my children to go through when I can go through it now?
Places to Sell
How do you get rid of things? I had most of my luck through Facebook marketplace. It’s easy to use. You can either meet people somewhere to drop off stuff and pick up money (make it a public place though) or they can come and pick up stuff at your home (safely outside of course).
If you’re giving the stuff away, you could just put it on your porch or in front of your door, which is what I’ve been doing. And they don’t really haggle with you like they do at garage sales. Garage sales absolutely exhaust me now — pulling out all that stuff, staying out in the summer sun while it’s 90 freakin degrees for you to get, what, 20 bucks of haggling money? Okay, I’ve had successful garage sales, but still.
I have done so much better with Facebook marketplace. It’s much easier and it’s less physically tiring. And remember, you can lump similar things together if they’re too small to sell individually. For example, I had a lot of school supplies. So I just put them all in a bag. And I actually gave them away for free to a young family that was struggling and just couldn’t afford it. You can also sell things on eBay, but just remember you have to pay for your listings. On Craigslist, you don’t have to pay for your listings, and it’s almost just like Facebook marketplace, but the creepy vibe is a little higher.
You can use sites like Decluttr for books and other media that you want to sell. I have sent at least 10 boxes to Decluttr in the past year and they pay me for what they buy, but you don’t just ship them off anything. It’s a process and they tell you what they are taking. Check out their website. it’s pretty self-explanatory. You put in an ISBN number or a UPC number.
Some of what you have could only earn you a penny or a nickel or it could be $25. It all depends on what you’re selling, but you’re getting them out of your home, so think out of the box.
Think Out-of-the-Box
Speaking of thinking out of the box, I came across some really unique things that I had to try to sell, or get rid of that I didn’t want to keep. And I didn’t know what to do with. For example, my late husband had a huge boating oar that was painted with the names of his fraternity brothers. What do I do with something like that? It was really too big for me to bring to a smaller apartment. My kids took what they wanted from their dad’s memorabilia, but they didn’t want that. So I contacted the alumni that he belonged to through Facebook, who sent out an email on my behalf to the fraternity brothers. And one of them actually got back in touch with me because he collects memorabilia from the fraternities. He was more than happy to keep the oar and some of the other fraternity stuff that I had. I didn’t have to toss it and it went to a good cause.
Now, what do you do with old trophies? Almost all of us have them, right? The now-adult kids kept what they wanted to keep. My daughter did a little bit of research and found a company that, on your dime though, you can send them the trophies. They don’t pay you for them, but they melt them down and they use them to make other trophies for, maybe, nonprofits that can’t afford to make their own trophies.
So some of the things you have may take time to figure out where can you send them or where can they find a new home, but you’ll get through it. I’m also going to recommend Deb Colameta’s book Best Offer, Best Life!: Deb’s Quick-Start Guide to Creating Wealth through Online Yard Sales. She has a lot of really great tips in there. I’ve interviewed her before about downsizing and she goes into this a lot deeper than I will. But it’s a great start.
Can you do it?
Okay, so now that I said all of this, can you downsize and live your travel dreams on the money you made from selling your stuff? I’ll repeat ‘It depends.” It depends if you’re selling big-ticket items like an ATV or diamond jewelry or an extra car you had or, of course, your home. But if you’re selling little things like notebooks or extra copies of books that don’t really have a lot of monetary value unless it’s like the first edition of a very famous book, you might not earn that much.
Most of us have a combination of higher value and just some sentimental things. So you can probably earn a good amount that might pay for some hotel rooms, maybe one trip or so depending on what you’re selling. But unless you’re selling a huge house, or have a large bank account, the reality is that you probably can’t fund every trip you’ve ever wanted to take just from downsizing your belongings. But that’s okay, you’ll have fewer things to worry about and fewer things to take care of. And at least you’ll have some spending money for whatever your next trip is going to be wherever it is.
So use the time now to start downsizing and put aside what you do make to either pay off debt or pay for future trips. If you’re still quarantined, this is a great time to start and even if you’re not, it might take time depending on how much you have. Just as an FYI, I started last May, that’s May 2019. And because of other things getting in the way it was kind of in fits and starts. I am still going and I’m almost done. But it takes a really long time to go through 20 years of things. And it’s tiring, and it’s exhausting, both mentally and physically. And some things can’t always find a home. And some days you just stop because it can get emotional going through so many memories.
But here I am, the house is up for sale. And I’ll use some of those proceeds when the time comes to fund some of my travels when we can get back on the road again. In the meantime, I really enjoy the fact that so much that I owned has found new homes. And I actually took some of that money to pay down some debt so that when I get closer to my goal of being debt-free, once I sell, it’s even better. So I wish you all the best in your own downsizing adventures. Do you have any fun or interesting downsizing stories to share?
