that sounds wonderful. I would love to do that and I'm sure I will have lots of stuff to give them. How do I contact them, of course it won't be until next January but still it's not to early to think about.

The mail we get from them is from:

Florida Sheriffs Youth Ranches
PO 2000, 2486 Cecil Webb Place,
Boys Ranch, FL 32064 1-800-765-3797

There is a more local number, but unfortunately I don't have it right now, but someone else who uses TOTV will have it.

Well everyone has made me realize I better get started clearing out stuff now. We have 46 years of stuff to sort out.

Steve you reminded me of all the stuff we had to get rid of when my grandmother passed. Her stuff was only important to her. My kids don't care about the things I have collected over the years.

The problem will be my husbands garage.

Mintjulep what a great idea to have a friend come help you with the task of getting rid of stuff.

I guess I will get started de-cluttering even before our visit in May.

First, had a yard sale and sold big items on Craig's List. We had a lot of colonial furniture, yard equipment and a spare refrig. which went that way. Second, books don't sell so we donated to the library and a huge truckload to the local literacy center. They were thrilled to get them. Then, we invited all the relatives and neighbors and their kids and grandkids to help themselves to what was not coming to FL. You'd be surprised how many dorm rooms, first apartments and cottages were outfitted this way. We brought a small café set to use as a kitchen set, a love seat and club chair that saw better days and our new tv and 2 older small tvs and our bedroom set. We could sit and watch tv, eat in the kitchen and sleep. Then we took our time when we learned our way around the area and went out and bought our furniture and made a lot of good deals buying floor models. A year later, we donated the older tvs and the den set and bought new when there were sales. We had 33 years of "stuff" so I really sympathize. It wasn't easy but it was fun buying some new "stuff". When you realize how much it costs to move things it's easier to part with them and to be more realistic about what will work here in your new home. Good Luck. Nancy

I'm still reading through these old posts and found this one particularly helpful:

That is so true. I recently decided that I'd been lugging my yearbooks around long enough, so I broke out the digital camera, took pictures of a dozen or so pages that held anything sentimental for me, and chuck about 100lbs of useless paper in the recycle bin. You know what, I didn't feel a loss at all, I felt liberated! We have probably 7 years before TV and will probably need every minute of that to empty our 4000sqft house, full attic, full basement and 2 story 40x40 barn/garage! Where did all this junk come from? When my wife and I married 20 years ago I moved from Atlanta with U-Haul's smallest trailer (4x6 I think)... I was an apartment dweller and left most of my furniture with my roommate and the trashman. We moved here 10 years later and it took 2 of U-Hauls largest trucks, their largest trailer and a car carrier bristling with strapped-on goodies and a minivan filled to the roof! If we were to move everything we have now, I'm guessing it'd take two tractor trailers. It's insane! Like I said, I'm working earnestly toward the goal and hope it can be accomplished in the "limited" time we have. Again, really enjoying the thread and the commiseration.

I can so relate to this thread as I'm going through it now. I started preparing for the move last summer and I'm finding the more I sort through the keep pile the smaller it gets. I keep asking myself with every item, do I really need this? When is the last time you used it? If there's any hesitation in the answer I am tossing it.

Its so very hard to get rid of things and I can't let emotions and memoires get in the way. I keep repeating to myself yes I'm losing so much now, but there's so much joy and happiness to be gained in my new life without these material possessions.

You should hire a certified senior move manager in your area. If you need help finding one I can ask the national association of move managers to find one.

I resurrected this thread this morning with a specific purpose in mind. Has anyone opened the estate sale information posted by Blessed & Grateful this morning? I opened it and could not believe the accumulation of "stuff" in this home which now has to be sold. I am sure it was a beautiful home with many wonderful items, but now it is room after room of unwanted "stuff" that someone has to clean out in order to sell the house.

This should be a good answer as to why we need to downsize either before coming here or as soon as we can. I cannot imagine what my boys would think if they had to come to Florida to empty this amount of things out of my home! If you love your kids get rid of it before they have to ...................

How do you clean out a 37 year accumulation? HELP!
 

It seems that some folks have a kind of mental illness when it comes to either hoarding stuff or, in the case of a gal I know, shopping. When she and her husband moved to Summerfield they had to ruthlessly downsize, especially since they were buying a furnished model home. But this gal just couldn't "turn off" the shopping compulsion, so she ended up filling every out-of-sight void of that house (her husband would never allow things to accumulate in the open or she'd have stacks in the guest bedroom). Once she ran out of room she'd instead buy "gifts" for family; mostly junk from Marion Market that she thought was cute but nobody else had any interest in. Now that we've finally convinced her we have too much stuff already she has started stowing her stash in her snowbird neighbors' houses; houses she volunteered to keep watch over. This past month, one of those neighbors died and their house was sold in 3 days (sight unseen?) and she has been in a panic moving her stacks from one snowbird house to another! She swears she's thinning it out. All I can say is I hope he passes before she does, because the embarrassment and betrayal would be very hard on him. I really do think it's a sickness, and I'm worried it may be in my blood, too.

Edited to anonymize.

Has anyone considered freecycle? It's a national group that keeps things out of landfills. There is a group in Lady Lake. You register on the site. You can then post you have an offer of an item. Another freecycle member will contact you through email if it's an item they can use. Everything is free and can not be resold. One persons trash, is a treasure to someone else.

One member of the freecycle group in our area takes broken computers. He combines the working parts from each, puts them together, and donates the working computers. We had a gentleman pick up skids that had stones delivered on that we used for landscaping. We had no use for the skids and he made outdoor furniture with them. In both these cases, it would be classified as trash. The most interesting was used bubble wrap I posted. One person said if it wasn't claimed, they'd love to use it for a kids New Years Eve party and they could jump on it to make it pop. Can you imagine how thrilled someone might be with a new to them table or chair?

Please consider this option before throwing an item away.

How do you clean out a 37 year accumulation? HELP!
 

Oh My Gosh!!! I saw the pictures posted here on TOTV and thought "that's not too bad." But then I clicked the link http://www.blessedandgrateful.com/events-page.html to go to the website. I cannot believe the sheer volume. At least the family isn't having to deal with it and the task was handed off to an estate sale company. "Dear God, please help me to not be a slave to stuff, Amen"

Cleaning House for the move
 

When we got ready to move here we kept only the things that meant the most to us and had an auctioneer come in and clean out the house and barn for us. He had the auction at the house and sold everything. We bought all new when we got here so we did not have to have a moving van. We downsized and it felt really good to get rid of a lot of Stuff! No regrets on our part as we offered the kids to get what they wanted....which was not much. Good Luck!

We have been working on the accumulation problem now for a number of years doing most of what has been suggested. Freecycle is a useful option and we too have met some very nice people using it (in NJ).

I don't much care for FreeCycle, personally, because it's hard to find stuff you want... it's just one long email with every item available listed without categorization. The mods on FC can be a bit of a pain, too. I prefer Craigslist, both because you can list stuff in categories and you can include rich content: like maps and pictures. And it provides you a convenient way to be contacted by interested parties anonymously, via an email forwarder. Admittedly, it is marginally more involved to create a CL posting, but worth it IMO. But hey, they are both free so why not try them both.

I just had exactly the same problem. I went online and found an estate sale company. We packed up what we were keeping, and they sold the rest in one weekend! There was no extra work for me, all I did was pack what we were bringing with us. They sorted, priced, displayed and staffed the sale. I wasn't even home on the sale days. We had a great experience. Estate sales are not just for the deceased!

Cleaning out
 

A good hint I received was to take a picture of sentimental things and then get rid of it, donate,sell,trash. It is hard!!!:welcome:

You can donate many of your unwanted items to Ye Olde thrift Shop located on 441 across from the log cabin and the MMR computer store. All proceeds are for the Villages Hospital. You can call 352-353-0232, she's an organizer to help you with sorting.

Ah, but to get to the point where you are donating things, you have to steel your resolve to get things to one of three piles; the first, stuff to recycle or donate; the second, stuff to toss; and, third, stuff to pay the moving van to go to Florida. Then, you have to have the fortitude to restrict everything to one of those piles. There is no fourth pile called indecision. This is hard, very hard and we failed the first few times by having the fourth pile. Finally, we got to the three piles but we still moved too much stuff down here. It is a struggle but it can be done.

Post is from 2008!!!

1.Throw stuff that you haven't touch in over a year out.
2. Donate books to library.
3. Furniture, to charity. Family and friends too!!!
4. Yard sales.

It's like the joke, "how do you eat an elephant?"

"One bite at a time"

Start immediately and rest if you must. It is so much easier to go thru on's junk, if it's done in waves.