[chuckinca]

Any suggestions on how to divest yourself from all the stuff that has accumulated in your old house before moving to TV?

[shy]

I would also like to know the answer to this question - especially the emotional aspect of parting with my "treasures."

[REDCART]

Take your lead from everyone that's moved to TV before you, spend the money to ship it and then within two years, throw it out because you can't get your car (or your golf cart) in the garage.

[redwitch]

For things that are reusable but not acceptable by Goodwill's, etc. standards, join freecycle.org in your neighborhood. It's a great way to give things to people who need them.

[butterfly sue]

We rented a dumpster. Threw out most of the basement and garage. Figured old tools could be replaced with nice new ones if needed (saws and garden stuff etc). Husband is retired and doesn't want to do any work. Anything good offered to relatives or gave to GoodWill. Had over 20 boxes of Christmas stuff that I reduced to 5. You just have to take a very hard look at what you want to keep. I do wish I had kept more of my garden tools. 1/2 of our furniture we sold with the house to include appliances. We had planned that everything was old when we would retire and move. Only good thing was freezer(2 yrs old) and we decided not to have one. We bought our house here in TV before we sold the other one. We had sizes for all the rooms and knew where we were placing everything large in size. Old pictures on walls stayed (hid fading areas) as we wanted a different decorating look. Last house we lived in for 22 years. Bedroom set was older than 20 yrs so that went to charity. If things are small and can't decide, then take them.

Packed our boxes ourselves except for what we wanted covered by insurance. Our car carried things we didn't want to lose, computer, safe, photos and things like that.

Best not to move during summer as heat will affect some of the things you bring down. Do not pack any candles in moving van boxes. They melted and ruined some of my stuff and that was my fault. I also broke some of my CHristmas ornaments.

So sad to see it all go. Space in houses here are at a premium. Store stuff under beds and bought a platform bed with drawers and plenty of dresser space.

I did keep a bit of my winter clothes for emergency trips back home.

Downsized to one van and now a golf cart.

Hope that helps!

[Talk Host]

We had an auction. Made $11,000. It was like magic. I stood there and watched $200,000 worth of stuff chang into $11,000. But, hey, it paid for the move.

[nanci2539]

Jan, how does one go about having an aution?

[Hyacinth Bucket]

We give our stuff away on FreeCycle. No money changes hands and they come and pick up the items.

We also donate many of our items to the Battered Womens Shelter and to another self help organization - once again no money is received for these items.

There is a Lakeland FreeClycle if you still have items you want to give away.

Hyacinth Bucket

[ouma1938]

I just love Jan's answer. I just read it to my husband, who is the pack rat in our marriage. He keeps saying that when we sell the house and move to TV (oh happy day) he will be able to throw out stuff. Then I start pointing out things he says, "no not that, we got that when....." or "but our daughter/sons gave that to us, it would hurt her/their feelings" Our daughter and sons have said it wouldn't hurt their feelings to get rid of old stuff they gave us and I believe them. After all, the more we get rid of now the less they will have to deal with when they inherit this stuff. This is going to be fun when the time comes. But regardless we will be moving to TV so we can handle anything.

[nONIE]

Over the years we have accumulated a house,cellar and barn filled to the rafters with STUFF! My being a packrat has not helped. Hubby says hes just going to call in a few dumpsters and start tossing. I think Jan had the right idea, call an auctioneer to sell whatever you just cant use anymore. Alot of the auctioneers will come and pick up all your things to take to auctiion. Of course you will never get back the money you spent initially on these items but a move to TV is worth the loss.

However , I agree it is very hard to part with sentimental items.

[SeaCruiser]

When we sold our home up north we threw in the SNOW SHOVELS to sweeten the deal! :

[nONIE]

ahhhhhhh, to never have to look at a snow shovel again! pity us, we had 6 inches today and a high of 20 degrees cold

[Villages Kahuna]

At the conclusion of the second day of our garage sale a neighbor congratulated us heartily for taking in a little more than $1,000. My response was to observe that it doesn't take a marketing rocket scientist to sell over $10,000 worth of "stuff" for $1,000.

One piece of advice: You simply cannot get rid of enough stuff before you move to TV. Regardless of how hard you try, you'll move stuff here that you don't need, you'll never use and you won't have room to store.

If when you begin sorting thru stuff to determine what should go, all of the following should definitely "go"...[br]

• Anything you haven't laid eyes on in the last two years
• Anything related to winter or snow
• Almost all suits, ties or formal ball gowns
• Most power tools (are you really going to "do projects" at your brand new house?)
• All the stuff you intended to sell on eBay but haven't gotten around to photographing and preparing the auction ad
• All that sports equipment you used to use when you were 35

[br]
Even if you do all that religiously...you still won't get rid of enough "stuff". Good luck.

[gfmucci]

I recently sold several items without any cost through "Instant Auctions".* They sell on ebay, pay for shipping, take the photos, do the write up, handle all the scams from Nigeria, and keep 25% of what the auctioned items sell for.* You just need to be pretty sure the stuff you send them for each separate auction will fetch at least $30 or $40 to make it worth your while.* One way is to group related lower cost items and sell as a lot.

Here is their site with further explanation of how it works:

http://instantauctions.net/

[Talk Host]

Originally Posted by nanci2539

Jan, how does one go about having an aution?

We lived in Vestal, New York. (A suburb of Binghamton). There was a well know antique dealer/auctioneer in the area. I use to see him at the gym where I worked out.

When we decided to move, I called him and asked the procedure for an auction. Here is what we did. We coordinated the auction with the actual move.

We tagged everything that we wanted to keep and had the movers take it out. Then the auctioneer started. They came to the house with a crew of about six people. They gathered up everything that was not tagged and grouped it according to classification. (dishes, silverware, tools, furniture, antiques, junk). They had already erected a large tent in the front yard and had advertised the day and date of the auction. The night before a and the day of the auction, workers were buzzing around the house getting stuff organized. They set up a check out clerk with a computer who handled all of the sales.

At 2 p.m. the day of the auction, a hot dog/ice cream truck and about 300 people with lawn chairs showed up and the auction began. I stood there and watched people clamor over our stuff. The things I thought were worth $500 sold for $50. The things I thought were worth .50 sold for $50. Those things that did not sell, were placed on a large table to the side. At the end of the auction, he auctioned off the entire table of stuff that didn't sell.

After it was all over, the auctioneer kept 30% we got the rest. They then sent a crew into the house to clean out every piece of junk, trash and paper that might have been left there. The house was absolutely empty when they were done.

Was it a good thing to do? It was absolutely the best thing we did associated with our move. I would do it again in a heartbeat.