What did you do with... - RV-Dreams Community Forum

WendysPhotos · RV-Dreams Family Member

What did you do with...

Loretta · RV-Dreams Family Member

Well, we both have tons of pictures and mementos that we had stored in Bill's sons' garage until he decided to sell the house. Now we have a real small storage unit. That was our only option at the time. cry We are going to scan all the pictures and put them on a flash drive and DVD and then I will see if my sisters want the paper copies. I am not sure about the other stuff. I would be interested in knowing what others are doing. My sisters and his children do not want the stuff we have so it is a dilemma. It would be nice to have the stuff if we ever got a small casita or apartment, but we don't see that happening for awhile. Our unit is just a 5x5 so it is in the budget.

LibertyLinda · RV-Dreams Family Member

We had many pictures and even pictures from my grandfather - that yes, you can not simply throw away.

I am lucky to have a sister willing to take that family stuff for us.

Perhaps you have good friends that you can leave some stuff with - we will do that with non-family stuff we can not part with.

We will not pay for a storage unit, we think that will be a waste of money and we would never return to it just to look at pictures! LOL

Grams · RV-Dreams Family Member

We got rid of everything after our only daughter who has 4 kids took all items she wanted. Only 1 grandchild asked for anything but others are too young. Other than 1 tote of antique glassware from family that I stored at my mom's, hubby stored some wine with brother #1, some of his memorabilia with brother #4 and 2 very expensive original paintings from France are with friends who appreciate them. At times it was hard but things dont store well and someone should enjoy the "stuff" while we are enjoying life!

Clay L · RV-Dreams Family Member

We gave as much to the kids as we could and that didn't work out all that well. One had a basement flood and destroyed a lot. One didn't pay his storage unit fee and they sold everything in it.
A lot of the stuff ruined and lost was handed down from great grand parents and even older.

We did bite the bullet and put a lot of things in a rented storage unit. Glad we did.
When we bought a stick house summer a year ago we had it all moved from NH to CO.
Having the furniture, appliances, and so forth saved us a bunch of money. We came out ahead even after paying storage rent for 11 years.

phyllen · RV-Dreams Family Member

There were some things we wanted to keep - just in case or WHEN we decide to settle again. Instead of renting a storage space we bought a utility trailer. Stuffed it full. Parked at sons house. When time to unload and settle or whatever we will sell the trailer and recoup most of our money. Better than paying for a storage unit every month.

WendysPhotos · RV-Dreams Family Member

We were kinda thinking of buying a storage building that we could 'gift' my sister and her husband when/if we ever decided to do a condo or something. I was just wondering what everybody else did with their stuff. We have no kids, so it would go to the nieces and nephews which are still in the under 10 range.

jrzygrl64 · RV-Dreams Family Member

Our plan is to get a shipping container (they are pretty big and air/water tight) and put it on my bro-in-laws land (he has a good amount of it). That way if/when we settle back down, we can go get our stuff out of it and then resell it. Before we do that though, there will be a lot of downsizing and we will only be keeping things we cannot part with at all, my dining room set, bedroom set. china that was a gift from my aunts from my wedding, my daughters framed paintings, stuff like that. Maybe, if hubby really MUST, we will keep some tools that he wants but that we won't have room for. LOL! I would really like to keep our nearly new LazyBoy sofa and loveseat with the recliners in the ends, but I've been told that would probably not work out really well, which is probably true, but more research must be done before getting rid of those very comfy couches!

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

The hardest thing for me to get rid of was the oil paintings that my mother had painted. She had taught herself to paint and in her later years, even taught painting to lots of others. Fortunately, my sister is not one to do the RV lifestyle, so she now has all but the smallest of those paintings. (At one time, we had 65 of them just in our house.)

As for everything else, much of what we had in the way of furniture was either hand-me-down or garage sale stuff. When we did get new furniture, it was nothing fancy, although it was quality. However, ALL of that was just "stuff." It won't fit into my coffin when the time comes, and our kids will not likely care about getting any of it. So, we sold what we could and donated the rest to Goodwill, Salvation Army, and other charities. The same with the "left-overs" from the garage sales. If it didn't sell, it was donated, and we didn't even bother with getting receipts for what we donated. After all, that diminishes any generosity that we had.

Terry

SnowGypsy · RV-Dreams Family Member

Terry: I'm with you, excellent post! I've always held the thought that if I weren't using it and/or enjoying it that someone else should be. I guess it was a real awakening when I attended my first auction sale in a small town in western KS. There were fabrics, handmade quilts, framed pictures even of individuals, sets of dishes and many things I would have considered special and they were all auctioned off for next to nothing. It was heartbreaking. I told my husband last week, well, how much longer would we be around to use and/or enjoy these things anyway. I have a 2nd cousin who keeps the family history and she will get my most precious items, nothing of value to anyone other than she and I and hopefully someone in the next generation after her. I have seen people coming out of the Goodwill with the biggest smiles on their faces having found a piece of furniture or a lamp, etc. and that encourages me to part with whatever I can. I am a minimalist at heart anyway.

WestWardHo · RV-Dreams Family Member

Phyllis and Leonard,

Brilliant idea! Have a feeling we'll be looking for a utility trailer soon and empty our small storage unit!
Have a son with at least 4 empty garage bays......

Sherry

NurseJudy · RV-Dreams Family Member

These are all excellent suggestions. I have aready started going through the stuff that is not being used regularly and boxing it up. We are going to have a big yard sale in the spring to start getting rid of some of it. I kind of find it "liberating". I will let my daughter, who will be setting up a new home in a few months, take what she wants first. Whatever doesn't sell will go to donation. I have also started to ask some of my friends and relatives if they would take "temporary custody" of some of my family items (like my Mom's china, a special portrait of my brothers (one deceased and one terminally ill) as young children, my cedar "hope" chest, etc.). Remarkably, most of the people I have asked have been very excited to care for these items. We might rent a small storage unit for some things, however, most of our furniture is not work keeping so I don't know if it would be worth it. I think I might just give it to my daughter & son and sell whatever is left. Photos we have scanned long ago and now use them as a screen saver on our computer. It is a fantastic thing to see them changing all the time. Whenever anyone comes to my house they spend hours just watching them change. We have over 4,000 photos saved now! Can't wait to add more with our upcoming adventures. We are working towards our goal of 2015 every day!

Judy

NWescapee · RV-Dreams Family Member

Just read an interesting blog post by Technomadia on purging their storage unit after several years on the road and a few years since they last even set foot inside the unit. While they were able to totally eliminate their need for a storage unit, it occurred a few years after they went on the road which was a huge encouragement to me knowing that like everything else, it's a process and we all process this at a different pace and in our own way that makes sense for each of us.

We left a 10x10 storage unit 2/3rds full in Seattle when we departed in June, our plan next summer is to "shrink the storage unit".

We've got a few things left to sell that we didn't have time to deal with last spring after 2 online estate sales, a garage sale, a few Craigslist postings, Facebook sales for artist specific supplies, and giving or throwing stuff away. Next year we hope to have a little more time to focus on selling a few more items and then purging / giving away other things that we realize should have been dealt with last summer before we ran out of time and needed to get on the road for the art shows we had planned.

We are resigned to the fact that for now we'll probably never totally be able to get rid of a storage unit, 13 years of a "scrapbooking hobby" and no kids close enough with room to store any of it responsibly, a grandma's cedar chest with many homemade quilts and a few other family momentos that can't be thrown away or donated and no family with room to store, plus a few other things we're just not ready to part with yet means we keep paying for storage. We're just wanting to minimize how much room we need, especially after we just received a notice that our rental rate was going up as of Dec. 1.

Dog Folks · RV-Dreams Family Member

If you put the "special things" in storage,you will never see them when you are on the road. It will cost you money month after month.

Take digital photos of each,place in your computer.

Get rid of the physical "special things." If you stay on the road there is a good chance you won't see/need them again.

Look at you pictures occasionally and reminisce. We find Christmas Eve a great time to do this.

I know this sounds impossible now, but a few months after you are on the road, you will realize that they were only things that you had to store, and pay for. Don't let this "stuff"own you. It is a sense of freedom like you have probably never experienced.

-- Edited by Dog Folks on Wednesday 20th of November 2013 08:28:38 AM

2riker2go · RV-Dreams Family Member

We got rid of all the furniture etc. The nicer pieces we gave to my stepson and stepdaughter...bedroom and office to one, dining room set to the other. The only real "family pieces" we had was a set of dishes which went to my stepdaughter with the dining room set. Luckily my sister is into knick knacks and decorating, so I gave her all that kind of stuff and my Christmas village to add to hers. We started the yard sale thing early in the process, but found it so discouraging how people nickel and dimed us over stuff that was priced for a couple bucks, so we gave that up and started giving everything away. After our house sold a coworker of my husband's came over and took tons of stuff, dishes, beds - two big loads of STUFF. And a coworker of mine had a friend who needed furniture, so we said come on over, and as long as you bring guys to carry it out, take whatever you want! We whittled all of our stuff down to about 4 plastic totes, which my sister was nice enough to let us throw in her basement.

RickandJanice · RV-Dreams Family Member

We were able to give allot of items to nieces, brother, and in-laws. We found that when everyone took what they considered important to them, what was left was really not that important to us after all. So donated the small items and are running the rest through a combined estate auction the end of the month. We agreed to one week between closing and the new owners taking possession of our S&B and even though this was a stressful time, found that by forcing ourselves to make quick decisions on whether something was actually needed or not, we were able do depart easily with those items we might have wanted to keep "just in case". Still had room in the RV to hold pictures until we have time to scan them, and then will give them away. Also still had room for those small special "keepers" like wedding album, year book and "special curios". Now that we have been in the RV for a month, we are not really missing anything and feel so free of "stuff"!

We have always tried to learn from our past, live in the present and plan for a future. In doing this for so many years, we find we have not become attached to "stuff", because it just slows us down from moving on. So as said in our signature "Bloom where you are planted".

-- Edited by RickandJanice on Wednesday 20th of November 2013 07:44:56 PM

Lucky Mike · RV-Dreams Family Member

I also put all my Stuff in a utility trailer....I got a great deal on an enclosed race car trailer and loaded it all in there with the intentions of little by little emptying it out and then using the trailer to haul my toad at a later date and use it as a mobile shop.......it took me 2 years to part with it all but was worth it.........used the trailer 1 season and then sold it and made all my storage money back!!

DeeJee · RV-Dreams Family Member

We don't have family close to borrow space from so we rented a 5x10 climate controlled storage for the antiques and special things we weren't ready to get rid of. Change takes time and this is phase 1. After we're away from them a little while they may lose their sentiment or one of the kids may decide they'd like to enjoy them.

I will say if it's special enough to save don't store delicate or valuable things in the garage, attic or basement. Over time they will deteriorate and it will have been a waste to have saved them.

Just my 2 cents:)