Finance Start early First things first: downsizing is best understood as a process, not a one-time event. Trying to get rid of a house full of stuff the week before your big move (or even the month before) is likely to result in a lot of hassle and sleepless nights. For most people, gradually thinning things out, paring things down and selling/donating/throwing stuff out several months in advance will mean a lot fewer grey hairs. One thing to keep in mind as you try to assess howmuch time the process will take is that some things may not take up a lot of room, but will demand a lot of attention. Photos are the obvious example here. A few boxes of old family snapshots can take a long time to sort and put into albums. Identify those areas early, and give yourself extra time with them. Create a “must have” list Creating a “must have” list makes the task of figuring out what to take with you and what to leave behind a little easier. As you go through packing and sorting the various items in your home, make a note of things with great practical or sentimental value – the items that you can’t live without. Having trouble identifying those items? One quick trick that might help is to imagine if you had a fire: if you lost everything, what are the first things that you would replace? And which “irreplaceable” items would you mourn? What comes to your mind goes on your list. Everything else is a candidate for de-cluttering. Use the “three boxes” method Label three boxes (or bins, or bags, or corners of the garage, etc.) to filter your personal effects into three categories: (a) things you plan to keep; (b) things you plan to sell and (c) things you want to give to friends, family or charity. Go room by room through your home, sorting things into those three categories until you reach a reasonable limit (can you lift the bin into the car?) and then deal with them appropriately. Keep in mind that within the first category (stuff to keep), there may be opportunities to “scale down” from what previously fit into your larger home. A television is a good example here – do you need a 54-inch widescreen in your new condo? Will it overwhelm your new living area? What about that huge sectional couch you bought for your downstairs rec room? Identify areas for “heavy” de-cluttering Some parts of your home deserve a “heavy edit” because they’re stocked with items that don’t have a whole lot of emotional value. The kitchen is one example (when was the last time you used that fondue pot/waffle iron/ ice cream maker?). Your garage or attic is likely to hold a bunch of items which you’ll use rarely, if at all, in your new home (think garden tools, lawn mowers, snow shovels, ladders, etc.). And if you have young-ish kids, more than likely you’re still subsidizing their storage costs by hanging on to boxes of their stuff within your home. Do you really want those old school art projects or soccer trophies? Do they? Maybe. But, now that you’re downsizing, it’s time to make storage their problem, not yours. Check your new space against your old space One way to de-clutter is to let your new space do it for you – this works exceptionally well for furniture whose proportions are simply too large for your new home, or pieces for which you may not have space at all. Start by comparing the new rooms in your smaller home with rooms of similar size in your bigger home. For instance, your new living room might be approximately the same size as your current bedroom. Can you fit your existing living room furniture into your current bedroom? Give it a try and find out. Drawing a rough floor plan of your new space can help a great deal here. Make a couple of copies and sketch in some positions for the various pieces of furniture. You’ll be able to tell right away whether cramming that table, chair and sectional into the same room is just wishful thinking. Get help if you need it Feeling overwhelmed? Finding it hard to make decisions? Running out of time? You may want to hire a professional organizer – yes, they do exist, and most of them are very, very good at helping you prioritize, sort and plan for smaller spaces. Another possibility is to invite that friend of yours who knows you really well – the one who can tell you clearly and honestly when you’re being too sentimental about that set of old dishes, for example, or whether that armchair will actually fit in your new living room. Often, all it takes is an objective perspective to make decisions a whole lot clearer. Make no mistake – downsizing is a big decision, one with a number of important implications on your finances and on your lifestyle. It’s also a very personal decision, one that requires some deep contemplation about how you envision your future. As you go through that process, remember this: if you find yourself focused on the pros of downsizing, forcing yourself to think of the downside of the decision can be of immense help. If nothing else, it will help you zero in on what you truly enjoy about your current living situation – and that can lead you to clearer decisions about how you want to live in your golden years. Preparing for downsizing: how to de-clutter For many people, the hardest part of downsizing isn’t really the decision – it’s the de-cluttering. After decades of living in a larger space and accumulating “stuff,” how exactly are you supposed to get rid of it all? Here’s a process that can help: CSANews | WINTER 2016 | 45
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