My family and I are moving into an RV in June.
At least, that’s the plan.
However, in order to make that happen, I have to get rid of a whole house full of stuff. With just over four months (HOLY CRAP!) left until we are scheduled to leave, I have made… well… some progress.
I cleaned out my desk.
I also made a nice area on the floor of my office for the stuff that needs to be sold. Well, technically it’s an area for the stuff that I have to research on Ebay to see if it even can be sold. (Do people buy USB cables in bulk?)
BUT THAT’S NOT ALL!
I have also taken pictures of a couch and a mirror that I plan to sell on Craigslist or something. Everyone knows you have to have pictures if you want to sell things online.
And… um… that’s it.
Sure, it doesn’t look like I’ve done much. Sure, I have four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a kitchen, dining room and family room to go through. And a garage. And several closets. But it’s a start! Step one!!
OK, fine. I’m freaking out a little. It’s been two weeks since I took Step One. At this rate I should have everything out of this house sometime in 2018. Ish.
But my daughter threw away a Barbie today.
STEP TWO!!
(We are so screwed.)
About Britt Reints
First-breathe-this is doable. We moved last May from Pennsylvania to Colorado. That is-my husband left in February and I stayed behind with the 2 kids and cleaned the house, sold the house, purged the house and PACKED the house. He came back for settlement and to drive us all back. PURGE PURGE PURGE! I was referred to as the “domestic bulimic!”
Also-my husband and I (pre-kids) drove cross-country for 9 weeks (14,000) miles, living out of our Explorer and tent-camping. So between those 2 things-I’ve been there and am happy to help anyway I can. Feel free to direct email me amydubois1 {at}gmail{dot}com if you have questions.
Last thing-we’ve got tons of space when you hit Colorado. We’re just outside Boulder. Come and visit and enjoy a real shower! ;)
Twitter Name: amydubois1
You’re a brave soul. In the travel for a year with a husband and kids department and the cleaning out the entire house department.
I can’t even clean out my junk drawer with out having an anxiety attack about accidentally throwing something away I may possibly need at some future point in my life.
Twitter Name: unknwndreamer
Good luck! In Sept 2008, we sold our two cars, house, and most of our stuff to travel with the kids (2 girls) for 10 months. Getting rid of all the stuff was quite the beat down and harder than I thought it would be but SO worth it in the end.
We’re terrible at getting rid of stuff. We thought we were going to be vagabonds for a few years after my wife got done with medical residency. So we stashed a ton of stuff in my parents’ garage so we could travel light. Then we accidentally bought a house, put down roots, and replaced all the things we had stored with new versions.
Uh, I’ll take 1 USB cable.
Twitter Name: msbatman
I don’t know how you do it. My husband and I have been trying to declutter our house for the past year and I seriously doubt we’ve made a dent. In addition to our own crap, we have a bunch of stuff that we ended up with after both of his parents died. We’re finally at the point where we can start letting it all go, but it’s so overwhelming to know where to begin.
Twitter Name: dailysnark
WAIT. You are going to live in a van for a year with your family? I’d say that the easy thing is decluttering! You can do it!
Twitter Name: juliaroberts1
My husband and I decided to move from LA to Australia in 2006. We had to sell/get rid of everything that didn’t fit in our alloted luggage because it was too expensive to ship. Granted, we didn’t own a house but we had a lot of crap. We had these visions of how we were going to eBay everything and make all this money and…well, it didn’t happen. The smartest thing we did was hold a Craigslist garage sale. We put everything we wanted to be rid of (whether it seemed sell-able or not) out in our living room and apartment building hallway (since we didn’t have a garage) and took pictures of all it. Then, we put an ad for a garage sale and for the bigger items and included a list of generally what we had and the pictures. As the “cashier”, I sat on the couch with my cash box, taking phone calls, answering emails and accepting money. My husband (and his sister because we had so much for sale) haggled with people and, once a price was agreed upon, sent them to me to pay. It was all first come, first serve and we had a lot of people show up. The bonus was that most of the things we thought no one would want were gone quick. We had a guy excited to buy a box of cables we didn’t even untangle! He didn’t know what was in it and didn’t care. My husband picked up a couple of fire hoses that weren’t up to code for a project he never got to and we ended up selling them to a firefighter who was new to it and wanted to practice rolling up hose in his driveway. You never know what people will pay for! We made 3/4 of what we hoped to make using eBay and individual Craigslist ads and got rid of tons of stuff. It was pretty easy overall. It can be done!