Downsizing Your Home

Recently I spoke with a woman who was interested in getting some help with organizing her parents home. They had lived in the same house for a number of years and had accumulated a great deal of stuff.

Quite often I come across situations where aging parents, who have worked hard for everything they own, are needing to downsize. When this happens, it is often family members who have to deal with the sorting and purging of items.

Here are a few tips to help with the process and make your downsizing experience a positive one:

Start the process sooner rather than later. Downsizing does NOT get easier with age. Waiting until you are forced to make the transition due to health issues will only make it more difficult for you and your family. Start when you are the one making the decision, instead of it being made for you.

Accept that some items may only be valuable to you. When deciding what’s of “value”, Boomers’ kids in their 20s and 30s are saying, ‘If it doesn’t fit my life, my style, I don’t want it’, although they are sometimes guilted into hanging on to family heirlooms. Keep the memories instead and sell or donate items to someone who can use and appreciate it.

Don't Get Sucked into the Storage Craze. Storage merely delays decision making and downsizing is NOT easier done in some hot, poorly lit self-storage unit. Storage is only okay if done for a short term and for some extremely good reason.

If you're going to accumulate and store anything, it should be new experiences and good memories. Unlike stuff, these truly do increase in value over time and can be savored later.