Full-timing: Parting With The Stuff

[Pxr177]

For anyone even thinking about going full time. NOW is the time to start downsizing.

Our plan was straight forward, but a little unique. We live in Canada, and our provincial health plan requires us to be in the province for 5 months per year. Our planning revolved around this fact.

We bought a 30 ft Class C in 2009, while I was still working. We assigned it to an RV management company who stored it, looked after it, and rented it out, mainly in the summer. This pays for the unit. Since we have to spend 5 months in province, it only makes sense to make this the summer months. That is also the time when we can generate income renting our unit, so we are getting temporary accommodation for 3 of the 5 months we need to be here.

We knew several years ago this was in our future, so after our last move, we went into a rental unit, so we did not have to worry about selling it when we retired. What I didn't know was how much STUFF we had.

In November 2010, I took a paid leave of absence to try out retirement life. First we moved out of our house. We spent 2 months overseas with our son, and two months in our RV in the southern US.

We thought we had it all planned.

Our last two moves were paid by my employer, so we did not have to cull anything. We went through every bag, box, dresser, cabinet, and cupboard. We found stuff we had not seen in years. We even found unused wedding presents, and we have been married over 40 years!

We arranged for friends and family to get stuff. We gave some to some people in need we knew, and we sold some on the net. ( forget about getting what its worth). We did garage sales, and we furnished a Salvation Army store with a ton of stuff. Our fine china and a few keepsakes are stored in my brother's garage. Even with all of that, we were desperate to get packed and out of the house and worked until midnight the last day. Even then, we had extra boxes of "stuff" that a friend stored while we were overseas. We also had about 10 bins of stuff to go into our RV.

After two months overseas, we came back, picked up our RV and headed south. What did we find?

After the initial shock of letting go a lifetimes worth of stuff, we did not miss what we had given up. In the ten bins we took into the RV, we never used a third of the stuff, and it won;t be back either. The extra boxes of stuff did not seem so necessary either.

Certainly, there was some stuff we got rid of, that I later found we needed, but that's what they make dollar stores for. Our son lives overseas, so there is little to tie us down. Home is where my wife and dog live, and lately, that's beside me while we are going down the road. We have adapted to this new lifestyle, and are no longer tied down by "stuff".

I am back at work until October, the we hit the road, chasing the good weather.

Cheers

Paul

[migrantdawgs]

We, too, sorted through all the 'stuff' and put what we felt were essentials into storage. Then, 3 months later, we sorted that down and stored some boxes at my brother's house in New Mexico. Now, everytime we roll through, we sort and get rid of more things. Pretty much, now we are down to solid memorablia and office (we own a business) files. We've been full timing for a year and we love it! I also like that when we go shopping, it's much simpler because we don't have space to take on any crap. So mostly we shop for things that we can trade out to lighten up or simplify what we do. I like the lack of sheer consumerism. We buy less at the holidays to send to kids/grandkids as well since our emphasis on THINGS has gone down so much.

We've found it to be a relief to simplify. David read a rule somewhere on full-timing that suggested when you take something on the rig, get rid of something else. That helped us out in the first 6 months but now we've adjusted and don't need a guideline!

[KDRoberts]

We became so overwhelmed with "stuff" after my last parent passed away in 2009 because we already had 1700sq ft of stuff; and inherited another 1700sq ft of stuff that it was a blessing in disguise when we finally decided to go fulltime. We were going to have to make those decisions.

There were, of course, quite a few items that we considered personal family heirlooms to decide on. And we decided to take a few fulltimers' advice we had been given -- to go ahead & rent a storage unit for year, with the reasoning that in a year, we could mentally sort through what was there, whether we really needed it, contact other family members who might treasure this or that particular item, etc.

The rest went into 5 auctions and we will have 1 more, to dispense of the furniture we left to show it with, once we close on the sale of our house this month. And we made a number of charitable donations as was customary for us anyhow.

[tbutler]

Kellie and George,

You have taken on a huge task. I hope that you will find the effort worth the struggle. We found the exercise to be quite freeing. Once the amount of stuff is reduced, your life becomes simple. Then you can enjoy the fun of traveling without being tied to your stuff!

[kimsells]

Good to hear your story relating to downsizing and going full time.

This will be a new lifestyle of living for us.

We too are in process of downsizing, selling furniture and having garage sales.

We plan to make the RV the full time home. Although, we are not retired yet and

still work, we've been planning on living in the MH by July of this year.

In our opinion, owning a home with all the maintenance, yard work and upkeep can get a little

tiresome after many years.

We've loved to camp for years on weekends, vacations and meet fellow RVers.

41' Four Winds Monticito

Dinghy - GMC Terrain