House Sold - Estate Sale Today - It's Bitterseet Feelings

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FreeToBe

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My house is under contract to be sold and I have an Estate Sale company at my house holding the first day of a two day sale.  Things are selling fast and I'm having really mixed emotions about it all.  I'm really glad to be rid of all this stuff, but at the same time, everything holds memories.  However, all the stuff is holding me back from the future and living a more interesting life.

As a temporary measure, I've moved from the 3400 sf house to a two bedroom apartment (mainly because the house sold quicker than I had anticipated), but I'll still need to pare down (although I'm hoping not to have to get a storage unit).  I think of going to the apartment as Phase 1 of a two Phase downsizing.

The whole thing is very liberating, but at the same time a little unsettling.  Anyone else go through this and feel similar feelings?
 
You are very brave. I've got to do this eventually.
 
Take pictures of the things you hate to part with , then you can always enjoy looking at them. SD card takes up such a small space..
 
I feel good tossing or selling stuff. Im more thab happy to just give stuff away. Itts out of my hair.
 
The hardest thing for me to let go of was artwork -- pieces by known artists. I loved that art. It meant a lot to me, but there was no way any of it would fit in the van and still leave room for me to live. So I sold it all and gave one piece away. Other people are loving the art now, and I've gotten over missing it.
 
MrNoodly, my art is also something I'll miss! I've actually been trying to figure out ways to incorporate it... like into cabinet doors. Of course, none of mine is worth any monetary value, just pieces that have made me very happy to look at for years!!
 
My art is also something I am going to have a hard time getting rid of too. I have quite a lot. There are a couple of pieces small enough to fit into a van, including the only one I own where I was the artist but all the others, I almost feel like I am going to have to say goodbye to good friends.
 
11 1/2 years ago when I decided my 19 year marriage to my second wife was a waste of life and going nowhere.  I had a 5 day window to downsize from my share of a 4 bedroom S&B we had lived in for 19 years.  I also had a shop full of tools of all kinds.  Before the five days actually started I got rid of what I could.  I sold a tractor, car trailer portable gas welder under the guise of needing money.  She wasn't real happy about that but it took the lumps and went on about my business.  I got rid of anything I could live without; giving things to friends filling up dumpsters, Goodwill, or  whatever it took to get it done in the 5 day window I had.  I moved into a 300 square foot log cabin and stored what I could in a 10 x 10 storage shed.  I threw away shit I had moved back and forth from Texas to Indiana and back twice.  I threw away "treasures".  The sense of freedom was, and still is, wonderful.  Now I have everything in a 22' TT and a pickup and still throwing away treasures.  Bottom line is sometimes we need a limited time to get us in gear to accomplish something we have been dreading and putting off for a long time.  Good luck!
 
Thanks everyone.  I've been selling stuff as quickly as I could, but decided I would never get rid of everything by myself - hence the Estate Sale company.  It makes it easier in a way, because they found stuff that I didn't even know I had and are selling it without me there.  So, I really don't have much time to miss the stuff.

Luckily, I really like my apartment, but it's a mess right now and I'll need to get rid of more stuff to feel comfortable there.  Overall, it is a liberating feeling to get rid of stuff, especially junk I never used.

On a plus note, for the move I had a rental moving truck lined up, but it was in an accident, so I rented a van for a weekend, which just happened to be a Ford Transit (which is what I'm thinking about getting).  I loved it!  It drove great and handled well;  in fact, there were times I just wanted to leave everything and just keeping driving it until I hit the Rockies (several thousand miles away).
 
I think using the Estate Sale company sounds smart and probably how I would want to do it. Based on past experiences with yard sales and the like, it's really hard to be PRESENT when someone is picking up an old favorite thing and saying, "Would you take 2 bucks for this?"

The estate sale company doesn't have the emotional investment...you can just step away and take the money when they're done. This would seem worth whatever their take is, to me. Filing this note away for myself later!
 
FReetobe,

Yes. I did this 10 years ago. The situation was different for me. I moved all my households into one storage locker. It was a huge, climate controlled locker. Filled floor to ceiling.

As it was packed to move, I set aside some of the stuff that had more value and brought it to BF Skinner to o give me an estimate. The family stuff was offered to my daughter first. Then SKinner auctioned some of it themselves. The rest of the stuff I pulled aside I donated to the local hospice store.

Then, I hired an estate liquidation company to deal with the rest of it.

For me, the hard part was to pack and empty the various houses, condos and move it all to this storage locker. I knew that I would never unpack it...never see it again.

For a long time I just had to not permit myself to think about it. I knew that it had to be done, so I dealt with it by not dwelling on it. Now, years later, it doesn't bother me.
 
Saracatherine - Yes, the Estate Sale worked out great.  I don't think I could have possibly done this by myself in a tag sale.  Plus, they have a great marketing plan, so a lot more people came than I could have got on my own.  They even have someone to clear out the last of the junk.

Wagoneer - Yep, I'm looking toward the future now, not the past.

VanKitten - Since I'm still working, the apartment worked out well for me.  Plus, it's been so much nicer and more convenient than the house.  I was trying not to get a storage unit and it doesn't look like I'll have to (fingers crossed).  I thought I was going to be nostalgic about some stuff, but I really wasn't.  Once stuff started to go, the more that went the better.  I still have one more downsizing to make once I'm done with the apartment, but I think this one was by far the hardest of the two, considering there will be much less stuff in the next downsizing and I'll have several months now to whittle it down.

All in all, it's been a tough process, but I've learned that I never want to accumulate so much stuff again in my life.  I hope I remember that lesson for a long, long time.
 
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