The REAL 50ish group...Oct 20th

We are building a new house that is half the size of the house we currently live in. I am looking forward to cleaning out this house and starting outfresh. We have lived in this house for 10 years...the longest DH and I have ever lived somewhere so we have collected a lot of stuff. We have four sons. One is living in Austin and has a few boxes of stuff here. My 24 year old DS moved back home temporarily(I hope!) and has a lot of stuff here. My 19 year old DS is still living at home while he figures out what he wants to do(he was suppose to be in the navy, but couldn't complete boot camp). My 17 year old DS is a senior in high school and wants to go to college locally so he will stay here. The boys don't have a lot of stuff, but I do. I have been trying to Kon Mari my home and that is helping with weeding out what I want and need.

We moved from Australia to Germany nearly 10 years ago now, and downsized from a double story, 5 bedroom house to a 4 room apartment. We also downsized by leaving our 2 sons behind (they were 21 and 22, and both in Uni, but living at home at the time). They each took a lot to set up their houses and we really didn’t bring much with us - I think 30 moving boxes and 4 suitcase - and it is still to much for the space we have.

I want to get into all our closets and do a major clean out, but am currently hampered by knee problems. Maybe once that is fixed, I’ll get it done.

Nope. I like big houses as do my parents. My parents just upsized from 4,400 to 4,700 two years ago. I don't ever want to move again. The only issue I have with this house are all of the stairs but I will install one of the chairs/lifts before I would move. LOL!

Repeating myself from other threads: sold our house on 5.6 acres and sold/donated all our stuff to move into a 38' RV and travel full-time. We hit the one-year mark in Sept. No kids, and I already lived far from my family, but we "moved" from his home state. Do not miss all the stuff one little bit and was just thinking this morning that I have even more I could get rid of. Streamlining, even long before we took off, has brought such peace to my life, not to mention the time and money savings.

Given everything else - moving half way around the world, to a country where we didn’t speak the language, leaving family and friends and for me, my job, behind - going into an apartment was just one more change. I actually like it now - much less to clean, and there are only the 2 of us, except when family visits - and will likely move into an apartment when we go back home.

This sounds very cool!!

As for me...we will need to downsize, probably within the next couple of years! We have 4 kids in their 20's who are all home saving for their own houses. When they move out our house will be too big for us (and the taxes are killer.) 

My goal is to be ready to move when they start moving. We've been in our house for 30 years so there's a lot in it. Last Winter we pulled the entire attic down into the house over several weekends and I sorted, donated, got rid of and organized what we were to keep. It's all stored neatly away downstairs now. We did part of the basement over the summer and will keep going as time allows. We'll have enough to do to list the house without sorting through preschool toys we kept for some reason, lol.

The idea of the move makes me nervous, I hate change for one.  The other biggie is that for whatever reason smaller homes seem to be priced much more expensively than i'd have thought. Our house which is pretty large will certainly go for more, but less than you'd think if you compare the prices.  And I feel like I want a one floor kind of oversized ranch which don't seem plentiful either. Recently my Aunt NEEDED to move in order to be on a one floor due to mobility issues so i'm hoping to move once and be set for old age

We upsized I think. The townhouse we bought is technically 200 sqft smaller but I have 800 sqft of storage where all my stuff can go. We have two storage areas one is called the Wine Room and the other is Elannah’s Storage. They are awesome. We got rid of a lot of stuff when we moved. I called my cleaning lady team and they came and took everything I didn’t need. There were about 30 bone china tea cups and saucers and they were squealing. They took everything as they are from an immigrant community and can distribute the stuff to friends. They took furniture and “stuff”. They were just awesome and they left thinking they got a great deal. They took my stress with them. They don’t see it that way so it’s win win.

I have more stuff to get rid of but one day at a time.

I want a much smaller home. We've lived here for 17 years. I don't have anything to go through - I am not a keeper and I sort through the things we have constantly. I don't have any collections or take anything handed down to me that I don't want. But I have physical limitations that have made it harder to manage this large house. Even with help who took care of the kitchen and bathrooms, I struggled to keep up with the rest of the everyday cleaning. Then our housekeeper retired and it is clear that I don't want to have to worry about taking care of everything that needs to be done. Also, I'm 53 and still active. I want to be out doing things and not spending my weekends cleaning a house.

I can SO relate to sentimentality !!! We've been doing A LOT of purging and everything is either going to a homeless shelter or Goodwill. I haven't read any other replies, AND you may have already thought of this., but take PHOTOS of them so you'll always remember them.

Someday, I'd like to make some scrapbook pages about the items that are very meaningful to me. But at the very least, at least I'll have piks. Some items, I also wrote a little bit about the who/ what/ where/ why on a sheet of paper that's included in the photo so none of the details will be forgotten. I love to capture all the info, just like I always liked to journal a lot in my scrapbook pages.


I always think of someone in the future reading about it, and I WISH some of my family members had done the same.
For example, I have my Mom's handkerchiefs with her initials embroidered on them, beautiful photos of her taken by my Dad where she's wearing a special necklace, etc. --I'd LOVE to know the story behind them, etc.

We are in our forever home. It's the largest home we've lived in, but not a large house by American standards. It's about 1800 sq ft and our basement is unfinished. It's just me, DH and DS lives with us. 20 years ago I would have gone for a bigger house. However, now that we are close to retirement, I'm really glad I don't have a big house to heat, cool, and especially clean. It would be a lot of wasted space for us. We basically use the same two rooms, kitchen and living room. We don't have family that needs to be accommodated and I won't have grandchildren either.

I'm also at the point that I am constantly reevaluating what I really need in my house. The older I get the less I want to deal with things that I either don't love or don't use. We traveled most of our lives so we have a lot of souvenirs from around the world. Those are the things that I'm not sure how to pare down.

I’m not planning to move any time soon, but I know that I will likely want to downsize at some point.

There were people asking just weeks after my husband died what I was going to do about the house. They weren’t necessarily asking me, but a close relative. His response was the same as mine: Live in it. I do not want to make a quick decision or an irreversible one. Yes, it’s a big house for one person; it was a big house for two (four bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, living room, family room, dining room, loft, etc.). And my husband did most all the yard work, even when he was on chemo.

I will be retiring at the end of this school year, so I want to wait to see how much I want to do in the future. I’ve done more yard stuff and gardening than I ever did before, and there is some pleasure in the gardening especially. My nephew has done the mowing and trimming and fertilizing and I’ll have to figure that out since I can’t expect him to continue that indefinitely. I am okay with hiring people or services to do some things.

With my nephew's help, I’ve been getting things done that needed to be, like a new front door, new shutters and outside lighting, etc.

Vince and I had this house built and we moved in almost twenty years ago. We chose everything together and it’s very much what we wanted. I also love the neighborhood and the neighbors, who have been there for us and now for me. I have thought that I might choose to move into one of the detached condos behind us, in the future. For right now, I’ll stay and see how things go once I’m retired. We had put in a stair lift shortly before Vince died, so that will make it easier for me to stay in the house longer if I choose.

We upsized rather than downsized. We're at 6,800 SF now, with over 70 acres, ponds, creeks, and a swimming pool. Our house is the place to be on the weekends, so I'm very glad we have the space.

We downsized a couple years ago. I like the house we live in, but wish the basement was more finished than it is. I like space to work on my crafts and don't really have that.

When we moved we purged a lot, but after 3 years there are boxes we have yet to open so I need to go through them and purge those as well. We are talking retirement and I am not waiting until then to go through everything. Our plans are to do extended traveling in a Class B or C, can't remember what class motor home, towing our jeep behind. SO at that point it will be bare bones minimum. I look forward to that time of our life.