Let's talk about downsizing...and change.

Why not just select one or two small sentimental items you want to save for each kid and get rid of the rest of it? My thought is, would you rather shove those Legos into a closet to collect dust where they may or may not eventually get to be played with in some distant future, or would you rather see them go to a kid who would play with them right now and enjoy them for years?

I live with a packrat who never wants to get rid of anything. I am reaching the point in life where I could become a minimalist. It's a bad combination, especially since we just put his mother into a nursing home and need to clear out her apartment. It's going to be a battle to convince him that every single thing is not a sentimental item. His own mother took a small box of things and told him to get rid of the rest, it's just stuff. But of course he doesn't see it that way. She saved hair clippings. Hair. It's kind of disgusting. It's not coming into my house. But he thinks it's a treasure.

I hope your new freedom comes with the freedom from stuff you don't need or want. Don't hang onto hair.

Yes, this.

I have a firm rule about sentimental stuff, one tote. We each have one tote to keep non used sentimental stuff in. If the tote gets full it's time to go through it again.

I would keep one small tote of sentimental type stuff for each kid, then give them the option of taking the rest of their old stuff. If they don't want to deal with it, either donate, or if they could use the money, try selling it so you can give them some cash. As long as they are asked first, I would let it go.

It's much easier to move with less stuff. Most things are replaceable. I think your idea of an apartment while you're figuring things out is a great one. 

I'd say either save just a few Lego & cars and sell or give away the rest, or let your kids store them.   If I was going to save all of something, I'd save the Lego and get rid of the cars, unless there was one or two you recalled being particular favorites.  The Lego you have now are probably more valuable than the cars and more expensive to replace later.

I'd probably line them all up on a table and take a pic before I gave them away.   





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MIL went extreme and got rid of nearly every childhood toy and item of DH's save for one big rubbermaid tote. What she chose to save was weird and DH is having a hard time deciding what to get rid of. It seems like what he really would've liked, she got rid of. Her basement is almost completely empty. My parents have so much crap that downsizing will be impossible.

I've tried to get rid of stuff and as soon as my mom found out I was attempting to part with a fraction of the thousands of Hot Wheels, she literally called me a bad mom, took the box and put it in her basement. Her words were "you may not care about your kids or future grandkids, but I do." WTF? Hot Wheels aren't going anywhere. And keeping 100 is plenty. I do not need to keep the thousands of Hot Wheels because she also has several hundred that I'll end up with plus my Dad is "collecting" them so there are another couple hundred in unopened Hot Wheels in their basement. It's stupid.

It's one thing to save the handmade doll. It's a completely different story when it's mass-produced and easily found anywhere. I have three 55 gallon totes of Legos. There are many sets that have been discontinued. Problem is that there is no way to put together whole sets. At one point, ex stayed with me for a few months and all of the legos from his place merged with mine. When he moved on, he took what seemed like half so many pieces to sets are at his place (if he even still has them) and the rest are somewhere in the multiple totes we have. Depends on what they want to do, we may find ourselves selling some as a massive collection for a couple hundred bucks.

I refuse to hold onto massive quantities of toys "just in case." Toys aren't going anywhere. What your future grandchildren want is likely to be completely different than what your kids wanted.

Good for you for knowing what you need to be happy and taking action to make it happen. Even though your kids are still in a transitional stage of life, I think they would know which things they want to hang onto for posterity. Let them choose the things they really love and shed the rest in the most effective way for you.

DH and I are both kind of sentimental pack rats, although I've improved some over the years and try not to save every little thing. I had a tiny pang of something when I recently chucked an entire armload of DD's kindergarten papers and stuff into the recycle bin, but my rational mind tells me she will be bringing home another armload of stuff from school this year which was why it needed to go. I saved the stuff I liked best along with some things I will photograph to scrapbook and then purge, and there are a few really nice pieces that I would like to frame for my studio.

DH is a tinkerer, so he's always thinking he could use this or that down the road (and he probably *could* too, if he was actually going to do any of those things which he probably won't, LOL). Given the chance to do whatever he wanted, I doubt very much he'd be spending his time messing around with dusty old junk in the garage. He would be out in the woods or out on the lake, but whatever. He has to come around to it in his own time, like we all do.

We moved after living in the same house for 20+ years. It is crazy how much random stuff accumulates over that length of time in one place, and most of that time it was just the two of us so we can't even blame it on our kid! We filled our huge trash can more times that I could count, and hauled numerous pickup truck loads of stuff to Goodwill before we moved. It was nice having a fresh start in a new place, and I hope you'll feel that way too. 

Oh, Anxious, I get you. I downsized from a 5 bedroom lake home to a 2 bedroom townhouse. I had saved crap through the years to pass on to son and his family. Thing was that my taste and his wife's were not the same. She didn't want all the cute things nor the clothes I had saved. They had a million hot wheels from her brother (with no kids) she was not a crystal and silver kind of gal.

I got rid of a ton when I moved. No regrets. Well, maybe the original Star Wars Millennium Falcon from 1980.     I say "Purge, Purge, Purge".

Good for you! I'm in another declutter phase myself.
Maybe this helps - my parents made a huge move when I was in grad school and without consulting me, they packed up a few boxes. At the time none of us realized my future would be in a tiny tiny urban apartment with two half-country moves as bookends. By the time I took possession of the boxes it was laughable to all of us what had seemed important to them. It also was expensive, they had a couple of cross country moves paying for the transport.
I'm still guilty of saving the Brio and some PlayMobile. I'd probably chunk the heavy train tracks if I had to pay to move them, it would be hard to leave the lightweight Brio. My kids mixed all their specialty Lego sets in with the ordinary after first build, unless they're going to separate I'd let them go.

Good luck on life decisions, sounds exciting!

I think downsizing and getting an apartment for the time being sounds great. I'm not there yet but one day...

Saving for grandkids - I've saved the stuff that had the most play-value and memories and that I think is most likely to be played with by visiting grandchildren in the future. In our case - I saved some of the Duplo (but we also donated a TON), I saved the Lego Primo (baby Lego) but I do need to go through and downsize that. I saved the wooden trains (but again, that needs downsizing). I saved the Fisher price Little People sets (but I collect those). And I saved the dolls that were mine and that my kids also played with. Lego is still in use at my house but I don't see me saving it - DH has his own collection (he might well scoop up whatever the kids no longer want); I am storing DS's at the moment but that's because he's stationed overseas (he still wants to keep it); ODD handed hers down to YDD. I figure YDD will either become an AFOL like her brother or will outgrow it and be okay selling/donating/letting Daddy have it. I'll buy Lego once grandkids are old enough if there's interest.

I did save the Pram because I just couldn't get rid of it but the rest of the baby stuff left several summers ago when I finally accepted that there weren't going to be anymore babies. I have one tote/child of clothes/books/small toys that I've saved.

On the other hand, I live with a bunch of packrats so getting rid of stuff is challenging at times

My BIL's mom saved so many toys and outfits from his childhood and handed them over to sis when her DS was born. She wasn't thrilled about any of it and her DH doesn't have a sentimental bone in his body, so most of it ended up boxed in their basement.

I am honestly not sure my kids will have kids, so don't really plan to keep much of anything. The only reason I have a couple of small tubs of toys still hanging around in the garage is become they come in incredibly handy when we have friends with younger kids over.

I love that your boys are encouraging you to make changes and move on . We are a couple of years behind you, but already talking about selling the house and moving to the city when our youngest is out. 

I'd give the kids opportunity to say if they wanted their crapped saved, and if yes, where are THEY GOING TO SAVE IT. you can't be a lifelong storage unit for your kids for their convenience and for the "what ifs" in your life. It's just too much baggage on you. If they don't want it, pass it on to some kid who'll love it and then buy legos for your grandkids when they get big enough to care - or even *if* they care.

My oldest son just married and I now have a 5 year old grandson. When they come to visit he loves playing with the Legos that were his "new dad's" Now the other six totes of my sons' stuff that are stashed out in the garage ...they need to go!

I recently downsized to half of what I had. (Divorce). Half the house, half the stuff. I don't regret it at all.

Keep what you are very attached to. I have a box of clothes from each kid that are sentimental to me...not intending to save those for grandchildren at all. I don't have any toys of theirs. Those were either sold or given to others over the years. Toys can be bought again, and chances are they won't want the same ones anyway... I have a box for each kid that has other special things in it, that we chose together. Her first dance constume, her Girl Scout uniforms full of patches, his red red hat, his video game backpack, his drawing journal, stuff like that. Stuff that really defines the kids, and I couldn't part with.

If you think you want to downsize, just do it.

With all of the baby boomers nearly in their 60's, this is a conversation we are going to be hearing more often. It is a topic of conversation often with all my friends (all in the 55-65 range). I recently heard someone say "you spend the first 50 years of life accumulating stuff, then spend the next 10 years getting rid of it". That about sums it up! We don't plan to downsize the house as we bought smaller than all our friends 25 years ago. The house is the perfect size and layout for retirement. It's the amount of stuff that I'm dealing with now. DH and I are the sentimental ones from our respective families, which is a really bad combination. And while we both have pack rat tendencies, he is much, much worse. However, there is hope because for whatever reason it is like a switch has flipped and he is starting to part with things. One of the things that has helped me start to part with things has been going through my mother's things. It's made me realize that I have too much and need to pare it down. I don't want to burden DD with it.

For all of DD's things, I am letting her make most of the decisions on what to keep. I have a bad case of "Only Child Syndrome" in which I appear to have kept every single thing she ever used or made. . I have been surprised at the things that she says she doesn't even remember, or things that weren't her favorites. She is not overly sentimental, but there are obvious things that mean something to her. It has made it easier to let go of things by letting her choose. It also absolves me of any guilt later when she comes back and says "why did you get rid of XYZ"! The other guideline I use on purging all things is whether it is easy to replace or find. If it is, that too makes it easier to part with things.

If you have the urge to save something make it have a "use". DS was ready to get ride all of his "Cars cars that we had picked out one at a time together when he was little. I was the one having trouble letting them go so I bought 3 small shadow boxes and stacked them all up in those. Think pile of cars in a junk yard. Now they are "art" on his wall and he's likes them again.

There is a large rectangular box above our TV that I encased all the bouncy balls they collected over the years. They got a quarter or dime at grocery store trips , so there are PLENTY colors, sizes etc. That silly thing is the most commented/complimented thing here, I swear. I get a lot of "why didn't I think of that?"

I guess that isn't really purging as I didn't get rid of it but at least it has a use now and not just in a box taking up space. Does that count?