Moving in a few months

[Gracemom]

My DH has been told he will be relocating to a city a few hours away. We are excited and terrified at the same time. Thankfully, we have a few months to get the house ready to sell and get packed up. We have been in our house for 12 years. We are not tidy people. It is hard for us to manage our stuff. I feel like I'm always taking things to resale/donate, but we still have way too much!

I feel the need to get organized little by little so I don't get overwhelmed. Should I go room by room? For example, pare each room down to its essentials, decide what we are going to move from that room, and make a detailed list. That will give me about one week to work on each room, including the garage, which is a disaster zone. We will also make repairs, repaint, etc. as we go. Is there any other system that is helpful?

We are not going to move everything we have now. Much of our furniture needs replacing since we got it all 12 years ago. Will Goodwill/Salvation Army, etc. take furniture that is not in good shape? We have some things with stains, tears in fabric, etc.

Has anyone rented a dumpster? I think that might be the most efficient way to clean out our hoarders garage, but I don't want usable things to go in a landfill. I have heard of services like 1-800-GOT-JUNK. Has anyone used that?

Any other ideas welcome. This will be our first time moving with kids. Thanks!

[mikeys_mom]

We move next week and I have spent the past few months going through the process. I found it very overwhelming at times because it just seems never-ending. A few tips that I found helpful (many of which I got from here)

- Yes, absolutely go room by room and closet by closet. I have lots of large closets and completely underestimated how long it takes to deal with everything stashed away in them. I found the "Keep. Toss. Donate" system worked really well for me. I was ruthless in my purge because we are really limited on space. I was a bit pressed for time because our container for overseas was leaving a good few weeks before us and I had to focus on getting the house ready to be packed, so I designated one unused room in the house as the "donate" room and put all donate stuff in there. After the container left, I started figuring out where to donate. Stuff that was being tossed went straight into garbage bags in the garage. We get garbage picked up every 2 weeks and can buy "tags" for extra items so I just did that as it worked out cheaper than a bin and we didn't have lots of big stuff to toss. It felt good to see progress being made on individual rooms plus helped keep me focused.

- Donating items - not as easy as I thought. Around here there are some organizations that will pick up used goods for free. I know that they don't resell the clothing, they just recycle the fabric. I felt bad at first giving away some of my kids nicer clothing to just be recycled (they sell the fabric) but I asked around and couldn't find anyone who needed the sizes I had so, I just gave it for recycling. For other bulky items and housewares, I posted on a local listserve that I was having a "giveaway" on my driveway. I had no desire to organize and coordinate a garage sale. The giveaway was hugely successful. People took almost everything!! I learned, that if it's free, people will come :) Honestly, from older baby products I couldn't sell for a decent price on kijiji, to all my small kitchen appliances to things like extension cords, dishwashing tablets, linens, etc...It all went. Many people who came really needed the stuff and were just so thankful that we were giving it away so I felt good that even if I wasn't making $ off of the stuff, it was going to a good home and would be used.

- On the theme of "if it's free, people will come", I have been putting items on my front lawn and posting as "Free. Help yourself" on kijiji and they disappear within a day. Even an old 14 year old small CRT TV went.

- Lots of organizations won't take furniture like couches that are not in good shape. I was not impressed with 1-800-GOT-JUNK here. There are similar services that are cheaper so I'd research that but it's a good way to get rid of bulky stuff for a flat fee. I did find a few local organizations that take used furniture like dressers but personally found it easier to give to people who I found via word of mouth or through local community organizations that help new immigrants.

-Dumpsters go by weight and can get pricey. We looked into it and decided that would be last resort if we couldn't get rid of stuff in other ways. In the end we didn't need one.

-Also, I discovered we had tons of papers to shred and I found a local company with a mobile shredding service where they come to your house and pick up the documents for shredding. Could be helpful if you are short on time. It was not that costly to have them come to the house.

Good luck! It's a ton a work, don't kid yourself but being on almost the finishing end, it feels so good to be free of all the "stuff".

[Gracemom]

Thank you Mikey's mom! That was very helpful. I hadn't even thought about the paper shredding. We really could use that service. I will add it to the list! We do have Freecycle here, so I will give away most of the things we can't sell. Congrats on being so close to the end! I know I have a LOT of work coming up, but I will be so happy when it's done.