Eight tips for downsizing your life for RVing
Are you thinking of downsizing your life so you can travel full time in an RV? That’s something we’ve been thinking a lot about recently as we plan to move to a new state. As it is now we generally spend 3-5 months on the road in sections and we plan to increase that. While we are not full-time RVers but have been downsizing as part of the move from California to New Mexico.
What is downsizing
As we all make our way through life we gather stuff. Nicknacks, mementos, furniture, appliances, photos, movies, treasures and more. The more infrequently one moves, it seems, the more of these things find a place in our homes. But then life changes and we consider something like moving on the road full time and the reality of the volume of “stuff” we have hits us.
Downsizing is finding someone else who will buy our stuff so they can have more clutter in their lives. In fact this is the entire business model of eBay and sites like that. You show other people your stuff, they buy it and now they have to deal with it.
Be realistic about your stuff
I also found that, when my dad passed away, we assumed he didn’t have a lot of stuff just because of how neat his house was always kept. But, like George Carlin said in his famous comedy routine, he just had a place for his stuff.
My dad had very effectively put away all kinds of stuff including homework assignments from when I was a young lad, report cards, notes from teachers and a complete photo album for each year of my life up until I was 18.
And he had that for my sister as well. And then things that reflected his life with my mom and treasures from that.
Prioritize
The thing I learned was that what was important to him was slightly less so to myself and so an entire house full of stuff got divided between my sister and I and much of what came my direction went into the recycling bin or into the landfill. Of course I kept the really cool stuff, like the turbocharger that he designed which was the basis of his career. That’s cool!
Bags and bags of stuff ready to be donated to charity.
All of the things I remember dealing with when we went through my dad’s house is what we’re doing to our own house. We have a lot of little ornaments from our travels - our thing is to buy a little Christmas-style ornament (doesn’t have to be seasonal) and we actually have a fake tree that stays up all year long that’s full of these.
But I also have report cards, and religious papers and greetings cards such that that took two bankers boxes just for that stuff.
A place for your stuff
What we decided was to get an 8’ X 20’ storage unit and, if it doesn’t fit into that, it’s not joining us in New Mexico. Period.
That meant that we sold off all the antique furniture, lots of small appliances that were dusty from never having been used, bowls, dishes, wall art, and so much more. The way I chose to look at things is how I looked at my parents’ stuff and I was able to separate great memories from just stuff. That wasn’t easy and was even less so for Peggy, who gets more attached to stuff than I do.
Garage sale
The first step in getting rid of our stuff was a big weekend-long garage sale. Using Facebook Marketplace we let the world know that they could rifle through our stuff. I was surprised at how much of our stuff is now in others’ hands and we have a nice pocket of bucks to show for it.
We’ve also found that selling things has really been easy. For heavier things, we’ve found Facebook Marketplace has been quite effective for rehoming stuff. But for treasures and collectibles, eBay is the place we’ve had greater luck.
eBay tips
What seems to be the case is that, if something’s heavy and doesn’t have much value like garden equipment and that sort of thing, Marketplace is best because people can just come and pick things up so there’s no shipping.
If something is unique and/or collectible, and especially if it’s electronic, eBay is the place to sell those things. You get a world-wide audience
Another thing that had surprising value is a monster collection of vintage magazines about cars. It seems there are people who also want stuff that’s old. This was something that eBay was great for.
Further, we got specific boxes for shipping records and sold a bunch of vintage records on eBay as well.
Shipping is the big variable in a lot of this and certain things require fast and more expensive shipping, some things require cheaper “media mail” shipping and offering choices to customers also makes a big difference in what sells and for how much.
Some of our larger items like furniture and such also went to a consignment furniture store. Hopefully some of you will want to buy our stuff and will find it at the consignment furniture store.
Everybody still has a storage unit
As mentioned, we got an 8 X 20 storage unit. I’ve found that every full-time RVer that I know of has one of these and that makes sense as well. There are some things I just don’t want to get rid of because they still will serve us well. And mementos, too.
For example, the turbocharger cutaway that represented my dad’s career we kept. Paintings Peggy has done, some furniture including some antiques that were in Peggy’s great grandmother’s house which are southwestern style, those stay. Everything gets decided upon with an eye toward it becoming someone else’s stuff.
One of the interesting things to ponder is dishes. We have enough of our specific style of vintage southwestern dishes to host one heck of a party but, when we host big parties, we break out the paper plates.
These are the kinds of decisions that have to be made. And, thus, we left them with the house to be included in the sale as they match the kitchen there. There is literally no reason to have something like that that we never. Ever. Use. Ever.
And that’s another decision to make. You might have the intention of using things, like grandmas’ good china. But do you ever really use it?
We also had a garage full of stuff at the resort we sold seven years ago. The new owners have two garages full of stuff there and they were kind enough to let us keep one garage full of stuff.
Considering that we never needed or even touched any of that, we went and cleaned out that garage and sold and donated everything that was in it. That’s where a lot of the records were that we ultimately sold came from. I also found that sending records in record-specific boxes through the Post Office’s “media mail” was the best solution.
Old movies and photos
One of the things that was particularly weighty both figuratively and emotionally were the tons of old eight millimeter movies that my dad had shot over the years. I had considered sending these to a place that scans them, but then discovered that there are devices you can just buy to accomplish this.
So, I bought a Wolverine movie scanner. But not a new one, this, too, came from eBay. It turns out that it’s pretty common that someone buys one of these, scans their old home movies and then sells it off.
It’s a very reliable way to scan these old movies and now they’re all in digital format. I then posted them to a private page on YouTube and shared them with my family so they could watch them as well. That’s been a big hit.
The quality is okay but these movies never were theater-quality and now they’re backed up and stored in several places, all digitally.
I did the same with the boxes and boxes of photo albums that my parents had - one for each year of my life. There were some good captions so we scanned the photos at a good resolution and then added information about dates, times, people and such.
I chose to use Apple’s Photos for this storage along with local back-ups just in case someone at Apple changes their minds but I know a lot of people use other services for this including ones from Google and Amazon. Interestingly we now have over 74,000 photos saved to our Apple Photos library and they’re all cataloged by year, place, who’s in them and all of that.
This can be a daunting task and I have to admit I haven’t even started on the slides yet which also occupy boxes and boxes. And, yes, I still have at least two boxes of photo albums as well.
Points system
There are several factors we used when doing all this, all surrounding the prioritization of stuff.
If it sat in a garage for seven years and never got touched, it was leaving. It if sat in a box for long enough that it only got touched four years ago when it got moved to this house, it’s leaving.
If it’s furniture, it’s not making the journey with the exception of a few pieces that were in Peggy’s great grandmother’s house and which also fit the southwestern motif we anticipate having in New Mexico.
Essentially prioritization is the most difficult part of this whole process. One option is to use PostIt notes and assign numbers to things.
If there is something that is unquestionably staying in our lives it gets a specific color of note with a “1” on it. If we really want it, it gets a note with a “2” on it. The prioritization then descends from there and you could use notes in different colors or whatever method you choose.
RV stuff
If you are planning to move to an RV full time I would suggest getting rid of almost every cooking device you have and then starting fresh with things that will serve you better in an RV. For example, we have high-end chef’s pots that we had at the bed and breakfast but, what serves us well in the RV, are the Magma nesting pots instead.
All those plates and serving dishes that we had make no sense in an RV and we have bamboo ones that will easily survive being on the road. The same’s true of cups and glasses. Stainless steel cups survive the hazards of the road fr better than glass or porcelain.
Be realistic about your entertaining and food preparation. Some things are just more stuff and stuff has weight and many RVs are limited in how much weight you can add to them, not to mention limited storage space.
Sometimes it’s not worth it to bring those dishes, pots, pans or appliances along no matter how much sentimental value they have.
The bottom line
I have to say watching my stuff go away has been one of the most liberating feelings in a very, very long time. This huge collection of stuff surrounded by a building that I am the caretaker for really doesn’t provide joy. Sure, there are mementos and things that are a priority but the more stuff I got rid of, the more I wanted to get rid of more stuff.
Also, we took a lot of what we have and donated it local charities. This provided things for people who needed them and made our lives less cluttered. I love it when everybody wins!
This is something that full-time RVers have told me repeatedly - the declutterization of one’s life and refocus on travel plans and life adventures is an outstanding way to change courses.
Know that we’re still going to maintain a home base, partially because I remember when campgrounds shut down during Covid and we also do still have one storage unit full of stuff.
I also enjoy entertaining and we plan to have a place to do that as well.
Have you decluttered your life? Are you full-time RVing or considering becoming a full-time RVer?
Do you have a method that helped you with downsizing, or is this something you still hope to do at some point? Do you have tips on the process or has any of this helped you? We always truly enjoy hearing from you.
Happy camping!
