Downsizing: Preparing for Full-Time RV Life
This was one of the hardest tasks for us in choosing to go full-time. What to do with all our stuff that we accumulated over a half a century? Twenty four years of our lives were spent in one home where every nook and cranny had something to show for a life well lived. One of us, is a saver of all things useful. The other, a purger of anything that hasn’t been used that week. Having very different thoughts on “stuff” made the process even more stressful. Thankfully, we narrowed down a strategy that kept us both on track to our ultimate goal of cleaning out the house and hitting the road fulltime.
Inventory your space
Thinking of your RV- decide what must come with you (kitchen wares, sentimental items, RV gear, bedding etc.)
Walk through each room of your home and either take a picture or use a spreadsheet of what you want to Keep (RV), Store, Sell, Donate, Throw (it is helpful if you do this as a team)
Do not start going through bins and drawers at this stage- it will overwhelm you.
Prepare a staging zone (we did this in our garage)
Place tarps on the ground and label with Keep, Store, Sell, Donate and then have a trash can and boxes available for the throw.
Go through your rooms and bring your large things out and place them on the appropriate tarps. It is helpful if you have someone listing your items for sale and deals with the conversations. Some people have enough items they do an estate sale or auction house. Others bring things to the end of their driveway for giveaway. You might start out wanting to sell everything like we did, however the closer you get to leaving, the more that gets donated because of the time it takes to sell.
When the Give tarp is full, make a run to a charity shop or not for profit. If too many items start piling up, it can get to be stressful. You might also find yourself going back through the give away pile and pulling things back into the store pile…oops!
If your Store pile is getting large, go through it again to see if there is anything else you can sell/donate/toss. Sometimes your initial reaction to keep softens a bit over the purging process and you are OK with getting rid of something on the Store pile. That’s great!
Consider getting a storage unit when your Store pile gets full. We had two units initially and whittled it down to one unit as we stayed stationary in the area for a year after we sold our home. With time, it was easier to make rational decision on what we really wanted to keep.
Your trash will fill up quickly. Make sure you have a full can every week as near the end you will have more trash. We had kind neighbors that let us top off their garbage on garbage day.
Start working through the easy stuff
If it is broken, toss it.
If it is old paperwork (consult your accountant for financial paperwork first) toss it.
If you haven’t used it in years- give or toss it.
Go room by room and move quickly. If you get stuck on an item and are waffling what to do with it, set it aside in a “can’t decide” corner and move on. You can come back to it later.
The goal here is to move quickly, make decisions and clear out the easy stuff. Remember, you don’t need 100 pens and 15 reams of note paper in your RV. And they won’t “keep” for long in the storage unit either.
Clear out one room for staging
It is helpful to see what you are going to put in your RV. In our case, the RV was in our driveway so we simply moved the items into it from our “Keep” pile.
You may choose to clean out a room and start staging your RV items in that room so you can see what you are bringing. Again, weight and space can be issues so think about what you really need.
Tackle the tough things
By now your home is transforming into a house. The tough things are left and they take the most time to sort through.
Sentimental items will start to feel overwhelming. It may be ok in your case to store them for a bit and reevaluate after some time has passed.
Decor is another area that we struggled with. Each item in our home was procured to decorate a special spot. Think about the style of your home and your intentions for your travel. Are you going to be full time for a year or more? Will your decor match your new place? Perhaps selling or giving away your current decor will free you up to choose new items for your next sticks and bricks. Again, it was hard for us as money was spent decorating and the idea of having to rebuy things was frustrating. Putting it into perspective however, it also costs money to store things.
Many people work hard to make their RV look like home. We went a more minimalistic route as we travel to a new spot every week or two. Packing up everything gets old and so does stuff falling off the walls. We do a few seasonal decorations that can fit into a fabric storage cube.
Don’t forget the outdoor items
There are yard items that are useful in the RV. A ladder, hose, some tools etc. We carried around a leaf blower for a year and when we finally left it at a relative’s house, we ended up needing it. UGH. Oh well, you will have many days where you say, “if only I would have brought….” The good thing is, someone near you in the campground or on the road will probably have something to help you out. If you need the item frequently, then it is something you invest in. We had lots of shuffling of our stuff the first few months. What we thought we needed, we really didn’t -like dress clothes, purses, bags, bug zapper, shepard’s hook, 5- 5 gallon pails (you only need one or two), blankets…oh so many blankets…, etc.
We thought going through the garage and shed would be quick. We were wrong. It is amazing how many things are stored in there! The flower pots themselves took up a bed of a truck. Make sure you give yourself time to get through it all.
Clothing
We are traveling through all four seasons so we have a little of everything. Depending how you travel, you may find that you wear only a few different outfits week after week. Again, what you are doing while you travel will dictate your wardrobe. Less is more, especially with limited closet space in most rigs.
This process in itself was a lesson in purging. Donelle did the same technique of store, donate, and throw. We know there are clothes that were stored that we don’t want anymore or don’t fit. Our next storage cleanout will definitely include some clothes purging.
We have a bin in our RV garage for the “off season” clothes. It helps free up space in our small closet. Again, the size of your closets and your needs for clothing will dictate what you bring.
Final thoughts
This process is different for everyone. There are usually strong emotions with some or a lot of the items you have to touch in the downsizing process. Each of us deals with those emotions differently. There is also a consideration of stamina. Emotions are draining and it does take stamina to work through all your things. The best advice we can offer looking back is to START EARLY! It is so much easier to go through items when you don’t have a time crunch. Start your downsizing process today even if you have a year or more before you go full-time. You will thank yourself when launch day comes!