I’ve made good progress so far this year on getting rid of objects that I really don’t need. My goal is to get rid of enough stuff to be ready to rent the house out in August and just move somewhere else.
I might actually decide to stay, but even if I do, I still want rid of a lot of the shit I’ve accumulated over the years. Less is more!
I’ve literally gone through every single room in the house and either physically put or mentally labelled everything into one of six categories:
DumpSellCharity shop/ giftExpensive and small but could be useful later on in life, store at Parent’sWill be useful and if I do a van conversion, could fit in the vanSuper light weight useful/ nomad style.
I've no idea how I ended up with the nice boxes above, somewhere between drafting this in Word, cutting and pasting it into the imac's version of notepad and then into Steempeak (to avoid the 'pasting as picture' thing ) the above happened, and I kind of like it!
Dumping stuff
I’ve made a few trips to the dump in the last few months, mainly to get rid of the falling apart fence - or at least the old screen from the side which isn't my responsibility.
Besides that I can’t even remember what’s gone – I got rid of my hydroponic bins, which I’d made out waste material anyway, and finally my ‘junk tins’ – old screws and bits and pieces, a few really tatty clothes, some shelving units I no longer need because I don’t have as much stuff anymore (oh the irony), but besides that I can’t remember what on earth I was clinging on to that’s now filling the earth somewhere in West Midlands region.
I think may have accidentally thrown out a pair of wellies which were possibly in one of my hydroponics bins, oops.
Selling Stuff
I’ve finally sold nearly all of my old Metal records, mainly Motorhead, Metallica and Iron Maiden. I only had about 70, and I’ve managed to get about £1000 for the lot, which is great as I’ve no sense of identity with any of them. Thanks to Napster, I’ve got all the music on a hard disk anyway.
I also sold a few other bits and bobs, but nothing that significant.
Ebay is a real hassle to use I find – taking photos with the Ipad, dropping them to the Mac, then doing the post, and then all the hassle at the other end with European buyers who don’t want to use the Global Shipping programme and posting.
Glad this is now mainly done. I might be able to make another few hundred quid on some of the better books I’ve got, but that’s for later.
I might even try and sell a few bits on Steem like @steemmat did recently, but a lot of what I've got is just tat, and then there's the hassle of international postage being quite likely, but maybe next month, we'll see!
Charity Shop/ gift
ATM this is mainly about books – on careful review, I do have several dozen books which I am never going to look at again, which aren’t going to sell at £2.90 for postage.
OXFAM is my shop of choice – this has been a matter of dropping off half a dozen books or so every now and then.
If I decide to rent my house out unfurnished then a fair chunk of my furniture will come and get collected by the British Heart Foundation, it’s quite a good service they run, I’ve used them before!
Could be useful in future life, store at Parents…
This is mainly books, some kitchen equipment, some posh clothes, and some tools, not too much! Besides books and some clothes it pretty much boils down to this small corner of my cellar...
(Not the gardening equipment, that still needs a new home to be found for it)
Could fit in a van conversion
I'm warming to the idea of exchanging my car for a small transit sized van and then buying a conversion kit - basically cut to size ply lining. I'm leaning towards a really minimal conversion at first - maybe just a few large tubs for stuff and a roll-out bed system. I figure I can always convert on the go.
I think I can get quite a lot into a medium sized (I’m thinking transit) van – a fair few clothes, a decent amount of tools, camping gear if I want to spread out in various places, a decent amount of kitchen gear too I think.
Nomad style
Well it's basically a maximum of 20KGs in a ruck sack! Clothes and tech mainly.
Final Thoughts
Getting rid of most of my records was the clinch moment, that was a mission! Now I feel like the job's mostly done, all the other chucking out can just be done here and there.
I also have to be careful not to accumulate too much more stuff too.
I wonder if I ever will end up renting this place out? I probably won’t I’ve always enjoyed dreaming far more than actually doing!