How I let go of all almost all my stuff

I never felt so free

We are living in a time of incredible abundance. There is stuff out there that I never knew anyone needed- mango cutters, shaving aprons, self-stirring mugs, and Superman cape towels. There is also “free” stuff out there we get from family and friends and other stuff that we need and use every day, like plates and cups. But when does the stuff start to own us instead of us owning it?

I was talking to someone who was telling me that they couldn’t sell their house and move because they had too much stuff- and what would they do with it? They had already moved to another state for work- but they were keeping the house because of the stuff that was in it. Now, maybe this was expensive and high-quality stuff, and maybe some of it had been inherited from dear relatives, but stuff is still stuff. This person was working selling time for money- but a good slice of that time was being used to support inanimate objects.

For a long time, I was one of those people. I absolutely love furniture and decorative arts and had many beautiful pieces that I got from family members and purchased myself. But then I made a big move- internationally- and I had to face the realities of moving on a budget.

But even when I left for my overseas move, I was not ready to part with the antique Jenny Lind bed my parents had in the old guest room or the red Naugahyde sofa that I remembered sleeping on as a child. At the same time, I only had a limited allowance to move.

So, unable to get rid of my stuff, and unable to afford to move it, I put it into storage. I found the cheapest place I could, where they crated it and forklifted it up into a warehouse. It cost me over a hundred bucks a month to pay for my stuff to sit there. Some of that stuff included things like old family photos and a few sentimental items, like my grandmother’s glass bubble paperweight and my grandfather’s jar opener. Others, I had already gotten rid of, like the decorative plates (that were no good to eat off) that these same grandparents had “invested” in for my future. Those got dragged around to quite a few apartments in their original boxes before they finally had to go.

My biggest mistake was that I stored everything together — the highly important sentimental items with the other stuff for everyday living, like my plates, silverware, and nice but not sentimental furniture. If I had just separated out the very important stuff from everything else, it may have been easier- and certainly would have been cheaper. But because all the stuff was stored together, there was no way to separate it or go through it without traveling out to the warehouse and paying for a forklift operator hourly to take it down piecemeal.

After I had been gone for several years, I forgot about practically everything I had left in that storage facility- but I was still paying about $120 per month for it. Finally, after about $8000 in monthly payments, I bit the bullet and had it shipped to me — for another $8000. As much as it aggravated me to pay that kind of money for the old furniture and random household goods, I felt the only thing more wasteful would be to keep paying monthly for stuff I wasn’t even able to use.

When I finally opened the 50 or so boxes, there were a lot of nice things that I had forgotten about and was glad to see again. But I had not missed any of these things while they had been gone. If I had never seen them again, it would have been more than fine. It was good to really know that the vast majority of the stuff did not matter.

After the warehouse items had been re-integrated into my overseas house, it was time for another trans-oceanic move. This time, I sold the house furnished with most of those nice things in it, and took my smaller sentimental treasures with me. I never felt so free just leaving all of that stuff behind. And the most wonderful part of it was that the people who bought the house had also relocated overseas, and they were thrilled to take over the house furnished. It was so rewarding to see the enjoyment that they got by taking over custody of the stuff with the house that I felt even better letting it all go.

If you would have told me how free I would have felt if I got rid of most of my stuff before it actually happened, my reaction would have been to hold on tighter. I would have explained to you why each item had monetary or sentimental value. I wouldn’t have believed that calm and joy was going to come to me once it was gone.

Are you holding on to things that prevent you from making a move in your life? You may be surprised by how little you will miss those things- and how freeing it is to let them go.

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