Downsizing, Decluttering, and Getting Rid of Stuff to Travel the World for Minimalist Living

we've been traveling the world for the past five years living a minimalist lifestyle we've been abroad for three of those years and we're truly living a life that dreams are made of as full-time Travelers we're often ask about our favorite country or a particular question about how we travel but probably the question that elicits the most genuine curiosity is what is it like to downsize your stuff and go travel the world today we're going to talk about how we came up with our plan to completely and I mean completely declutter our life how our family reacted what important steps we took and how the decision has changed our thinking about everything as we travel and live our lives with so little so let's go we're John and Beth and we are the retirement Travelers if you've been following along with us you know that our spring travel leg includes India Shir Lanka and the many countries in Southern and west western Africa if you're wondering where we are as we travel we keep our location updated on Instagram so follow along with us there we've also been doing a travel School Series where we've been teaching all of our tips and tricks to World Travel now if you're looking to travel the world for a week or for a year then check out our free travel school it's on our website retirement travelers.com so back to the subject at hand our decision to get rid of our stuff we're just going to share some of the questions we've gotten and just walk you through the answers this was a biggie for us did you always plan to travel the world in retirement and give away all your stuff well actually no we didn't we decided within a period of a week you know I had recently retired and we knew we wanted to travel we had met with our financial advisor several times to discuss our needs and wants in retirement and we set aside money in our budget for a couple of months of travel each year after our first trip around the us I shared with John that I really like the idea of becoming full-time travel bloggers we lived in an extensive Golf Community in Florida and we really couldn't afford to travel full-time and also maintain our lifestyle we loved our life but I really wanted to go see the world and write about it it was something that I had dreamed about since my childhood I wanted to travel a lot too you know be was the first to propose that we sell our home to do it my thoughts were we had the perfect home you know we had just remodeled it and we had a river view that I imagined I would enjoy the rest of my life we talked for about a week and we spent a lot of time running the numbers the most eye openening was when we figured out what we spend per day in our ordinary life looking at it from that perspective a daily spend we realized that there was enough money to travel the big problem was we couldn't afford both a home and full-time travel so we talked to the kids and made the decision to sell all within a week this is a common thought when you look around your house and decide to sell where do you begin unb notes to us we actually started the process a couple of years ago when we sold our main home in Kentucky we had been snowbirds you know living in Kentucky and spending the winter months in Florida now we did that for a couple of years and then we decided that we didn't like maintaining two homes so we downsized to just one what we really didn't realize was that the this was the first step for us having gone through one home and moving our stuff to Florida we had begun the process of downsizing Our Lives when we started downsizing that home we made the decision to begin in the areas that we didn't use you know the areas behind closed doors we started in the attic and closets you know we didn't want to disrupt our entire lives with stuff stacked all over the place we took one area at a time if you're living in your home I think that's our biggest piece piece of advice open a closet and deal with it before going to the next one thing at a time seemed to work for us we didn't tear the whole house up and we still were able to live in it as we did it a common question that we get is what was the hardest part the answer was both sentimental items and expensive items these both presented problems in our heads you know our first strategy was to not push our stuff onto our kids no matter the cost of it or how sentimental it was to us yeah this was probably the best most deliberate thing that we did there were a few things that we wanted to pass down to our grandchildren but overall we wanted to let go of the millions of things that we just didn't need we realized that we were very attached to stuff and it wasn't always easy to let go of it especially if it reminded us of our grandparents or our fathers who had both passed sentimental items are probably the hardest to let go of but we had to make ourselves let go you know there were many things that reminded me of my dad that had served a purpose in my grieving but after 25 years it was time to let go and my dad wouldn't want me hauling stuff around and even putting it in storage room forever you know he would want me living my best life seeing all the glories of the world and interacting with the people that I met not clinging to an item that was his for me I had many of the same issues but the big one for me as a homemaker was knowing the value of the things we had brought into our home it was hard to think about how much money we had spent on something and you know on something that nobody wanted uh in the end we had to decide that stuff was stuff and the value wasn't important when we had a bigger dream the next question we get a lot is what do your kids think about your decision to completely downsize we have five kids and most all of them were on board one was a little shocked at our hair brain idea but it was temporary and now he's supportive we we tried to think of the process as the last time we would ever own a home and with that we truly dealt with everything with some finality now that we've been through the process they are all glad we did it I don't think I ever expected the very quiet but heartfelt exhale that we heard from one of our daughters when she thanked us for dealing with our 55 years of stuff for the final time she looked at us and I will never forget the look on her face and told us thank you for not leaving it all for them to handle she said the last thing she ever wanted to do was go through our things when we died she was right and I knew it what we essentially did was a process called Swedish death cleaning it's a process of going through all your things and preparing for your final years the idea is to not leave a burden to your kids to handle When You're Gone what we did was not just go through our items but we organized all of our financial documents digitized everything and prepared our end of life documents in Swedish death cleaning it's not just about your stuff but it's about getting your Affairs in order and not leaving a burden to your loved ones but the hardest part was really the physical labor that it entailed we didn't just open a closet and grab a trash bag we had to sort and actually deliver the items to the donation center this required a lot of work sometimes carrying boxes or Furniture was labor intensive and we had many many trips to drop St off thankfully we had a truck that was helpful a few times we had the donations iner pickup items but since getting rid of all of our stuff took place over many months it wasn't a oneand done kind of deal you know it was ongoing and not always fun for Bev sitting down and going through each picture that we had it was quite a process she made a box for each child and sorted it took a week just to go through her pictures we're often asked is there anything we regret at giving away no not a thing related to Sentimental or useful items our tools went to people who needed them and wanted them and over the past several years having no stuff to deal with has been wonderful looking back we're pretty surprised that we haven't regretted doing this or getting rid of everything the only thing that we wish we had was a vehicle when we're back in the States now currently we fly between our kids homes and we rent cars when needed we plan to spend more time in the states over the next few years traveling with our grandkids in the Summers so we've been considering purchasing a vehicle you know we're still thinking this over but it's something that might change you know we know that we want to do more us and Canadian travel and a car would help us with that this is a very common question for us why didn't you just rent your home so that you'd have it when you were finished traveling for us we plan to be gone for 10 years or more and we had recently remodeled the entire home we felt that the best return on our investment was to sell rather than maintain it through multiple renters hiring a property manager and maintaining the newly renovated home would have been costly for us we simply wanted to walk away and not have a burden hanging over our heads property values were up at the time we sold and we knew that we could return and remodel a new place at a later time if we chose to also most people only want to rent you know in the winter in Florida and we didn't think we could make enough during those few months to pay for the insurance the taxes and the club dues the truth is that World Travel has changed us what we wanted in our past life was a welle equipped luxurious home and what we want now is simply a functional home things don't matter to us experiences do we loved our neighborhood and the lovely lifestyle that we had but after traveling and seeing so much of the world we'd rather pay for experiences than spending our money maintaining a home and buying things to entertain ourselves another question we get often is where will you live when you're unable to travel full-time I think a lot of people assume that we're spending our housing money to travel but we aren't we have invested it and it will be there when we're ready to slow down and stop traveling when we traveled in the US we lived and hauled a 250 sqt airst stream behind our truck you know we learned during this period that we didn't need a lot of space to make us happy you know now we live in hotels and apartments around the world as we travel and we are reminded every day that we don't need much space the other thing that we see is that most of the world lives in very small spaces often with extended family under the same roof when we come home we usually travel between our five kids and we stay in their homes as we do it we love this lifestyle of popping into our grandkids lives and living with them for a week or two when we're home when I I was a little boy my grandfather lived with us like this you know he stayed in our home and then he would go live with my cousins and return later we say this because as we've been coming and going from our travels abroad we realize that we too are doing this you know it made us rethink the idea of having a home in one town away from our grandkids currently we have a daughter in Maryland that has an in-law suite in her home and she's invited us to stay as long as we want we have another daughter in indana who has done the same thing she's actually building out a room for us right now and we love the idea of being robing grandparents to our eight grandchildren well we don't see our grandchildren daily when we visit it isn't just coming over for Sunday dinner it's living in their home and being present for everything while we're there this roving lifestyle is a different concept for a lot of people these days the kids come home to live with the parents but very few parents think of doing the opposite hang out at their kids homes we wouldn't want to overstay our welcome but living in our kids homes when we're back in the States is working very well for our family when we stop traveling we can always buy a home it's the current long-term plan so we probably won't be living with our kids all the time you know hopefully we will travel long enough to go straight into the assisted living or independent living situation the biggest takeaway is that the process of down sizing Our Lives was an important lesson our step in our lives it was very emotional the entire thing it reminded us of the movie The Karate Kid when Mr Miyagi kept saying wax on wax off downsizing was like that an exercise in our lives that left us with a lesson that we needed to learn it left us with clear Minds for the journey ahead we said goodbye to the emotional baggage we were carrying around as much as the the physical things that had piled up and it was time thinking back about the gift we gave our kids to the gift we gave ourselves getting rid of all of our stuff has set us up for more possibilities in our future than we would have had otherwise our lives are portable and we love this you know we don't worry about what we gave up because we only think ahead we see wonderful places in the world that take our Breath Away daily the world's a big place and we're out there the question is is your glass half full or is it half empty are you excited about your life or are you drained by the rat race you're in trying to keep up with the Joneses giving that all up has given us an opportunity to spend our remaining lives on a goal and a journey together you know we never dreamed big enough in our previous life and now we know part of that was because we were focused on material things we've learned life is just better with less stuff and we'll see you next week be sure to hit subscribe and follow along on our retirement Journey around the world

Channel: Retirement Travelers

Views: 49,671

Keywords: minimalist living, minimalist lifestyle, life without stuff, minimalist world travel, minimalist life, minimal living, we sold everything to travel, swedish death cleaning, get rid of everything, How to downsize for travel, whole house cleaning, Downsizing, Decluttering, How to get rid of stuff, travel the world, travel inspiration, getting rid of stuff, downsizing house, how to downsize, how to declutter, John and Bev Martin Retirement Travelers, retirement travel, retirement

Id: zMfqDyu7jUc

Length: 14min 11sec (851 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 09 2024