DOWNSIZING TIPS for Seniors {or Anyone}

downsizing whether the word fills you with a sense of dread or leaves you with a feeling of freedom today we're going to talk about how to get it done [Music] my clients tend to downsize for one of two reasons one they want or need a smaller more affordable house or two they fall into an older age group in 2020 55 of home sellers were 55 and older those clients often downsized to move into a smaller house or apartment maybe into a retirement community or assisted living and sometimes into a multi-generational situation with family one thing is certain downsizing does require a plan today i'm talking with amy payne a certified professional organizer and the owner of lasting order a professional organizing and productivity consulting firm we talked last year about moving in general all of the tips and tricks to make that a little easier and today we're going to hear some great ideas for downsizing thanks so much for joining me today amy we're going to talk about downsizing and i think when people think about downsizing it's really overwhelming so where does somebody get started downsizing that's always a fun project right you've lived 30 40 50 years in the same house and all of a sudden you decide you would like a simpler life and then what do you do with all of that stuff that you've accumulated um there was a meme on social media that talked about um how you spend the first two-thirds of your life acquiring stuff and the last third of your life getting rid of it all so it's kind of sad but at the same time i like to think of it as a great opportunity it's an opportunity to really focus in on the things that you really care about so when you're starting some people start with you know do i want this what can i declutter and they start making decisions they go through rooms and they start making decisions about what to keep and what to get rid of i like to shift it to the opposite and say okay of all the things that i have which are my favorites and you pick those items out first what can i not live without so one thing that i like to do as well is encourage people if you are going on say a three-month trip over the winter or you were going to florida for three months say what would you take with you the items that you take with you are obviously things that you need or you really like um those are things that you don't want to live without for three months so you start there and then you can work your way out from there i guess to things that you just like or just think are pretty and you just want to display stuff like that that's a great way to think about it because obviously if you're going from a large home to a smaller home you're not taking everything with you so that's that's a really helpful way what do you do with those sentimental items how do you handle those things sentimental items are tough i just went through that with my parents my mom has some furniture from um you know relatives of years gone by and it's really tough so what i suggest first of all is if it's a piece of furniture try to find a function for it replace a dresser with a dry sink that's an antique that's a family heirloom or you know find items that you need to store and find you know match it up to that piece of special furniture that you want to store it in if that doesn't work at some point you need to say goodbye if things just will not fit in your space you have all the furniture that you need and there's just no way to incorporate that sentimental item it's time to try to pass it on to another family member or be realistic they may not want it you could let it go collections of sentimental items are a whole other story if it's a collection that you have inherited from someone else i give you permission to let it go unless you really love the items yourself you are not obligated to keep the items that your loved one loved just because you loved them right um if it's that situation like i use the example of your grandmother's teacup collection if you loved your grandmother and her tea teacups bring back great memories for you um maybe save one and make a little montage with a photo of you and your grandma having a tea party but don't keep all 40 teacups right grandma loved them so right so one my great uncle had a collection of mice figurines and i think it started by accident he got maybe one or two and then everyone assumed you love and collect mice and so by the time he was 75 he probably had hundreds and hundreds of mice they were gone when they downsized but one of the tips i've heard is to take a photo of a collection like that because obviously they weren't taking that with them to the retirement home right but for all of us we have really significant memories of that mouse collection and i would love to see a picture now of it so a photo i've heard is a great way also to capture those collections right or just like in the in his situation it was his own collection he could have offered the different mice you know if each family member had one little mouse that might remind them of him and then he could have kept his favorite one or two instead of the whole thing keep a representation of and then like you said a photo is great too then you can remember all the things without keeping things without picking up all the space yeah so what do you recommend people do with those items that they're going to get rid of buy sell donate not buy sell donate i think it really depends on what it is and what it's worth um what the middle value is would depend on whether you're going to try to give it to a family member or not um and again sentimental to them not sentimental to you necessarily and then if it has value we do recommend consignment or auctions if it has really not a lot of value just let it go a lot of people spend so much time trying to figure out who can get the best use out of this item that it just piles up in their house and they have oh here's a pile of this a pile of that a pile of this just let it go sometimes i ask my clients to release their need to know who the end user is going to be temporarily while they're in the downsizing process and then once the house is cleaned out in the future you can go back to that when you declutter but for now focus on the goal the goal is potentially moving um the goal is downsizing and so you have to really hone in on that goal set a timeline deadline get yourself moving um so that you can get the get the project done that's a smart tip to set a deadline because i do think sometimes when you have a a huge project like downsizing ahead of you it's easy to get caught up and so overwhelmed by it i like the idea of setting a deadline even if you don't have a deadline for actual moving set a deadline for each space that you're declaring we recommend strategically you know going through the house like room my room closet my closet drawer by drawer dresser by dresser and so give yourself a deadline of by this friday i'm going to have this dresser cleaned out or by the end of october i'm going to have the whole kitchen decluttered and downsized so giving yourself little deadlines along the way helps keep you on track a super organized person might even plot that out on the calendar i'm just saying yeah yeah both of us are very type a and i think we would absolutely have that plotted out do you recommend getting family involved with downsizing um no no interesting i hate to say that i think that it depends on the family um it depends on your family relationships the last thing you need when you're going through a lifetime full of stuff is for someone in your family to guilt you into keeping something or getting rid of something that you don't want to personally i feel like it's okay to get them involved a little bit in the questions of like is there anything here you would want or here's the items i don't want feel free to pick from those but when it comes to the day-to-day decision making i find it causes a lot of stress in families and a lot of strife to go through every item together it just can cause a lot of problems right where it gets tricky and i have a friend dealing with this right now is when you have a parent who has to downsize but doesn't necessarily want to and is not doing the decluttering on her own so how do you motivate somebody to do something that you know they need to do hire a professional organizer to be that great idea i mean really you need somebody that's that neutral third party they can come in that's not emotional about it at all and all they're they're trying to help the client meet the goals they're not trying to um push their agenda onto the person who's downsizing so and they're also not putting up with the shenanigans of i'm just going to keep everything because reality it won't fit so it's kind of that negotiating and helping each of the family members through this process but getting the project done the ultimate goal is get the project done make the client happy get the project done so that's how we approach it anyway definitely a great place to use a professional organizer because i think you're right there is so much emotion for every party tied into downsizing especially when it comes to seniors and so that's a great idea right so one thing about downsizing that i've heard people talk about is not downsizing per se they downsize the house but they throw a pile of stuff in storage good idea bad idea i think it's a bad idea personally i feel like storage units are they have a purpose i don't want to say they shouldn't exist but we should not be building them in mouse droves i'm not sure what it's like where you are but here they're just building building buildings or cabinets um personally i think it's great if you are in transition or maybe you have a vehicle or a boat or you know something that won't fit at your space but you actually use it the danger of storage is you put things in you forget that it's there or it's not organized so you know it's there but you can't get to it i went to a storage unit the other day that was piled literally floor to ceiling front to back there is no way on earth they could remember everything that's in there or even access what's in it so if you're going to have a storage unit it needs to have shelving bins be labeled organized maybe even inventoried so that you can look in your little book at home and go okay christmas is in green tote one two and three um i understand like if you're moving to some kind of retirement living and things like christmas storage won't fit and you are just huge on christmas and you love to decorate okay that may be a scenario which a storage unit would be okay for very few items but if you are just not using it let it go it's not worth the money it's not worth the mental um strain of knowing i have these items hanging over my head still in storage i'm paying for it every month or oh my gosh the storage unit's a mess and it's just this secondary project hanging over your head it's not worth it just and if you're able to put it in storage then it's probably not something that is overly important to you on a day-to-day basis anyway so right except for in transition or extreme circumstance right i won't say never but we'll say pretty much never well that's never almost never okay so we've talked a lot about the physical aspect of downsizing but there's a huge emotional element to it as well do you have any tips for people who are saying goodbye to a family home that they might have been in forever what about the emotional aspect of downsizing it can be extremely difficult i hear time and time again oh this is the home i brought my babies home in this is where i raised my family and you have so many memories tied around physical spaces things that you see hear and smell can trigger memories and so i think that it really does cause a lot of emotional upheaval when you're leaving spaces like that especially if you're leaving town you might be leaving relationships behind as well i think ways that you can say goodbye would be to take photos of things i know when my grandparents were alive i took pictures of their basement it was like it was like 70s cool before retro was cool i mean it was just left over from the south it was amazing like a time capsule and i have photos even of their carpet of like this stripy 70s carpet but it actually brings me joy to be able to see their carpet even though i it's hopefully it's not there anymore when the new person bought it but you know it's not there anymore i can't visit it anymore that helped me a lot to be able to take pictures of their space and of their stuff um i think that another thing is just shifting your mindset from looking backward to looking forward when you're looking backward you might be longing for things of the past you might be overly sentimental about things that really have no use or value to you and when you're looking forward you're thinking about what's the best thing for me right now what can i look forward to in my new retirement home which items are my absolute favorites that i can enjoy more because i have a smaller space or what's going to replace the care of this giant house oh maybe i get to travel more because then you know i don't have to deal with this giant maintenance issue of in this home yard so i think it's really a lot of mindset shift unfortunately you can't make someone else take the mindset shift they have to do it for themselves and i think that's what's tough when you're dealing with seniors that don't want to downsize they're not thinking future they're not thinking hopeful exciting what's coming up who am i going to meet what activities am i going to get to do they're totally clinging on to the past and it can be a real challenge so i think i mean in a really really tough situation maybe getting a therapist involved isn't a bad idea just to help them it really is like a grief process to let go of things and to let go of your home that you've spent a lot of years in and so i think maybe working with a therapist or a grief coach could help through that process as well yeah great idea well this has been super helpful i know you are not located in dallas where i am but do you offer virtual services i do um we work with clients via zoom just like this and help them make decisions about what to keep what to get rid of where to store things how to get through that process and then we also help with coordinating services or organizing the move in general so perfect well thanks so much for talking with me today amy's information uh will all be listed in the description below and so if you want to talk to her or get a consultation uh arrange virtual services you can find all of that below thanks so much for talking with me today you're welcome thank you for having me [Music]

Channel: Randi Dukes, Dallas Fort Worth REALTOR

Views: 89,680

Keywords: downsizing seniors, downsizing tips for seniors, downsizing tips, downsizing for seniors, professional organizer, downsizing guide for seniors, downsizing tips for moving, decluttering and downsizing for seniors, how to downsize, how to begin downsizing, downsizing your home, downsizing your house, how to move a senior, preparing for retirment, how to start downsizing, aging parents, how to help aging parents downsize, moving to a smaller house, moving in dfw, dfw realtor

Id: HJm4EyGLU9k

Length: 16min 59sec (1019 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 13 2021