Getting Rid of Stuff

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I know this was a topic on the cs forum, but I guess I'm just in a mood. As most of you know, we're getting ready to move. We're having a yard sale next week, but WE STILL HAVE TOO MUCH STUFF! Anybody getting rid of anything? Have you gotten rid of something, then regretted it? I used to clean houses for a living, I know what people have and we don't have near that much stuff, but.....

-- Cindy (S.E.IN) (atilrthehony_1@yahoo.com), August 09, 2001

Answers

We just moved, and I regretted not getting rid of more stuff!! Haha Still, there were some things we left behind that I regretted leaving. Like the plastic panels for my portable chicken coop, and my ironing board!! I'm telling myself next time I will be smarter about what I leave and what I take.

-- mary (marylgarcia@aol.com), August 09, 2001.

A number of years ago...

I moved from Europe into my fathers house and brought all my stuff.
Mom moved back to the area and into Pa's house and brought all her stuff.
My cousin needed a place to store stuff when he went off to college...
My uncle showed up without a place to stay and brought all his stuff.
The cousin gets married...wife wont let him have stuff back.
Grandma dies, Grandpa moves in with his stuff.
Uncle runs away and leaves his stuff.
Mom has to leave again...abandons her stuff.
Grandpa dies...leaving his stuff.
Wife moves in and brings her stuff.
Mrs and I decide to buy new place and bring Pa along.
Giant rummage sale...rake in piles o'cash...still way too much stuff.
It took a team of professional movers and a semitruck to get us out to the new farm.
Yet, with all this stuff, I never seem have the right tool when I need it.

-- William in WI (gnarledmaw@lycos.com), August 09, 2001.


Moved from a two+ story old brick house (3000square feet) to a one story old log-sided house (1600 square feet)..had a killer yard sale, made tons of $$$$ and only moved the things we had to have, OR the things we really loved even though we didn't "need" them. I learned that it is far cheaper to purchase common items such as mops, brooms, wastecans and ironing boards than it is to move them! It cost us $5000 in moving expenses and that was with us doing all the packing.....(the cast-iron wood stove didn't help)...We shopped around for the cheapest moving company available and the prices ranged from $6500-5000. Our entire household took up less than half of those big moving vans...my husband says if we ever move again, we will sell everything and get what we need from yard sales wherever we end up!!!! At first I laughed at that, but the idea has some merit...add up the cost of buying all you have, used....hmmmmm..then contrast it with the cost of moving state to state with a moving company..it becomes really tempting to throw all your favorite things like clothes and family pictures into a small U-Haul it and have a good time going to yard sales at your new place!!!! God bless.

-- lesley (martchas@bellsouth.net), August 09, 2001.

I recently priced a 14' U-haul to get Kevin's and my stuff from NY to Hartville, MO, and almost died when they told me $900! We're going to be very selective about what we bring, as we'll be paying storage fees for most of it once we get there. We're planning on framing four walls and a roof for a 12x12 shed, and bringing it on the truck, and finishing the assembly there. Cheap and quick "house", while we build a real house. My biggest worry is my books. Which ones do I really need? How do I decide? I have books that I thought I'd read "someday" when I had time; now do I get rid of them just as the chance to read them may be just around the bend?

-- Cathy in NY (hrnofplnty@yahoo.com), August 09, 2001.

The only thing about getting shook of the used stuff you have and buying someone else's used stuff is that you then have to figure in the learning curve on what is GOING to be wrong with the used stuff you buy that you have to learn how to fix. The last move I made just tested every fiber of my being.

I'll tell ya'll a little story here.....Lived in LALA Land for five or six years. moved there with literally two suitcases and a small bass rig (that's music, not fish!) in the interim started up a business and aquired a lot of STUFF. It was all used and gotten at a very reasonable price as screen printing equipment is really expensive, and hard to find at garage sales. It's also very heavy.

So Doreen one day has a revelation while stuck in traffic AGAIN on the 101 and the 405. I get back home and announce..."It's time to go. I can't do it anymore....." See, I caught myself daydreaming about the size of charge needed to blow up the Sepulveda dam and decided it was in the best interest of everyone to get out. But having just gotten the business to the point of paying the bills and getting clientele, I didn't want to bail on everything. Also I had nothing to bail with as everything was in the business. See how that goes?

So we go on junkets to several out of the way places around the country that are not frigid in winter and decide we like Texas.

Come back for a show in Texas and look for shops in an hours radius find one and have to occupy in 1 month. Holy Smokes! Drive back to LA and commence to stressing. (saw a UFO on the drive back, too!) Couldn't afford a moving van. I read somewhere to buy a bus and then sell that upon arrival. So we checked into that, and found a good bus for $2200. GREAT!!! I forgot to figure in the curve of the ceiling! Big whoops there. We tear out the seats and put a sign on them in the front yard FREE!!! They are gone in two days! So I make a breaker wall and install in the bus leaving room to put milk crates loaded with books under the couch behind the driver's seat. We break everything down to the absolute smallest it can be being fairly organized with the bolts et al and Tetris everything into the bus and still have half a bus load left over......Hmmmm. So I say, we must buy a trailer.

At this point we have been working for three weeks straight on about 4 hours of sleep per night when we're lucky. We still had orders to fill before we left. The Recycler comes out and we find a trailer that sounds good. We have to be there at 4 am, though. There is someone else coming at 5am. Okay, a nap is in order here. So off to look at a trailer in the dark. Looks great, hand the guy the $500 we borrowed from a friend haul it home with no wiring done on the truck pulling it...ahem....we are still alive!!! The trailer doesn't have a metal bottom like we thought...It's particle board painted red. Drats!!!! So I go industrial complex dumpster diving and find several sheets of playwood and make a very strong bottom for the trailer which can now haul our press!!

Meanwhile, my business partner, the consummate collector of "STUFF" is selling off a lot of stuff and begging storage favors from friends. We realized we were going to be short even after getting rid of so much. Then the final days arrives and the truck that was supposed to pull my mail Jeep burns out the clutch and can't pull it. So I won't have a vehicle until I can get back and pick it up from my friend's house. Arrrgh. Obviously, I am the bus driver!!!

So the bus is packed to the gills and the friend who decided to move with us is hauling the trailer with the press on it, my other friend has to spend $600 on a new clutch and take off two days after us without my vehicle, and all is well. Driving down the 5 to I-10, there is an amazing bridge...well wouldn't ya know, the steering on old Clyde decides to go out at the apex of the turn..You want to talk about heavy duty instant prayer, there it was. The motto I was to follow for the whole trip was "swerve=death" and it was true. The bus was only overloaded by about 2,000 pounds ya know! Luckily, the friend hauling the trailer has her mechanically inclined father who is only 30 minutes from that break down. We fix the bus the next day and get back on the road. Her father advised us to not go over forty five as the worm gears were worn and he insisted on taking it to a friends business to weigh it and see where that was. Hence I know how much we were overlaoded;}.

Everything is going slow but smoothly until we get into west Texas before Stockton. Blow out on the vehicle pulling the trailer....also the pin on the trailer broke. But thanks to God it didn't go flying out on the freeway. So while that is getting fixed I check over the bus and the cover for the clutch is gone. I had been having trouble shifting so I figured that's where the problem was. The guys wo't lend me a pair of tin snips to make a cover for it, arrgh. I got it done anyway. Then we get to Ozona about 12am for fuel. The starter on Clyde will not disengage!!! I had to pull the plugs to get the tihing to kill. There was an angel there named Sammy who fixed everything up for us and told me how to disengage the thing should it happen again by pulling the cable on the battery.

FINALLY, we are almost here. Twenty miles down the road on an extreme hill that trucks are not supposed to go down... (I didn't see the sign until it was too late)...Clyde kills on the descent and the starter won't disengage. I have very little ability to steer the thing and make it down the hill only because no cars were in the oncoming lane! I pull of the road and my friend has stopped in front of me, jump out and start whacking the starter with a hammer and yelling at my friend to pull the battery cable....She starts crying and says "I'm afraid!"...so I run over and open the box and pull the cable. After a half hour of getting my heart back into my chest, I start Clyde up and we make it here AFTER my business partner who left two days after us. Whew.

The next time I move, I am not taking so much with me. I won't move a screenpritning company again, either! I still say it was the best thing I ever did to leave LA. I also learned a whole lot about doing and fixing through that move. I'm tired now.

-- Doreen (bisquit@here.com), August 09, 2001.



Wow Doreen, I thought we had moving "experiences". LOL.

-- Terry - NW Ohio (aunt_tm@hotmail.com), August 10, 2001.

It was a heck of a challenge. Hard for me to believe after reliving all of that that I would even consider moving myself again....but like I said, I learned a lot and hopefully will be better at guesstimating things.

Cathy, I didn't mean to scare you off of the bus! It could be a really good answer for you guys as you could have a place to live for a bit in that and also fair storage. We did sell Clyde after fixing the starter and having a mechanic check it over and I think we got a rebate of $1500 on him, so it was worthwhile. Just don't heavily over load the thing.....eeek. If you do consider that route, have a mechanic you "trust" budgeted in for a thourough run through. I would suggest someone that works for the school bus maintenance department. I did not do that, and if I had I think he might have caught the worm gear thingee.

To answer Cindy's question, the stuff I got rid off that I wish I hadn't were books. Other than that everything else was fairly easy to replace and held no emotional importance...really.

-- Doreen (bisquit@here.com), August 11, 2001.


I'm trying to get rid of colorful corals & glowing magma stones. "Anyone Interested?

Not too long ago' I figured out how to make realistic underwater corals and real burning & glowing magma!

"Want Some?

-- Mr. AARON AMYX (aramyx@yahoo.com), November 12, 2001.


I have been feeling lately that I would like to get rid of some of my stuff because I just dont use it anymore and I need that space. in reading over the experiences it seems clear that having a lot of stuff can really weigh someone down. The buddhist philosophy talks about lightening up your posessions in order to lighten up your mental load and I wonder if those with less possessions are freer than those with massive items they must contend with.

-- Carrie (carrieatpeace@aol.com), December 09, 2001.

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