Got Junk?  Call 1-800-JUNK-MAN

Let’s see what I can do about relaunching this blog!  

It’s been awhile, I know, but having spent the last 18 months or so trying to navigate my way through a year from h***, I hope the very faint light I see at the end of the tunnel is not the headlight of yet another oncoming train.

But one never knows does one!

But what I do know, is that I recognise a learning/sharing opportunity when I see one!

For reasons that are now tiresome and tedious, I gutted my condo.   Over a two-week period I stripped my condo back to bare walls and concrete floors.  In the process, I ripped up the carpet, disassembled two full-sized closet organisers, threw out all of my living room furniture, my bedroom furniture, my dining room furniture, a china cabinet and it’s contents, all of my bed and bath linens, 50-60% of my clothing, my entire wool stash, two six-foot bookcases and all the books therein.

Prior to moving into my condo (from a multi-level, three bedroom townhouse), I had culled my belongings.  Mainly because I wasn’t in the mood to pack up and move everything I apparently owned. 

And quite frankly, I was shocked and appalled at the amount of “stuff” I had and didn’t really need in my new digs.  I made a lot of trips to Goodwill and dragged a lot of green garbage bags out to the curb.  And even after I “officially” moved into my condo, I made a few more trips down to the dumpster.

So I could be forgiven for believing I was living light and lean.

Until the fates forced my hand, leaving me no option but to pack, sort and shift all of my worldly belongings.

And once again I was appalled that no matter how many drawers, how many cupboards I cleaned and emptied, there still seemed to be twice as much junk left for me to sort through.

Then one afternoon, when I quite honestly was close to tears at the enormity of work I still had to do, I had a thought.   Instead of a housing emergency, what if I was facing a medical emergency.  And instead of cleaning and trashing at my own pace, under my own terms, I was trying to pack up my life and move it to an assisted-living facility, or long-term care facility?   Could I physically have packed up everything I currently owned?  What if someone else was having to pack for me?  Did I really need or even want absolutely everything I owned right now to follow me into an alternative living arrangement?  If there were only a few things I really wanted to take with me, could I actually find them?  For that matter, right here, right now, which plastic storage bin was the copy of the deed to my condo was in?  My will?

And suddenly, I was looking at everything I still had to sort and shift in a totally different light. 

Right then and there I decided if I couldn’t wear it, eat off of it, or sit on it – it was going into the dumpster.

And to this day, I have not missed any of the "stuff" I had believed was so important to me and my continued existence.  

I do believe that it would only take two strong, young men half a day to pack absolutely everything I now own into the back of a cube van and move me into the aforementioned home.

So, that learning/sharing opportunity I knew when I saw it …..

…. a piece of advice I wish I had taken more seriously when I began to plan for early retirement five years ago.

Start downsizing now.  

At least 5 years prior to your actual retirement date.

Go home tonight and mentally inventory everything you own.  Look in the hall closet, the bedroom closets, the kitchen cabinets, the china cabinet, under the beds, behind all the doors, the linen closet, the garage, the trunk of the car, the back deck, under the back deck, the shed, under the shed, behind the shed, the attic, the laundry room, the bathroom cabinets, the crawl space into which you have cleverly and insidiously been stuffing everything you had no real idea what to do with.

And be honest with yourself about what you find – chackas, bric-a-brac, souvenirs, heirlooms, mementos, baubles, bangles, collections, keepsakes, clutter, just plain junk ….. 

And then get rid of 50% of it. 

Don’t just re-arrange the mess in the hall closet. 

Donate it, trash it, pass it on, sell it, gift it to your nearest and dearest.

Just get rid of it.

Then, during the first month of your official retirement, get rid of 50% of everything you still own.

I wish I had been more ruthless about getting rid of more household junk before I actually retired.  When the time came and I was forced to deal with all the flotsam and jetsam in my life, I was five years older, five years more decrepit, with a brand-new arthritic knee which made the entire ordeal that much more physically challenging and draining.

I’m not quite living in a monk’s cell.  There are still some chackas to dust, and I just can’t quite curb the urge to buy a book or a CD every now and then. 

But if I had to, I think could quite happily have two strong young men throw everything I own into the back of a cube van and assisted living facility ho!!!