By: MJ + PJ
The packing process started about four months prior to departure. It is an ugly thing – a preparation to leave with only a car load of belongings from nine years of accumulation in a generous sized house. We couldn’t just pack a truck (or have someone else pack it!) and drive off into the sunset. We had to make a decision on every item in the house: take it, ship it, sell it, trash it, or give it away give it away now.
Our general rule for TAKE IT was it had to be necessary and no duplicates. We are driving a car, not a SUV or van or RV/camper, and there is no trailer. It had to pack and pack well. This required some configuration of bags and bag types and container matching. We actually have less stuff in our car than most people we have seen car camping. This approach is clearly not for everyone, but we wanted to be able to move and park as accessibly as possible and keep weight and fuel costs low. Did we jam stuff in every nook and cranny in our car? Yes! On night two we went through it all again and culled another bag of stuff. On day seven we pulled it all out again – the frustration of having it fit but not being functional was becoming intolerable. “I need a spoon” was a 10 minute ordeal with everything already packed to fit.
We didn’t really want to SHIP IT because of the costs and simply not wanting to have things to ship. But some things are indispensable or unique. We used UPakWeShip for this after looking around at a few options. They don’t ship everywhere, but they ship to and from where we needed to. We received a pallet, loaded it, labeled it, stacked it, wrapped it. Then we realized we could have included more stuff as we were under the weight limit and had a bit of space on top. Problem is each box is labeled “x of y” (e.g. 4 of 15), and to add a box or container you have to change every label to reflect the correct total boxes. This is a customs process, which also includes creating lists of the contents of each box. If we had more time (…a constant problem at that point) we could have added items/boxes and relabeled. That said, the pickup driver was impressed that we had the pallet ready at curbside when it was meant to be, with paperwork complete. This made us feel like we were actually not totally incompetent in our ability to hit a deadline, despite how we felt putting it together.
When it came to SELL IT things got a bit tricky. We had four garage sales. We utilized eBay, Craigslist, word of mouth, and Facebook Marketplace for items $10 or above. What one thinks should take 10min to post, ends up being about 20-30min at least – photos, working out pricing, adding details and descriptions, measuring things etc burns up time! eBay has a larger reach but has to include shipping, so is better for smaller more unique or collectible items. We found Craigslist is great for garage sales and announcing ‘free items at kerbside’ and for items that are more common. We had more success with Facebook Marketplace, but the social media aspects of it can be distracting and frustrating. Selling books and clothes is less profitable unless it is children’s stuff. Even at 4 for $1 for adult clothes items, and 4 books for $1, a lot of it did not sell or move from our garage sales.
To TRASH IT takes a bit of nerve. We trashed quite a few items that were not being bought at the garage sales, that no-one we knew needed, and that were of not enough value to sell via other means. Just throw it out and move on! …that’s if it can fit in the rubbish bin that’s already full! We are proud that we did not trash very much stuff In the end. We tried to give everything away first, and most of it went to people who needed it. We reserved trashing things as a last resort.
Hence, GIVE IT AWAY was the last chance for items prior to becoming landfill. But to give it away you need to either know of a suitable target for an individual item, or know of an organization that takes donations. We found several in our area but we were late in trying to set up a collection date (do this 2 weeks ahead of pickup at least!) so we could not utilize those organizations. Instead we took two carloads of boxes of stuff to the Restore store local to us – they had a drop off point where they would look through, sort into categories, and discuss any items you had. They took everything we had in the vehicle each time, and we were very, very, very happy. It was almost magical.
If these things were once-and-done types of processes, you’d stay sane. But the non-magical reality is you take those decision processes and multiply them a few times. Because some things you can never make a decision on nor get rid of how you intend on the first, second or even third time.
