What do we do with all this stuff?

This will brighten or depress you for the day. What to do with all of the stuff? Neighbor across the street died, 3 kids all living in different states met at the house on friday dumpster delivered on sat, those 3 kids filled that dumpster to the brim, completely emptied the house, went back to the airport on sunday night, put house up for sale monday. All that stuff ment something to mom but nothing to the kids

Not depressing at all to me. DW might find the knowledge that that was going to occur. And I'm guessing that for that reason we will make efforts to dispose of things ourselves. The kids will be there for us when needed. That's something that eases our minds.

Oh Joy !🫶🏼 This brightens my day!☀️

It confirms what my beautiful husband and I tell our comfortably numb aging family, colleagues, and people we come across in our daily lives; children will share their lives with you but they don't owe you their lives.

While you are healthy start working on getting rid of stuff. Death is hard enough for children or people in general to deal with. Plus, who wants to pay to haul your memorabilia to their home for sentimental reasons just to collect dust.

Children pretty much know what they want far as things from their parents and let them know ahead of time. My kids when we relocated showed us a thing or two via observation and listening. They don't know what we learned from them. 😁 But it was enough to open our eyes and minds to the truth that you can only live one life. Your's and the person you will be living with and the memories you make together are yours and yours alone. The things you accumulate in this short lifetime although meaningful to you are temporary and must be disposed of by you if possible and not others.

Holding onto things sucks! All it does is make You become a physical and emotional hoarder. It's time to say, Things thanks for all the wonderful memories.

Box 📦 it up, sell it, donate it, or give it away.

Set yourself free and Enjoy the rest of your life!! ☕️🍩🌅

When I was in my 20's my house was robbed and precious childhood mementos were stolen.
Surprize! I did fine without them, and was relieved not to have to "home" them as I moved on through my life.
And I learned that the feelings I attached to those objects continued to live in me (which was why I "loved" those objects in the first place).
When my parents died I went through the house and found surprisingly little that I needed or truly wanted. My nephew is disabled, so we arranged for him to move in and take over the house as his own.
Now I'm planning to send the lightweight mementos to the younger generations...if they want them.
I keep the very smallest, easy to maintain memory objects: My mother's first grade report card from 1927. I used it for a bookmark where I just found it again 20 years later, and meanwhile it's been useful!

Not depressing, just sounds like some lazy children. Could have at least donated much of it instead of clogging up the landfills. 🙁

Not necessarily lazy children - we don't know what their lives were like, what their Mom owned, or whether meaningful items were shipped home or had already been given to them or others.

We have cleaned out family homes that were "full" but contained nothing of value - chipped dishes, ragged towels and linens, 20 year-old home canned foods, hundreds of saved jars, bottles, cottage cheese and egg cartons, old newspapers and magazines, broken furniture in the attic, 30 year old mattresses... If there were treasures there, we had neither the time nor energy to find them.

Then we have cleaned out homes full of items marked with who was to get them, offered items to family, friends and neighbors, then held a sale or donated the rest.

Most were "in between".

I want to leave as little as possible for my kids to deal with when I go, so am taking the time now to "cull the herd" - keeping only what I need, will truly use or highly value. The rest is given away to family or friends, or donated. What I keep is, I hope, organized in such a way that it will be easy for them to find new homes - lists of fellow quilters, fiber & needle arts and painting companions or organizations.

Now if we could just tackle the garage and workshop, sigh...
Sue

When I was downsizing, I found some welcome resources:
freelywheely.com - FreelyWheely is a place where you can freecycle your unwanted belongings, for free, to someone who can make use of them.
Sarah Mueller: - https://thedeclutteringclub.com/ - Wide range of practical advice, courses, and other resources.
Selena: https://view.flodesk.com/pages/623795c37e7ec064e82a1f2e - Professional Decluttering Coach and Grief & Trauma Therapist (since decluttering can often be during an emotional time - a death or sudden downsizing)); insightful online counseling and other resources.
One valuable lesson I learned: If we're hanging on to old stuff it can keep us from living in the present.

After years of mostly casual research, I found an exceptional IL campus with individual homes, duplexes, and apartments as well as three levels of care (Skilled Nursing, Memory, Alzheimer's) beyond independent. It was originally for retired military, but now accepts those of us w/o a military connection. I appreciate it is not primarily for golfers - there are 70 activities to choose from so there's always something going on, when & if I choose.

Give to Salvation Army. You can call them to set up an appointment for them to send a truck to come pick up the things.

Habitat for humanity
Hire an estate sale company