Letting go of possessions before planning to downsize

My husband did not share the importance of decluttering the properties until he has had to empty out his parents’ two properties. It was exhausting. I’ve attempted donations, Facebook Marketplace, and consignment, but still have rooms of furniture-types that are difficult to “sell”. Adult children don’t buy the framed pictures, pianos, mirrors, furniture like we had at our disposal when starting out. We would’ve saved a lot of $$. However, the furniture I bought has lasted 42 years!

I’m going to have a tech smashing party in the backyard - no longer will my desk be the storage unit for old Apple products w/all the associated paraphernalia.

Wish I could find people who could use these things. I feel irresponsible giving them away due to the investment - odd because it’s not that I want the $$, just feel strange about giving it away. I’m open to anyone giving me a pep talk!
Clothes - good gravy. Had to have many due to business & the many changes in dress codes. I wear some clothes that are 10-15 years old, but still in great condition. Could open a shoe store for high heels. Looking to donate business attire to cos. that help those just entering the workforce. Consignment is helpful but completely overwhelmed - as are churches.
I could open a bookstore. Always took my kids to the library and gifted them w/books. My adult children want me to keep their favorites, but I’m starting the process of weeding out for donation.
Sorry this is so long winded. Obviously this demonstrates the difficulty in letting go.

@fncz Record the music digitally directly from yor collection? Then clean up selling the vinyl to other collectors.

@sueinmn Deciding what to downsize can be a dilemma. I am on a fabric and yarn diet, telling myself there will be no buying more until my substantial respective stashes are diminished! And that also goes for my other accumulated art supplies. As for clothes, those have never been a big draw for me, and it will be easier to release good clothes that haven't been worn, knowing they will benefit others.

Our neighbor lost everything in a wildfire in 2018. Since then, she has hoarded stuff of all kinds. All it takes is a look at her house for me to understand the idea of letting go of possessions can be fraught with emotions!
Ginger

@gingerw we could be sisters with the fabric and yarn stash. My sister in law is 6 years younger than I am and will retire at the end of this year (she’ll be 70). She’s a quilter and a crocheter (I’m a knitter). I have her name on the bins with the really good quilt fabric in case I pop my clogs before my husband does and he knows to ship those fabrics to her along with my two Juki sewing machines. I plan to send her all my good cotton yarns when she retires as I knit mostly with wool and she lives in SoCal, so works with cottons and acrylics. The rest of the yarn is to go to the Fiber Arts Guild that I belong to, to sell to members or give as prizes, to raise money for the guild. I have some really fine yarns, including yarns for tapestry weaving which I no longer do. At one time I had a very small flock of sheep and two angora goats, raised for their fleece and I scoured, carded, dyed and spun yarn myself. I have way too much fabric and yarn now, however, for the time I have to work on my hobbies. I’m also not a clothes horse, still pretty much a tomboy at age 75, lol, so purging clothes is not a problem.

@nycmusic Yes, indeed. I had actually started years ago, getting rid of many, many books.

They're not worth anything monetarily -- hard to believe that nobody wants physical books anymore!

Giving them away, knowing they'd be pulped, felt like putting pets to sleep.

@kildaren96
Just wanted to say how amazing and talented you sound. I can only imagine the artistic work you produced. What fun to have the sheep and goats!
I’m trying to relearn knitting, although it’s difficult to look down at my hands with the cervical dystonia. Want to get back to the point when it’s just a comfortable rhythm and you don’t always have to look.
Great ideas for dispersing your supplies.

@gingerw we could be sisters with the fabric and yarn stash. My sister in law is 6 years younger than I am and will retire at the end of this year (she’ll be 70). She’s a quilter and a crocheter (I’m a knitter). I have her name on the bins with the really good quilt fabric in case I pop my clogs before my husband does and he knows to ship those fabrics to her along with my two Juki sewing machines. I plan to send her all my good cotton yarns when she retires as I knit mostly with wool and she lives in SoCal, so works with cottons and acrylics. The rest of the yarn is to go to the Fiber Arts Guild that I belong to, to sell to members or give as prizes, to raise money for the guild. I have some really fine yarns, including yarns for tapestry weaving which I no longer do. At one time I had a very small flock of sheep and two angora goats, raised for their fleece and I scoured, carded, dyed and spun yarn myself. I have way too much fabric and yarn now, however, for the time I have to work on my hobbies. I’m also not a clothes horse, still pretty much a tomboy at age 75, lol, so purging clothes is not a problem.

@pmhpesp5 , aww, thank you so much. I’m not sure about the artistic part, but I just love the making of things that are useful, and I hope that have some beauty to them as well. The making part is what I enjoy the most, and making things for those I love as well as for myself. When I was young, I made my own clothes which ironically, my sister in law did also, and both of us merged into quilting in our later years. Because I love animals, I got the sheep and goats before I learned how to do anything with their fleece, but there was a group called Spinner’s Flock in Chelsea MI (I had moved to MI from SoCalifornia in my 40s for work) and I joined and then I learned how to take care of my animals and do things with their fleece, including learning how to weave and to knit, so I came to it in middle age an fell in love with it. I even tried to shear my sheep myself with hand shears…that was not a success and the professional shearers back then only charged $6 an animal and took the fleece off in one usable piece whereas I, being overly cautious, afraid of hurting my sheep, clipped off little bits that were unusable. My animals were much happier to have a professional be done ridding them of their fleece in about 5 minutes, instead of me spending a few hours to get nothing much off them. But, you know, I was young and brave and wanted to do it all. I would have made a good farmer had I not been born in Los Angeles and raised in the city. I loved my little 4 acre “hobby farm.” It was a respite from working in high tech.

I’m so sorry about your neck. So many things happen to our bodies as we age. I have lumbar spinal issues but I adapt. I have a wonderful Swedish all terrain rollator that I use to tie my dog to and we walk a mile on our trails every morning where I now live in New Mexico. I use a cane for very short distances and a small indoor rollator if I’m going grocery shopping with my husband who likes to “man the cart” so I need something to use to help me walk naturally, or to walk in a mall or a big box hardware store. The spinal issues affect my legs so that it feels like walking through quicksand without using a mobility aid to take the pressure off the spine. And I do online chair yoga through YogaVista TV. Adapt, adapt, adapt. My husband is not a collector of stuff although his wardrobe which includes hiking and tennis wear and a variety of shoes and boots, is much larger than mine. He is good about purging though. I also have too many books but we have a little lending library in a tree in our community and I am good about going through my books and leaving a few every month. I have too many cookbooks and am slowly giving the ones that I simply enjoyed reading but haven’t really cooked from, away. Those go fast in the little lending library!

I hope that your neck improves along with your knitting so that it’s comfortable to knit again for you. Knitting is one of the more soothing activities I think…well, until you discover that you’ve made a mistake and then…not so soothing anymore!

@sueinmn that’s the toughest. There is a visceral, near-fetish feeling when I hold a rare record, original pressing, 45rpm. Digital can never replace owning a piece of history. I collect black,- sounding vocal groups from early 1950s-mid 60s. Recordings were captured performances.