Downsizing your home can be a big process. And, less and less people seem to be doing it these days.
The average home size in 1950 was less than 1,000 square feet. Fast forward to now, the average home size has increased to nearly 2,600 square feet, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
We were fairly close to this size when we owned a house. The house we owned in the St. Louis, Missouri area was around 2,500 square feet if you included our finished basement, and it was just for myself, my husband, and our two dogs. Our home in Colorado was almost as big, at slightly over 2,000 square feet (with no basement).
More and more people seem to be purchasing large homes, but that’s not the case for us. We sold our home last year and moved into an RV.
We made this decision for many reasons, but the main reason was that traveling nearly full-time added to the stress of owning a home. So, we figured why not just take it a step further and actually travel full-time?
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So, we did it. We went through all of our possessions, stored certain belongings that we couldn’t part with (we have a VERY small storage unit, the size of a closet, filled mainly with hundreds of photo albums that my dad left me after he passed away, family paintings, childhood mementos, etc.), and moved into our RV.
It wasn’t the easiest task on earth, and really we dreaded all of the work that had to be done. However, we knew it was well worth it to live the life we wanted.
And, it was! We are so glad that we decided to downsize our home. We haven’t regretted the decision one bit, and now we are happier than ever.
There are many other reasons for downsizing your home:
- To save money. A bigger home can cost more in some cases due to higher utility bills, more clutter being bought, higher insurance, more maintenance and repairs needed, higher purchasing price, etc.
- To have less clutter. The bigger your home, the more likely you’ll have empty rooms that you feel the need to put stuff in. Now that we live in an RV, we are much more mindful of what we buy. We think about every purchase in terms of weight, size, where we can store it, and more.
- To spend less time on maintenance and repairs. If all other factors between two homes are the same (age, location, etc.), a bigger home is more likely to take up more of your time due to more things breaking.
- To spend less time cleaning. A larger home is going to take a lot more time to clean than a smaller one.
Whatever your reason may be for downsizing your home, here are my tips. Of course, certain downsizes may be easier than others, but overall the tips below can help you sort through your items.
Tips for downsizing your home:
Make a plan for downsizing your home.
Downsizing your home can seem like an easy task to some, but in reality it is not. There are many things that go into downsizing your home, such as:
- The layout and amount of space in your new home.
- The time you have to downsize your home can impact your sorting process, stress, etc.
- How you will donate, sell, or throw away items to get rid of.
- How and what you determine to keep, donate, or throw away.
What do you think you just cannot get rid of?
To start off, you should make a list of all the items you believe you just cannot part with. Your list may start out long, but it will help you decide what items you don’t need and should get rid of.
What can you easily get rid of?
If you have the time, then you may want to start getting rid of things that you know you don’t need as soon as you can. By doing this, you can clear a lot of clutter and it will also help you realize that you may not need other items you once thought you needed.
Usually getting rid of the first few items is the hardest. After that, it gets easier to downsize your home!
Think about why you want to keep certain items.
Many people have a hard time parting with things for reasons such as:
- Memories
- How much money they spent on it
- The length of time that they’ve held onto it
- The potential for future use
If you just don’t have the room in your new home, you should really dig deep and figure out why you believe you need to keep so many items. Talk about your reasoning with your family or out loud to fully grasp it. Doing so may help you realize how ridiculous your logic may be.
Sometimes, you may laugh at your reasoning, and this may help you get rid of an item more easily.
Find ways to store documents digitally.
For me, I just couldn’t bring myself to store my dad’s photo albums digitally, even though numerous people have told me to scan them and throw them away. The memory is in the actual photo albums as well as the photos, as my dad loved photography and we would often put the photo albums together as a fun project.
However, there are many other non sentimental things that you can store digitally. This includes tax information, receipts, paper documents, and so on.
The average person has thousands of papers that they store!
Paper is a big reason for clutter, and so many people keep items that they don’t need. Go through your documents and start either digitally storing them or recycling them.
We kept just one binder of papers and scanned the rest. It was very easy to do, and getting rid of all of that paper felt amazing.
Give yourself time.
Going through your whole house and downsizing your home in one day would be quite difficult and stressful. Instead, you should give yourself time to really think about what you do and don’t need.
This means that you may want to take a few days, weeks, or even months to go through your home.
Start off room by room and see what you can get rid of. Then, when you are done doing that, go through everything again and again until you are down to the amount of items you need to have. By doing this process, you will clearly see what you need and do not need, because you will be able to see how much you have, evaluate items more clearly, apply past reasoning to other items you think you can’t get rid of, and so on.
Create a donation list.
Donating items makes getting rid of things and downsizing your home a little easier. By knowing that your items will be better used by someone who actually needs them, you are giving your stuff new life! If you have a large amount to donate, many donation centers will even come to your home, which can make getting rid of items a breeze.
Plus, you’ll feel great about it.
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Think about when the last time was that you used an item.
Many people keep items that they hardly use or have never used, yet keep and store them anyways.
If you want to start downsizing your home, you should think about the last time you used a specific item.
For me, this is a big reason for why it was so easy to get rid of so many things. I just sat down, created a list, and thought about the last time I used a certain item. For many things, it seemed like years had passed since I had actually used that item. For some things, I knew I didn’t actually need to use them when I thought I did.
So, you should do the same. Think about when you last used an item, if you will ever use it in the future, if you’re better off just renting or borrowing something you occasionally use, and so on.
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Get rid of the “maybes.”
If you have no space for items in your new home, but you still have a huge pile of things that you want to take with you, you may want to think about just completely getting rid of your “maybe” pile.
After all, these are “maybes” and you probably don’t want them as badly as you think! This can make downsizing your home much easier in one swoop of a decision.
Carefully evaluate future purchases.
So that you are less likely to have as much clutter in the future, you should evaluate future items before you buy them.
You should think long and hard about whether you truly need something, whether you should buy, borrow, or rent it if you won’t need it in the future, and think about where the item will be stored in your home.
We do this now that we live in an RV. We think about every purchase in terms of weight, size, where we can store it, and more. This has helped prevent us from buying many items because we know it’s not realistic to bring everything into an RV.
How big is your home? Is downsizing your home something you are interested in?
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I think it’s a lot harder for somer people. My husband get pretty attached to things whereas I don’t keep much at all. I just don’t have sentimental attachments to many things. We might be moving across the country at the end of the year and if we do, we will be downsizing a LOT. Should be interesting!
I’m mixed. Sometimes I have a hard time getting rid of things, but other times I can get rid of a whole house, haha!
We are about to move into a bigger space (I’m talking 768sqft to 806 nothing major) and yet we are still downsizing. Sure we will have a bigger space, but I already felt like our space was cluttered and we hadn’t even started packing yet. After having wrap each plate and glass, I already know we have too much stuff. When we unpack in our new place we are prepared to declutter our belongings before they even leave the box.
Yes! It’s so much better to declutter before a move, even if it’s to a similar space.
We’ve gone through so much in just the past few weeks! Plus we’ll probably end up getting rid of more after we move.
Great job!
I always think, if I was moving house I wouldn’t want to pack a ton of stuff up! I’m pretty good at de-cluttering but if I moved into an RV I expect we would have to get rid of a TON! How big is your RV? 🙂
Our RV is 33 feet long. I think it’s somewhere around 300 square feet? I haven’t really calculated it when including the slides, haha.
I don’t really believe much in home ownership. It is probably one of the top two mistakes young people make. To tie oneself down to a massive mortgage is usually a terrible financial decision.
I believe that your home should be entirely paid for by passive income. If you have no passive income, then you should rent. Build up your income streams, then buy whatever you want.
I actually hear this more and more among the investor community – “Buy what you rent to others and rent where you live.” to stay nimble, flexible, and have no personal debt.
Interesting!
Our house is about 2,000 square feet, but we rent 1/4 of it. Another 1/4 is the rest of our basement and is essentially just storage, so we really only use 1,000 square feet. For two people 1,000 square feet works very well, especially if you have good storage.
Nice!
My wife and I think of building a small house that we can live in comfortably when we retire. We are used to small spaces because where we were from, that is, the Philippines, the average size of home for a family of 4 is around 700 sq ft. I remember when I was a kid, our house was only around 600 sq ft and we were 9 plus mom and dad but we survived. I know times have changed and so do the laws of the land especially on dwelling. But the point is, living in a small space wasn’t bad at all.
Awesome! It’s definitely not bad at all. We really like our small home.
I really enjoyed this article! We decided to downsize from a 2 bedroom and have found that we do not even miss the extra space we let go of. One thing is for sure, you tend to see what is necessary and what is clutter when space is limited.
Thank you!
That’s impressive. My best friend, Dee, moved from a large apartment to a 22ft trailer to a 3400 sq. ft. house all in 14 months. She was downsizing and dating, but then she ended up getting married and he really wanted the space. Watching her go through to the downsizing was hard because she has sentimental hoarding issues. Now she is having a hard time adapting to a huge house. It’s emotional whichever way you go. I’m a fan of the space of my house but do go through it and sell or give away stuff once or twice a year to keep down clutter.
Thanks!
If I had to downsize due to moving into an RV I don’t think I would have to much of a problem. I don’t have too many possessions. The one area where I may run into problems would be the kitchen. I love to cook and have all sorts of gadgets and little appliances that make cooking easy and enjoyable. Even living in a house(with a small kitchen) I have some of my kitchen stuff in a spare room because it doesn’t all fit in the kitchen!
Do you guys use your kitchen a lot or do you grill/cook outside most of the time?
We use the kitchen every time, as we don’t even have a grill. Haha, we are bad RVers. We need to get one.
Love this! You outlined a lot of what I went through when we downsized to move into our Airstream a couple of months ago. I’m still scanning in paperwork but I’m almost done! What’s amazing is even now living in less than 200 sq ft we are finding things we kept that we don’t need, and still donating! This lifestyle is freeing and I find I’m enjoying life a lot more even though we’re still stationary. I can’t wait to hit the road like you guys!
When do you guys start? It’s a ton of fun!
We’re mostly stationary in Tucson until February 2017. We are making shorter weekend trips until then but it’s not quite the same. We will be ready to travel far and wide by the time February rolls around! Who knows, maybe we’ll meetup someday 🙂
Oh, awesome! We just spent 4 months in Tucson in our RV. LOVE it there 🙂
I have about 3100 square feet and I spend entirely too much time cleaning it. I would downsize in a heartbeat, although my husband isn’t on board with that. It would free up so much time! I could fit everything that I truly love into a very small space.
We currently live in a 1,025 sq ft home which we are quickly out growing. My husband bought it before we were married, then added 2 kids and now that we are expecting the twins it is just getting impossibly tight. I have been going through the house and trying to get rid of everything we don’t truly need in order to make room for the new arrivals and everything we will need for them. I’m hoping we will be able to spend a couple more years in our current home before having to move.
Like the first commenter, I have a process when looking at items. I follow the rule: Use it on a regular basis including holiday décor, love it to much to let it go like my Great-Grandmother’s pearls, or loose it. There are no maybe I’ll keep it for now piles and even the kids toys were fair game.
The good about downsizing and living in an RV for full-time affiliate marketers and bloggers is having the grand ability to work from anywhere within the United States as long as you have your laptop and Wi-Fi Internet connection and a PayPal account plus a bank account. This way, you won’t be confined to living in one state as you’re able to get up and go as you please.
Whenever someone asks about downsizing, I always say give yourself the time and space to process your things, thoughts, and feelings. It can be difficult, at first, so having ample time to declutter is critical. In between the move from 1,500 to 500, we had four months to process our stuff, which helped tremendously.
Tiny homes are very trendy. They certainly do offer a cheaper way to live, but my concern is that their resale value is yet untested. This type of dwelling is likely to decrease in value, whereas an inexpensive home in a reasonable neighborhood is likely to go up in value based on the historical performance of real estate.
My opinion is that rent is a better option until you can put what you would’ve paid for a tiny home down on a traditional single family home. Rent as cheap as you can, get out of debt, and make an investment in your home.
This is certain to stir some debate…what do you all think?
Well, not everyone wants a tiny home just for financial reasons 🙂
That’s a good point–forgive my shortsighted comment. My particular niche is personal finance (and getting out from under my mountain of student loan debt) so it’s hard for me to appreciate downsizing just from a lifestyle viewpoint. I’m still working on upsizing!
Haha, you are fine. Many people think that people only downsize to save money, but that is not true. You gave me a great blog post idea now. Thank you! 🙂