Living Small - How did we downsize?

The day we sold our house we moved into our 27’ Airstream. It was an Airstream Classic RBT (rear bed twin for the ‘streamers). We knew this wouldn’t cut it for us and we made the jump to a 30’ Classic FBQ (front bed queen). The new-to-us 30’ would be available a couple of weeks later and we settled right in.

Admittedly, going from a 2700 sq foot house on 5 acres to a travel trailer was a leap, but that extra 3 feet in new trailer made it a palace to us. We had additional seating and storage areas along with more open space which is what we really wanted.

One question we are asked often is, how did we downsize? Downsizing was a process and a state of mind, We researched and took several approaches to accomplish this. It isn’t hard to get rid of things but it can be mentally taxing at times. What did help us was neither of had strong attachments to “things” in general, aside from very few, very small, sentimental items.

Downsizing strategies:

*Research: We watched “The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning” with Margareta Magnusson on You Tube and she has the original book. There are several videos with similar titles, this was dated 1-11-2018 and it is an interview with Margareta. The video puts a great perspective on stuff, storage and memories.

*Equipment: We sold the bulk of our outdoor/farm equipment in one lot to a friend and the rest of the big stuff was sold separately. We weren’t out to make money, we just wanted it gone so that worked out for everyone.

*Furniture/Household: Our very dear friends came over and helped with a one day, everything goes garage sale. We did not price anything, it was “make an offer” day. Our philosophy being it was cheaper to sell it for the price offered then pay to have it hauled away. We gave things away to kids, friends, people in need and donated the rest. It is amazing how often we learned someone needed something we had, just by striking up a conversation with a stranger. The gift of talking to others opened so many opportunities for us to share what we had, it was truly a great experience.

*Keepsakes: They find the right home or hang on to them. For example, I had a blanket my Grandma made me when I was young. I had this blanket for decades, it was tucked away in a box and I never used it. At our garage sale, I met a very pregnant woman whose husband was deployed and she was due any day with a baby girl. I gave her the blanket and shared with her the story of my Grandma, what she meant to me and the treasured blanket. Now, as new mom, she can share all that love with her little girl. We both had a moment and the love from my Grandma is being shared with another little girl. I still feel good about that one.

*Photos: When the kids got married, we got each of them a digital frame. Now we can all send each other digital photos to each other’s picture frames. In preparation to move, we went through our paper pictures and digitized them so we could see them in our new home, on our digital frame.

*Clothes: Where to begin? I was working and had a work wardrobe, albeit casual, I still needed some extra clothes for meetings, etc. and I started doing research on minimalist outfits and ran into capsule wardrobes. I paired the capsule wardrobe the with color analysis and hit the jackpot! I booked a color analysis, went with a friend and have found that I am truly much happier when wearing my color palette.

We purged our walk-in closet of anything that didn’t fit or we didn’t like which was about 90%. Moving forward, anything we buy now has to meet this criteria;

-we have to love it

-It has to fit

-for me, has to be in my color palette because all of my colors go with each other

*Long Term Items: We have a small storage unit with long term keepsakes and family items as we know we will buy a stick built home as some point.

We now live very intentional and that includes all purchases. We don’t take flyers or programs from events, we don’t buy the printed photo from a dinner theater, we don’t bring papers or extra “stuff” into the trailer unless we need to. We operate digitally and have layers of security built into our lives where necessary. It is a shift in thinking and a change in actions. We feel lighter and unencumbered to live small but in a big way.

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