A Comprehensive Guide on How to Downsize Your Home
You love a clean and tidy home, but it takes hours to clean your floors, let alone the other household chores! Some days you would rather have a smaller house with less stuff, huh?
Guess what? You’re not alone! In a survey done by a real estate website, about 60% of Americans living in larger homes (at least 2,000 square feet) say they would like to buy a smaller house next time they move.
But, how do you decide which of your things to keep and which to toss? Where do you even start?
Don’t panic! We put together a comprehensive guide about how to downsize your home. Keep reading to learn our favorite downsizing tips.
How to Downsize With the Ohio Rule
While you’re packing boxes, you may find that it’s hard to decide if something should go to the new house, go to storage, get donated, or go to the trash bin. One way to help cut down the time it takes to go through your belongings is the OHIO (only handle it once) rule.
When you pick up an item, decide where you think it should go, then put it there! Don’t go back into the donations box to pick out something you put in there an hour ago. When you’re done, toss out the trash, but then keep all the other boxes and move to the next step, storage.
Using a Local Storage Facility
Once you have everything in boxes, take any boxes with memorabilia or unnecessary items to a storage facility. Renting storage space during your downsizing allows you time to find out if you need those items before getting rid of them for good.
Make sure to pick somewhere close to where you live so you can pop over and grab something if/when you discover a need for a particular item. If the storage facility is too far away, you may end up buying more stuff to replace the things in storage instead of paring down.
The One Year Rule
Ok, so you have all your boxes either at your new house or in storage. Time to use the one year rule!
Any time you need or want something out of your storage unit, go get it! But, after a year, whatever is still in that storage unit should get donated, sold, or trashed.
Downsize Your Possessions, Not Your Lifestyle!
It’s hard for people to let go of keepsakes and memorabilia. But, those things pile up over time and before you know it, you’re schlepping 8 boxes of stuff from one closet to another when you move houses.
Think about the smaller mortgage/rent payment or the fewer hours of cleaning time every time you think about keeping unnecessary items. Reducing the number of possessions you have frees up time and money so you can pursue other passions.
We hope you enjoyed reading this article and that you learned a thing or two about how to downsize your home. If you’re looking for more lifestyle advice, business tips, entertainment, and so much more, check out the rest of our blogs today!