Death of a loved one, downsizing, just getting rid of stuff

Recently, my wife’s mom passed away. She lived in Houston and was 87 at the time of her passing. She was still living alone and had collected a lifetime of stuff. We’ve now gotten through the probate and the transition of the beneficiary funds and are looking at a houseful of stuff to dispose of.

I’ve researched the topic of property liquidation and the general consensus is that because Baby Boomers are downsizing, the market for used stuff is pretty much a buyers market these days.

The major means of disposal are:

  1. Collect all of the things you know are valuable and want for yourself. (Those in the will) (jewelry, silver, china, etc)
  2. Let the rest of your extended family pick over anything else. (furniture, clothing and kitchen wares)
  3. Call in an appraiser to appraise everything you think might be valuable. (paintings, rugs, old tools etc)
    One family I read about had a $100,000 painting in the house they didn’t even know about.
  4. eBay or sell on Amazon anything you think might have some value and you want to trouble with selling it yourself. (This is a much more difficult proposition than it sounds initially due to the amount of preparation and shipping involved)
  5. Call in an estate sale company to sell everything in the house in an estate sale. (The estimate is you will get less than 50% of the value of an item due to commissions and other costs. The items are probably worth a lot less than you think, too)
  6. Donate everything else. Some companies pick up some don’t. http://donationtown.org/
  7. Call in a professional clean up company to clean the home for sale.
  8. Sell the property.

I’ve recently looked around at all of the stuff in my home, too. I realized that I don’t want to make my son have to get rid of all of my stuff when I die. It seems that his generation is a lot more minimalistic, too and don’t really want to have that much stuff anyway. I’m giving serious thought to what I really need in my retirement years and what I want to keep around. Have you looked at how many books you have in your home? I have and I could read one a week and never read them all. I’ve already made a number of trips to Half Price Books with a couple of boxes of books to sell.

Anyone have experience liquidating an estate, getting rid of stuff, or just downsizing?

I’d be interested in any of your experiences. Currently, we’ve made only a few trips to Houston, but my house is already getting overstuffed with too many collectibles, books, pictures, and general household contents not to give serious thought to how I get rid of at least some of it.

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We had to dispose of multiple estates worth of stuff due a string of illnesses, disability and death. We tried to DIY it and that was a huge mistake. I’ll never get that time back. When I have to go through my parents’ things, I am going to go with an estate sale company or even pay someone to take it away. We are also downsizing as a result of that experience, I don’t want my kids to have to deal with my stuff.

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Dan, I was in your position a few years ago. I second What JH said, very strongly. Based on my experience, your list of how to proceed is pretty much spot on. You will need to exercise a lot of discipline to not end up accumulating more stuff you have never wanted nor needed from the estate. As well as accept that no one thinks your stuff (or your MiL’s) is as valuable as you think it is.

Also, separately, I strongly second JH’s point about non-accumulation/downsizing/practicing Döstädning, If people love their kids, they won’t make them deal with this at one of the worst points in their lives. Corollarily, and for similar reasons, do not make one of your kids executor of the estate. Very little good can come of it.

Sorry for your loss.

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This is pretty much a “me to” post. When my dad passed, my two sisters and I took the stuff we knew we wanted or weren’t sure about getting rid of. An estate sale company staged the sale at the house, and hauled away what was left. We pretty well knew what we wanted to keep, but thereca number of boxes with unknown contents. To avoid the stress and time involved, some of those we kept. It still needs to be done (I’ve got them), but doing it that way helped up to proceed at the time.

I’m selling MT house now and am faced with a lifetime of stuff. I’m in the middle of that, and am driven to continue so that my stuff doesn’t become my son’s burden.

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My mom started giving away her stuff years ago (decades, actually).

I am one of three siblings. On our milestone birthdays (formerly 10 years, and now 5 years), we each get to choose one of my mom’s belongings. There are occasionally things that my mom wants to keep custody of, in which case a piece of tape (or other marker) goes on it until my mom passes. For example, one year my sister chose a portrait of my grandparents and my mom wants to keep that, at least for now.

This systematic disposal accomplishes several things:
(1) we get to enjoy these things while my mom is alive. Every time we see/use these things we are reminded of my mom and we think of her.
(2) my mom also gets pleasure from the fact that we are enjoying the things that were special to her
(3) by the time my mom passes, everything of emotional significance is already claimed.
(4) this prevents the problem where each of us declines to take something we really want because we think one of our siblings would like to have it
(5) by distributing the selection process, it ensures an equitable distribution of the emotional mementos.

I can’t give my mom enough credit for such a clever way to distribute her belongings!

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I had the unpleasant experience of doing some of this with my grandfather’s estate a few years ago. My grandparents had downsized quite a bit over the decades since they moved out of their house into their retirement home. In spite of this they had quite a bit of stuff between a 2-bedroom apartment and a storage unit.

The family rented a cargo van to deal with it all. So many trips to the local thrift store. The better furniture was divvied up.

I ended up going through a lot of his papers over a waste bin, experiencing the gritty details of some of his business failures - some of which I’d heard about, some of which I hadn’t. It wasn’t a particularly pleasing exercise, but I figured better me than my mother or her siblings.

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In 100% agreement if there is one or more siblings (who is/are NOT the executor). “Very little good can come of it.”

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For what its worth,we had our kids walk through the house and agree on who gets what. We wrote it down, on stone tablets… virtually. We said the list is the law…Anything not mentioned is up for disposal by give away or trashing. So anything left to argue over isn’t worth much and as was mentioned, kids tend to minimize so I doubt they even want anything else. Estate agents are plentiful and eager to do their thing. Things like pots, pans pictures are anyone’s guess that anyone will want, but that’s when the agent is worth the cost, they organize and price stuff based on their experience. By the end of the process, it’s down to a small pile that can probably be dumpstered. Works for me.

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Your stories and comments have been very useful and appreciated. I know that this is a very common occurrence, since we all die after all, and yet today it seems to be much more complicated. Maybe it is because people are living longer, or maybe because the baby boomers were more consumptive and bought too much stuff, or maybe it is just because as a society we’re a consumer based economy, but I just feel that a lot of us and our families have too much stuff. More to store, more to maintain, more to secure and more to let go unused most of the time. Seems like such a waste when I think about it.

As my millennial aged son said to me when I asked him why he never buys anything, and I mean he saves almost all of his money, he said, “Dad, anything I could ever need you already have and I know you’ll let me use it anytime I ask.” So he spends his money on only those things he uses regularly, like nice watches, a maxed out iPhone or Apple laptop and maybe some computer games. The rest of his earnings goes into his 401K, Roth IRA and savings accounts. I think that is why DMS appeals to millennials. They don’t have to OWN much and can still do whatever projects they like.

Maybe as a result of my MiL’s passing I’ll learn how to get rid of some of my own possessions, maybe not… who knows.

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Yes. After living 48 years in a very large house my grandparents decided to move to a two bedroom condominium. They had accumulated an incredible amount of stuff (e.g. 23 pairs of scissors). A significant amount of that stuff was essentially trash (e.g. most of the scissors were damaged too badly to be resharpened).

I was carrying two bags of trash to the curb where a pile of about 20 bags lay waiting. My grandfather stopped me and suggested that I tip the garbage men. I asked why. His response was to just do it. I asked how much. He pointed to the pile, suggested that I decide, then walked away. I knew this pile was the first of many. I knew that the city allowed only two bags of trash per week. A tip did seem reasonable.

A short while later I heard the garbage truck coming up the street. I went to the pile to wait. As the truck approached the men were visibly very upset. I had no doubt they would inform me of the city limit and possibly refuse to take the entire pile. After they finished loading the lot into the truck I got their attention then handed each of them $50. That was money well spent. They even happily made an “extra run” when a future pile become unmanageable.

It was also very helpful to tip the attendant at the dump and the crew at the hazardous waste disposal center.

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+1.
For whatever reason in my parents house we have cutlery and “good” china enough for 50+ people but hardly used them.

So glad you brought this up. We had to move my grandparent’s through various assisted living arrangements. It was heartbreaking to have to downsize their possessions multiple times.

If you have the opportunity to do a severe reduction in stuff it will actually be less painful in the end.

Sorry you are having to go through this.

Widow here.
A different situation as we are still an active household, minus one.
What is the same: feelings (loss, regret, the sense of the overwhelmingness of the task at hand, conflict between survivors) and the removal of the lossed one’s belongings.

Solidarity, Dan.

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Interesting story about this. I once worked with a lady from Florida who grew up in the deep south. She was the executive salesperson and I was the systems engineer. She and I were travelling to Puerto Rico to sell computer systems to Banco Popular. We stopped off to have lunch on the way at her home.

Her housekeeper made us lunch. It was sandwiches and chips. It was served on china plates, with silver tableware and crystal glasses for the iced tea.

I asked her why she didn’t serve it on everyday stoneware? She said that if she didn’t use her fine china and silverware for everyday meals it would probably never get used.

I confess it made even the PB&J sandwiches taste better.

When I told my wife about this incident she said it was because she didn’t have to wash the dishes herself by hand. She had a housekeeper to do this. She asked me if I wanted her to hire a housekeeper, too.

Needless to say our china, silver and crystal only gets used on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

hmm…

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I have had to deal with this with my parent’s things… I found when there was something with special memories, I would want to keep it though I have too much stuff already. I found taking multiple digital photos of the object was all I really needed for many things. Good luck with the project, I know it’s difficult.

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The china that I inherited is in the attic. By the time I received the china, I already had holiday dishes that I would rather use for Thanksgiving and Christmas. People don’t seem to use china very much anymore, they use disposable plates or more likely they meet at restaurants - it seems like there is not enough time to clean and wash dishes for many these days. Here are some ideas for china:

pendant-lights-chandeliers-tea-cups-craft-ideas-4

The plates and salt and pepper shaker collection that I inherited are hanging up in my kitchen. I like hanging up plates that bring back good memories of eating dinner with family and I have most of the plates that I remember using when I was little.

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I know this doesn’t help now, my grandma had us go around and put our names on the bottom of the stuff we wanted. 4 children,12 grandchildren and 13 great grandchildren each took a little with them. My grandma also thinned out a lot of stuff the last 5-10 years.

+1.
Since realizing this, and having had the opportunity to find out what it’s like to move several times in a short span of time, I’ve realized how little stuff anyone really needs.

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When my father passed away I spent about ten days liquidating most of contents of the house which was a huge task as he was quite a ‘maker’ and the basement was full of dangerous equipment and chemicals. I sold or donated most stuff but I completely forgot the art on the walls! I was so used to seeing them they were invisible. The Real Estate agent didn’t notice I left the art either. Nor did the buyer bother to say anything.

Sounds like an interesting dude!

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