In sharing our full-time travel plans with family, friends, coworkers and most of Instagram, the biggest question we got was what we are going to do with our stuff.
It’s fairly straightforward — we sold and donated it all!
When I told people this, most couldn’t wrap their heads around the concept of literally downsizing everything you own. How the heck did we go from a 1,910 sq ft home to 86 sq ft inside of a van?!
I know how it sounds… absolutely far-fetched and insane. Well, maybe that’s true. But it IS possible.
Here are our seven tips for scaling down your belongings for full-time travel!
1. Stop Buying New Things for Your Home
When we made the decision to travel full-time in our van, we realized that if we were going to do this right, we needed to re-evaluate what we were spending our money on. The easiest way to understand this is by looking at how many Amazon packages are delivered to your doorstep every week! ?
In all seriousness though, it made a lot of sense for us. We didn’t need to buy new holiday decorations, furniture, home decor and any other items that frequently show up after a quick trip to Target. Personally, I struggled with not buying books. Fortunately, my Mom offered up her old reads, or I went through the hoards of books I had accumulated over my entire adult life and had never read. (Yes, I have a book addiction!)
There were a couple of exceptions that I should mention though. First, we have two young boys who are growing like weeds. They need new clothes on the regular. Given that we shop at Target and Old Navy, it’s pretty easy to find kids’ clothes for cheap. Additionally, I made a point to donate most of those clothes to family and friends with little boys. Out with the old, in with the new! For Steven and I, we limited our clothing purchases to 1-3x a year.
The second exception is around items that break or need replacing. For example, our toaster was on its last leg, and knowing that Harvey LIVES for his morning waffle, we ended up getting a toaster oven. Better to keep a toddler happy than deal with the consequences!
Net-net, if you want to stop buying things that eventually clutter your house, simply stop your weekly trips to Target. (I’m speaking from experience!)
2. Be Realistic About What You Can Actually Take with You
Remember when I said we moved into an 86-square-foot van? There’s not a lot of space to store your life on four wheels. The best way for us to think about what we would take was to envision a small-to-medium sized moving box. Could I fit what I needed in here? What items did we “need” vs. “want?” It sounds kooky, but being able to visualize your prized possessions in a little box helps you assess at the items you can’t take with you.
We also did some homework in this arena. Our best resources came from families who are already doing this! For most, it appeared that the rule of thumb is about 1-2 weeks worth of clothes. Variety may be the spice of life, but not on the road, my friends! Versatility and utility are the priorities now.
Here’s what we settled on in terms of clothing:
- 5-8 tees/long-sleeve shirts
- 1 lightweight jacket
- 1 rain jacket
- 2-3 sweatshirts/pullovers
- 2-4 jeans
- 2-4 shorts
- 2-4 workout outfits (leggings, sports bras and tees)
- 2 swimsuits
- 7 pairs of underwear
- 7 pairs of socks
- 1-2 pairs of sandals
- 1-2 pairs of shoes
One last tip I’ll add that if you haven’t read Marie Kondo’s book on the art on decluttering and organizing, I highly recommend it! Her folding method for clothing helped us optimize our space and also see what we were working with.
3. Consider a Storage Unit
When making a big move, a storage unit can be a great way to hold on to items that you just can’t let go of. For us, we knew that we wanted to scale down as much as humanly possible so that we didn’t need to slowly chip away at our fun fund with a monthly storage fee.
Fortunately for us, my parents offered to store a few tubs worth in his garage. We didn’t want to be a burden or take advantage of his generosity, so we narrowed our stuff down to a few key categories: Winter, Vacation, Backpacking, Camping and Sentimental. I’ll get to the latter in a minute, but basically we figured that there are a few things that are worth saving. While we’re not big snow people, it made sense for us to keep our winter gear packed away. This also included any puffy jackets or sweaters that we didn’t need immediately, but could utilize when we came home to visit for the winter holidays. Our Vacation stuff is basically our suitcases, and a few tropical items that we always have on hand like my cover-ups or vacation hats. The backpacking and camping tubs are pretty straightforward. Steven has put a lot of time and effort in things we’d need on the backcountry trails, so we’re not quite ready to offload anything we hope to be using in the next year!
4. Determine What You Can’t Let Go Of (aka Sentimental Items)
I’ll be honest — I thought this was going to be the hardest (and most emotional) part of the downsizing process. Over the years, I had worked up a lot of attachment to my childhood things — even though I stuck most of it in an attic and hadn’t looked at it for YEARS.
Turns out a lot of it was just junk! ? I was holding on to report cards, newspaper clippings, a couple of creepy-looking Cabbage Patch dolls, old dance programs and a LOT of photos. While I got rid of quite a bit, I did keep one copy of the photos that embodied important stages of my life — my childhood, high school years, college days, dating Steven and then those of the family we’ve built together. It felt good to purge anything that didn’t truly bring me joy.
I should note here that I kept a lot of Levi and Harvey’s childhood things — artwork, report cards, a favorite baby outfit for each, etc. Someday they might look at this stuff and think, why the hell did my Mom save this?, but I figure that’s their job to determine what’s important to them!
5. Start Downsizing the Items You Don’t Use
This is pretty evident advice for downsizing based on any goal, so I won’t elaborate too much here. Early on before we set out to travel, Steven and I spent a weekend going through each room and closest, pulling out things we didn’t use anymore. We starting bagging and boxing it all up to store in the garage during the winter months, with the intention of having a yard sale in the Spring. It’s a pretty easy way to start slow, and also evaluate the last time you put the item to use.
I should also note that if it’s not in a condition to sell or donate, just toss it. Nobody wants your stained tees or broken appliances!
6. Sell the Big Stuff First
After our first yard sale of the year, we felt pretty good about what we were able to move at low prices. Once our house went into escrow, we felt like it was a good time to start on the big items. For us, there were a few things we want to keep up until our moving day: the fridge, our beds, the living room couches and at least one TV. We also kept Steven’s desk in his office (since he works out of it daily) and our kitchen table until the very end. This was pretty important since it would obviously add the most disruption into our kids’ lives if we got rid of those things first.
I started by posting larger items — end tables, dressers, TVs, mirrors, wall art, patio furniture, rugs, smaller appliances, tech, etc. — just to my Facebook account. Between family and friends, we have sold a LOT of things pretty fast. Venmo and PayPal make transactions so painless these days too, so if someone saw an item they wanted, it was easy to secure with a quick payment.
Throughout this process, I kept a pretty robust spreadsheet of each item, the price we listed, what we bought it for (which helped with actually pricing the items), who wanted it, if it had been paid for yet, and when they would pick it up. This made my life sooooo much easier to keep track of everything vs. relying on my memory.
If there were items that family and friends didn’t claim, I posted those on Facebook Marketplace. A few things that I held firm on with this: 1) I didn’t sell anything under $20 online. It’s not worth the effort — so those items automatically went into the yard sale pile. 2) I only had someone meet at our house to review/pick up if Steven was home with me. Fortunately we didn’t run into any weirdos, but better to be safe than sorry!
6. Host a Yard Sale
Let me start by saying that I’ve never been a yard sale queen. I think I’ve done one or two prior to this process, and to be honest, was really terrible at it. Because of this, my M.O. over the years was to donate to friends of family. Buuuuuut, when you need to get rid of everything under your roof, that doesn’t quite work. Plus, we figured that any yard sale earnings could go into our fun fund or extend our travels. So, back to the garage sale.
I posted to Facebook Marketplace a day before our big yard sale with lots of photos and a bulleted list of what type of stuff we had. Crazy enough, I got a lot of messages from people who were willing to buy items sight unseen the day before! (Again, thank goodness for Venmo.) It helped to join a bunch of local sale groups to extend our reach. The more eyeballs on the post, more people showing up at your yard sale!
A few other rules of thumb that helped this yard sale newbie. Don’t sell anything under a dollar. If you can’t justify charging a buck, throw it away or put in the donation pile. On the flip side, really evaluate if the item is worth more than $1. You’d be amazed at how fast things move when you price them at $1-2. (And to be honest, it’s the difference between yard sale earnings of $300 vs. $1,000.) If I felt like an item should be priced higher, I did so. Speaking of prices, I didn’t label anything. This made it easier to adjust pricing lower if I had been sitting on certain items throughout the day. Finally, start at 8am and end at Noon. It’s not worth killing yourself for a few afternoon stragglers, and it’ll give you the rest of the day to grab some tacos and just chill. Your body will thank you, trust me! And forget having a yard sale two days in a row. Save yourself the trouble and move on to my last tip! ?
7. Donate, Donate, Donate!
Wherever you’re at in the process of downsizing, it’s always a good idea to donate what you can, whether it’s to Goodwill, a family friend or your local shelter. After our last yard sale, we packed everything that was remaining and dropped it off at Goodwill. It’s probably the easiest way to get rid of a lot of stuff — and it always feels good to give back.
In Summary
So there you have it — this is how we’ve worked our way down from a furnished two-story house to only the absolute basics! While I anticipated that this would be the hardest part of this journey, it’s actually been incredibly cathartic and freeing! Owning less stuff means less stuff owns you. ?
Now that we’ve shared our process, what are your thoughts on how to downsize and declutter your life? If you struggle with getting rid of things, what is the No. 1 thing you can’t part with?
Please leave your comments below!
