How to Downsize when Moving to a New Home

Moving to a new home? Wondering how to downsize before your long-distance move? Camelot Moving & Storage in Santa Clarita can help. A recent article in The Wall Street Journal confirms that Americans spend upwards of $1.2 trillion per year on nonessential products. Thus, it’s key to minimize what you take with you to your new home. Here are some tips on downsizing your home:

Organize

Some people are great organizers. Others aren’t. But if you’re in the latter camp and want to downsize when moving to a new house, you’ll need to get better. Luckily, doing so isn’t difficult. Begin by going room by room and taking inventory of all its items. Every item should be accounted for: clothes, electronics, furniture, appliances, decorations, cutlery—all of it.

When your inventory is complete, sit down, look at each item, and ask yourself, “Do I really need this?” It should be easy to identify the essentials. Cross these items off the inventory. What you’re left with are “borderline” things that will cause you to seriously consider their necessity. By being as objective as possible when deciding which of these items to take and which to leave, you’ll be surprised by how much you can live without.

Eliminate Redundancies

Key to any good pre-move downsizing is the ability to eliminate redundancies. Go through the items you’ve decided to keep and see how many of each item you actually have. For example, you may surprised to see that you have eight comforters and six blankets. You can cut this number in half (at the very least) and be content with what you bring to your new house. Likewise, if there’s an old chair or side table that you’ve been holding on to but have yet to find a use for, you probably won’t find a use for it in your new home either. Clothing is arguably the biggest area for redundancies. Numerous blue sweaters, 12 pairs of jeans, 15 button-down shirts—closets can sometimes resemble black holes. You can streamline your move by reducing the number of similar clothing you bring. Also, if you’re moving to a place with a different climate (i.e. Los Angeles to Minneapolis), you probably won’t need 13 pairs of shorts. Once you’ve determined what you’d like to get rid of, you can sell them at a garage sale or donate them to a charity.

Evaluate Your New Home’s Space

Once you have a good understanding of the space afforded by your new home, you may need to make another round of cuts to your “keep” list. Bear in mind that your current furniture may not fit your new space. Why pay for to transport it to your new home? Additionally, you’ll want to have ample available storage in your new home, so don’t bring so much stuff with you that you’ve maxed this storage out right when you move in.

Donate to Charity

Garage sales and estate sales are of course excellent ways for households to pare down their belongings before moving. However, it’s rare that every item will sell during one of these sales. That’s why donating to charity is a superb alternative. Some charities will pick up your stuff at your home, and most charities offer a tax-deductible receipt. And most importantly, it feels good knowing that your things are going somewhere they’re needed.

Contact Camelot Moving & Storage today if you need help with a local or long-distance move. We also offer storage options!