Monday, October 14, 2019
The great de-Meganing of my house has begun! “What does that mean?” you may wonder. Let me tell you… My twenty-four-year-old daughter, Megan has been living at home since she graduated high school, other than a semester away at college. Do not get me wrong, I love Megan living in my house. She does quite a bit of my personal care so the convenience of her being under my roof is unmatched.
Megan told me a few years ago that she wanted to live here until she was able to buy her own home. I supported that goal and never charged her rent so she could save for a down payment. The part of her living here that was very difficult to deal with was her mess. This is partly the pot calling the kettle black. I have way too much stuff; I am the first to admit it.
A lot of my problem is the garage sale trap. I am happy to get rid of something I no longer use nor plan to use again (I am on round three of getting rid of kid’s stuff.). For some reason I think I need to get money for all my old stuff, so I would have a garage sale, sell five to ten items, make about $20, and then pack all the hundreds of unsold items in bins and keep them until the next time. The past couple of years I have been too sick to have a yard sale and the unused stuff keeps accumulating.
Last year I admitted to myself that most of my unused stuff is junk that nobody probably wants. My friend’s (Crystal) daughter needed community service hours for a merit badge so Crystal brought her daughter to my house one day a week for a few weeks while I was on bed rest.
Crystal would go down the little hill to my lower shed and bring boxes and bins into my bedroom. Her daughter would show me all the items individually for me to decide whether I was keeping them or donating them. Crystal would then repack the items and take them to a charity her daughter’s troop was collecting items for. Using this method, we cleaned out about 80 percent of the contents of the shed and donated about 80 percent of those items.
My sister came from Missouri at the beginning of the summer and we got the rest of the items out of the shed. I have since put the medical items I wish to donate in the loft in the shed, because I do not know where to donate them yet so the items will be used and not tossed because no one at the thrift stores knows what the items are for. In July I also put in two boxes of Megan’s stuff, a mini refrigerator, and a fan that she was not using as I started moving her excess items to the shed in anticipation of her moving out sometime in the next year or two.
At the end of July Megan went under contract to purchase a house so I quit trying to get her clutter out of my clutter. It is now the middle of October and Megan has been too busy to move very much of her stuff, so I have started packing it up today. Megan is leaving this week for a couple of weeks and I hope to have most of her stuff packed (and maybe even moved) when she gets back. Today we have one box sealed and ready to go, and two boxes of clothes sorted. It is a start!
My piece of advice to you is to remember, stuff gets in the way of life. I have spent hours in the past looking for items in my home. I am going to spend a lot more hours clearing my clutter now, however I can clear it (with help from friends) while my family is at work and school. I will not be leaving my family any money when I die; I can give them back the hours they would spend dealing with my mess.
Until next time,
Susanne
Please check out my GoFundMe page.
The great de-Meganing of my house has begun! “What does that mean?” you may wonder. Let me tell you… My twenty-four-year-old daughter, Megan has been living at home since she graduated high school, other than a semester away at college. Do not get me wrong, I love Megan living in my house. She does quite a bit of my personal care so the convenience of her being under my roof is unmatched.
Megan told me a few years ago that she wanted to live here until she was able to buy her own home. I supported that goal and never charged her rent so she could save for a down payment. The part of her living here that was very difficult to deal with was her mess. This is partly the pot calling the kettle black. I have way too much stuff; I am the first to admit it.
A lot of my problem is the garage sale trap. I am happy to get rid of something I no longer use nor plan to use again (I am on round three of getting rid of kid’s stuff.). For some reason I think I need to get money for all my old stuff, so I would have a garage sale, sell five to ten items, make about $20, and then pack all the hundreds of unsold items in bins and keep them until the next time. The past couple of years I have been too sick to have a yard sale and the unused stuff keeps accumulating.
Last year I admitted to myself that most of my unused stuff is junk that nobody probably wants. My friend’s (Crystal) daughter needed community service hours for a merit badge so Crystal brought her daughter to my house one day a week for a few weeks while I was on bed rest.
Crystal would go down the little hill to my lower shed and bring boxes and bins into my bedroom. Her daughter would show me all the items individually for me to decide whether I was keeping them or donating them. Crystal would then repack the items and take them to a charity her daughter’s troop was collecting items for. Using this method, we cleaned out about 80 percent of the contents of the shed and donated about 80 percent of those items.
My sister came from Missouri at the beginning of the summer and we got the rest of the items out of the shed. I have since put the medical items I wish to donate in the loft in the shed, because I do not know where to donate them yet so the items will be used and not tossed because no one at the thrift stores knows what the items are for. In July I also put in two boxes of Megan’s stuff, a mini refrigerator, and a fan that she was not using as I started moving her excess items to the shed in anticipation of her moving out sometime in the next year or two.
At the end of July Megan went under contract to purchase a house so I quit trying to get her clutter out of my clutter. It is now the middle of October and Megan has been too busy to move very much of her stuff, so I have started packing it up today. Megan is leaving this week for a couple of weeks and I hope to have most of her stuff packed (and maybe even moved) when she gets back. Today we have one box sealed and ready to go, and two boxes of clothes sorted. It is a start!
My piece of advice to you is to remember, stuff gets in the way of life. I have spent hours in the past looking for items in my home. I am going to spend a lot more hours clearing my clutter now, however I can clear it (with help from friends) while my family is at work and school. I will not be leaving my family any money when I die; I can give them back the hours they would spend dealing with my mess.
Until next time,
Susanne
Please check out my GoFundMe page.