Fulltimers...How Did You Downsize?

[HB of CJ]

Did you just sell off all your household possessions or did you give them away?  Storage? What decisions were used to reduce everything down to fit into a full time Bus Conversion?  HB of CJ (old coot)

[Dave5Cs]

We did all of the above.
We sold what we didn't need in the coach on Craig's list and had an estate sale.

We keep business records and legal papers, Fishing stuff, small set of summer clothes and winter cloths. Got big tubs for extra canned goods and rice etc. under bus sealed in plastic,etc. We also keep mechanic tools.
Sold or gave to friends big stuff , Table saws, drills, refrigerator, beds, couches, tables I used to make table for the bus gave away the chairs.

Donated Books, clothes we didn't need, You know the sweater that was 5 years old and you wore once.  anything that didn't sell.

Storage Keep stuff that didn't go in Bus. We rented a 10 x 15 unit for 70.00 a month and we pare it down every time we come to town. We hope to have a 5 X 5 by next year, or nothing at all.

We gave away a lot of Art work to friends that said "oh I like that" It felt good to make someone else happy!...

Gave our big desk top computers away to a local school for administration.

Dave5Cs

[Ed Hackenbruch]

Yup, we did the same.

[boxcarOkie]

Yup, we did the same.

(Ed, I swear to Gawd, I am not stalking you)

We did the same, 3 sales, if it wasn't nailed down, it was sold.  Took her out for six weeks and she could not stand any more of it.  Wanted to come home and touch her stuff.  We now have re-settled in a little one water tower town on the Oklahoma prairie. 

Peace is restored in my small piece of the universe.

BCO

[oldmansax]

We did some of each... kinda.   

Went through everything first. Asked the kids what they wanted. Sold and gave away everything else we absolutely didn't want. We already had a 26' enclosed trailer. Loaded all the stuff we wanted or wasn't sure about in that & left it stored. After 3 years we are back in a house so we just towed the trailer to the new digs & unloaded.  We could sell the trailer now if we wanted & recoup some of the expense but I'm keeping it "just in case".   

I think a storage trailer is better than storage because it's yours, no rent to pay, & it's easier to load & unload. If you happen to have some land or a friend who will keep it for you, it's an ideal situation.

TOM

[luvrbus]

We never sold anything just locked the house and shop for 6 months and gave it a try neither of us cared for full timing it wasn't our gig that takes special people IMO more drop out of full timing  than the ones that stay

[wayne]

My parents tried it back in 1975 . My dad retired from GM and bought a brand new 3500 GMC with a 38' gooseneck trailer. They took off to full time it starting in the Midwest and working southwest. About 10 months later they had enough so they came back. Problem was they sold everything including their house. They bought a new house and everything to go with it. Sold the trailer and got a little cabin up north.

I know the trailer isn't the same as a bus but same experience. I would suggest locking the doors and giving it a try first.

[Scott & Heather]

Well, for one, we got married and moved into the coach literally two years into our now three year marriage. We are both young (Heather is 27 and I just crossed the barrier from 29 to 30) and didn't have a lot of stuff yet. We rented and never bought a house, so we had very little space even when we did live the "rooted" life for that first two years. But we did have a garage sale to sell unwanteds. Stuff that we just couldn't bear to part with (blown up photos matted and framed, two really nice lamps, and a box of misc memories stuff) we just store in the finished basement of some good friends of ours (they are like family to us). Here's the key:

When you move into your coach full-time, you will, over the next several months and even years continue to get rid of stuff. Things you trip over, climb over in the luggage bays, will begin to irritate you and you'll realize you're never going to use that big fuzzy body pillow and that three sets of sheets and pillow cases for your bed are just one too many and you'll send them to Goodwill. Trust us on this. We've been purging the last 16 months we've lived in our coach. Another item is clothing. It takes up tons of space...we have reduced it enough to fit our lifestyle...we still have quite a few clothes and like to dress sharp, so a good portion of those are hanging clothes, but when we purchase new items, we literally choose the same number of items in our closet and give them to Goodwill. So it's an even exchange...we're never adding to the pile if you will. Best of luck....fulltiming has changed our lives in such a positive way...we have grown to have a very profound affection for our coach and very much look forward to returning to it when we leave it for business trips or family visits.

[Dreamscape]

We sold, gave and stored. When we get back to Texas next year, we plan to empty the larger storage and opt for the smallest size. We can't take everything with us, such as old pictures etc. My DW will not get rid of a couple of pieces of furniture, I just live with it and not make a big deal of it.

Full timing is not for everyone. It takes a lot of sacrifice and compromise. For us it was the way to go as three months after we started, I lost my job due to the poor global economy.

A few things we wish we had, a slide and my DW would like a bathtub!

We have been full timing for 3 1/2 years and look forward to as many as we can until we have to use walkers or canes!

[luvrbus]

I do believe women sacrifice a lot more than the men when it come to full timing,there is no way I could ask my wife to give up her sewing equipment to go on the road that was the thing she missed most for the 6 months we tried.

There would be no way I could make room or tow a trailer to carry all the stuff lol and selling it she would get pennies on the dollar and that would not happen with her so I don't even think about full timing 


She did shock me by selling Van 2 of her machines so she may would give some up but a woman who knows

[Van]

Boy Clifford that machine works so well I am suprised she let it go lol

[bobofthenorth]

We did more or less what Tom did - instead of a trailer I bought an 18' cube van.  We loaded books and a few special antiques into that along with some tools and spare clothing.  It became storage on wheels for close to 2 years.  We finally decided that insurance for true Canadian full timers was just too complicated so we bought a small place in rural SK.  That's our official residence now for insurance, tax and voting purposes - and its really good storage space.  I still have the cube van if anybody needs one - its got a pretty tired Powerstroke but it runs and the van is in good shape.  Its hard to believe but we've been doing this for over 5 years now - bus in the summer and boat in the winter.  There's no way we'd even consider going back.  And Clifford, in our case Marilyn had to make some sacrifices but she gets to live with me so that makes up for a lot.

[Cary and Don]

We have not gone full timing yet.  We plan to downsize and give it a try in a couple years.  We plan to downsize to the things we just can't part with and put those in storage.  Must disagree with who wants to keep the most.  I could fit all my stuff on the dining room table.  Don would never part with his shop full of tools. 

Even full timers will come to the point when they will have to settle down.  I wouldn't get rid of those things that are really hard to replace until being on the road for at least a year.

Cary

[Dave5Cs]

Clifford. My wife sews too probably doesn't have as much as your wife, but quite a bit. She was happy to pare it down and I built her a 30"x 6' wood table with the folding metal legs. It slides into the bay against the ceiling and i just slide it out when she wants to sew. We pull out the awning and have exterior plugs on the side of the Bus, Wa-LA.

Also something we learned the hard way. If someone gets hurt and can't get into the bus you better have a friend or somewhere you can go that the injured person can access without have to climb stairs.

We luckily had a friend with a 3 acre ranch with a mobile home at the back and a place where we can store the bus and work on it (which saved us storage of 280.00 a month for the bus) and I work on the ranch in exchange for the mobile with a wheel chair ramp.
This is really something you need to have is a backup plan just in-case.

The biggest problem we have is having a 10 month taste of full-timing and loving it so much we can't wait to get out there again.

I like Paul, lost my work as a Building Contractor and we short sold our house, sold my Tundra, bought the bus and rebuilt the inside as we were waiting for the house to close. Got rid of all our stuff, moved into the bus and went to work at a campground by the river for 6 months and an inland one for 4 more months. Life was good and will be again.

Dave5Cs

[technomadia]

Moving into a bus was an easy part of our journey - when we started out full timing nearly 7 years ago it was in a 16' travel trailer!  Now that's downscaling!  When we moved into the bus, we had to buy stuff to fill it

And I disagree with Clifford - in our case, it was a lot harder for Chris than me. Chris is more of a hoarder by nature and still has a storage unit full of crap because he just couldn't get rid of it. And he's far more likely to end up with a pile of extra stuff on his desk than I am. Me - I have little attachment to stuff and am quick to Deep-6 it - inside of 6 weeks I purged most my stuff down to a small drawer full of clothing and a duffle bag of stuff I thought I needed, put the house up for sale and off we went.

To tackle the purging process, I came up with a system - go through things in manageable stages so you feel the progress. I did a combination of selling on eBay & Amazon & Criaglist, donating to charities and gifting to friends.  The funnest part was hosting a 'House Cooling Party' - where we invited friends over for socializing, but the rule was they had to leave with something of ours. It was a great way to get rid of that stuff too sentimental to sell to strangers and too valuable to donate. And now, when we visit friends we get to see our old art in their homes.

Here's a blog post I made about the purging process that may be helpful:
http://www.technomadia.com/2012/01/excuses-stuff-2

- Best wishes,
- Cherie