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How To Downsize Your Home (Even If You Aren’t Moving)

How To Downsize Your Home (Even If You Aren’t Moving)

How to downsize your home (and help older relatives do the same)

 

Downsizing is physically and emotionally exhausting. The job becomes infinitely harder when you’re tasked with helping older relatives—your parents, perhaps—clear out their attics and basements overflowing with items they’ve accumulated throughout the decades.

Should you consider downsizing and decluttering now so your kids don’t one day find themselves stuck with the job?

When helping older relatives clear out their clutter, how can you empathically and responsibly disperse their possessions without absorbing them all into your own living space?

I’m posing these questions and more to my friend and simplicity coach Rose Lounsbury. Today, Rose is on the show to offer her best tips as they relate to downsizing both your home and your parents’ and grandparents’ homes.

Here’s a preview of this week’s episode:

[5:45] 2 suggestions for managing the (many) emotions behind downsizing

[14:00] Security and stuff: How generational divides may impact how you downsize your home

[20:30] When to know it’s time to hire an estate sale company or a senior move manager

[25:00] How to help older relatives downsize without getting stuck with their junk

[31:30] Swedish death cleaning: Motivating, or morbid?

 

Resources mentioned in the episode:

 

* Thank you to Gemmist for sponsoring this episode! Use code MINIMALIST at checkout for 20% off and free, 2-day shipping.

* Thank you also to Quince! To get 50-80% off luxury apparel, accessories, home goods, and more go to OneQuince.com/SUSTAINABLE.

 

* Want more episodes like this one? Check out Rose’s first appearance on the podcast via episode #017: Financial Freedom and Minimalism.

* Find your tribe. Sustainable Minimalists are on Facebook, Instagram + Pinterest.

* NEW FEATURE! Leave a voicemail with your question and I’ll answer it on-air! Here’s how: State your name then leave the show a message at (508) 960-9046. (This new feature only works with audience participation, so don’t be shy!)

 

Downsizing is physically and emotionally exhausting. The job becomes infinitely harder when you're tasked with helping older relatives—your parents, perhaps—clear out decades-worth of unused stuff. On this episode of The Sustainable Minimalists podcast: How can you downsize your home (and your stuff) now, so that your kids don't one day get stuck with all you've left behind? How can you sift through your parents' stuff without taking all of it home with you? On this episode of The Sustainable Minimalists podcast: your downsizing questions, answered.

 

Downsizing is physically and emotionally exhausting. The job becomes infinitely harder when you're tasked with helping older relatives—your parents, perhaps—clear out decades-worth of unused stuff. On this episode of The Sustainable Minimalists podcast: How can you downsize your home (and your stuff) now, so that your kids don't one day get stuck with all you've left behind? How can you sift through your parents' stuff without taking all of it home with you? On this episode of The Sustainable Minimalists podcast: your downsizing questions, answered.

 

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The Shopping Conspiracy

Women have been targeted for decades with the message that shopping is recreation. It’s a way to relax and unwind, sure, but recreational shopping also contributes to the climate crisis, supports the worst of shareholder capitalism, and creates an awful lot of unnecessary waste.

Enter Buy Now: The Shopping Conspiracy, a hard-hitting new Netflix documentary that forces viewers to look at our waste-related woes. On today’s show producer Flora Bagenal offers a behind-the-scenes look at the documentary’s creation; she also answers your pressing, post-viewing questions.

A note from Stephanie: This episode was recorded before the Los Angeles wildfires. If you're able, please consider donating to one of these organizations

 

Here’s a preview:

[7:00] People find it hard to look at waste, and yet the film makes us look. A behind-the-scenes examination all those hard-hitting images

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[26:00] Corporate execs must show growth, and corporations are on a treadmill of extracting more and more $$ by pushing unnecessary and redundant products. Is not buying an effective act of resistance?

[30:00] Mindset shifts! Quality is a climate issue, and once you press ‘Buy Now’ you become responsible for the item’s end of life

[36:00] Exactly how to Use. Your. Rage!

 

Resources mentioned:

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Hello there, I’m Stephanie. I live a crazy, beautiful life as a full-time wife, blogger + mother to two spirited daughters. I’m on a mission to simplify eco-friendly living so as to greater enjoy life’s sweeter moments.

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