My advice to old preppers

[bdcochran]

I am older. Past the stage of being able to buy/construct retirement homes like a couple of the members this last year.

1. Forget buying the latest whiz bang.
2. Learn from older people's examples.
a. one relative had two dump trucks from the City of Los Angeles come and empty his house after he died.
b. my father serves as a good example to me in my retirement although he passed a decade ago. Not including travel time or doing anything in his office, I spent two weeks cleaning and still never got through it. No salvageable tools in the garage. Projects that were unfinished for years. Broken items that he intended to repair some day after he took another class in repairing things. The dishwasher that had sat outside of the dishwasher cut out in the kitchen was handled by a plumber in about 10 minutes. The attic was dangerously unfloored.
3. Accept the fact that you getting older, clothes don't fit. The gear you stored in expectation of getting around to it some day, did not happen even though you were confined to home.
4. At least I got rid of the soiled clothes, the clothes that did not fit, including 4 pair of shoes. I then bought shoes that fit and would not wear out in a year.
5. I identified some electronic stuff with value and furniture that has to go. Charities are waiting a while before accepting those items because of the shutdown.
6. Don't start setting unrealistic goals. Dave, as a deputy, you probably thought that when you were retired, things would get done. Last week, I had an appointment with my vent cleaner. He had come before with his recent releasee to work. Well, he didn't show for the 10 am appointment, didn't call, and showed up 5 hours later without his helper. He did part of the severable jobs, was paid and was supposed to come back yesterday. Some day, he will call and come.
7. I constructed 4 free USPS boxes last week and started filling them with items to give away to specific relatives, now. I have probably 8 bankers boxes of photo albums in the attic. It was a pain to pick out representative photos and have commercial shop do up dvds which I then transferred to multiple usb keys and sent a set to my son. Now, I have to put them all in one place in the floored attic with licensed electrical work that I had done years ago. I am on my first replacement ladder to the attic. It is not as much fun, I admit, as planning and constructing a swimming pool that won't be used 1/2 of the year.
8. The girl friend's bike had sat outside with a tire that needed to be replaced. Did either of her sons fix it? Did a son with a pick up truck drive over the 3 miles, pick it up and take it to a bike shop? It took me a while, watching youtube, taking the wheel in for a new liner and tire, and put it back together. Don't dream up big projects or think your kids will help you. When her sons moved out of her place, it took years to get them to take anything. My older brother has 4 daughters and not one of them ever cleaned their rooms. The last was married and moved to France 6 years ago!
9. When my son moved out (having failed to clean his room), I took 36 banker's boxes to storage. After a while, with missed deadlines, I sent 6 large boxes through UPS which remain unopened at least 10 years later in one of his warehouses.
10. I hope to get rid of more stuff.

[Ronin.45]

I'm not at the "old man" stage yet, but I've never been a hoarder. I get what I want or need, but if it's unused, it gets sold/trashed/gifted.
I think it's because I've moved so many times. That really shows how much extra shit you have.
Some people get real precious about everything. I'm not very sentimental.

[Bob]

Your dad is my Ex's dad. He is a for real hoarder.

Me - I'm a spry 53, but shedding crap like cat hair in summer.

Preparedness means having extra stuff you need when/if you need it. But it also means not having to sort through crap to find it!

[bdcochran]

Bob - bingo!

[Mac66]

Having just built a house I'm in the process of going through my current house inventorying all the stuff I've collected in 35 years living there. Can't sell the old house yet since we are still taking care of elderly parents but slowly...very slowly moving some stuff to the new house and getting rid of other stuff.

Still have a garage and basement of furniture from my In-laws house and my parents house when we moved them into retirement facilities. And of course my wife wants all new stuff for the new house. The new house is smaller than the old house so will have to build a pole barn to house the essentials (tools, toys, gun stuff etc).

[tom mac]

When my Dad passed a number of years ago ( and we moved my Mom ) it took 2 - 20yard dumpster to clear out the house. I will never let that happen here!
I believe if ( for most items ) if you haven't seen it in a year, you prob don't need it.... why follow the route of moving un-needed items in the normal circuit from home to basement/garage/shed just to be forgotten for multi years.

Funny thing is I have MORE CRAP from my kids that moved out yrs ago on basement shelf's than my own... time to tell them to come get it or it goes out.

[bdcochran]

My son. I tell you what I did and you should skip steps.
1. He didn't respond to requests that he clean out his room when he went out on his own.
2. I filled 36 bankers boxes. Again, no interest in cleaning things out.
3. I put the boxes into commercial storage. The usual warnings.
4. I decided finally to act. As I was unloading commercial storage, I met a woman and gave her several boxes of toys.
5. I went through the boxes and tossed whatever seemed of interest into one of 6 large max size boxes for UPS. He was visiting me and saw some 8 boxes of stacked and worthless baseball cards that I was going to give to charity. (He never said a word asking what I was doing.)
6. I sent the 6 large boxes to him through UPS.

My older brother has 4 daughters. Each had her own bedroom. The oldest one is in her 50s. The youngest one lives in France and was married 8 years ago. Once a year, my brother flies them in. Nothing has been removed from the bedrooms. Now his wife (I was in her high school class) needs one of the downstairs bedrooms because she has trouble climbing the stairs to the second story.

Your children will not come and clean out their rooms. Accept that. The silver lining is that a lot of things are closed down and you should have the time now to get rid of things.

One of my projects today is to find recent tax returns. I moved from itemized deductions a few years ago. Time to throw out 1099s, calendars, etc. The IRS is not going to audit me and a bunch of back documentation on itemized returns is being thrown out today. I will just keep the old, actual returns.

[Bmyers]

Our daughter moved out. A month later my wife was cleaning out her room, repainting, and redecorating. She sent a few boxes to the daughter, put three boxes in storage downstairs and everything else went out the door.

[Bob]

One daughter out of school, one in the army - Both

"I will be glad to keep whatever you want at the house (because 2200 sqft and a garage...) but you need to identify it and box it and throw out the rest.