I'veworked with all kinds of clients, including those who are looking to downsize. One of the benefits of downsizing is the opportunity to purge your home of things you no longer need or want. However, you must make sure that you don’t get too carried away.

Here are five items that you should never throw out:

Important Papers

Tread very carefully here. You’ll want to keep birth certificates, diplomas, wills, insurance and legal documents, mortgage and banking paperwork, tax papers, and anything that might be important in the future. If you keep these papers well organized, it’s unlikely they’re taking up too much room. If you are discarding any important papers containing personal info, be sure to shred the documents.

Tools

You’ve probably accumulated a handy tool collection by now and you’ll want to keep it that way! After all, a smaller home doesn’t necessarily require a smaller toolkit, and you don’t want to be buying something you gave away or sold in a garage sale.

Kitchen Utensils

Ok, so you probably don’t need fifteen spatulas, but you’ll want to keep a healthy selection of basic kitchen utensils. You may be moving into a smaller home, but you’re still going to be cooking, right? A bit like tools, you only realize how useful some kitchen utensils truly are when you don’t have one to hand.

Art

Unless you have a really massive collection, it's unlikely that your art is taking up too much space in your home. Not only that, but your art collection is unique to you and something that represents your personality. It is likely something that brings you joy. In addition, if you own original art it may be quite valuable and is something that you could use as an asset or bequeath to a loved one in the future. Think carefully before purging your art collection.

Sentimental Items

You might be thinking “thanks for the tip - of course, I’m not going to throw out things that are important to me”, but the real tricky part is anticipating what might be significant to you down the road. You don’t want to look back with regret. The size of the item also has a role to play, recipes and photographs are the easiest to keep as they are simple to store, don’t take up much room and are lightweight. You’ll have to be more thoughtful around bigger items such as trophies and trinkets, and keep in mind, you could always take photos of those items too! At the end of the day, this is very individual to you, and many of these items will be literally irreplaceable so downsize with caution.