It’s Never Too Early To Think About Downsizing!
Tuning in to home purchasing, renovation and dream home programming on TV is appealing to more and more people. It is both exciting and informative to get a glimpse into other parts of the country and often even other parts of the world and how they deal with housing. A major lesson I have learned in watching many of these programs is how much of a difference we, here in the United States, have in how we look at space that is required as a norm for us to be comfortable. Europeans, for example are much more experienced at living with a minimum of space and fuss and are often amused by our expectations of expansive spaciousness. While this certainly is no news flash it is food for thought regarding all the “stuff” we Americans seem to haul around with us and have great difficulty letting go of. Speaking of housing programming, ever seen an edition of “Hoarders?” That’s a wakeup call for sure!!
If you have ever moved from one house to another I am sure the experience of all that “stuff” is still fresh in your mind. I know we all vow to stop this accumulating if for no other reason than the extreme pain it is to drag it all around. However, often, we have moved to a still larger home and found totally new spaces to fill up with this “stuff” and we end up just adding to it. Once you begin the thinking process around downsizing it sounds really good. Shopping for that smaller home makes sense in so many ways until you are faced with the reality of actually paring this “stuff” down. Remember it doesn’t go away by itself. You have to physically start removing, disposing of, gifting of, etc. It can be overwhelming to think of even if you are convinced you need to do it. Well, the time to start that is now! Not when you actually have to make that move.
If I have you thinking about the possibilities of that project you may enjoy reading more on the subject. I found this article pretty compressive:
http://www.jsonline.com/features/homeandgarden/37106619.html
