Downsizing Your Home After 60? Get Ready to Live!

Thanks!

My parents are downsizing now, from a waterfront property to an apartment in a centralised area near amenities. They are 79 and 81 respectively. They really should have done this ten years ago, as they now must juggle all this with medical appointments, etc.
Their old house had stairs and a steep driveway that was slippery after rainfall. It was full of hazard's.
They must sort out what's rubbish, sentimental items and what they can use in the new place. They had a lot to sort thru! Plus they're selling a boat, a trailer and two old vehicles which they'll replace with one newer one.
Elderly people in massive homes must think of their children. They don't want to spend their entire weekends trimming bushes, mending the roof or cleaning the driveway because the father is too old to do the work.
Once you're too past it to take responsibility for your property, downsize! Your kids will thank you, and you'll wonder why you didn't do it earlier.
When one spouse dies, the other doesn't want to be left with everything that should have been sold.
Where my parents are going, they can walk everywhere, and still have room to maintain their hobbies, though they are now so unfit, they can barely pick up a newspaper. With the move, my sister and i have to do it ALL for them.
I hope they can enjoy at least five good years there, but again, they left it too long to act.

Enjoy your videos. It feels as though we’re friends. I can hear your ❤. Blessings to you.

I'm getting ready to go through a downsizing on my house. I don't think it's going to be easy. I'll have more land but less house so your tips are very good for me. It's going to be very hard on some items to get rid of.

1 yr ago
Thank you Margaret for your beautiful advices. Wish I can accomplish the same things that you did. When my husband was seriously ill 6 yrs ago , I started decluttering his things , putting priority on files & documents from work . Next thing to do is downsize . He loved so much to shop when we travel abroad , so I started to donate / sell unused items. It has been 3.5 years now since he left and I am still not done . I understand from your talks that this takes time to complete because of the physical & emotional fatigue one encounters while doing it . At least now , I realize we go through the same experiences . Thanks again.

I feel 30 years younger downsizing and moving to an apartment in gorgeous Tennessee to be near my son and his family! I feel energetic, young and single again!...which is the way I want to keep it! I used to own/manage rental property...what a lot of work that NEVER ends! Now I get to be the tenant calling for repairs, letting someone else deal with all of the responsibilities of owning/managing property! I never want to own real estate again!😁 I just bought a kayak and am so looking forward to getting out on all of the many beautiful lakes/rivers here! I'm going to feel like I'm on vacation for the next 30 years there is so many fun and adventurous things to do here!😂

I'm almost 70 now & I need all your tips. A lot of pass trauma. ... Glenda

I just keep putting stuff on the curb and within a few hours it's gone.

Sold my house 5 years ago and moved to a 1 bedroom apartment.
I love my lifestyle and the freedom from maintaining a large home and yard, and it's actually less expensive to live here. But the biggest benefit is my sense of freedom and peace. I have no regrets.

One of your best videos!❤
You speak without hemming and hawing and I have a real idea now my challenge and how to approach it.
Don't know what your career was, but thanks for continuing to help others in retirement.

Thank you Margaret

It was the sudden loss of my husband and taking on the responsibility of trying to look after a large garden and house on my own which spurred my decision to move from my historic much loved home to a much smaller and practical new build. It will be ready Spring 2024 so I have started in earnest - both of us were hoarders!

Thanks again for a thoughtful, inspiring discussion. You are such a loving person!

It s totally true, downsizing is liberating..I donate things, gifts, unecessary stuff all the time and I feel happy to do it. I want to travel and do not care about things and objects. Thanks Margaret I Love your videos and this one specially. Greetings from Argentina

We spent most of our life in Alaska. Selling the home and driving 2900 miles to the lower-48 requires substantial downsizing.

I upsized when I retired and am so glad I did. I was living in a condo with no privacy and no storage space. Now I have a beautiful house on the water on an acre of property. I can play the piano at 1am and not worry about waking up the neighbors. I love my big house.. and I live alone!

I have been in my apartment for over 7 months and I can say I am happy it feels good my cozy haven to come home to. Must say it was painful leaving my home I lived for 20 years loads of memories. Had to get rid of many things due to divorce .
I feel liberated from the responsibility of being a home owner and free to focus on my next chapter of my life at 62

I agree with everything you say. I bought more healthy foods and supplements than clothes and things.

My late mum loved to collect dinner sets and tea sets. She wanted to pass them on to us, her 2 daughters. However the house had to be sold, due to space constraints we could only take a few and had to sell & donate the other sets. LESSON : BUY ONLY WHAT YOU NEED & USE. DO NOT BUY TO CREATE HEIRLOOMS FOR YR KIDS.. Use that money to travel instead !

You are right. Downsizing is a journey, a rather emotional one as we say goodbye to our possessions. At the end, we will know what really matters to us! 🤗🤗🤗

Just came back from a friend's house whose daughter is trying to downsize her things because she is in foster care. The daughter gave us a lot of things and was trying to give us more, but we told her 'no' because we already have a lot of things. It got me thinking that I don't want to leave this burden on anyone else when I pass away. I am not married and have no children. I live in my parents house and have only a bedroom full of things, but when my parents pass, I will inherit their things. My mom and I already downsized her garage, but there is still a lot more things to go through. Trying not to get stressed about it. Thanks for the video!

I majorly downsized in 2018 (sold house, moved into tiny place, did some traveling), then covid hit and I found I missed having a house with a yard. So bought another house in June 2020 but now I am yearning AGAIN for the simpler more free lifestyle! Planning another downsize in a couple years!

What do we do when your partner is a hoarder?

I’m trying!! Thanks for all the input!😩

I’m in the process of downsizing and decluttering. I would like to travel more while I’m able. This week I’m donating some stuff that I haven’t used in years and will continue to do so on a regular basis. Yes, it tiring but it’s got to be done!

Somehow I have become the person assigned to keep all historical family documents! I've got my grandparent's original marriage license, passports, christening paperwork, birth certificates, etc. Haven't a clue as to whether I should scan them or try to preserve them! Any suggestions would be appreciated. Also, what type of scanner did you use?

I really needed to hear this . My partner has just retired and also been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease. We have a large house and garage absolutely full of stuff. So we've been forced into downsizing and decluttering for ease of life and safety. We have a small villa that we plan to move to into in the next year or so,so we really need to take this seriously and get going with the decluttering first and then downsizing into our villa. Thanks Margaret for the right words at the right.time .oh and I love your hair style the way you have it for this post. Much love ,Debra

Hi Margaret! I really love what you’ve shared in here. Truth is you and I are exactly the same, living in a single room ( which is not even mine, renting it). Mine though is a forced downsizing because it happened to me when I decided to separate from my husband (it was a painful experience) and what A way to down size. I left everything behind and I only have my car and one luggage with me. Looking back 8 years after, I have no regret doing what I did. I am now happier and it was a sighed of big emotional relief. Now, I am literally a single room and one luggage woman and yet contented.

Thank you for your transparency and sharing your own experience with downsizing! What a wonderful story with profound insight. Before retirement we lived in the north with brutal winters in a big two story house. It took me over a year to go through every closet and every room to downsize. The first round...was hauling off the things that I knew were outdated, no longer needed or wanted. Then I began moving everything to a big family room which we didn't use to begin a second round of sorting. We looked for a one story house in the south. It took a lot of trips and exhaustive searching until we found our last...retirement home. We squeezed as much stuff into the house...which overflowed into one side of the garage. Now we don't have any stairs to navigate and have everything on one level. We hope to live here for as long as possible. As you say, downsizing is a way of live. I still periodically go through things and clear out some items in storage. I still look for ways to organize and condense. By doing so, we are free from all of that materialism.

Ahhhhh downsizing 👍🏻 wonderfully cleansing

The first thing I’ve been doing to downsize is shredding all my old taxes, papers, and work related documents from the last 30 years. My next goal is to rid myself of books I no longer read. I have also gotten rid of old clothes I longer wear. I still have a long way to go but it is invigorating to remove the burden of stuff from your life.

Thank you Margaret you are an inspiration. Your hair really suits you like that x

I agree downsizing is the gateway to living freer and I'm so happy I did it recently. But I also agree that it's not always an easy process - all those thousands of tiny decisions - keep, give away, donate or throw away? Gone from a large 6-bedroom family home to a 2-bedroom flat and I love it! Light, airy, easy to clean and maintain and best of all I can lock it up and go away on an overseas holiday knowing it is secure, which I'm about to do in 2 weeks time!

The process of downsizing was physically and emotionally exhausting but well worth the effort. I moved into a studio apartment nearly 8 months ago and this is a perfect residence for me at this time of my life. No regrets. Age 67. Margaret, I’ve seen the video tour of your studio and it’s wonderful. Best wishes.

Without family I can't find any help.
One company I used damaged furniture and stole jewelry.

As someone born in the States but living abroad for many years, I am perhaps lucky in that various charities have shops where you can give items that they will then try to sell to raise money for their charities. But even in the States, I learned that there are ways to give so that those who do not have can get the benefit. An example would be a shelter for battered women - often they might have women with their children - so toys that were in good condition, home items like glasses and bowls - these made great donations that they really could use. Giving what I no longer need has taken the better part of a year - I gave away winter coats - I told my hairdresser, 'I can only wear one coat at a time' - but Afghan women who had fled their home country with just what they could carry and who now were in a climate with much colder temperatures - so I gave my coats to a charity that only takes people who have been referred to them for clothing and bedding. It's downsizing but with that added bonus - trying to find a new home where what I give can really benefit someone else who has the need.

I am moving from a 4 bedroom house, from an island off of iceland to possibly Spain, its so hard doing this downsizing, on my own, so much stuff and at the moment so much mess. Minths ago, i went through dozens of photo albums and made 3, one for mt son and daughter and one for me , alot of work but very satisfying. Trying to get everything i want to keep on to one palette, possibly 10 boxes. Things i thought i wanted to keep, dont seem too important now. The thing i find hard hardest, is the things i cant sell, donate or give, is having to throw them away, the things no one wants. I have 3 more weeks...wish me luck !!!!!

My husband and I built a new house and while it was being built we lived with my father for a year. Everything we owned was packed into boxes (and there was many). Some boxes went into storage and some into a dear friends garage which she kindly offered. Whilst living with my father we took only what we needed. It was great and very freeing not being bogged down by stuff. When we eventually moved into our new home we had to bring the boxes in. Well, what a nightmare that was. I had forgotten what we owned and to be honest never missed any of it during that year. We ended up getting rid of a lot of things but there's still fine tuning to do. Especially the sentimental things from when my children were little. That's going to be the hardest I think.

I down sized a year ago, then started all over again lol. Now I need to downsize again.

I am in this process. I downsized when my husband passed and my son moved out. I am also decluttering as I don’t need lots of things and when I pass I don’t want my son to have to sort things out that may be painfull to him. I am really enjoying this process x

Yes, I’ve downsized 4 years ago, & loving it, I have no huge garden to worry about, or garage full of stuff ( no garage at all) few items of clothing that still needs downsizing, I’m downsizing my kitchen cupboards again , don’t need most of those items anymore since I’m alone now , husband in aged care the past 8 months, so it really makes you think what do I really need ? Not much!!! As for Nic nakcs! Don’t have shelves etc or tablets to display things , at first I missed all my pink items I had everywhere in my old house, but they’re only THINGS that don’t mean anything now ! I’m content with few photos of my family & maybe fresh flowers now & then !!
Thank you for this video you’re an inspiration to lot of people including me
😘🇦🇺😀

I have been purging paper files for years and this season of purging I feel so much less paralyzed by the weightlessness of unneeded information. It's just me now. I am also thinking of how I don't want anything left behind for my children or grandchildren to be burdened with.

Green looks gorgeous on you!

We have just moved from a 2800 sf home to a temporary place, and apartment, that is 950sf. We have a storage unit with boxes of STUFF! UGH! - I think the most valuable tip you shared is give yourself a year. I underestimated the process of clearing through history. It is bitter sweet. I am fairly certain that at least 50% of tge boxes in the storage unit will be tossed out when we buy a small home in the few months. :) Planning to check out your simplifying site.

I have a 2 car garage and I can only fit 1 car in it. I still have all the contents of my husband’s grandparents house who passed away a couple of years ago. I have spiders living in between all that stuff. We are finally going to deal with all of it when it’s a cool day. I really can’t remember what all is in there. Thank you for all the motivation you share with us. ♥️

Downsizing, decluttering is all that you describe - ultimately so liberating, we just don't need all our 'stuff' to make us happy, things own us far more than we own them. Thank you for this video Margaret.

I need to downsize. Just thought of it is so overwhelming. I started but there is so much stuff!

I downsized after a divorce a few years back. I got rid of a lot, but I’m finding I still need to clear out more as there are some items I put away when I moved into my condo, that I’ve totally forgotten about. That tells me I really don’t need them, so that is my next project over the next few days.

I too lived in a temporary housing situation with a lot of stuff in boxes that I didn't see and found, after a few months, that I didn't notice it at all. Ever since I've been trying (continually in this materialistic culture) to keep to having a studio apartment worth (and only). It's so freeing.