We thought we were going to do a traditional estate sale and changed our mind on that.

Our experience: Traditional estate sale company came in, evaluated what we had and told us we would have to vacate the house for 2 weeks while they staged, priced and conducted the sale. We were okay with that, figuring we could live in our old TT on the driveway while they did that work. However, we were then told that they thought they would raise $6000-7000 in total sales, they had a $4500 minimum fee plus 10% on anything above that. So, if they sold everything for $6000 our fees would have been $5100, profit for us of $900. Just didn't seem worth the hassle of vacating the house for 2 weeks.

We had other estate sale companies who wouldn't even consider us because we didn't have any antiques or super high end furniture or costly collectibles.

Second option, our realtor put us in touch with a local rep from Caring Transitions. She conducted 2 online sales, she had a $200 set up fee and took a 35% commission and we didn't have to leave the house, just be there when people were picking stuff up. We made far more than $900 and it was much lower hassle.

We probably would have gotten rid of more stuff faster with the traditional sale but since we were doing the sale before we had our permanent rig home we would have been renting a storage closet for everything we wanted to take with us since we couldn't leave anything we wanted to keep in the house for the traditional sale which would have also caused us to incur more expense.

We then had one moving sale that was hardly worth the time for us, sold a couple of things on Craigslist, and donated anything that didn't sell that we weren't keeping.

This was just our experience, some people have had a much better experience than we did at a traditional sale. Just wanted to mention that there were other alternatives such as an online estate auction that might work better depending on your circumstances.

I just put a few things in storage, sold a few on Craigslist, and donated everything else.

In my experience, garage sales are quite a bit of work for very little gain.

Kyra

When we were purging ourselves of "stuff," Jo got busy on Craigslist and sold a few items of furniture and sewing equipment.  When some of those folks came to pick up the items they wanted, they asked about other items we had.  We got lucky in that our neighborhood decided to have a "neighborhood garage sale" and we had to be ready in two weeks for that.  The benefit of it being a neighborhood garage sale drew a lot of people to check out each place.  While we did sell some of our furniture, overall, we sold over $1500 worth of stuff at garage sale prices.  What was left over after the sales, we donated.  All the above was after family made their choices to take or buy.

Terry

I did a combination of things when I downsized.

I sold the more significant items on Craigslist. Be sure to have good pictures! And if you have a truck and can offer delivery in a certain range that helped me get better prices on some of the furniture.

I had a couple of garage sales... PITA, but good for getting rid of little stuff.

I did have a couple of specialty sales to sell the craft and sewing supplies. I set up everything I the dining room, and posted pics on Craigslist to advertise those.

The rest of things I donated to women's shelter that helps women set up households.

There are a lot of options and not one solution is right for everyone. It really depends on the time, energy and resources available.

I have been selling stuff, and it makes me feel better as we wait for the house to sell in a stagnant local market. At least I'm doing SOMETHING towards the goal. I have been having great success on Facebook yard sale pages. They are local and you often have to "join" the group, but it is SO MUCH EASIER than an actual yard sale. I am getting better prices than a yard sale would have brought, too. Do a search for pages like "Buy, Sell, Swap" or "Yard Sale", etc. Getting onto one will lead you to others. Only trouble is when several people want the item, trying to keep straight who was first! I'm giving away other stuff and have asked the family to claim what they want. It's a process.

Right now we are in the "remove the clutter mode" to stage the house for marketing in January. It's funny how the transformation or realization in your mind works when you become committed to the full time life style.

All those old cassette tapes from the 70's and 80's in the trash. The western novels.....well they're still in the back of the car. On Sunday we had a neighbor stop to say hello on their way to a flea market to get a buffet. Wait, come inside, we've got just what you need. They bought an antique corner cabinet - YES! I guess what I'm trying to say is my mental hold on "stuff" is losing its grip.

On a after thought, I think I'll call the new RV park in LLano and see if they would like my westerns to start a library.

Red,

While many of your books may remain at the Llano rv park, keep in mind that some RV parks operate their library on a "trade" basis.  They allow someone to take a book as long as they leave another book to replace it.

I've donated some books to the RV park that is next to the mobile home park where we live and some of those books have already been "taken."

Terry

Hi everyone just reading this post. Just a thought you may be able to donate the western books to a local jail for the inmate to read. Alot of the jails have a library. An most of the books are worn out.