Hi Everyone. Well, after 15 years the RV-Dreams Community Forum is coming to an end. Since it began in August 2005, we've had 58 Million page views, 124,000 posts, and we've spent about $15,000 to keep this valuable resource for RVers free and open. But since we are now off the road and have settled down for the next chapter of our lives, we are taking the Forum down effective June 30, 2021. It has been a tough decision, but it is now time.
We want to thank all of our members for their participation and input over the years, and we want to especially thank those that have acted as Moderators for us during our amazing journey living and traveling in our RV and growing the RV-Dreams Family. We will be forever proud to have been founders of this Forum and to have been supported by such a wonderful community. Thank you all!!
OK , I didn't want to title the post confessions of a hoarder. Not like on TV, but I am realizing that I really could have gone thru this stuff years ago.
Biggest example, I just retired, I found my notes from school dated 1978. I also found a lot of memories, but I didn't organize it, some stuff got ruined, but I would have let it go anyway.
I have come to this forum and found much good advice, and many friendly people. Thank you
I will often see someone post they plan to full time in a few years. Of course, myself included want to know about MH vs. 5th wheel and things along those lines.
Here is some advice, Go into the attic, the basement, the garage, the closets. Take it a box at a time, throw out, donate, keep very little. You don't need it.
Then when you are like us and hitting the road in about 5 weeks, you will be organizing your travel plans, getting your rig set up and saying thanks to me because all those aforementioned areas will be empty
Save for a few items that really mean something.
It will not take research, visits to RV shows, or an internet search. When in doubt, throw it out !
Yep; it's amazing how much you can accumulate over decades locker. Then, other than personal daily living stuff, everything will go in September. (donations, "garage" sales, calling in a "junk" hauler). Then in October talk to a real estate agent to find the best way to sell the house.
Then at some point, see if a used book shop or a library is interested in my "roughly" 3,000 book library. Powell's Books is in Portland (one of the biggest book stores left in the country; a mixture of new and used books; takes up a whole city block in downtown Portland). If those books can be taken by somebody, I can downsize the storage locker.
Then when the house cells, transition to a full time wanderer.
When we made the decision back in 2013.... we have been "purging" ever since. Slowly at first, you know... the easy stuff. Clothes and assorted bric-a-brac were first. All new purchases of anything are made with an eye toward FTing. Books have been donated, music & photos are being being digitized. Old files & documents shredded or tossed as appropriate. Hobbies are proving to be tougher to downsize. In particular, my model trains... though I have a plan but procrastination is an easy fallback when your hobbies become a jealous and vicious lover and will hobble you with guilt if you ever show interest in other activities.
Then we switched focus to prepping the S&B for future sale. We are going gangbusters in this area. Maybe my model trains will pack up and leave me without putting up a fight... I doubt it.
Still, we have about 2 years left to go... We are determined not to put anything in storage... been there, done that.
Large campgrounds and marinas sometimes have lending libraries tucked away in their office or laundry room. If near a major city, merchant marine fleets love books to take overseas. Senior centers, HOA community centers, etc.
Craigslist is your friend.
We (I) have found that having things electronically, via scanning and/or photographing helps ease the stress of downsizing. Do I really need the electric bill from August 1989? Held on to it all these years - it's now scanned, backed up twice and shredded. Multiply that by several thousand and you have a lot of work & time spent, but not bummed it's gone. For all the "stuff" that has been sold on eBay, we have photographic memories. Much easier to cart around than three gymnasium scoreboards, etc. The bonus is that the $$ earned all go in the RV Fund. Having that goal to shoot for and seeing the RV Fund grow helps ease the pain too.
Nice approach. Did you find a way to scan photographs efficiently? We same to have a large collection and the prospect of scanning each one individually sounds daunting!
Not really IrishRover, although I'm sure there are some available. Of course you could always pay a service to do it - there is one around here (Western suburbs of Chicago) that does photos, film, video, etc. - but we decided to save the $$$ and do it ourselves. It is a tedious process, but time spent now saves space and weight later. Documents are easy, put a pile into the sheet feeder, hit "scan" and go do other things. The photos are a different story.
We separated the photos by size, set the scan size to slightly larger, and just put them on the scanning bed one-by-one, assembly line style. We figured there will be enough rainy days and nights to do all the cropping later. For now, just get them scanned!!! If you are doing other things on the computer (surfing, watching YouTube, etc.) you'd be surprised how much scanning you can get done by multi-taking rather than just sitting there watching something, etc. When those huge piles become noticeably smaller, it'll give you that extra "oomph" to continue.
If you decide to destroy the original photos or documents, make sure they are backed up at least once - twice is better and have one backup off-site. Even if you don't destroy the originals, backups are always a good idea so all that time spent scanning isn't wasted in case the drive they are stored on gets corrupt.
We (I) have found that having things electronically, via scanning and/or photographing helps ease the stress of downsizing. Do I really need the electric bill from August 1989? Held on to it all these years - it's now scanned, backed up twice and shredded. Multiply that by several thousand and you have a lot of work & time spent, but not bummed it's gone. For all the "stuff" that has been sold on eBay, we have photographic memories. Much easier to cart around than three gymnasium scoreboards, etc. The bonus is that the $$ earned all go in the RV Fund. Having that goal to shoot for and seeing the RV Fund grow helps ease the pain too.
Why would you scan an electric bill from '89? I hope you were being factious and that you were just shredding those old bills/checks, etc.
BTW - our HP will scan in a number of photos at the same time, and by arranging them so they are touching on the glass, the software separates them into individual photos - - really cuts down on the time it takes.
Barb
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Barb & Dave O'Keeffe
2002 Alpine 36 MDDS (Figment II), 2018 Ford C-Max HYBRID
I did scan that bill - and all the others...and my pay check stubs and tax returns back to 1975. Being a numbers/data/spreadsheet guy, having that info is important to me. Why? WHO KNOWS!!! Will I ever use it? Probably not. I'll be the first to admit it's kind of weird, but the bottom line is that having them all scanned means the difference between loading 2 big file cabinets into the RV vs taking up a little space on the hard drive (and backups of course) - and it made getting rid of them all MUCH easier.
That's great that your scanner does that. 4 or 6 at a time cuts down scanning time tremendously. Ours does that for JPGs but not for TIFFs.
I'm fond of describing us as homeless but that just irritates Connie. So instead when asked where we are from I say "like the local small town police report says" we are Neil and Connie Laubenthal…of no fixed address. My other claim to fame (but that's a whole 'nuther story) is that everybody has heard about the uncle that wasn't wanted at the wedding…I was actually that uncle through no fault of my own.
and will hobble you with guilt if you ever show interest in other activities. 
