How to downsize like a pro - and free yourself from being a 'prisoner of your possessions'

By Richard Eisenberg

Seven tips for painlessly moving in retirement

Downsizing homes in retirement means potentially getting rid of thousands of items.

The average house has around 300,000 items, according to downsizing professionals. No one knows whether that number is true. As my wife Liz and I grapple with downsizing our oversized, suburban New Jersey house for an eventual move to the three-bedroom Los Angeles condo we bought near our adult sons and grandkids, I'd say the number doesn't seem far off.

Liz and I are among the roughly 25% of migrating boomers planning to downsize. We want to move for the same reasons most people over 60 do, according to the National Association of Realtors - a desire for a smaller home and to live closer to family and friends.

It makes sense. People are often living longer these days, and the years after leaving a full-time job can last for decades. So the need to find a suitable, livable place for this next stage of life is significant. Most older Americans want to age in place, according to many surveys, and the notion of lowering their housing expenses while doing so is very attractive.

But downsizing means rescuing yourself from being a "prisoner of your possessions," as Ciji Ware writes in her new book, "Rightsizing Over 70." Ware, a novelist, wrote the book because she and her husband, journalist Tony Cook, "did everything wrong" in downsizing their homes six times in 10 years.

Like many others, the couple struggled with the three big downsizing obstacles: overwhelmingness, avoidance and procrastination. "You really have to tackle the psychological roadblocks in the way," Ware said.

Shelby Van Meter and her husband, Peter, experienced just that. In May 2025, the couple moved out of their 2,200-square-foot house, complete with a basement and garage, in Sausalito, Calif., and into a 1,390-square-foot, two-bedroom apartment in a retirement community about 10 miles away. Their painstaking downsizing process took about five months.

"Peter and I were pretty much on the same page, but he's more of a collector of old stuff than I am. He kept boxes and boxes of old files going way back," Shelby said.

During the Van Meters' downsizing, junk haulers they hired took away Peter's big pile. "It was painful, but when it was over, Peter was glad," Shelby said. "And I think that's the realization: There's a lot of joy in getting rid of what is unnecessary and is not pertinent anymore."

While others may not find downsizing entirely joyful, there are a few things you can do to make the experience more manageable and efficient.

1. Understand not everyone will want or value your stuff

Not everything you'll get rid of can be rehomed easily - or even at all - and sale prices may be far less than what you paid.

"Not that many people want coffee-table art books," said Margit Novack, founding president of the National Association of Senior and Specialty Move Managers, a professional group helping older adults organize, declutter, downsize and relocate. "And booksellers are going to want first editions or signed books. They want very special books."

Collectibles, Novack noted, are hard to dispose of, too. "It's very hard for people to accept that the Oriental carpet they bought now will have only $100 or $200 worth of value," she said.

MarketWatch columnist Robert Powell wrote about this recently when he was going through his own decluttering process. Powell said he kept so many items, including a hockey puck from his college days and elementary-school report cards, and he knew no one else in his family would care about them the way he did.

My wife and I recently struggled trying to unload roughly 100 rock, pop, Broadway, soundtrack, classical, comedy and children's albums that we don't plan to bring to our new home.

I tracked down two New Jersey record stores whose sites said they'd purchase all types of albums, so we carted ours to them. But the first store only bought a few rock and pop albums, paying less than $5 per album, with no interest in the rest. The second store bought about a dozen similar records for $2 each, again shunning the other categories.

To donate albums and other collectibles, think outside the box, as it were. Ware calls this "creative recycling." Be specific with where you offer the items you no longer want, whether it is for sale or to donate.

When Ware and her husband were about to sell their Los Angeles house to move to Northern California, she figured the Beverly Hills library would want their 64 Frank Sinatra albums because of the showbiz connection. She was right. "They were interested in Sinatra, but not the other albums I had," she said.

She's planning to donate her collection of World War II books to a local bookstore for its Veterans Day book drive in November, where the store will offer them for $1 apiece and the money will go to the library.

2. Give creatively when the items themselves are too used

Although consignment shops and charities like Goodwill, Salvation Army and Habitat for Humanity's Restore shops often accept furniture donations, they typically only want clean, unbroken and new or gently used pieces that they can sell.

"People think something they have should be donated if it's not usable. They say, 'Oh, that recliner doesn't work anymore, I could donate it.' No, you can't," Novack said. "No one's going to buy a nonworking recliner. No one's going to accept items in bad condition."

Van Meter experienced exactly that. "We had a table and chairs that would seat 12 people and came from Peter's grandparents. The table was marred on top and the consignment people wouldn't take it," she said.

But, in an example of creative recycling, when she asked her painter if he'd like the set, he was delighted to take it away and did. "Now, a lovely family can have a big Thanksgiving dinner using it," said Van Meter.

Local schools may take musical instruments gathering dust in your basement or attic, as they did for me. But today's meager market for pianos makes it especially hard to find new homes for them. "Pianos can be big obstacles," said Novack.

Novack's tip if you can't find someone who wants your piano: Hire an artist to take it apart and turn it into something new, either furniture or decorative art. Crafty folks will often repurpose pianos for $100 to $500 or so.

3. Give yourself permission to discard some sentimental items

Throwing out your old family photos can feel heartless, but it may be the right decision.

It was for my wife and me. We spent many weekends sorting through all the photo albums and loose photos we'd amassed or inherited, tossing the duplicate pictures and trashing my dad's slides that were impossible to view easily. We now have one shelf of albums featuring the best photos, and are eager to take these to our new home to show our kids and grandkids.

Van Meter and her husband felt guilty throwing out their parents' photo albums and boxes of slides, even though they never looked at them. "We just said, 'Goodbye - we love you, but we can't keep you," she said.

4. Create a downsizing system that works for you

The sooner you can begin, the better - and think months or years before a move, not weeks or days.

You might schedule regular days and times to go through things, room by room. Ware recommends a more structured process: It starts with creating a "Rightsizing Project" book and then putting sticky, colored dots on items throughout your home, to show what will go to your new home and what won't.

In Ware's system, you put green dots on items you'll take and have used in the past week; yellow dots on items you're unsure about but have used in the past month; and red dots on things you use occasionally but won't need.

Ware also suggests designating a spot in or near each room to be your "processing center." Then, set up cartons or bags labeled "Keep," "Repair," "Trash," "Gift," "Donate," "Recycle," "Sell" and "Don't Have a Clue."

The "Don't Have a Clue" bag is a way to keep yourself from getting bogged down, she said. Her husband's gold Navy sword from his Vietnam days went into the "Don't Have a Clue" bag, before they gave it to their son.

5. You don't need to downsize alone

There's an industry of professionals who may be able to help you decide which items to get rid of and where they might go.

Senior-move managers are especially good when you need an outsider to force decisions about possessions you no longer need. There are over 1,000 senior-move managers and many provide free consultations, followed by hourly fees of about $50 to $125, which could mean a total cost of $1,500 to $5,000 for a full house.

You might hire an estate-sale pro if your home is filled with furniture, knickknacks, tableware, toys, art and collectibles that others might buy, albeit for minimal prices. These experts typically will come to your home to assess what you have.

Caution: If they decide your items would bring in less than, say, $3,000 to $6,000, they'll likely refuse the job. "If they don't feel they can get enough money out of it, it's not going to be worth their time," Novack said. "There are people who may have a lot of everyday furniture, but it's not going to make sense for an estate sale."

But you don't have to rely on just one person's judgment. One estate saleswoman told my wife and me that the items we won't take with us are worth under $6,000 total, so she'd pass on an estate sale. But we then found another pro who said she'd do it.

6. AI, apps and social media can help

For a rough estimate for what certain items in your home might fetch, try taking photos and then asking Google Lens, eBay Virtual Search or an AI bot like ChatGPT or Google Gemini. These search engines and chatbots could help you place a price on items you are trying to discard.

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10-08-26 2003ET