Update.... everything is sold... Except for a few large items I left behind with local friends, either for them to sell for me or for them to keep. We threw away a lot of stuff. We donated as much as we could. We gave away some of the most fragile things at the last minute to neighbors via the Nextdoor app, if they were too delicate to throw in the Goodwill bins. The hardest thing to give away was the "vintage" glass and ceramic Christmas ornaments, but I'm glad someone will get to enjoy them. Facebook marketplace was the easiest place to sell things. Nextdoor was the easiest place to give things away (fewer people, fewer DMs).
I got a 5x5x8' climate controlled storage unit for $50/month all-in, and it is packed with my favorite furniture, art, and rugs. If I don't need those things within a year, I'll probably go ahead and sell almost all of that stuff, too. Thanks everyone for weighing in :)
Hello again friends of the forums....
I love chatting and posting to ask for advice here. I haven't been here long, but I have a tendency to overthink and under-do, and getting it all out here really helps me stop spinning my wheels on the best way to go about something. So I just want to say thank you in advance for being here and helping me out with this Life thing.
You would think after moving once or twice a year every year for 7 years straight I would be a pro at this but alas...
I have about six weeks left on the east coast before I drive out to Colorado for an incredible opportunity to live in a ski town with some friends while we are all working remote into next summer. I think it's just about crunch time on paring down my possessions to just what I want to fit inside my Civic.
I'm not so much worried about how to decide what to bring (I'm one of those carry-on only type travelers) as I am how to get rid of everything I know I don't want to bring. I think for the drive out there, I'll be shaving it all down to three duffle bags, my bike, a monitor, a guitar, and maybe my sewing machine.
So that means I'll be selling off an entire apartment's worth of furniture, and then making some judgement calls on other belongings - store or sell?
The storage unit question is pretty straightforward. I have a number of things like paintings by friends and family that I know I want to have back in my home eventually. I think a small 5x5x10' storage unit will run me about $500/year. Not too bad if I'm only gone a year, I guess, but I'm wondering if there are alternatives anyone would recommend instead. I could stick other things in there to to avoid repurchasing them later, but I'm only really worried about the irreplaceable things. My parents probably can't hang onto it all for me.
I have two ideas for how to approach selling all the furniture and rugs. Option one: digital yard sale on Craigslist. Everything on one listing, repost whenever it expires. I've seen this work well before for small, stylish places, when people are looking to furnish whole first apartments. My stuff might be old but it's nice and looks good together. Option two: lots of individual listings on Nextdoor, LetGo, OfferUp, Craigslist. More annoying but maybe more effective. I got rid of plenty of dog equipment this way just by pricing it cheaply. Thoughts? Since I have six weeks I figure I should start now on everything except maybe the bed.
Finally, just some general musings about the move *back*... For the move out there I did the math and knew that most of my stuff combined, which was mostly secondhand furniture, was probably not worth the cost to pay to move it instead of selling it off. But in Colorado I'm probably going to need to buy at least two big, expensive things - a set of snow tires and a pair of skis - and for the tires especially I'm already dreading deciding how to deal with those next time I move, LOL. A whole set of snow tires? Can I just get them on Craigslist and then resell those secondhand, too? For some reason the idea of a bootleg tire carving shop is burned into my mind.