My husband and I have walked into my late mother-in-law’s house for the last time.
We are in the process of settling her estate, including the sale of her house and disposition of everything in it.
From a hutch filled with china and crystal goblets to overflowing jewelry boxes and coin collections. And everything in between.
A lot in between.
Her clothes. The Notre Dame sweaters my late father-in-law was so fond of wearing. Her furniture. Furniture inherited from her mother-in-law, still in the same place in the garage where it was originally placed 30 some-odd years ago. My husband’s Cub Scout uniform. Christmas decorations. Lots and lots of Christmas decorations.
Every room, every closet, every shelf, every drawer. Full of stuff. A lifetime of stuff. Two lifetimes, if you count my father-in-law, who passed away 11 years ago.
What to Do With a Lifetime of Stuff
My mother-in-law was a neat and tidy housekeeper. But like many of us (myself included), she lived in a good-sized house with plenty of room to accommodate stuff. Things inherited from her parents and her in-laws. The broken vacuum cleaner waiting for repair in the back of the closet. Hundreds of books read once. You get the picture.
And the cost of disposing of all of that stuff? Having the estate sale company we hired go through every room, every closet, every drawer, separating the trash from the treasures, may cost more than will be generated at the eventual estate sale.
Her house has been transformed into a store, the estate sale company having cleverly arranged and displayed my mother-in-law’s possessions on tables in every room.
All of her possessions with any value, save the very few we kept, each with a tiny white price tag.
Losing your last surviving parent is hard enough. But being the arbiter of which of your parents’ and grandparents’ treasures get saved and which end up sold, donated, or in a landfill? gut-wrenching.
The lesson we have learned from this experience?
Most of the stuff in your house is worthless. And eventually, someone, either you or your kids, will be tasked with the overwhelming job of getting rid of it.
Most of Your Stuff Is Worthless
Most of the stuff in your house is worthless.
Yes, even the stuff you worry the most about, the stuff you think is so good you don’t use it for fear of breaking it, has little to no resale value.
From china, china cabinets, crystal goblets, silver tea sets, pianos, and collectible figurines like Hummels, to grandfather clocks and real pieces of craftsmanship furniture.
Why? Baby boomers have glutted the market with their castoffs, and millennials, the next generation of buyers, don’t want it.
Millennials hate both formal in-home entertaining and use of second-hand goods. With looming student loans, they tend to rent and move often. Who wants to be constantly moving a piano and a grandfather clock from apartment to apartment?
And furniture? There’s no market for so-called “brown furniture,” meaning any furniture (regardless of quality) other than the “mid-century casual” furniture (think clean, lightweight) favored by millennials. Brown furniture is basically firewood.
If it’s not in great condition, it’s also not fit for donation because it can’t be resold.
All of my mother-in-law’s furniture (including the pieces inherited from her mother-in-law and kept for decades)? Straight to the landfill.
Well, Almost Everything…
What do guns, LPs (records), and precious metals/gems have in common?
They are 3 things you might have in your house with a robust resale value.
Silverware also has value, but only if it is real silver and can be melted down.
3 Things You Should Be Doing NOW to Reduce the Amount of Stuff You Have
1. Be viciously thoughtful about holding onto sentimental items.
Here was our goal with sorting through my mother-in-law’s things. Keep just enough to remind us of her, but not so much stuff that our daughters are going to be dealing with it 40 some-odd years from now.
Here’s what we kept:
- A painting to be displayed in our dining room
- My mother-in-law’s treasured Swarovski crystal animal collection (all of which were given to her by her children and grandchildren over the years)
- Jewelry to be divided among the granddaughters
- Each of our daughters got to select 1 item
And that was it.
Well, almost. We did set aside photos to be digitized (with the originals then destroyed).
Was it hard leaving everything else? You bet it was. But we don’t want to be dealing with a lot of stuff years from now (or worse, leaving it to our daughters to deal with).
I try to be viciously thoughtful with my own sentimental items. For example, I don’t save any school papers or art projects from my kids (though I do take photos of my favorites).
2. Buy fewer books.
While used book resellers like Half Price Books do an important service in keeping books in circulation, a surprising number of books end up in landfills because many paper recycling facilities can’t process the the glue that binds book spines.
My resolution last year was to cut down on my book consumption by only reading books that I borrow from the library or purchase on my Kindle e-reader. If you haven’t used a library in years, now is the time to go back. My local library has an app where you can “order” books online, and pick them up the next day on a special “hold” shelf strategically placed next to the check-out kiosk.
How successful was I on my resolution? I read 1 to 2 books a week in 2019, only 1 of which was a hard copy purchased from Amazon.
3. Buy fewer, but better quality, clothes
The world is overflowing with used clothing.
We buy substantially more clothing over our lifetimes than our grandparents did.
Clothing made today is meant to last no more than a few years. In fact, a lot of clothing isn’t even made to withstand more than a few washes.
Think you are “paying it forward” but dropping off a load of unwanted clothes at Goodwill? Think again. Most clothing donations never make it to the racks at Goodwill and only about a third of what does eventually sells.
To really pay it forward, cut down on the amount of clothing you have by buying better quality clothes that last longer.
Keeping What Really Matters
My 5-year-old chose to keep a Christmas music box from her Grandma’s house. It plays “White Christmas” and has tiny ice skaters going around a rink inside. Each Christmas, my mother-in-law would bring out this music box and let each of her granddaughter’s play with it. It’s value in preserving a precious memory of Grandma? Priceless.
If everyone dumps in the trash, the “collectors” make money in a few years…. just like the Baseball cards…. it’s rare if everyone else dumps it. Pass on non vaule items to those who can use it….. place an add for FREE items….. people are cheap and will use it.
Our neighborhoods have an amnesty day where you can put anything out on the curb to be thrown away. Every time that happens I hear people complaining about someone picking something up out of their piles to use. People are funny about their things. They would rather see it go to the landfill then let someone have it that wants it – they literally say that. I have wondered if it has something to do with only wanting something when someone else wants it.
Well, Dave…then I’m living in the same alternative universe. My parents bought the ‘in’ furniture of the mid 60’s for every room in our new house.. …Ethan Allen was all the rage, of course. Mom’s fine china and best glasses……..all as perfect as it had been the day they bought it……….We couldn’t give it away at auction…. It ended up all being donated to Salvation Army…I’m not sure THEY wanted it. The only thing that sold at a decent price was Mom’s 8 year old Lexus with all the bells and whistles and which she only drove around town..that car looked like it had just been driven off the sales lot….$12,000. Your comment was very rude and misleading.
You are both right, Dave. It depends on your frame of reference. What I saw when I had to have a professional come in and do an estate sale, was many new-arrivals to our great country who have learned quickly to pick up an entire ‘heritage’ from a couple of estate sales. I had to readjust my thinking quickly! How marvelous that they who had to leave everything behind when they fled their countries can now start anew with Mom’s precious choices, which definitely aren’t mine (and neither are my choices my daughter’s). As the song goes, Let it gooooooooo!
I disagree with some of this. I believe it depends on where you live. I have LP albums, never opened, that I can’t give away but can’t afford a lot of used “brown” furniture around where I live. People here don’t want the mid-century modern stuff. We want the decorated, solid-wood, antique furniture.
I have lots of lovely collectibles from my mother in law and my mother I enjoy using my china and crystal and every few weeks I polish my silver tea service and it brings my mother in law right into my kitchen with wonderful memories.Not every millennial wants Crate and Barrel furnishings and all white furniture while my children may have some cleaning out to do when I pass I’m sure there will be many items they will keep and treasure for years to come.
I will go through my books and papers and photos and clean those out… thanks for sharing your thoughts
I agree that this seems ridiculous. First, Millennials aren’t the only “next generation” buying things — there’s a good supply of thirty something who haven’t been able to buy their own homes yet, and who *don’t* mind secondhand goods. Indeed, if this article is correct about Millennials “hating” secondhand goods, well, then, Millennials are as selfish as their stereotype makes them out to be, because with the economy, job prospects, and earning power, as crappy as they are today, if ever there were a generation that couldn’t afford *not* to make do with secondhand stuff, it’s them! They should be shooting the garage sales, estate sales, Goodwill stores, flea markets, etc. for *inexpensive* goods, to stretch their money. A few bucks go a lot further at Goodwill than at Ikea!
Too, the facts that recyclers can’t deal with books’ binding glue, and that “brown” (i.e. wooden?) furniture goes “straight to the landfill,” are simply signs of *laziness*, of being just plain unwilling to go to the “trouble” to do the few simple things that would make those items reusable. Recyclers could easily install saws, or something, to *cut off* spines and bindings in a fraction of a second, freeing the pages for recycling just like any other paper. Such cutters are used in *making* books, so are clearly available. And before you respond, note that one cannot simultaneously reject the “expense”of purchasing, installing, and operating, such machinery, and Brendan the number of unprocessable books. Similarly, brown/wooden furniture could, at the very least, be knocked/cut apart and the wood reused for anything from new/retro furniture to art — or, in the end, fuel. Mark my words, if we’re still on this planet at all, fifty years from now, people are going to be *mining* the landfills for these items.
Too, the fact that a certain few things, say, LPs, are “still” valuable only means that those are what’s valuable *right now*. Ten years from now, who knows? Once most of the grandfather clocks and pianos are in the landfills (what a hugely depressing prospect!), maybe *they’ll* be the hot itemd everyone will wish they hadn’t thrown out. (I’d love to have one of each, myself.)
The author could live in my universe!!! We just spent 6 months moving our house of 30 years and the majority of our treasures from our 4 deceased parents will be found in landfills. We could not give away many things. We did find someone to take the piano (free). The donation centers pick and chose through the stuff and will not accept much. My daughter, nieces, nephews, NO we don’t want that stuff! A yard sale, hah, no one, only wanted tools, bikes, legos, beach equipment. We’re in SoCal.
I agree with much of your article, however I would never destroy family photographs. Digitizing them is a great idea but as a back up or way to share them. Digital files can deteriorate over time and storage devices can be corrupted too. You might find that all those photos you thought you had are no longer accessible. I have actual photos that have survived for 150 years. The jury is out in the digital ones.
It is easy to be ruthless with someone else’s life. When your stuff is all you have left because family is too busy with their own life, it is hard to let it go. I am not that old but my memories of my mom’s, dad’s and grandparents stuff Are very important to me, even though worthless to others. It is all relative to where you are in life! And around here, all that stuff is still selling.