Retirement Thread

Tom: Memorabilia is the toughest part. Some things have historical value. What the heck do you do with those? I have cast far and wide to nephews, neices, distant relatives - with waning success.

Then there is my own memorabilia. (Never mind that I recently married, again and she has hers as well.) I have stuff to remember different periods in my life. What do I do with _______ (Fill in the blank.) As someone else mentioned, I even have "memorabilia" rocks! They are small, but I have 'em.

Nick knacks, award plaques, trophies, enough to overload the motorhome!

Then, all of the next generation is sitting around wondering "What's he going to do with his guns?" I may surprise them. I may just give them all but a few. Tools, of course, are another issue. Can't do much work, don't need many tools. Guns and other tools will be easier, of course. I just have to make up my mind on those. Hard to let go of them.

I may just have an estate sale, and be in attendance, myself. Hows that for an idea?

So, what about retirement in general? We have ChinMusic to thank for a reallly good thread.

Who else has retirement issues/advice?

Ray D.

Good questions Ray and some that I struggle with daily. I have memorabilia all over the house, I have a separate box labelled "memorabilia" and I even have a box of "treasured letters" that go back over 25 years. If a close relative gave/sent me something, it's really tough to get rid of it.

We got rid of as much as possible to whoever.  Made 7 trailer loads to the Auction and stored a pod 8X20 for months.  I April went back to IL  loaded things up and left a lot there to whoever and filled our 24' enclosed  trailer and bought it to AZ  It's still mostly full.  Still have a bunch of antiques at Sister-in-laws.  Had to have 1 car shipped out here.  This is after the people that bought our house bought the patio furn., the Sun Room furn, the Dining room, the living room,  3 couches down stairs , 2 bed rm sets, a big screen TV and lots of wall cabinets and more.  Time to unload and now the wife is sayikng  Wish we had kept this and that.  Glad it's gone.  Worst thing was getting rid of all my old pickups, cars and tools.  Broke my heart.  Guess it's for the better tho.  Good Luck

I have stuff from Vietnam I brought back and will not part with...I just could not do that.  I am sure Carol has some items like that as well.  The furniture I will either consign or donate to a charity.  Good leather stuff and all.  The tools, some will come with me and some will go.  They are very heavy!  We are going to have one big yardsale!  My sister started fulltiming in 1999 and did so until the death of her husband in 2001.  She is full of good info for me and will be very helpful during our yard sales.  Our house of over twenty years will be hard to let go.  It is home and departing it leaves me with some anxiety.  Then again, no more yard work, housework, maint....I will be leaving my little shop where I keep the motorcycles.  It is my Fortress of Solitude and has brought me years of joy.  Many a project has been undertaken in there during and after the racing days.  Next year is when we begin the countdown and things begin to go and preparations for the transition are made.

It's interesting that the "Junk Issue" has come up.  We are knee deep in the stuff and are dedicating one day a week to throw stuff out in preparation for selling the house.  Some days I'm in more of a throwing out day than others.  It IS a real hard thing to do.

Ray:

Wonderful treatise on JUNK!

Sometimes I think JUNK knows how to procreate, in the deepest darkest recesses of the basement, or of the attic.

Here was our solution.  In the end, after trying everything else, we called an auctioneer and told him he could have everything he wanted in the house, but in return had to fill his own dumpster with all the left over junk he did not want and haul it away.  He agreed.

Another part of the solution involving memorabilia.  One morning I woke up and asked myself a hard question.  Did I really want my new life as a wandering gypsy seeing the sights of the wonderful country I live in, or did I want to hang on to my old life and its memories.  After much mental anguish, I decided I wanted the new life.  I have never looked back.  Well, almost never.  Sometimes, like around midnight, like it is now, I regret that I never had time to finish digitizing all my old jazz and classical LP recordings.  I try to remember what that Stanley Turnstine album sounded like, or that Freddie Hubbard album.  Or try to replay in my mind my Rachmaninoff Vespers album recorded by the Russian Army Soviet Chorus (oh what marvelous bass singers they have).  Thousands of hours of a lifetime collection down the drain.  My college and high school yearbooks gone forever.  My old family photographs vanished into the mists of time.

But.... the sun comes up, and it is now time to visit the Grand Canyon, or cast a fly out onto the crystal blue Flathead River, or tee up for another round of golf in Arizona, or visit the grandkids on the east coast, or attend the Pomona FMCA rally in California, or boondock beside a glowing campfire with dear friends in QZ.  Nah.  it was a good trade!  I can survive without my old life as long as I have my new life.  ;D ;D

The Admiral is having a tougher time with this.  We have a big Wells Fargo trailer in Maryland jammed from floor to ceiling with her junk.  So far in the first 13 mnths, she has reopened her trailer once to remove a small box of clothing.  ;D

Looks like JUNK is a universal issue!
We have spent the last several weeks knee deep in it. We have a 10 X 30 storage unit and a 5 X 10 unit.
We are sorting, selling and pitching with the goal of eliminating the smaller unit.
We rented the unit next to our big one for 6 weeks so as to have room to sort.

Our first goal was to drop the smaller unit and do a major reduction on the stuff in the big one.

At first DW was going on about getting rid of everything - however the old compulsion to keep JUNK soon came to the fore and the goal has changed.

I would really like to say "I told you so" but after 44 years of marriage I have learned not to do  that...

Three years ago I suddenly was downsized out of a job I had for 23 years, the saving grace was the severance package. I was still a few months away from being able to take from the 401k so I had to find a job. We took a job of managing a retirement home and one of the criteria was we had to live there. With a reduction in pay we could not afford to keep our 2700 sq ft townhouse. I knew we had a lot of junk but I was in for a surprise. We gave away what anyone wanted and the kids took whatever they wanted and we still had "stuff" left. We rented a storage unit, didn't visit it once until time to move again. We left the life of managing the retirement home, rented an apartment and are on our way to eliminating the rest of the "stuff". Most of the memory stuff we have is in the form of pictures. We had albums of pictures, now reduced to photo boxes, and as I have time or get the inclination to, I have been scanning them into the computer. I figure this won't be completed for many years to come. My goal of going full time in a bit over three years is approaching fast, so I am more adament to get rid of what we don't need. The old adage of "if you haven't used it in the past year, you don't need it" is what I am trying to go by. It is working for me but my wife is struggling with it. The clothes will be the issue for her.
Anyway good luck in getting rid of the junk. I don't know if it ever ends no matter what size you living quarters are.

Thanks for the info Phil. Was just curious because most Federal Land won't let you sell anything....even personal items. Towns usually require a temporary business license if you are only going to be there for a short time. Costs are steeper than if permanent. Yes, makes sense about the health department...forgot about the criteria. Same as selling produce I suspect.

Onto "Junk."  We had 47 acres with 4 outbuildings full of junk. Took the auction route for the big ticket items, then stored the rest in storage. Gradually reduced that to 0...took a few years Of course I kept the tools and some small things that had a lot of personal meaning. I think we went down the typical road that most do. Amazing how much you can do without, when you get rid of it. Of course we gave a lot of antiques, genealogy papers, tools, etc. to our 3 kids....now they have junk.

....now they have junk.

Click to expand...

Estate!? ?Fer cornsake, ESTATE!? Never call it junk.? Not even junque.? It is your ESTATE.? ?Let the kids figure out the thing in their own good time. 8)

Carl, I have to laugh at the ESTATE thing. I tried that on my kids and they said they didn't care what it was called they didn't want it. I have several great paintings done by artist Larry Zack that the boys didn't want. However, I did get one of them to agree to store them for me if I want.
We now live in a 1000 sq ft apartment so I don't have a lot of ESTATE left and what I do have, minus furniture, will probably get packed in to the fiver or sold. I look forward to that.

Well Carl, it depends on the family or kids. I don't know how many times I gave them antiques...only to get them back. Same with coins,stamps,etc. I finally told them I will sell the stuff if I get it back again. Seemed to work. Maybe when they get older they will see things different? However you are probably right about the "junk" label. Might be a bit too harsh as a lot of it is valuable...dollar wide.

Well the trick to getting even with the ungrateful brats is to drop dead suddenly and let them sort things out.? ?;D ;D

Very practical solution, but I wonder where the body would finally go :

City dump.  But you won't care.

Regarding the relocation of your "estate".  Remember, when determining what to do with it, the important thing is that you can't take it with you in the end.  With that in mind, makes it a bit easier in the decision process, of where it should go.....

Daisy

Was it here that I heard:

"You can't take your kids inheritance with you so you might as well leave them the bills"?

AND THE STUFF!

Fred

VERY TRUE!!!

Estate...HaHaHa!. More like mistake , Phil

I took the sage advice from this thread and spent the day lightening my "estate".  It felt good.  I will have to remember my garbage man come Christmas..... ;D