The Great Downsize of 2021

Alright, alright, alright. Now that you all have read about the absurd amount of paperwork to do in order to be full-time RV’ers, it’s time we tackle the real issue here. Downsizing. 

This was a huge hurdle for us. We will be going from a 1,600 square foot house to a 400 square foot home on wheels. Are we excited? You bet. Do we have way too much stuff? Oh, yea. 

A little bit about me. I am what my family fondly refers to as a fashionista. I have worked in the fashion industry on and off for over 20 years. In that time, I have worked for some wonderful luxury brands and have accumulated some incredible pieces. I love clothes but I have a slight addiction to shoes and handbags. I even turned one of our spare bedrooms into a closet a la Lisa Vanderpump (at a much smaller scale of course). The bottom line is I love fashion. 

Now, this has never been an issue before. In fact, twice a year, spring and fall, I go through my entire closet and donate what I haven’t worn in a while or know I will not wear again. I like to keep things fresh and try to wear as much as I can in my wardrobe. But no matter how many times over the years I have purged, it is nothing like the extreme downsizing that needed to be done in order to live out of an RV. 

Let me paint you a picture. I went through my entire wardrobe multiple times and packed up 11 boxes of clothes, shoes, handbags, and jewelry. 11 boxes!! I sent them all to an amazing organization called Thred Up, an online thrift store. I highly recommend. Each box I sent off was like a tiny piece of my soul. Saying goodbye to clothing that I knew I would never wear again/could never use while living in an RV was more devastating than dropping your dinner all over the floor. But it had to be done. I somehow found the courage to let go and so can you. My recommendation? Pour yourself a glass of wine, turn on some Bravo TV and LET IT GO! Trust me, the more you get rid of, the better off you will be. And if you really can’t let go, storage lockers and family member’s closets work well as a great hiding place. 

Now, I wasn’t the only one who had a hard time with the downsizing. Much like my very tiny addiction to fashion, my husband, Jerry, has a bit of a thing for tools. Our garage is meticulously organized with all the tools you could ever dream of. He is an engineer and the neighborhood handyman. Seriously, he can and does fix everything. But on an RV, how many tools do you actually need? The answer is: I have no idea. But it has to be much less than what has occupied the garage for the last 20 years. And lucky for me, tools are much heavier than clothes! Jerry has been doing great though and been selling/giving away/donating many tools over the last few months. I swear I walked in on him shedding a tear over some type of saw or ratchet thing. 

The bright side? We are in this together. We have both purged so many of our babies, I mean tools/clothes. And we have also had to get rid of regular things around the house like cutlery, glasses, cookware, containers. There’s only so much Tupperware that fits in an RV, and we definitely do not want any glass. God forbid something breaks in a pothole and now there’s glass all over my precious new RV. 

I know that the idea of downsizing can be super daunting. But take it day by day and room by room. And find local organizations that can take your donations and even try selling online with websites like Facebook Marketplace. Good luck! 

Just One More… box of stuff to donate!