I threw out hundreds (maybe thousands) of Pokémon cards from my sons. I have asked them and they say if it’s here I’m free to do whatever I want with things.
I have “original” buzz light year and woodie dolls, but they are well loved. I also probably still have the Elmo that people were paying hundreds for @25 years ago. My mother got it for my son. My ex suggested we sell it for a profit but I said no.
I have no idea where my Barbie stuff wound up.
One of my aunts has MANY barbies, and a special room for them. They are mostly kept in the box and are likely worth some money. On a sad related note, she is close to blind and has had people steal a fair amount from her, if one believes the family gossip.
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I kept my S’s Pokémon cards. I recently gave him the binder they are in.
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My son has his Pokémon cards. I’m not sure he trusts me with them!
And my husband has his baseball cards.
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In retrospect, Barbie should have gone with Poindexter then divorced him after 27 years of marriage and walked off with billions plus several homes.
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I took a bunch of stuff from my parents’ house last year when we thought Dad didn’t have much time left. I guess I need to ask him if he wants me to ship some of it back!
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When I was in high school my mother was cleaning and threw away all my baseball cards from the 1960’s!!
There is a sports card store whose name is “My Mom Threw Out My Cards!” Hits a little too close to home…
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My cousin may never forgive my aunt…she threw away his baseball cards (this was years ago) that he had collected since childhood. He says it was just a shoebox–worth at least 10K at the time.
My mother put two rather large diamond rings in her will, she designated which of my brother’s children got each one. Then she handed them to my brother, and told him to give them to his kids; he kept them and his wife had one of them remounted. If she hadn’t told me that she had done that, as executor I would have had problems following her will. I was blessed at her death, in that his children trusted me completely (he had Alzheimer’s). Mom had dealt with money by putting it in CD’s with “pay on death” clauses, so that was clean cut. My brother’s wife had a little tantrum that there wasn’t more money but her daughter sat her down and told her the facts of life (my brother had gotten Mom to make him joint on accounts, and he spent a LOT of her money).
She left genuinely antique furniture (marble topped tables, etc) to the grandchildren, they are all still in Mom’s apartment in my house. Like you said, brown furniture isn’t what that generation wants.
Me too!!! Actually, she gave away all of mine (about 6?) in their original boxes, in mint condition, to a family friend. ARGH! I think she asked me, and at the time I was in college and onto other things. But when I had my daughter, I longed to be able to share those Barbies with her. As a result, while not a hoarder, I do have a hard time downsizing!
Seems that the Wall Street Journal posted a page on the subject:
WSJ wants a subscription before you can read their articles; I haven’t gotten there yet but probably should. Thanks, though.
A simple solution to parents not throwing their adult kids’ stuff away s for the adult kids to take their stuff when they leave. Or at least go through what you left and explain what is valuable, what you want to keep, etc.
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I was watching one of those Hoarder shows one time. The woman who was the hoarder had her stepfather throw away all of her toys when they were moving from Europe back to the US on orders. She went to school one morning and when she came home every toy and doll had been thrown out. I felt so sorry for her and somewhat understood her hoarding.
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Interesting, how relationships and objects take on a life of their own.
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If anyone hears loud noises or feels a disturbance in the force starting on Wednesday it’s likely to be my sister and her son squabbling over things in the house my dad left him. She (and I) get the things. He gets the house. I can guarantee there will be issues about who owns what and who destroyed what (age and lack of care, of course, destroys nothing).
I was asked if I want to be there. He-- no!
So now I’m being accused of wanting “free money” for not helping… Even though I mentioned everything of “mine” could be sold to pay off dad’s debt if necessary so the other two could inherit their things.
I have memories of dad and a rocking chair plus some jewelry from his mom (my grandma). I’m content. His spirit might be with me relaxing by our family’s favorite river those days rather than in the war zone.
Our family has friendly bets on whether and when the police will be called…
Oh, and this is all still “on” because apparently the judge didn’t buy the excuse sis tried to give that she has “extremely rare” side effects from her second Moderna shot that will have her unable to do anything at all for 6 weeks. She told me this while she was driving roughly 5 hours from her house (one way) - a couple days after that second shot. Yep, unable to do “anything.” For 6 weeks. Med school graduate and his friends got a bit of a chuckle out of that one.
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Eek, I just discovered something that was an unintended consequence of my in laws trying to make things easier once they are gone. Somewhere along the line, they wanted to make sure my H gets to have the family cottage himself (not shared with his sister). They took it out of the trust and added H to the deed using a quit claim. Then they updated their will to say that the value of the cottage will be considered an advance on his share of the estate. It states that his sister gets half the value at the date of death or half the sale value if he sells it within a year of the date of death. But doing a quit claim actually means H loses the step up value he would receive if it was instead willed to him. It’s a mistake on my in laws’ part of many tens of thousands of dollars, because if we sell, we pay capital gains tax based on the very low price they paid for the cottage years ago (rather than on the value as of the date of death). It would not be an issue if we were to keep it forever & will it to our kids, but the value of our part of the inheritance is greatly reduced should we ever sell. MIL is big on everything being 50/50, and five years ago we could have explained the problem and had her fix it. Today, everything confuses her too much to even broach the subject. Everything we inherit is a bonus, of course … but let this be a lesson to others whose parents think a quit claim deed is the way to go.
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Aren’t the proposed new estate taxes going to eliminate the stepped up basis on inheritances? It could be a moot point in the future.
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Well, that does make it feel a bit better!
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It shouldn’t.