When the time comes, I’m going to suggest to DH and his sister that they donate all of the usable kitchenware stuff to a local refugee organization because there’s a lot of families who could really use all that stuff since they come here with basically nothing.
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I got rid of my mother’s cut glass punch bowl and two dozen matching cups, and a week later a friend asked to borrow them for a daughter’s bridal shower. Lol
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I have a friend (think I have written about him on here before) who has a house full of porcelain, crystal, etc. As well as two storage units of MORE stuff. He has his mother’s things, his grandmothers’ things, and who knows who else’s!
He refuses to get rid of anything. His rationale? “I had to deal with it, so my daughters will have to deal with it when I’m gone.” And he has his own collections of ridiculous amounts of sports memorabilia. Footballs, small replica helmets, pennants, bobble heads, framed newspapers, and programs from athletic events. Everything is well preserved and organized, but it is insane to me. This is a dear friend of mine, and he is a wonderful person, so I have NO idea why he wants to burden his own children with all this, “stuff.”
We are on industrial dumpsters #4 and #5, guys, and that’s just the upstairs. The boxes of stuff were up to my waist. Things that once might have been worth something are just junk now, and there’s no end in sight.
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My mother is long gone, but when she was alive she asked us kids to pick a rifle from the basement (my dad was a big hunter) for keepsakes if we wanted and she sold the rest. I took my grandfather’s gun - no connection to him since he died before I was born, but you know how it goes.
For some reason, I was cleaning out a closet and found it a few days ago. We have a really good gun shop/range here and I brought it in to get a little history and see what they’d offer me. The guy on the phone said “grandpa’s gun” is rarely special.
Turns out it was much older and in much better condition than I thought - a 1906 Ithaca double barrel shot gun with all original pieces. I got $200 for it, which is better than sitting in a closet another 20 years. A collector piece for the right person, and all the guys behind the counter were thrilled to see a piece that old in very good condition. Plus I dealt with it, as opposed to my kids doing it. I don’t even think they knew it was there, plus it’s not compatible with today’s ammo.
So, I felt really good about that since really I was the only one who knew anything about it. Now, of course, I kept the pieces of paper the guy printed off with the condition and history. Takes up less space than the shotgun I guess, lol.
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I had TWO punch bowls….ditched one. Have the other. In our little neighborhood, some of us own these less used items and share when needed…things like ice buckets, and punch bowls. I have the punchbowl.
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I am feeling so supported!
If I didn’t have a job, I’d open a catering business with the ridiculous amounts of serving pieces I have (and we gave away cartons upon cartons and crates and whatnot after our parents died). My meat platters spawn more meat platters it seems.
BUT- I don’t use disposables and I’m the go-to in the neighborhood for “you wouldn’t happen to have 24 matching dessert plates for a baby shower, would you?” (of course I do! Plain or floral? pastels or autumnal?)
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Here is my free advice. If you have a utility room, or some other place with open shelves…keep whatever fits on them. Please please…don’t wrap them up in newspaper and put them in closed boxes. That’s the black hole. If you must put things in boxes, get clear plastic bins and don’t wrap…so you can see what’s inside.
We have a utility room with shelving along two walls floor to ceiling. That’s where all my “extra stuff” is located…things like seasonal mugs, that punchbowl, all kinds of Christmas stuff, pitchers (I use those instead of vases).
As you all know, I volunteer where lots of these things get donated. When something is wrapped in newspaper, I look at the date in the newspaper to see how long it’s been wrapped up. I’ve seen things in 1970’s newspapers. You know those things haven’t been used for over 50 years.
Those are the things I don’t want my kids to have to deal with!
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I find the process difficult. Having just done this for a relative, we did one version post funeral as a family where everyone got to take what they wanted.
We sat as a family and went through photos, and this prompted a lot of sharing. Everyone took what they wanted and we threw out the rest.
There were piles of correspondence that we didn’t keep but demonstrated how much this person valued having touched someone’s life and having been acknowledged for it. A great reminder to me of the value of a thank you note or such. They matter!
Kept tax docs, last year’s bills, etc. Threw out most bakeware and cookware. Serviceable but pretty banged up. Donated clothes, plates, cutlery, linens, medical supplies, books, lamps,and all furniture.
Okay. I really would have loved to take some of the older, better furniture but it just didn’t go with my decor. Local dealers said it had value but didn’t move these days. This was hard, because I knew these were pieces that had not been cheap. Otoh, someone who has a need will be very happy to get well made furniture and my relative had decades of joy from living in a beautifully furnished home. I remind myself that it wasn’t purchased as an investment but as something to enjoy. Can you tell i struggled with this?
My biggest goal was to keep stuff out of a landfill. Getting a few extra dollars for each beneficiary mattered less although being a good fiduciary was important. (That strategy was agreeable to everyone. )
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Okay, scary day. I opened one of the sheds in the backyard (I want to put my e-bike in it). The trash can happened to be right in front of it and it took me no time at all to fill it up. There are some outside Christmas lights which I don’t even know if they work (too late to find out today and it was getting cold), but I can at least see what is in there.
A box of pictures labeled “Old pictures” There were pictures from my mother’s grade school graduation in the 1940s up to about 1980. This cleaning out will take forever. My siblings better come get what they want as I’m going to run out of patience in going through box after box. There is no rhyme or reason to any of these boxes of pictures and documents and no thoughts to preserving anything - all shoved into shoe boxes with pictures and documents all mixed up.
But I also found a certificate for my great grandmother having lived at 6 Maple Ave from the town clerk. I think it may have been for voting? I also have that address on my birth certificate as my grandmother ALWAYS lived in that same house and my parents lived there when I was born (a duplex).
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@twoinanddone finding those old papers is what makes it worthwhile. In sorting my mom (and grandmother’s) house my DH hauled away 6000 lbs of trash trash (as recorded by garbage dump weigh ins). And scanned 10000 of useless documents. We knew we were getting to the bottom when we found the stack of little cards that come on funeral flower arrangements that Grandma had saved (1965, they had moved just the year before) BUT back to the good stuff. We also found my other grandma’s college graduation certificate. She became a certified teacher when she was 16. Also found a deed for land in Kansas from our great great grandfather. Don’t know why it was still there because we are pretty sure the land was sold before they took the Oregon trail west. But it was fun to have!
It . is . HARD.
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I found a really cute recipe book my daughter made to give to my mother. I think it must have been from 1st grade as the printing it too good for Kindergarten. (She has excellent handwriting skills, even today)
“Put the turkey on a
cut ing burd gnd sta,
f the turkey putit in
the oven at 60
dogres wate for 20
minits then Enjoy!”
Every recipe ends Enjoy!
You may want to cook your turkey at a higher temp and maybe for longer than 20 minutes.
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Mom was pretty organized, but while going through her paperwork after she was gone, I found a few small ($500 and $1000) life insurance policies. Apparently she got them when opening bank accounts many years prior. They had tons of hoops to go through for claims and I eventually gave up on one of the smaller ones. I think they wanted a Medallion Signature Guarantee, which was a big problem for me since our bank was in Illinois and we were in California.
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Once the person dies and the insurance company is notified, they HAVE to pay on the policy. If they don’t have a person to pay (you), the policy amount eschetes to the state and the state treasurer holds the money until there is a claim. It is sometimes easier to claim through the state than through the insurance company.
You have to watch the lists of money (property too) items the state has to give back. Sometimes it takes a few years.
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They were willing to pay once we provided all required proofs. We were dealing with much more major accounts elsewhere with tons of paperwork, so eventually just wrote this one off.
We had a similar experience, twoinanddone - important papers (my grandma’s birth certificate!) mixed in with newspaper clippings of recipes, magazines, and advertisements. Box after box after box. And you can’t really just chuck it all because there would be something really key mixed in with the trivial.
Best wishes. You will feel good as you make progress and eventually complete it…
As I declutter (stuff from us, my mother, her parents) my aim is to have the critical items separated out … even if I do hang on to some of the other stuff. Not there yet. But that’s my aim.
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@Colorado_mom - it’s a process! All progress is good!
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I keep thinking I should do something with my stamp collection - It’s got stamps from around 1960 to 1970, mostly with postmarks, I also have a lot of first day issues from Somalia from when we lived there. I’d love it to go somewhere rather than just get tossed.
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H still has a lot of his father’s stamp and coin collection. He did sell some of the more valuable stamps and coins over 30 years ago. Now he’s thinking it’s time to have someone look at what is left to see if any of it can be sold.