Rightsized Retirement Living: What To Do With All My Stuff

I'm Tina Leger, Certified Senior Move Manager and owner of Settled In By Tina. As a member of the National Association of Senior Move Managers, I specialize in helping older adults and their families downsize and relocate to a new residence, bound by a pledge of integrity, committed to safety and ethics, and dedicated to continuing professional development.

The question I hear most often, in some form, on every first consultation is the same: "What do I do with all my stuff?" Here is the process we walk through with every family.

Start with what you love and use.

Take time to look around your home and think about the items you genuinely love and actually use. Simplify. Start with the major pieces in your home and decide what you want to bring first. A few small tools make this dramatically easier:

• Use color-coded stickers, one color for keep, one for gift, one for donate, one for sell.
• Create a floor plan of the new residence drawn to scale and place your furniture on it before moving day, not after.
• Select about 25% of any large collection. The rest can be gifted, sold, or donated with intention.
• Make sure you actually have storage and display space for everything you are keeping.

Then tackle the closets, drawers, and cabinets.

This is where most downsizing projects either build momentum or stall. Be realistic when sorting through your clothes closets, the wardrobe from a different decade of your life does not need to make the trip. For everything that doesn't go, an estate sale is often the cleanest path for excess household items, and we coordinate that for you.

Our three-phase process.

Phase One, Plan. We tour your current home, design a floor plan for the new residence, schedule a moving date, and build the plan together.

Phase Two, Coordinate. We schedule every party involved in the move, handle any personal shopping for new furniture, accessories, or supplies (small appliances, fresh sheets and towels, anything you'll want waiting for you), and arrange an estate sale if needed.

Phase Three, Execute. We manage every aspect of moving day, oversee the placement of furniture in your new home, pack and unpack and arrange your belongings, set up the computer and TV, hang pictures and art and mirrors, and remove all packing materials and moving supplies before we leave.

The full service menu.

Depending on what your family needs, our work includes a complimentary consultation, move-only services, sorting and organizing, downsizing, decluttering, space planning, arranging for the disposition of possessions, and unpacking and settling in. Beyond the move itself we offer our professional referral network, document shredding, disposal services, donation management, estate sale coordination, and moves to and from storage lockers.

We are your move and transition navigators.

From the first consulting conversation through sorting, organizing, packing, hiring your movers, arranging estate sales and donations, and unpacking you into a home that is ready to live in, you don't have to hold any of this alone.