Getting rid of your stuff

Getting rid of all your stuff

Planning a world trip

By Jaimy de Vries

Now we talked about handling the housing situation. While thinking about the further planning I took a look around and noticed some things. Lots of things! I took a look at my closet full of clothes, so much I could start my own clothing shop. And I sure do have a lot of crap in my house. Panic sets in: what to do with all these stuff!?

Well now is your chance to start anew. The solution to your cutter problem is by getting rid of most of it. If you are moving out completely and putting your stuff in storage, I’m guessing you’d prefer a smaller (and cheaper) storage unit. Even if your parents, siblings, or friends agreed to give you space in their storage room for your extra stuff, it would be nice not to bring truckloads of it. Even if you are coming back to the same place you live in now, it’s still a good idea to take this opportunity to do some downsizing. You will get used to living with much less over the course of your trip.

Organize a garage sale

Some stuff will have to be thrown out or given away. But a good portion of it can be sold. I sold lots of stuff on Marktplaats (Dutch craig’s list) and Vinted (selling clothing) and I hold a garage sale. These are great ways to get rid of stuff that you just don’t use or need anymore. Our culture is obsessed with collecting, so take advantage of other’s hoarding mentality and sell your crap off. Selling off a lot of your stuff is not only empowering because you’re paring down and learning to live on less (which is what you’ll be doing for the length of your trip), but it can also garner you a good deal of extra funds for your trip. Sure, you’re most likely not going to want to get rid of everything, but once you start ditching stuff, it gets addicting. If you can’t sell it or don’t want to mess with it, then give what’s still in good condition away to friends, family or charity. Goodwill is always accepting, as are various charities in every city across the world. Obtaining some good karma for yourself before departing is never a bad idea.

Even if you are coming back to the same place you live in now, it’s still a good idea to take this opportunity to do some downsizing. You will get used to living with much less over the course of your trip, and when you get home, I assure you that you’ll want to downsize even more. Long-term travel has a way of opening our eyes to things like this.

Storing your stuff

Besides my big amount of clothing I also had a lot of furniture and house crap. I lived by myself for more than six years and I like pretty stuff. That resolves in a truck full of boxes. Luckily my parents needed furniture and house crap for their new garden house (and my temporary home). So problem solved! Almost …. I still had a lot of stuff that couldn’t fit in the house garden. So it was necessary to get rid of more stuff or I could rent a storage place. But these storage places, depending how big of a storage you’ll need, can cost you between € 40 – € 100,- each month! That will cost me more than €1000,- during my world trip. Well, my stuff aren’t worth that much money. So I decided to have a big clean up and get rid of approximately 75% of my stuff.

Tips how to get rid of your stuff

Okay, okay… the importance of getting rid of your stuff is clear now, you must be thinking. But getting rid of your stuff is not easy. It can be very hard sometimes. How do I make well choices? And don’t feel bad about getting rid of these stuff? Most people feel emotional attached to their stuff. But no panic! I have a couple of tips for you!

If you own a car, deciding what to do with it can be a difficult decision to make. It depends on a variety of factors, like how old it is, how much it’s worth, and if you own it outright or are still making payments. Whether or not you plan on moving back to the same house and city also impacts your decision on this one. If you have an old car that isn’t really worth much, it might be a good idea to just hold on to it for when you return (unless you don’t plan on returning). If your car is still in good condition and it’s paid off, you may want to sell it as it will just depreciate sitting there while you’re gone. This could give you some extra funds for traveling. Selling can also save you some money, because if you want to hold your car here in the Netherlands (we call it tax country) you need to pay a certain amount of tax money every month.

If you still owe money on your car and can’t get rid of it without losing money, then consider seeing if a friend or family member is looking for something to drive temporarily. Maybe you can work out a deal that benefits both parties, with your friend or family member picking up partial payments while being able to drive your car while you’re gone. You may have to pay some to make it worth their while, but it would be nice to come home to a car after returning. Once less thing you have to worry about when trying to re-enter normal life.

‘Well I had an old beater, my race wagon, a Peugeot 206 from 2004. It was my first car and he never let me down. But having a car in the Netherlands, if its an old or a new car, you simple have to pay taxes (the only exceptions are old timers). So keeping my car at home while i’m on my world trip for 2,5 years will cost me around €800,- on taxes and €850,- euro on insurance. So this saves me a lot of money. I sold my car to my brother who will take good car of my race wagon’.

During my time to prepare and downsize for my world trip there was a corona lockdown. So it wasn’t possible to organize an old fashioned garage sale or give-away party. So I thought of a creative solution to make a Dropbox map and hold an online garage-sale that I shared with friends & family through my social accounts. And it worked!

Still I had a lot of clothing that friends & family didn’t want to have, so I gave it away to charity.

Everybody holds some stuff that has emotional value to oneself. But most of the time you hold on to it and put it in a box and never look at it again. Maybe 10 years later when you are cleaning up your stuff you take a look. You look at it and still want to keep it, why!? I had this problem as well. It was still too difficult to throw it away. My mum gave me a very good tip. She explained to me how she got rid of similar stuff (my childhood drawings haha). She said to make a picture of it and then throw the item away. A picture is easy accessible on your computer and you’ll probably look to it more often than you did before. A great idea! So I made a photo of memorable letters I received, drawings and paintings I made when I was young, etc. I put them all in my memory map on my computer. See photo.

Everybody has books and there are so many types of books. Romans, study books, cooking books, etc. Depending on your interest, if you like to read or not, or education it can be a small or big amount of books you have at home. I’m not a big reader but for my study to became a nurse I bought more than 40 books and they were quite expensive (between €40,- a €60,-). Due to that fact I found it very difficult to throw them away. My books were worth a lot of money. But thinking about it… I never took a look in my study books again after my study. And the information written in the books gets old and invalid. So why keep them? I tried to sell them, but nobody was interested. So with pain in my heart I threw them away.

As I wrote down before. It wasn’t possible to sell al my stuff or give it to friends & family. I still had a lot of “crap” that people around me didn’t want to have. So I gave it away to charity. It was difficult to give it away, because you don’t know what will happen with all your stuff. But the moment you gave it away I haven’t thought about those stuff again. It gives you a peace of mind and you did something good for others who don’t have the money to buy these stuff.

Another difficult subject was the pet situation, my sweet sweet pets (‘snif’). To read more how I handled the pet situation read my post the pet dilemma.

Special thanks to Bootsnall.com for all the guidelines and information on how to plan a round-the-world trip!