Shedding Posessions

Once we decided to relocate to Mendoza, one of the first questions we asked ourselves was "What are we going to do with our stuff?" We've heard this is a major issue that a lot of expats face. Dealing with a household full of furniture is such a daunting task. There are a few options: packing up and moving everything (see this previous article Shipping Quote Post about various companies that specialize in doing so), storing everything, or selling most everything and starting fresh in your new country. When it came time for us to decide, we chose to combine the second and third options. We would sell most of our things, and store those things that we just couldn't part with. Our goal is to move to Argentina with our clothes, some small electronic items like laptops and cameras, our 2 pets, and not much else. We want to carry everything with us, and get 3 people, 2 pets, and all we are taking with us in a regular minivan taxi!

Several months ago when we put our house on the market, we started a major "de-cluttering" project. We sorted everything into "garage sale", "put into storage", "give to charity" and "keep" piles. We also went room to room and decided which furniture we would keep for our interim apartment, and which we would sell.

As soon as we got a contract for our house, we had a HUGE garage sale. All in all, we sold about 50% of our belongings, gave about 20% away to charity, and kept about 30%. Of the things we kept, most of it will be sold when we make our final move out of our short-term apartment and into Argentina. Our antiques and family heirlooms will be placed in a 100 sq foot storage space.

At first, I thought that getting rid of so much of our stuff would be a very difficult practice. But, in fact, it turned out to be a very freeing, cleansing experience. It was amazing how many things we had accumulated over the years, and it felt very good to shed the weight of it all! Knowing we never had to move those things again was also a bonus!