How To Get Rid of Everything You Own

Let’s first attack the elephant in the room that looms over many of us all of our lives. Memories. Because that’s what pictures are, right? We spent time taking them, money developing them, time organizing them (or feeling guilty for not doing so), space storing them, and emotions invested in how much our kids would appreciate all this. Ya. Boy, do they—not! Our digital-age progeny have no pictures stored as hard copies, just in the cloud, and some of their best memories disappear into the SnapChat neverland after 24 hours. They have soooooo many pictures that they don’t really value them, so don’t be expecting your kids to embrace all those bins you’ve been storing.

Of course you can shred and toss a lot of old documents hanging around your attic, but be sure to save tax info for the years the IRS requires and other important family history documents etc. Even some of those sweet stories your kids wrote as they were growing up and the love notes you shared with your spouse. I saved these as pdf’s using the same scanning software I used for our photos.

Of course your sensitive and financial documents and tax forms, and basic life documents like birth and marriage certificates, property deeds, etc. should be digitized and stored in a secure, encrypted storage vault (for example, a personal vault is a free feature of OneDrive and can only be accessed by a special password). If you are becoming a nomad, you may need to access these while traveling. I also keep digitized copies of our passports, visas, driver licenses, password lists and credit card information digitized securely in case of theft or a failing memory, and so our kids can access them if needed in an emergency.

Your basic life document originals should also be left in a safe deposit box or in a fireproof lock box held by a trusted family member or friend.

I even digitized objects—items from my own childhood that held sentimental value. One quick photograph and into the trash bin. I can look at it if I ever want to (and did I ever search the garage to view these things? No.)

I will warn you that this trip down memory lane will be meaningful, painful, joyful, cathartic, and emotional. I must also ask you to heed your physical limits and allow plenty of time—as holding a camera and flipping photos for hours and hours and hours and hours definitely has repetitive-use physical implications. I will say a great therapeutic masseuse can help you regain full motion of your shoulders and elbows after the process is done but it’ll cost you.

The only way to preserve these memories is to digitize them. I looked at all the options—scanners (a viable option involving a much more expensive scanner than I owned or wanted to buy), photo scanning apps that came with annual paid storage (thinking long-term this was expensive and came with the risk of the company going out of business), or photo-scanning apps from which you could store your memories as you wish on the cloud of your choice or on a hard drive. I tested several free/cheap independent scanning apps and printed out the scanned photo or document on my printer to compare quality.

Do your own research, but I ended up using Genius Scan, which had pretty good quality and could handle both photos and documents; and didn’t require me to line up a set of pics, then separate and crop them one by one like some apps. With Genius Scan, I could sort through a bin, choose the best pictures (just a small fraction of them), then hold them in a stack on the coffee table while I used my iPhone 13 Pro to scan each picture as I quickly flipped them.

The basic free version of the Genius Scan app is great and has unlimited scans, but I upgraded to Genius Scan Plus for about $10 so that I could directly upload to the OneDrive cloud I use for storage, right from the app. You can also upload to the Google cloud or iCloud.

If you choose to use Genius Scan, here are some instructions:

• Only scan 50-70 pictures or document pages at a time. Click on the plus sign, hold your camera above the photo or document and let the app size and automatically snap the shot, then continue on to the next.

• To do a bunch at once, be sure you have “batch” turned on in the upper right corner of the scan screen.

• After you’ve done 50-70 items in the batch and are done, click on the 6 little boxes (pages icon) on the top right of the screen. In here, you can select and delete any bad ones or reorder if needed in documents.

• After you’re done, at the top of the page you can click on and edit the title of the batch. Do not re-use batch names. If you’re doing 2006 in multiple batches add on something unique like part 1, part 2, etc. This name will be on your photos in the cloud so consider how you want things organized.

• If you are scanning pictures and want to export them as individual photos, click on the pages icon in the upper right corner and click “select all.” Then hit “Done”. Then click the upload icon on the bottom right, click the settings icon at the top by your document name and change to jpeg, hit done, then select what you want to export to. For example, I first chose “OneDrive, Add a New Account” and attached my account. After uploading and clicking back and forward in OneDrive to get to the folder I wanted to save the batch in, I then sometimes accepted the option to save that folder as a direct link in Genius Scan to save more batches there. Let’s say a few batches in, I want to save to another folder in One Drive, I go to the generic OneDrive showing my account name in the export list and repeat for a new folder (you can save multiple folders as quick options). Each photo will be saved individually with a page number attached to your file name—this is why each batch needs a unique file name or you’ll get duplicates.

• If you are scanning documents follow the same process except scan each document you want saved distinctly as a separate document—ie 2006 tax return but instead of “select all” on the pages step, don’t select any. This way they’ll all be saved as one document with multiple pages instead of saving each page separately. You might want to double check that it is saved as a pdf in the settings. If you are saving a large batch with one name, like 2006 tax support docs, follow the same instructions (you don’t have to save each document separately).

*Note: these directions are for Genius Scan Plus version 7.12 at date of writing 11/2023.

I’ll go through some specific categories below, but in general the easiest way to sell things (believe it or not—even though I absolutely hate these) is a Garage Sale. At least you get it over with quickly in a weekend (Friday and Saturday are best sales days especially for resale buyers on the hunt, early in the morning!) and you can sell anything in a yard sale. You’ll get very little for your stuff but the goal is to get rid of it, right?

You might have things you know are worth more and for those items you should choose the highest profit alternative available. See specific categories below. It might be best to try selling those things FIRST so you can add them to the garage sale if the alternative doesn’t work out.

Be sure to save out the items going with you on your nomad journey (way less than you think! And stop buying more!) and a few things you need to eat and live until you leave.

After garage sales, the next potentially profitable way to get rid of things is through local online sales like Facebook Marketplace, NextDoor, Craigslist, etc. We had the best luck here for electronics like TV’s, computers, etc, and furniture (though not great luck). I’ll tell you that 90% of inquiries will be scammers or no-shows. Please be very careful of scammers and deal ONLY in cash (don’t fall for the “out of town so sending my son/friend” Venmo scam) and meet only in safe, public places.

Another way to sell to locals is through Facebook Groups—search for “Buy/Sell/Trade [insert name of your city, county, nearby towns etc]”. Also through Facebook specialty groups like those for local or national stamp collectors, Christmas items, comic books, video games, etc. (first try doing a search on groups, pairing the category with your city or county). You can join these groups then delete them after you’re done disposing of your things.

Some items are best sold in specialty situations online or to local stores—see the rest of my categories.

Research eBay and similar sites before you dive in—once you add up their percentage of the sale price, the percentage PayPal takes, the cost of shipping and materials, and your time, you may not decide it’s worth it except possibly for a few high value, lightweight items.

After selling all I could on my own, I sent anything else of perceived (key word!) value to our local auction house. They took things like collectibles, artwork, and sports equipment that no one else would take and paid us about 65 percent of the profit, which added up to a few $35ish checks and several $8 checks over time. Very, very little.

We donated a lot of things to our favorite thrift store. Our kids finally took a lot of our furniture and a few kitchen equipment items. The week before we moved out of our apartment (where we couldn’t have a garage sale), I spread out all our remaining furniture, lamps, vacuums, kitchenware, suitcases and all manner of stuff deemed no longer wanted, took pictures of it en masse and sent those pics first to our kids to claim anything they wanted. Then I sent posted pics of the rest of it on our own personal Facebook pages offering it all to our local friends, or at a price for a few more valuable things, or for free. It was a fun bonus to see some friends I hadn’t seen in a while as they came by to pic up an item they wanted. I ended up giving a bunch of the rest (especially garage stuff) to my boss. Then spread the rest on our little parking space in front of the garage with a giant FREE sign—and our neighbors adopted the rest of our stuff.

That last week before launch, we cleaned out our cupboards of medicines, travel and hygiene items we weren’t taking, and all kinds of food and office supplies, and threw away so much! Sad, really, but not the kind of stuff you can re-home. One of our sons took Tim’s classic car, a Model A, which was a fun project they’d worked on together. We helped pay for a trailer and gas and our son-in-law graciously towed it to our son in Washington. At that point, we were happy to live in apartments that had dumpsters! At last, all of our possessions were finally all gone…one way or another…that was the important part!

Oh, we did still have our one remaining car, which we had planned to drive up the coast to Washington (see my blog post on this sad story) and sell there before we left the country. The day we were to leave it had severe mechanical problems and we had to leave it at our daughter’s house, to be picked up by a junk yard for scrap. We rented a car.

Whether precious metal bullion, bars, coins or jewelry, these are equivalent to money and can help you fund your dreams. Depending on the quantity and quality of what you have, options include jewelry re-sale websites (that will appraise diamond rings etc to assist in sales), eBay, cash-for-gold type companies, and local pawn shops or jewelry shops.

In our case, we had silver dollars and some other coins that seemed like they may or may not be irregular or worth some money. I had a couple of gold and diamond rings. All of these we took to a local coin and jewelry store (kind of like a pawn shop) that buys metals for melt and also sells rarer coins. Fortunately, the guy seemed very honest and evaluated our items. For all these heavy coins, this was the best option as shipping would’ve been expensive. What wasn’t worth melting, we deposited as regular coinage at the bank. I didn’t like what he offered for the rings and they had sentimental value so I decided to leave them in our one small lock box to possibly wear again and give to my girls eventually.

I gave my silverware collection to my oldest son, who wanted it, but could also have sold it for the metal value.

Depending on your china/crystal patterns, you may be able to sell some of this to Replacements.com. Check their website for prices and see if the shipping costs are worth it. At one time about 2004, I sold my wedding china for about $400. You may also get lucky selling this through FB groups or Marketplace but truthfully not that many people use china anymore so it’s not a high-demand item.

I had a surprising amount of gold chains and broken jewelry and these turned out to be a good source of some extra cash from a cash-for-gold mail service, a very easy process where you mail it in, they sort and weigh it and offer you a bulk amount along with pictures of what they do not wish to buy (usually because it’s not gold—they will mail it back to you if you want it). They pay for all the shipping out of their offer. If you accept the offer, they mail you a check. I did the same for some silver I had. Funny enough, there were some chains the gold company didn’t buy, which I was certain were 14K gold so I mailed those into a different cash for gold type business which bought them for an additional couple hundred dollars!

Incidentally, at one point I had to re-make my wedding ring because it couldn’t be expanded any further and I’d gained a bit of weight. I took the opportunity to use some gold and small diamonds from my mom’s and my mother-in-law’s jewelry that I’d been given and alter the design a bit. At that time, about a decade ago, I took in some loose/broken gold and the jeweler credited the melt value and re-used materials against the cost of making my new ring. So another option is to create a special piece of jewelry for yourself or someone you love or give some of these resources to a grown child to use toward an engagement ring.

These were a huge surprise to us as a source of cash.

Tim’s brother passed away about a year before our belongings purge and we didn’t know what to do with a lot of his things. This included various musical instruments and a bunch of little tools/electronic boxes that we had no clue what they were (some were repeaters for guitars etc)—we know basically nothing about musical things. When they didn’t sell at our garage sale (I guess no one who came by knew what they were either, thankfully!), Tim took them to Guitar Center (a national chain which sells used as well as new equipment) and walked out with about $500. Who knew those little boxes were worth so much?!

My mom and my grandmother were both big collectors of painted plates and all things Thomas Kincade in the late 1900’s, as well as several other of the usual collections of that time. When my parents got rid of a lot of their belongings in the early 2000’s to sell their house and move into assisted living, my mom insisted her collections were worth a fortune and begged me and my siblings to take them all. I didn’t even like Thomas Kincade and didn’t have room for it all and my siblings didn’t either, so my mom stored most of it at additional wasted costs. In addition to plates my mom and grandma had given me over the years, I did take some numbered plate collections of hers, that I could use for decorating.

I had to get rid of these plates, and these little building collections of my mom’s that she’d pretty much forced me to take, and some Roseville pottery that I’d previously discovered was worth some money (less now than back then).

Here’s the problem: the market is absolutely glutted with all of these collections of decades past, as the collectors pass on and their kids try to sell their “valuable collections.” On most of these items I had not one single response after listing them on FB Marketplace and in multiple local FB sale groups. Tim stopped by every antique store he passed and inquired about consignment and consistently received the message about the oversaturated market. He was told they couldn’t GIVE these collections away and wouldn’t take any more. Finally I found our local auction house would take them and I’ll tell you that my 65 percent cut came to a total of maybe $15 on all of the collectibles combined.

Perhaps you have very high-end collections. A family member of mine has collected antiquities, art work and elaborately-preserved animals from around the globe. So many beautiful and valuable things. But there is so much that, as he ages, he has considered selling it off so his children won’t have to deal with it. Even the high-end auction houses he has consulted don’t know what to do with so many rare and valuable things that appeal to such a diverse array of buyers. Whether your collections are common or extremely unique and valuable, it can be difficult to find a buyer that knows their worth and is looking to acquire your items. And the more work it takes, the bigger a cut any auction house will take from the sale.

Although local auction houses will sell furniture, your best bet is to sell it locally online. We got lucky and our kids ended up taking most of our furniture and all of our appliances because you get a very small fraction of it’s value when selling to strangers, whether online or in a garage sale. Ours was fairly new so that was a sad prospect. The furniture we did sell had very little interest because there is SO MUCH for sale and most people who by used furniture want it very cheap.

The good news, on the flip side, is that if we ever decide to settle down and furnish a small home, we will buy used for good value. In fact, much of the furniture we bought during the time of our growing family, and our raucous teenagers and their friends, was bought used online because we knew it would get destroyed and didn’t want to stress about damage. We got lightly used leather couches for a fraction of what they would’ve cost new.

TV’s, computers and gaming equipment are pretty easy to sell online and went for more than we expected through Facebook marketplace. They sold easier this way than at our garage sale.

For things like comic books and computer games, it’s best to try for a local store We’d inherited a large box of comics from Tim’s brother and they weren’t worth a ton but it added up and was easy to sell in bulk to our local comic book store.

Computer accessories sell well at garage sales, but can also be sold online. It is getting harder to sell computer games and programs on disks because the “key” has already been registered and technology has often passed them by. But you might as well try, as some are considered vintage for collectors.

Garage sales are also great for boxes full of extra cords, sporting equipment, books and clothes. Even old, rusty tools sell—go figure. New ones sell even better.

A note on books in particular: other nomads have told me that encyclopedia sets are worth something. Also, I’m talking about a normal amount of books, not a giant load. My mom was quite a reader, purchaser and saver of books and when they got rid of their things they had thousands of books inside their home. In addition, she had a whole storage unit full of her books. Yes—a tremendous investment! Because there were soooo many books, no library would accept them as a donation, no used book store was interested and in fact even the recycling center wouldn’t accept them because of the bindings. Tragically, they all went to the dump. We tried everything to find them a home and I’m a lover of books as well (on my Kindle from the library), so it was a sad day to see all that money and creativity go to the dump (and it was quite heavy and thus expensive to dump as well!)

I didn’t have sellable clothing left and have never been a purse collector, but if you have designer items you can sell them through various online services like Thread Up and more modern designer iterations of that. I know my daughter-in-law got quite a lot for some Coach purses online—you’d just have to research where it’s best to sell such items.

One final thing that surprised me greatly. When you literally sell everything, that includes your huge cupboard of cleaning items you tried once or twice or bought in bulk too recently. I had so much of it—some expensive and barely used!—that I decided to throw it out there at the garage sale and see what happened. I was shocked—people loved buying that stuff and I could’ve charged a lot more for it.

They bought spare lightbulbs, mops, brooms, garage storage racks, the tables we displayed on, and the chairs we sat on. It’s all worth a try! You can always make a donation run and dump run afterwards.

The timing of getting rid of cars can be tricky. You never know how long they’ll take to sell and what happens in the gap between selling and actually leaving? If you sell your car online, i.e. through Craigslist or Auto Trader or such, pricing it a little low might help it move quickly. You might be able to arrange a convenient transfer date. Another option is to donate it to a homeless shelter or something like that where they have mechanics classes and/or have people in need of a car. A relative might want it. Or you can sell it to an online service like CarMax or Carvana. They are going to re-sell it so of course you’ll get the wholesale price, but you can choose the day you want it picked up from your house and the whole process is very easy and done online. Be sure to file the form needed with your state (often available online) that releases you from liability. Selling services like CarMax often sell to an out-of-state buyer who registers it elsewhere and your state doesn’t know so keeps sending your registration bills. You can also rent a car during the gap. In our case, our beloved car died the day we left so a salvage company picked it up.