[migratory birds]

Aaahhh, remember the days when you could pack all your belongings in the back of a small bed pick-up truck? Me, too! That was a LONG time ago though!

Now have a 1200 SF (110 m2?) house of life to sort through, no need to haul most of it to the other side of the world and would like to get rid of most of it.

Where did you start when packing? My inclination is to pack what we'd like to bring with us, set that aside, and continually pare down in the months to come.

HELP!! Suggestions? I'm stuck in this inertia!

[Croft]

Wow, 110 square meters (your calculation is about right!). We've just moved and the packer estimated 57 square meters. The guys on the day reckoned he'd underestimated. We need to half what we have to get into a 20 foot ISO container (or 40ft plus a car).

I think the key to de-cluttering is:


Do I really need it?
If maybe, could I get it again conveniently and cheaply?


Some people we've just met spent the first 6 months with rented furniture while all their belongings were in storage. Made them realise how little they really needed, and have massively de-cluttered. Now just to convince the OH of this...

[srivett]

We're only moving out of a 1 bedroom apartment, where we own only some of the furniture, none of which is coming with us, so our strategy is probably very different to yours, but for what it's worth, our main emphasis is on what we're tossing rather than what we're keeping. (My OH practically made a religion of Tossing when she left Europe a few years ago, posting amusing step-by-step instructions to Enlightenment (http://aldiara.livejournal.com/85530.html) - only read if you want a bit of a laugh)

It's a bit of a wrench at first, but it ends up being very liberating, realizing how much of your stuff you really don't need. If you keep a box for rummage sales, a box for free giveaways, and a very large garbage bag (multiply quantities as needed), you end up with surprisingly little left over. The items that mean the most to you will survive by virtue of elimination. Anything else you can probably bear to part with... and probably should considering the magnitude of the move we're all making here :)

[jess]

"Packing paralysis" - your thread title drew me in. (I had guilt paralysis, since I had inherited all my parents' things and half my grandparents', and none of it had been gone through. I felt like a traitor every time I got rid of something.)

I like your idea of starting with what you know you need to bring or really want to bring. It helps you look at everything else with a critical eye knowing it didn't make the first cut.

Be sure to bring things that are expensive here if they are of interest to you -- makeup and books come to mind right away. There are threads devoted to what's expensive here, or you can research using online shopping. That way you don't need to bring things you are on the fence about if they can be replaced cheaply.

The difficulty comes when you plan for your current lifestyle and then it changes over here. I hadn't been cooking much in a while, so I only brought basic pots and pans and left a lot of other things behind. I cook a lot here since prepared foods here are not so much what I like and cost too much. Also I have more time here. I miss all my cooking things and have paid to replace many of them, but not all. I miss my telescope, which I never used much in the states. I miss things I can use; I do not miss sentimental things. I brought the few most treasured sentimental items. I didn't need all the extra sentimental items that would have sat in a box. Giving them up was hard, but now that I made the break it made me feel sort of free and kept down the clutter.

Sorry to go on so much. Packing was the single hardest part of the entire move for me, so I get on a roll. :o I hope some of it's useful.

[migratory birds]

Just had lunch with an American friend of mine who moved to France to work with the OECD for about 5 years. While there she helped others move from their homelands to come to work in Paris. She made a few very helpful suggestions:

- Send ahead of the big boat a box or two of anything that will make you feel more at home in the weeks b/w arriving and when the container gets there - photos, blankets, pillows, whatever makes your home home for you

- If you have kids, pack a box or two their things to ship ahead to be there just for them when you arrive to help make the transition easier for them (a few stuffed animals, a quilt, favourite books, a special lamp and several board games are a few things that come to mind for us)

- Figure out how much space/wt limits you have for luggage on the airlines (checked and carry-on) and max it out, purchase an extra something on wheels and stuff it with what you may want to feel at home once in NZ for a few weeks till container gets there.

After I wrote my first post this a.m. I got on the phone to call movers to get an idea of how the process works. It helped me get a visual of how it all needs to come together.

Yes, I know letting go of most of what I no longer need to haul overseas will be liberating...and will be practice for the "Big Journey", the ultimate release at the very end when I can't even take my favourite photo with me!

Suze, loved your OHs tossing mantras (I sort of like it, I sort of need it -> toss it!) I have thought it might be easier to rent a dumpster for $300 to "Toss It All" than a container to "Bring It All" for $6000...

[kanatakiwi]

When I acutally sat down to decide what was essential to bring, it turned out it wasn't furniture, it was the things that made our home unique to us. When we unpacked those things (little treasures, some lovely dishes, unique pieces of artwork for the walls, treasured photos, even certain fabric things like table runners, my favourite throw rug, pillow covers etc, ) and put them about in our new house, it instantly felt a lot more like "our place". We only brought a small amount of furniture since most of ours was nothing special, except for some antique oak.

I packed the treasures first, and it made it so much easier to ditch some of the rest of the stuff, because I knew I had the things that really mattered to me. (there was no sense paying a fortune to bring a generic leather couch which was 7 years old, when I could buy another one here for that price. )
I've also had a lot of fun buying things off Trade Me and haunting the second hand stores to replace what I need. Do take everyone's advice about the small appliances, etc, its the little things that will nickel and dime you to death here. We even brought garden shovels, etc. (thoroughly disinfected, and itemized in case MAF wanted to look at them!)

Strangely what I miss the most is my garden, I didn't bring any of the ceramic things (sculptures and hangings) from my garden, and its been a huge job to try to create that same magical outdoors space here. I haven't succeeded yet, and with the incessant wind in auckland, I probably never will!:no
Gloria

[Bruckner]

Aaahhh, remember the days when you could pack all your belongings in the back of a small bed pick-up truck?

It was a 1983 Sentra to be exact. The first thing we did was purge and then purged again a few months later. I know we'll unpack and realize there are things we just don't need or won't ever use. It won't be much but we're down to basics at this point.

Emily

[CjChris]

I, too, have struggled with packing. I had accumulated so much "stuff" that I didn't know where to start! To make matters worse, some of this stuff belonged to my late husband. I had boxes and boxes of old photos and documents from a family that has nearly died out...it made me feel so sad to have these precious old photos with writing in Dutch on the back and they really didn't mean anything to me!!!....what to do...?? :confused:

Well, after the guild chewed on me for a while, I sorted the photos and documents down to about two shoe boxes (instead of several large boxes). The rest I threw away. I am going to send the ones I saved to my late husband's last remaining cousins; I saved a handful for myself. (It would have cost me a small fortune to mail all those across the country).

As for figuring out where to start with packing in general, well, that IS hard. :roll I started with what I call "knick knacks." I gathered up everything sitting around the house...all the cute candles, little buddhas, the cute Winnie-the-Pooh's, etc. I decided what to ditch and what to keep; then I took down all wall hangings and photos in frames. Again--what to ditch, what to keep? Once those photos and wall hangings were down, wrapped, and packed, boy, did the house look like WE'RE MOVING!

From there, it was easy to do all the books, then all the CD's, then all my shoes, then all the winter clothes (since it is now summer), etc. I was motivated!! Yippeee! :p

(On another note, my OH perfers to do the "one room this week, one room next week" plan, but that doesn't work for me so well!)

Good luck with your motivation!

[Sam B]

I did the one room each week plan, starting with the kid's bedroom. Each room yielded an entire car load or more for the charity shop. I decluttered each room first, then I packed up room by room after I had decluttered. I was ruthless, and ended up with a 20 foot container. I decided to auction all modern furniture, and shipped old (semi-antique) furniture, of which we have a lot. It was hard work, but ultimately freeing and satisfying.