mellybrown

I was brutal and threw pretty much everything away!!! Hubby company paid for our shipping but I think i only ended up bringing 2 boxes of clothes, some cuddly toys (im still a child really) and toiletries. Hubby on the other hand is a hoarder and refused to throw anything away - so I went through all his things and what didnt come here went into his mums loft for storage - of course now that we have applied for GC he is going to bring over the rest of that *cough crap* stuff.....why he needs 30 year old comics, cassettes and 10 billion boxes of subbuteo i will never know - i also want to kno wwhy we are looking at paying $1500 to ship the stuff that is going straight into our loft....but whatever, i give up arguing with him!!!!

kins

We brought a 20 foot container full of stuff and 2.5 years later we don't have any boxes waiting to be unpacked.

I got rid of all the electrical stuff except the computers, and was fairly brutal at throwing out old clothes. We got a small skip at the last minute and filled it, other than that we packed everything.

We had moved house several times in the previous few years so we hadn't accumulated too much junk I guess...

robin1234

We were paying for our own move, and were quite successful in giving away and selling a lot of excess possessions. However, packed up, it still came to 82 boxes! When we unpacked, we found that Pickfords had packed up our last week's trash and religiously sent it over to Massachusetts. In the end we recouped the £2,000 the move cost us, from the insurance.. my wife's bicycle was damaged & scratched and we got £2,000 for it. We fixed it ourselves, and it is still a fine touring bike 20 years later!

taffie77

Ha ha, a good range of answers

We *think* we've finished sorting the garage now, but there's a huge pile of stuff that we need to convince people they need. We filled a black bag of cassette tapes, which was really sad, but I don't think any of them had been listened to for years and years!
My sisters have all put their names down for kitchen gadgets, and my brother is getting the George Forman grill as he goes to Uni in October.
I think we're looking forward to replacing electricals, especially it means a nice shiny new TV. We've currently got an 8 year old CRT, so will struggle to give that away.

My husband finally gave away his piles of lead figures that had moved homes several times, and had last seen the light of day about 20 years ago. The nice thing is that they went to a friends 7 year old, the same friend who shared the hobby with my husband when they were teens

brit-n-yank

We kept ours! The speakers and the HiFi were about the only electrical things we did ship - and we are still so happy that we did! (But I still do have unopened boxes of stuff in the shed! )

tonrob

I still occasionally turn the house upside down searching for something that I later realize I ditched when we moved 5 years ago...

another bloody yank

I'm dealing with this issue myself. I tend to be a collector of things... of course these things have value to me, and unfortunately some of them are rather large. I am trying to throw out/donate all kinds of stuff, we've taken several pickup loads to charity and thrown out probably several more loads as trash. But even all that was more or less "clutter", you know, the easy stuff. I havent even started on my extra vehicles, parts, scrap metal/wood, my collection of vintage gear oil... that's the kind of thing that's going to hurt. I have the carcasses of two old desktops w/monitors, two old tv sets that work, but aren't digital so no one wants them, and old flatbed scanner, a printer... the list goes on. Sometimes I stand in my garage and just stare at it not knowing where to start.

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showp...&postcount=602

Englishtart

You poor guy! must be heartbreaking for you...all that ummm treasure

I still have stuff in boxes from our last two or three moves...going to be moving it all again soon, can't be bothered with it all here, will have a big ole' yard sale in SC

MandyNi

Do do do do, do do do do queue music from twilight zone .......... are you sure you are not sharing a garage on some parallel universe with my other half??? Or is it some kind of identifiable disease??

We got rid of 700lbs of computer stuff to a charity recycler and that didn't include the monitors!! We have down sized to hmm 4 cars. The tools/wood/electronics/oils/car parts etc. are all still in there and to be dealt with when we get back from Cali. God knows what else is there that I just haven't clocked yet and believe me we've done about 5 weeks of clearing out so far!

MsElui

I kept the local Freecycle group going singlehanded for a few months prior to our move. It go so bad i was stacking things in the hallway with post it notes on it to try and keep ahead of all the pickups etc.

taffie77

I'm a fan of Freecycle. My husband isn't so keen on a 'trail of randoms constantly trouping in'
I think we're making progress though.

Madelina

I'm reviving this thread because i'm going through this process myself right now and i was about to post a mildly panicked "omg what do i do with all this stuff" thread, when i calmed down, searched a bit and found this one

Did anyone have much luck with Ebay for larger items? I've sold small postables before but never collection items.

Any more stories to keep me going as i rifle through drawers of (crap) treasures?

Maddy
xxxx

dunroving

I'd say go with Gumtree, unless you are willing to sell for next to nothing - problem with eBay is you can get to the end of an auction and not have sold it - at least with Gumtree you can take numbers of anyone who wants to make an offer and call them back (and it costs nothing to list with Gumtree!!)

Madelina

Hmm i've never used Gumtree, might take a look at that, thanks!

MsElui

I was fairly brutal - taking the opportunity to have a really good clear out.
I gave all usable food items and opened cleaning items to the kids nursery.
sold odds and ends at a car boot sale and a few big items on ebay.
We had one half skip full of broken stuff or crap from the garage that wasnt worth passing on.
Family took what they wanted (mainly electricals, booze and tools) and the rest went on freecyle.
I got rid of clothes that i wouldnt wear again but packed all the kids clothes in case we went on to have another child (which we did).

I think I kept the local freecycle going for about 6 weeks as i was posting so much from bedding, to flowerpots, to ornaments, xmas tree lights, anything that was usable to someone (i hate to skip stuff).

i had a long line of stuff laid out on my front porch with names on for the collectors to just grab and go. I even got rid of my huge 10 year old CRT TV!

Even after getting rid of so much - I still have a few items here after almost 3 years that I haven't used in reality. Its stuff that doesn't really suit our new US way of life so I have 2 or 3 boxes of assorted crap in the basement that i intend to flog at a garage sale one day.