Top reasons we keep stuff: it gives us pleasure

This is another post in a series exploring the top reasons we keep stuff, according to David Ekerdt, professor of sociology and gerontology at the University of Kansas. Dr. Ekerdt has spent his career interviewing and studying people, digging into their attachment to their belongings and trying to understand why we love our things so much. He developed this list of the top reasons we keep things:

1. It seems useful.

2. We think it is worth money.

3. It gives us pleasure.

4. It represents us.

5. We may need it one day.

6. It was a gift.

7. Conservation is a virtue.

8. Legacy – we want to leave things to people when we die.

9. We keep because we can.

In this post I am exploring this idea that we keep things because they give us pleasure.

I saved the best for last. This is the opposite of my usual types of blog posts, because now we get to focus on the positive side of owning things. We own a lot of things because they bring us pleasure.

And that is wonderful. If something brings you pleasure, I want you to keep it and love it, and every time you look at it, I hope it brings a small spark of happiness.

One thing to keep in mind on this topic is that we all change, all the time. And things that bring you pleasure today may not bring you pleasure in ten years, or even in ten months.

Sometimes I feel embarrassed when I come across something I bought that no longer brings me pleasure. Often it was an impulse purchase and, believe me, I have had my fair share of impulse purchases! I once owned a pair of dark purple leather pants. If you know me, you know this is not my style. I had been shopping with a friend in a boutique store I could barely afford to enter. She encouraged me to try on the pants. So, there we were in the dressing room, with her telling me I looked amazing. They were expensive, but she was really enthusiastic about the pants and convinced me to buy them.

I kept them for about a year. I would sometimes try them on as I was getting ready to go out, but I always felt foolish and never wore them outside. Remembering the hefty price tag, I convinced myself that someday the right occasion would present itself.  Finally, I donated them. At first, I was mad at myself, regretting the amount of money I had wasted. But eventually I was so happy with relief just to get rid of them.

Another important factor is to really analyze what it means for objects to bring you pleasure. We often feel a euphoric rush when we buy something. And when someone suggests throwing it away, we go on the defensive, believing we are protecting that euphoria. But ask yourself honestly if you feel the euphoria anymore? Something may be sitting in the back of your closet or tucked away on a high shelf, virtually forgotten about. Then someone brings it up and you instinctively say, “I love that.” But do you?

It’s important to get into the habit of checking in regularly about how much pleasure your things really are bringing you. This way you can cycle out the things that used to bring you pleasure but no longer do so. And don’t let bad purchases like the purple leather pants get you down. Just chalk it up to a learning experience (for me: don’t shop with this friend again!) and move on.

Because the key to getting pleasure from your belongings is not having so many belongings that you forget what you have. It’s a fine balance. We all like to buy nice, but we need to make sure we don’t own so many things that we get overwhelmed.

It’s like that expression: less is more. This expression was popularized (but not coined) by modernist architects who felt that the true beauty of a building was in the simplicity of its design, not in the ornate imagery decorating it. It’s the same thing with a home full of belongings. If you have too much stuff, you can’t appreciate the individual things you own. But once you pare down, only your favorite things fill your home, and they can all bring you pleasure.

Top reasons we keep stuff: conservation is a virtue

This is another post in a series exploring the top reasons we keep stuff, according to David Ekerdt, professor of sociology and gerontology at the University of Kansas. Dr. Ekerdt has spent his career interviewing and studying people, digging into their attachment to their belongings and trying to understand why we love our things so much. He developed this list of the top reasons we keep things: 

1. It seems useful. 

2. We think it is worth money. 

3. It gives us pleasure. 

4. It represents us. 

5. We may need it one day. 

6. It was a gift. 

7. Conservation is a virtue. 

8. Legacy – we want to leave things to people when we die. 

9. We keep because we can. 

In this post I am exploring this idea that we keep things because we are taught that conservation is a virtue. 

Two of my favorite books, Mr. Bridge and Mrs. Bridge, by Evan S. Connell, tell the story of a wealthy midwestern family in the 1950s. The two books, by the way, were combined into a terrific movie, Mr. and Mrs. Bridge, which has an all-star cast including Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, and Kyra Sedgwick  

Mr. Bridge has built a successful law practice. Mrs. Bridge is a society woman, a “pillar of the community,” who is extremely focused on appearances, and how she and her children present themselves in society. She worries, throughout the books and the movies, that her children might appear spoiled. 

One of my favorite parts of Mrs. Bridge involves a hair comb. Mrs. Bridge is deeply troubled to find that her teen-age daughter, Ruth, has thrown away a comb. She confronts Ruth about it. Ruth says the comb is old and dirty, and only costs five cents, anyway. Mrs. Bridge explains to her that she must clean out old things and conserve them. As she is describing the process by which Ruth should clean the comb, Ruth points out the window to the driveway, where her father is driving home in a brand-new Chrysler. When her mother leaves the room, Ruth breaks the comb in half. 

Ruth Bridge’s character is really, in many ways, embodying the “American Dream.” She knows her family can afford to replace the comb, so she doesn’t worry about tossing it in the trash. Her father is a respectable lawyer who has worked hard all his life so the family can afford new combs and new Chryslers, along with anything else they want. Isn’t this why her father has worked so hard, she might argue, so that she doesn’t need to waste her time cleaning a five-cent comb? 

But many of us are more like Mrs. Bridge and have it deeply ingrained us that we should never toss out an old comb. It still works, right? Then we should keep it. 

What’s the right answer? Do we keep everything that is useful and never replace anything? Or do we proudly toss out anything when we want something new? Are we a Mrs. Bridge or Ruth Bridge? 

Most of our clients are in their eighties. This generation grew up at a very different time, culturally, than the rest of us. The Great Depression was still a recent memory. They had this mantra instilled in them: conservation is a virtue. And now they have all the combs to prove it. 

The problem arises when our clients need to move. Now all the combs, and all the other things that have been dutifully kept, must be reckoned with. But all of these things are still useful, so it becomes very hard for our clients to part with any of it. 

In the process of managing moves for seniors, one of the biggest issues is time. If you have the time, you could probably find a home for most of these items. You could put things you aren’t keeping up on an online marketplace or online auction site; and if anything doesn’t sell, you could do the research to find worthy organizations that want the rest. Maybe one charity wants your combs, another wants your gravy boat, and a thrift store two towns over will take the vacuum cleaner.  

But this all takes a lot of time. And it’s pretty rare that someone planning a move has a lot of free time. So our clients have to make some hard choices. Sometimes those old combs have to be discarded. This breaks people’s hearts. My only advice is to make some commitments to yourself now, long before you need to move.  

For one thing, commit to donating things on a regular basis. Figure out places near you that take donations, find out how to donate to them, and make it part of your regular routine. Don’t wait until you have a ton of things to donate – get into the habit of doing so when you have even a small amount to donate. If you finish a novel that you know you won’t read again, drop it off at the donation center. If you buy a new sweater and realize you need to make room for it, donate a couple of other sweaters.  

If you want to sell a lot of things, your best bet is to figure out how to sell things online. This can be difficult and I know that learning a tool like eBay or Chairish.com can be stressful and time-consuming, but it may be worth it for you to learn this now, so you won’t be frustrated later. If you know anybody in their teens or twenties, I am guessing they can show you how to do these things. 

The key is to put these habits into practice well before you ever need to move, because these things take time and time is something you won’t have when your move is coming up.  

Top reasons we keep stuff: we may need it one day

This is another post in a series exploring the top reasons we keep stuff, according to David Ekerdt, professor of sociology and gerontology at the University of Kansas. Dr. Ekerdt has spent his career interviewing and studying people, digging into their attachment to their belongings and trying to understand why we love our things so much. He developed this list of the top reasons we keep things:

1. It seems useful.

2. We think it is worth money.

3. It gives us pleasure.

4. It represents us.

5. We may need it one day.

6. It was a gift.

7. Conservation is a virtue.

8. Legacy – we want to leave things to people when we die.

9. We keep because we can.

Today we’re looking at reason number 5: we keep something because we may need it one day. It’s the old saying: I’m saving this for a rainy day. Or: This could really come in handy someday.

Sometimes it makes sense to keep something because it could be useful one day, but oftentimes we save too many things with this thought/hope in mind. We look at something we don’t use now – something we have no current use for and have never needed – and we rationalize a reason to keep it for a time when we may need it in the future.

Years ago we moved Dan and Sue from their home outside of New York City into a luxury condo near Lincoln Center. Sue loved Lincoln Center and had always dreamed of living within walking distance. Now that they were retired and didn’t need their large house, she had convinced Dan to try living in the city. Before the move, she purchased season tickets to the opera and ballet – her two favorites.

Dan was a little reluctant to move, and his reluctance revealed itself when we sorted with him in preparation for the move. The new apartment had less storage space and no basement, so Dan and Sue had to part with a lot of their stuff.

Sue sorted quickly and got rid of a lot of things. Dan resisted. He insisted on a moving too much clothing, too many books, and too much kitchenware. Sue let this all pass and assumed they could always do more downsizing after the move, if they found they had brought too much.

The problem arose when Dan insisted on bringing his exercise bike. The bike would take up so much space in their new bedroom that they would have to sacrifice other furniture, like a comfortable chair or settee.

I asked Dan about the bike and how often he used it. He admitted that he had only used the bike a couple of times, just after he had bought it ten years earlier. And, as he knew, his new building had a full gym, including exercise bikes in much better condition than his old one. But somehow Dan was convinced that he would start using his bike once he got to New York. Sue didn’t feel like pushing back on this, so we moved it.

A few months after the move, Sue called and asked us to donate the bike for them. Dan was willing to give it up because he still never used it. He had found he really liked getting his exercise by taking long brisk walks through Central Park. He was gone for an hour each afternoon, people-watching and enjoying the beautiful sunsets – when the sun just starts to tuck itself behind the tall buildings lining the park. One afternoon after he returned from one of his walks, Sue asked if he wouldn’t mind getting rid of the bike. He didn’t mind in the slightest.

I was fascinated by this whole process. Dan had, for months, maintained that he would need this exercise bike, even though there were good reasons supporting the fact that he was very likely to never use it. But somehow, I realized, by holding onto it temporarily, the bike helped him get through the move. It helped him hold onto an image of himself during this transition period – a period of time that causes stress for almost all of our clients. Only after he safely made it through the transition could he finally let go of the bike.

Another category of objects we see a lot of (mostly) female clients hold onto are baby clothes and baby toys they have saved from when they raised their kids. They generally seem to hold onto these in hopes that their kids will have kids and that those kids will need it all, someday. They can picture themselves as grandmothers, holding a baby wearing the same cute little outfit that they dressed their own kids in years earlier.

I understand this and I think it’s fine to keep a few very special baby things in hopes that you will someday get to share them with a child you will love. The problem arises when the one or two things becomes ten or twenty things, and suddenly you have a storage issue because you hope, one day, to have grandchildren and you hope those grandchildren will be able to use these things.

A word of warning: by holding onto a lot of baby things, you may be signaling something to your kids. You may be putting pressure on them to make decisions they aren’t ready to make, such as whether or not to get married or have children. And you may be playing into some stressful dynamics. If they are in a relationship, their partner may not be on the same page about having kids, for example. If they are not in a relationship, by keeping all these baby things you may be making them feel like there is something wrong with them because they should be with someone and should have kids.

Keeping things like this can be described as “aspirational keeping”: I am keeping something because I will use it one day or when my life changes and I will need it.

There’s a lot to explore on this topic. I suggest that, instead of just keeping things you investigate why you are holding on to them. If you look at something and say to yourself: “someday I will use this”, ask yourself these questions: Are you certain something will change in your life and you will need this, or are you just hopeful that something will change and you will need it? And: why is it so important to you that this change take place?

If you haven’t used your exercise equipment in years, ask yourself why the future will be different? If using the equipment has been a goal of yours for years, what’s been stopping you? It will likely turn out the issue runs deeper than you think.

In the case of the people hoping for grandchildren, a good question to ask is: are grandchildren so important to you that you will be upset if you don’t ever have them? If the answer is yes, you may want to pause and focus on other ways you can start to imagine a fulfilling future. Because being a grandparent is not something you get to choose – it is something that is chosen for you, by someone else. It is completely out of your control. There are things you can control. You can find new hobbies or make new friends, or you can start another career if that interests you.

 Either way, we encourage you to always ask why you are holding onto something and to let the answers help you understand yourself and your situation.

Top reasons we keep stuff: it was a gift

Top nine reasons we keep stuff: It was a gift

This is another post in a series exploring the top reasons we keep stuff, according to David Ekerdt, professor of sociology and gerontology at the University of Kansas. Dr. Ekerdt has spent his career interviewing and studying people, digging into their attachment to their belongings and trying to understand why we love our things so much. He developed this list of the top reasons we keep things:

1. It seems useful.

2. We think it is worth money.

3. It gives us pleasure.

4. It represents us.

5. We may need it one day.

6. It was a gift.

7. Conservation is a virtue.

8. Legacy – we want to leave things to people when we die.

9. We keep because we can.

In this post we will be exploring reason #6: we keep things because they were gifts. Dr. Ekerdt has some thoughtful ideas on this topic. He asks us to think about whether we like the gift or not, and if we have positive feelings about the gift giver. If we like the gift and have positive feelings about the person who gave it us, there’s no issue. The gift makes us happy, so it stays in our home.

The issue arises when we don’t like a gift or when we have a complicated relationship with the person who gave it to us.

If we are close to the gift giver and want to avoid harming the relationship, but we don’t like the gift, we may feel like we have to keep it to avoid hurting their feelings and potentially damaging the relationship. In some cases, this may be the best option. Maybe your good friend gave you a vase that you don’t like, but the vase is relatively small so you can keep it out on display but tucked out of sight. This probably doesn’t cause much trouble, so you may decide it’s worth hanging onto.

But if the gift can’t be tucked away somewhere out of sight, you may find that it is bothering you to have to keep it out. You may find that the vase sort of annoys you each time you see it, and because you associate it with your good friend, you find that you feel slightly annoyed about your friend on a regular basis.

In this case, the gift – the unwanted object in your home – may actually be causing some harm to an otherwise healthy relationship because it is now infused with a lie – the lie that you enjoy this gift. Every time you see the gift, you are reminded of this lie and the lie could start to erode the positive feelings you have about the gift giver.

In this case Dr. Eckerdt suggests that you put the gift in perspective to your overall relationship with the person who gave it to you. You are close to this person, so you have probably known them a long time and you have probably exchanged lots of other gifts back and forth.

The best option here may be to give the gift to someone else – donate it or give it to a friend who actually likes it. If the gift-giver asks where it is, you can try being honest with them. They may be slightly upset, but your relationship is strong enough to withstand this. Or you can tell a little white lie – tell them it broke, for example. But you need to tread carefully here because you don’t want a lie to come between you and the gift giver.

A client of ours named Steve had a good relationship with his stepfather, an artist. His stepfather kept giving his art to Steve and his wife. Some of the art was quite large and Steve and his wife lived in a relatively small apartment. Steve and his wife had a decent relationship with Steve’s stepfather, but they did not care for his art and they didn’t want to hang the art in their apartment, so they took a slight risk.

They donated the art to a new homeless shelter opening in the neighborhood. The shelter was happy to have it because they didn’t have a budget for art. This made Steve and his wife feel good. So the gift itself – the art – actually had its intended effect: it made the recipients feel good. The risk was that Steve’s stepfather might ask about the art one day. Steve felt prepared to be honest about the situation, to an extent. He didn’t have to tell his stepfather that he didn’t care for his art, but he felt he could tell him they didn’t have room for it and that they found a terrific place for it where it would bring joy to others.

The situation is more complicated when you have a difficult relationship with the gift-giver. In this case, every time you see the gift, you are reminded of the difficult relationship. Suddenly you find yourself feeling negative emotions about the gift giver. If the gift is out on display in your home, you may experience these negative emotions multiple times a day. This will only make a difficult relationship even more difficult.

A client of ours (we’ll call her Lisa) had a complicated relationship with her sister. They had never been close as kids and when they got older, things just got worse. Lisa found her sister rude and unsupportive. Her sister married someone with a well-paying career, and suddenly became rather wealthy. As her wealth grew, so did the cost of her gifts. Finally, one year for Christmas she gave Lisa a very expensive ceramic gravy boat in the shape of a swan.

Lisa hated the swan. It wasn’t her style and she found it ostentatious. She knew she would never use it. She put it in a cabinet and only ever thought of it when she had to poke around in the cabinet looking for something she needed. As we sorted with Lisa and she showed us this swan, she became visibly agitated. She held it out at arms’ length and started telling us all the bad things her sister had done to her over the years and how much she hated this swan.

Suddenly she threw the swan down on the floor and it smashed to pieces. She started laughing! She was ecstatic. This act of destruction actually had a cathartic effect on her, and she joyfully swept up all the broken pieces.

The ceramic swan had been a reminder of the many bad feelings she had about her sister, and, every time she saw it, she would re-live those feelings. With the swan now out of her home and out of her life, she had one less reason to be annoyed about her relationship with her sister.

The discussion becomes a little different when you like the gift but have a complicated relationship with the gift giver. You can think about this in two different ways. On the one hand, you could enjoy the gift and quietly remind yourself, when you use it, that it is a positive aspect of an otherwise difficult relationship. Your enjoyment of the gift may help you feel grateful to have this person in your life and could help you appreciate their other good qualities.  

If, on the other hand, every time you see or use the gift, you have the angry feelings Lisa had, then you may decide that it’s not worth having this object in your life, even if you like it. You may want to sell or donate this gift and buy yourself something similar. It just may be that this is the better path to take – if it will help mitigate the anger you hold towards the recipient.

You may be holding onto any number of things you don’t particularly like but you feel you should keep because they were gifts. This is a common feeling – this sense of guilt or obligation. Many of us want to avoid the awkward discussion that may come up if someone asks about something they gave you. But instead of just mindlessly keeping the object, we suggest you explore the dynamic a little further and make sure that keeping the gift really is the best option or if there may be another way to handle the situation, a way that could be better for your relationship with the gift giver, in the long-term.

Top reasons we keep stuff: we think it is worth money

David Ekerdt at the University of Kansas is a personal hero of mine. He is a professor of sociology and gerontology who has focused his academic career on understanding why we keep stuff. He has spent his career interviewing and studying people, digging into their attachment to their belongings and trying to understand why we love our things so much. He has come up with a list of the top reasons we keep things:

1. It seems useful.

2. We think it is worth money.

3. It gives us pleasure.

4. It represents us.

5. We may need it one day.

6. It was a gift.

7. Conservation is a virtue.

8. Legacy – we want to leave things to people when we die.

9. We keep because we can.

I can’t decide which reason I like the best. I love them all because they all help me understand my clients, and myself, better. But the one that gets to me the most is the second one. We keep a lot of things because we think they are worth money.

We see this constantly. I’d say that this topic practically comes up on a daily basis as we are managing senior moves. I remember Gertrude, one of my first clients, fifteen years ago, had a painting hanging in her hallway. The very first time I met her, before she even showed me into her living room, she paused at the painting and said “this is worth a lot of money.”

We had a lot of work to do to prepare for her move. Her husband had dementia and she and he were making a very large move to Texas to be near their daughter. Back then, I used to do all the sorting myself (something our excellent staff does now) so I spent hours and hours sorting through clothes, closets, kitchen cabinets, and closets with Gertrude. And every time we passed the painting in the hall, she told me it was worth a lot of money.

Finally, one day I asked her about it. I asked her where she bought it and how she knew it was worth so much. She replied that she didn’t remember where she got it. She thought it might have belonged to a friend who moved. And she didn’t know the artist’s name, either. There wasn’t a signature or any other markings.

The reason she knew, without a doubt, that it was worth a lot of money is that her neighbor’s sister worked at an antique store and told her one day that it was valuable.

I tracked down the neighbor’s sister and sent her a photo of the painting. She replied with a short note: “I remember that piece of Gertrude’s. I thought it was pretty. I was sure I could sell it for a couple hundred dollars in my shop, but I had to close the shop a few years ago. People stopped coming in.”

We see this all the time. Movies, TV, and novels have inundated us with stories about an old, seemingly junky belonging tucked away in a closet that’s actually worth a king’s fortune. It’s a good story, this is why it shows up on so many reality TV shows. Unfortunately, it doesn’t happen very often in reality. What happened in this case is much more common.

The shop-owner made an offhand comment about a piece being valuable. She was thinking she could sell it for maybe $400. She’d make about $100 in commission and Gertrude would make about $300. But Gertrude heard the word “valuable” and started believing she stumbled on that legendary golden ticket. She was thinking in the tens of thousands, Meanwhile, the window for even the low payday had closed. Things do not get more expensive simply because they’re older. There’s a right time to sell something. Clearly, the type of items the shop-owner was selling had gone out of fashion. She had to close her store and, with it, the likelihood of selling the painting.

I still did some due diligence. I sent the photo to a few auction houses and dealers to see if there was any chance of selling it. None of them saw any value. Nothing. It was really hard sharing this information with Gertrude. I could tell she didn’t believe me. She kept the piece. We moved it to Texas. I don’t believe she intended to hang it in her new home. I don’t think she particularly liked the painting. She had just become attached to the idea that it was valuable and couldn’t accept donating it.

A few years ago we were hired by Mary to empty her Aunt Fran’s apartment after she died. Fran had lived independently in Brooklyn, far from any other family. Mary used to love visiting her and was visibly upset by her death.

Mary was realistic about the fact that there wasn’t much of value in the apartment. She mostly just wanted to make sure we found any hidden family photos or jewelry, and she wanted us to donate as much as we could. But the first time she took us to the kitchen she hesitated and pointed to the lamp hanging above the table.

“This isn’t a Tiffany lamp, is it?” she asked. She seemed almost embarrassed to be asking, but there was also almost a pleading in her voice. It was most definitely not a Tiffany lamp. It looked like it was factory-made and was, in fact, not even made of glass. But Fran had told everyone, for years, that it was by Tiffany. She had warned Mary to make sure she got a good price for it someday, and not get swindled by some dealer looking to profit off of the lamp.

We always do need to check these things out for our clients so I sent photos of the lamp to an appraiser and asked if there was any chance it was by Tiffany, or even valuable. She confirmed that this was a manufactured lamp, probably factory-made. And she thanked me for giving her a good chuckle on a rather grim day.

When I told Mary (leaving out the part about the chuckle, of course) I could tell she was not at all surprised, but she was clearly disappointed. She joked that she was actually glad her aunt was dead because this news would have killed her.

A lot of our clients think their things are worth a lot of money because they paid a lot of money for them when they bought them. They can remember, sometimes to the dollar, how much they spent on something thirty years ago or more, and they assume it is worth even more now.

The sad thing about art, or furniture, or jewelry, or anything we own is that they are only worth money two times: when you buy it and when you sell it. When you buy it, it is worth exactly the amount you pay for it. When you sell it, it is worth exactly what someone pays you for it. How much money you spent on something a long time ago has no bearing on how much it is worth now. To find out what is worth now, you have to try to sell it and see what someone will pay you.

In Fran’s case, it didn’t do any harm for her to believe she had a Tiffany lamp because she loved it and she needed the light in her kitchen. But in Gertrude’s case, she looked at a painting that she didn’t like, multiple times a day, because she thought it was worth a lot of money, and then she paid to move it to Texas. It makes me sad to see this kind of misplaced attachment.

If you’re going to buy things for the value, treat it like you would treat an investment in the stock market. Pay attention to trends and try to buy low and sell high.

I wish people focused less on the monetary value of their belongings and appreciated them for their other values. Buy stuff you love, stuff that makes you happy. Maybe you’ll get lucky and, when the time comes, sell it for a lot of money. But, if not, you’ll know you still valued it for all those years.

Downsizing in the Golden Years – Resources for New York City Seniors

In an effort to help educate New York seniors about the resources available to help them age comfortably and happily, I co-hosted a small seminar with two wonderful women who also work with seniors.

The panelists and topics covered:

Melissa Smith, a licensed real estate agent with Corcoran covered topics related to your property:

• Downsizing options

• How to keep existing property in the family/converting to rentals

• Factors to consider when finding your next home

Melissa Goikhman, an Estate Planning Expert and Attorney covered wills/trusts and asset management topics:

• Planning for asset management in the event of incapacity

• Planning for the smooth/painless transfer of assets

• Difference between wills and trusts

Katie Hustead, a senior move manager and co-owner of Paper Moon Moves covered downsizing and moving:

• How to get started with downsizing your possessions

• How to sell, donate, and discard things you will not be keeping

• Tips for a successful move

We hope you enjoy the video of our panel, and don’t hesitate to reach out if you feel our services can be useful to you or someone you love – www.papermoonmoves.com.

Seminar on Issues Around Aging, for You or a Loved One

Last week we were honored to be included on a panel gathered to help New Yorkers learn about services available for themselves or aging friends or family. Attendance was robust and our fellow panelists offered some terrific solutions for helping New Yorkers age comfortably – whether they choose to age at home or to move to a senior residence.

The video is a bit long because there was so much information to be shared.

Here are the featured panelists:

• Bill Herbst, Compass Real Estate.  Real estate broker and Founding Member of CompassPlus, a nationwide division of Compass to serve the special needs of older clients.  

• Katie Hustead, Paper Moon Moves. Senior move specialist, helping older adults with every aspect of the moving process.

• Diane Trunececk, CarePatrol.  A free service that helps find the right living solutions for seniors.

• Marni Blank, Begin With the End. End of life and legacy planning, death doula services, and after loss support. 

• Frank DiMaggio, LifeWorx. A provider of concierge-level in-home care.

• Barbara L. MacGrady, Esq., Davidson, Dawson & Clark. Trust and estates attorney.

• Michael Silverman, Silver Lining Insurance.  A provider of long-term care policies.

Clothing, clothing, everywhere…but not a thing to wear

Almost all of our clients have a lot of clothes. And we get it. It’s a lot easier to shop for new clothes than it is to get rid of clothes you no longer wear, so the collection of clothing in your home is much more likely to grow than to shrink. And everywhere you look – social media, magazines, movies and television shows, etc. – people are wearing stunning new clothes that make you want to buy more.

There’s no simple solution to the clothing issue, but we have learned some techniques that you may find helpful.

How to sort your closet

As with any downsizing project, we always suggest making clothing sorting as easy as possible. The key is to break down the project into manageable parts. So instead of setting aside your full Saturday and committing to sorting all your clothes in one day, break the project down into sessions. Schedule three hours at a time and put the sessions in your calendar.

For these sessions, turn off distractions. Turn off phone notifications, don’t turn on the television, try to even avoid leaving your closet for the duration.

As you sort, be honest about clothing you haven’t worn in a long time. If it’s the wrong size, don’t keep it just in the hopes that it will fit you again someday. If it’s torn or needs a patch, give yourself a deadline – if you can repair it in the next three weeks, you can keep it; if not, just admit that it won’t be repaired and get rid of it.

Make a plan for the clothes you will not be keeping. In New York City we have a lot of thrift stores that will take gently used clothing. You will need to bag it up and bring it to them, so plan accordingly. If you own couture clothing, there are some great online options for selling your things, like the RealReal or Linda’s Stuff. But if your clothing isn’t couture, we don’t recommend that you spend much time trying to sell it.

Once you have sorted through all your clothes and (hopefully) reduced the amount significantly, be sure you have a plan in mind for not accumulating a lot more and winding back up at square one. Here are a couple of ideas for how to do this:

Make a commitment to not buy any new clothes

Select a period of time, like 90 days, and commit to not buying any new clothes for that period. The goal is to set yourself up for success, so be thoughtful about your plan. By putting an end date on your calendar, you may find it easier to handle having a limited wardrobe, because you will know that it is temporary. And you can even tell yourself that you’ll reward yourself at the end of the 90 days, by doing a small amount of shopping then.

Project 333

This is a minimalist challenge. It’s not for everyone, but I want to mention it for those of you looking to change your relationship with your clothes. Essentially, you sort through your clothing and select only 33 items to wear for three months. There are different sets of rules to this challenge, but most of them say you don’t have to include underwear, sleepwear, and workout clothing in the 33.

Don’t get rid of all the other things you own. Just pack it all up and put it away somewhere just out of reach. At the end of the three-month period you bring all your clothes out of storage and select 33 new pieces to wear for the next three months.

I have tried this challenge myself. I found it liberating to have fewer clothes to choose from each morning. The nice thing is that you can try it for three months and see if it works for you without committing to it long term.

Conclusion

Our tastes change, and our body sizes change. In a perfect world, our clothes would change with them. But, of course, the clothes remain exactly the same. It may be hard to admit, but if you have not fit in a blouse for two years, it’s not likely you’ll fit into it next year.  And while clothes do go in and out of style, that takes some time. Is it worth keeping something for 15 years in the hope you will want to wear it again?

It's counter-intuitive, but having a packed closet actually makes it harder to be creative with your outfits. It’s just too overwhelming. By focusing on the pieces you truly love to wear, you can have more fun mixing up the pieces. And you’ll always feel good about your outfits.

Decluttering is an act of love

Look around your home. You probably see a lot of stuff you love. Maybe you have bookcases full of books you’ve read or plan to read one day, maybe you have art that you have collected one piece at time. There is the furniture you have spent your entire adult life accumulating, and maybe an assortment of cool and unique decorative items you have curated. It’s all good stuff, right? Somebody would be lucky to have it all if you were no longer here, right? Your stuff would never pose a problem to anyone, would it? 

For fifteen years, my husband, Joe, and I have owned a small business in New York City clearing out estates and helping seniors move. People hire us for a variety of reasons – a parent has died and their apartment needs to be emptied, an aunt needs to move into a senior residence, a friend with dementia can no longer safely live alone and needs to make room in her home for a caregiver.

The one thing every job has in common is that there is suddenly a large amount of stuff that has to be moved, sold, donated, or discarded. And it usually has to be handled quickly. All of these things have been peacefully sitting in our clients’ homes, not drawing a lot of attention to themselves. But, suddenly, they become the focus of everybody’s attention, and they cause a tremendous amount of stress.

Here's the sad truth about our stuff. The vast majority of it is no longer worth anything. Especially if you have to sell it all within a deadline. In fact, removing our stuff is likely to take a lot of time and cost a lot of money. And it will all have to be removed someday. That day may come without warning but it will come with a price tag and a deadline.

All that stuff in your home, all that stuff you love, you have collected your whole life, right? It has taken you years to accumulate it all. Now imagine someone you love having to deal with it all in a matter of months, or possibly weeks.  

If you rent your home, would your landlord allow your family to keep the lease long enough for your family to sell every last piece of furniture? Most likely, not. If you own your home, how long do you think your heirs will be able to pay to maintain it while they try to find a good home for every piece of art? This is not a happy thing to think about, but I can tell you it will be a very real problem for someone you love. 

Most people aren’t aware that this will be an issue, but we see it every day. We know this problem is lurking inside every home, all over the world. Whether you’re forty, fifty, or eighty, you need to realize that your stuff will someday become a burden to someone you love.

I believe the greatest gift you can give to the people you love is to start taking steps to downsize your possessions now. We have blog posts to help, starting with this basic step-by-step guide: Decluttering: Where do I start?

Donating wheelchairs and medical supplies

Wheelchairs and medical supplies are a sore subject for me. Every time I see equipment that our clients no longer need and want to donate, I think of all the people who could use it – all the people who can’t afford to buy expensive medical equipment, or who can’t get their insurance company to cover the cost.

It should be easy to match used equipment with people who need it, but each time we set out to donate medical supplies of any kind – hospital beds, wheelchairs, walkers, sealed boxes of incontinence supplies, or any other supplies – we find ourselves spending a lot of time and effort doing so.

As with some other donations, the cost of transporting medical equipment to the people who need it is prohibitive. Most of the organizations collecting medical supplies cannot afford to offer transport services. Usually, our clients have to pay for transportation.

Charitable organizations are aware of all the hazards of passing used medical supplies from one person to another. Electric wheelchairs pose a particularly challenging problem. A non-profit providing wheelchairs to those in need cannot risk passing along faulty equipment. Imagine the issues that could arise if someone were given an electric wheelchair and it malfunctioned. Manual wheelchairs are easier to donate because they can usually be folded up and fit into the trunk of a car. And the risk of them not working is not nearly as high.

The key to know about donating medical equipment or supplies is that it can usually be done, but it takes time and effort.

Sometimes when a client has a wheelchair or hospital bed, it turns out to be rented and needs to be returned. This can be a challenge, as we have found rental supply companies often do not have good records of their rentals and they are often short-staffed. It can be difficult to figure out how to return things. If equipment is rented, there will usually be a label with a phone number.

For smaller supplies, such as bandages, incontinence supplies, and other things that can be shipped without much trouble, the AFYA Foundation is a great resource. Based in Westchester, New York, AFYA mobilizes supplies to be delivered to places hit by natural disasters, such as hurricanes or floods. During the COVID outbreak, AFYA sent medical supplies to hospitals in hard hit areas. See afyafoundation.net for more information. Please note that they used to pick things up in New York City but now it is difficult to arrange a pickup with them, so you may have to pay to have things sent to them.

There are some other organizations we call to donate medical supplies, but they are not consistently reliable, I’m afraid. Sadly, it always takes a lot of effort to donate these supplies. It’s obviously wonderful when you get these supplies to the people who need them, but definitely know that doing so may take a lot of time and patience.

Family dynamics: How much to hover?

I often realize how privileged we are at Paper Moon Moves. We get a front-row seat into the lives of hundreds of families. And I’ll be honest, we see it all. We see parents and their adult kids bicker over whether the parents should move, or when they should move, or where. We see drag out fights over what furniture or belongings should be moved to a new apartment, and how many clothes or decorative items should be kept.

We also get to see some really lovely interactions between adult children and their parents. Recently a client’s child said to me: “My mom really shouldn’t waste filling half of her new living room wall with her old china cabinet, but she really loves it so please make sure you find a good spot for it”. He was recognizing something a lot of our clients’ kids don’t: that it was her move and her stuff and that he needed to let her make as many decisions as she could, even if he didn’t agree with her.  

He would have designed her new apartment in an entirely different way. He would have replaced all of her old furniture with modern furniture that looked better (to him), functioned better, and didn’t break as easily. But he knew to allow her to be in charge of the design process. He had to remind himself that it wasn’t his apartment – it was hers.

We often hear from adult children that they are hiring us to preserve their relationship with their parents. And I completely understand this. I once witnessed a fifteen minute fight over a set of playing cards. Our client never played cards but wanted to bring the deck in case she met new neighbors who wanted to play. Her son kept insisting that she was wasting space in her new small apartment by bringing these cards. He kept telling her that she isn’t a card player and doesn’t even like games.

But this wasn’t about the deck of cards. It never is, is it? It was really about control. It was about an adult child with good intentions feeling like their parent is making a bad choice and that they should step in and make it better.

I am incredibly lucky to have still not just both my parents but also both my step-parents, and my husband’s mother and her husband. That gives me six older parental figures in my life. I am grateful that they are part of our lives and I am so thankful for all they have done for me, my siblings, and my husband – all of our lives. 

But I also find myself worrying about them. I find myself judging decisions they are making and thinking that I know better – that I know better than them. I catch myself and try to remember that they are in charge of their own lives and I should let them have their space, as each of them has let me have my space. With each of them, I struggle with this question: how much should I hover?

My mother was diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment ten years ago. Right from the start, I wanted to be involved. I wanted to help her stay safe and comfortable. I wanted to help her figure out how to navigate this disease. In my professional life, I had learned about all kinds of resources that I knew could help her, and I suggested them all to my step-father. But the truth of the matter was that he didn’t want my help. He felt strongly that the two of them had things under control. He wasn’t trying to be mean. He was asserting their independence. He was telling me to let them be.

Eventually he found it was too hard living independently and he made the decision that they would move into Assisted Living. But it was on his terms, not mine. And now, looking back, I realize how important that was.

When I look back on the years leading up to their move, I find myself frustrated for pushing as hard as I did for what I felt was right. I remind myself that my mother chose her husband and, in so doing, she trusted that he would take care of her if she ever got sick. Had he been unable or unwilling to take care of her, of course me and my siblings would have stepped in. But he was up to the task and I needed to let him handle it. 

If you are struggling with this issue of trying to decide how much to hover in someone’s life, I have an unusual suggestion. Why not ask them what they want? I think we often get so caught up in our heads trying to predict what people we love want from us, when we could often cut right to the chase and just ask.

I think a lot of us wish the people we are close to could automatically figure out how much support they want. It’s natural, I think, to assume that someone who knows you really well should be able to just sense what you need. But the truth of the matter is that nobody is capable of figuring this out for you. So instead of wishing your loved one would understand you well enough to know what you want, why not ask them for what you want? This could open a whole new line of communication you never realized was possible – an honest one free of mind games and passive-aggressive hints. Can you imagine a family like that?

Organizing essential documents into one safe place

We all have an assortment of important paperwork and documentation that has to be kept. I’m not talking about the piles of mail that bombard us at home every day, or the files and files of taxes you have saved from decades ago. I’m talking about the essentials, like Passports, birth certificates, deeds and other paperwork related to your home, insurance policies, and extra cash. Even if most of your paperwork is digital at this point, chances are you’ve got some actual paperwork that needs to be stored somewhere safe.

Ideally, you would have all of this saved together in a place where you could access it easily if you need to quickly. Or, God forbid, if something were to happen to you, where your trusted friends and family could access it. 

For many people the best option is a simple fire-resistant file organizer. These are not expensive and are not hard to find. A search on Amazon for “fire-resistant file organizer” will show you many options. Some have locks on them, some have built-in organizing systems, like pre-made file labels. Most are about the size of a toaster oven.

You don’t have to get fancy about this. Just think about anything you would need if you had to evacuate your home in an emergency. You may want to keep your will in here, along with a copy of your living will, health care proxy, and other documents that would be needed by your estate or your family if you were to become incapacitated. You may also want to include some cash – maybe enough to help you out if you have trouble getting to an ATM.

One client has even gone so far as to write a note to the people she loves. Each one is in a sealed envelope with their name on it. Think of what a gift this will be to them after her death.

Here’s a full list of things you may want to keep:

• Passports

• A copy of your will, trusts, living will, health care proxy, and living will

• Birth certificates, death certificates, and marriage certificates

• The original copy of your social security card

• Deed to your home or Co-op shareholder certificate

• Notes and receipts for improvements you have made to your home

• Copies of the cover pages for insurance policies – homeowner’s insurance, auto insurance, health insurance, life insurance, etc.

• Paperwork related to your car(s)

• Cash

• A list of contacts you may need in a hurry one day, such as your: insurance brokers, mortgage broker, financial advisor, doctors, vets; on this list, you may also want to include a few details for each contact such as your policy and account numbers

• Keys you only need rarely but could need in a hurry, such as keys to safe deposit boxes, storage units, or to the homes of people close to you

By the way, in an earlier blog we covered the importance of having a Go Bag – in case you have to leave your home in a hurry. This is a different kind of preparation. Both are important!

What happens during a sorting session with Paper Moon Moves?

One of the main roles we play when planning a client’s move is helping our them sort their belongings so they can decide what to move to their new home and what to sell, donate, give away, or discard. We call these sessions (surprise, surprise) sorting sessions.

Some clients need just a few sorting sessions, some need many. It really depends on two things: how quickly they make decisions, and how much “stuff” they have tucked away in their home that needs to be sorted.

I use the word stuff to differentiate these items from furniture. Decisions about which furniture to bring are made when we prepare a floor-plan of the new home (discussed in this previous blog post). The “stuff” is everything else:  clothes, books, kitchenware, decorative items, photos, files, and anything else filling the drawers, closets, basements and attics of a home. 

We schedule sorting sessions to fit our client’s move schedule. If they are moving in a few weeks, sometimes we have to schedule a lot of sessions in a short period of time. But if they are moving months later, or don’t have a move date scheduled yet, the sessions can be spaced out. Each session is at least four hours long, but typically not much longer than four hours. 

At the start of each session, we select an area to work on. We always try to set realistic goals. If you aim to take on too much at one time it can be exhausting and discouraging. We  often suggest to our clients that we start with areas that will be easiest for them – in other words, stuff you don’t care all that much about. If a client is an avid reader and has a huge book collection, we may suggest starting with something else, like clothes. If they never cook, we may suggest starting with their kitchenware.  

Sorting is an exercise that isn’t familiar to most people. It can feel awkward and overwhelming at first. So if you start with things that are not incredibly important to you, you can get into the habit and get more comfortable with the process before you tackle the stuff you really care about.

Once we have decided where we will sort, we go to that part of the apartment and try to stay there for the duration of our session. We help our client get comfortable on a nice chair or sofa and then we start lining up objects for them to see. This may involve pulling things out of a closet and placing them up on a coffee table, right in front of our client, so they can make decisions about what is important to them.

As they decide, we pack up things they want to donate, or we make a pile of things they want to give away. The things they want to keep we put right back where it came from, so it’s ready to be packed by the movers.  

There really isn’t a short cut to this process, I’m afraid. There’s no magic wand we can wave to make all the sorting just happen without any effort because everything in a client’s home is something they have chosen and, thus, something with meaning to them. So everything needs (and deserves) to be looked at, to be touched briefly or held, and to be considered. Only then can a client make a good decision about it.  

We often get resistance to the process. “I can’t possibly get rid of any of my books” or “There is nothing in this closet I don’t need” are things we hear a lot, at first. But once we get into the work, most clients are able to let go of a lot of their things.

The best thing about this process is that we have solutions for the things our clients aren’t keeping. A lot of people (rightfully so) get upset if they think their possessions are going to go into the landfill. Our staff knows that there is a lot that can be donated, and some things that can be sold. The landfill is our last option.

It’s been very satisfying to see how happy our clients are once they have done some downsizing. This includes the ones who were most reluctant at first. Most often, it allows them to appreciate the items they kept that much more.  

Sometimes clients tell us it feels like their things are new again. And we almost never hear anyone regret parting with something. Usually they feel like a weight has been lifted. I used to be amazed by this but I now realize that most people don’t want a lot of clutter in their lives and really want to shed things. They just haven’t taken the time or invested the money into hiring a company like ours to take them through the process.

Navigating the Holidays: Celebrating Amidst Change and Loss

This time of year evokes a lot of different feelings. I know people who seem to thrive. They have their holiday shopping done before Thanksgiving and relish decorating the house. But I also know lots of people who would prefer to sit the whole thing out but feel pressured to travel or celebrate with family, and have come to dread this time of year. The holidays can also invoke feelings of loneliness and loss for many.

For seniors, in particular, this can sometimes be a hard time of year. An older relative of ours used to love hosting big Thanksgiving dinners. She has had some health problems in the past couple of years and is having a hard time managing all the challenges of cooking for a big group of people and having overnight guests, but she is reluctant to admit this and keeps insisting that she will host, even though her children wish she would relax and let them take over. This has caused a lot of ongoing tension in her family. 

For those recently widowed, or who have lost a good friend or family member, the holidays can be down-right painful. It’s hard to celebrate when the person you most want to celebrate with is gone. I have a good friend who tries to ignore Christmas every year because she lost her father on Christmas Day when she was in college. But it’s hard to ignore something that permeates the culture. 

Another friend of mine used to have wonderful Christmas celebrations at his parent’s house. When his mother died 10 years ago, he and his sister and their families tried to continue with the same kinds of celebrations. But the celebrations felt sad and hollow without their mother. Finally, after a few rough years, they came across a great solution. They changed it all up. Instead of gathering at their father’s house each year, they all meet at Mohonk Mountain House, a beautiful resort in the Catskills. They have developed a whole new set of traditions, including decorating a tree provided by the resort and watching  movies together on Christmas Eve.

I find this so inspiring. I think traditions can be wonderful, but when they no longer work, they can become almost suffocating. Everybody feels like they have to celebrate the same way they always did, even when the people celebrating have changed.

So here’s my advice for this year: be open to new ways to celebrate. Try something new. It can be something small. The year after my sister-in-law died (far too young), my step-mother announced we would have a cookie baking contest on Christmas. We showed up with batches of cookies and had a lighthearted competition (I tried my hand at black-and-white cookies but came in last!). She gave us something new and fun to focus on, to help alleviate the blow of celebrating without Jennifer.

And as far as gifts go, I always wish we could let go of the need to buy lots of things for one another. If you are in a group that exchanges lots of gifts, consider something my husband’s family has always done: ask people to tell you what they want. We love it because it takes the stress out of trying to come up with creative ideas, and the recipient loves it because they get exactly what they want. Some of our family members get really specific with the brand and colors of things they want. This may feel a little impersonal to some people but I actually love knowing that our gifts are going to be enjoyed.

Or, if you prefer to surprise people, consider giving food as gifts. Something handmade, perhaps, a nice gift basket, or a good bottle of wine. Or make something with photos – perhaps an album full of photos from a family trip taken during the year or a calendar with photos from the year. Calendars are not necessarily of interest to everyone, but I know plenty of older people who still use them. 

Another idea is to offer to take someone out to a special event instead of buying them something. High tea is a good option for seniors because high tea is usually served in quiet hotel lobbies in the afternoon. And the gift will benefit you, too, because you’ll have three tiers of treats to savor all afternoon.

Whatever you do this year, and however you celebrate, please take a few minutes to be thankful for the people in your life. They may not be perfect, but they won’t always be here and you’ll miss them when they’re gone.