downsizing Archives - SOS: Simple Organized Solutions LLC

Points to Consider For The Elderly to Safely Navigate Their Homes

By SOS Simple Organized Solutions|2022-05-31T10:52:30-05:00June 1st, 2022|Categories: Eldercare|Tags: age in place, downsizing, mobility, moving, safety|

Mobility becomes increasingly difficult as we age. The ability to navigate our living spaces safely is key to aging in place. The same holds true if we move into senior living communities. The ability to easily get around our living spaces provides a level of independence that is important as we age. One way to think about this subject is to think about how we navigate our homes at a younger age, maybe in our early fifties. This is the age I typically recommend to start downsizing your belongings. When you begin downsizing, you will notice how much more space [...]

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When You Move, Don’t Forget to Update Accounts or Cancel Services

By SOS Simple Organized Solutions|2022-05-20T11:41:24-05:00May 25th, 2022|Categories: Moving|Tags: cancel services, change of address, downsizing, moving, update accounts|

When you move to a new home, there are many moving parts to keep track of. An important aspect is to update accounts, and transfer or cancel services pertaining to your new home. This can be an overwhelming task depending on how many different companies that you do business with. Not all of the services that you use at your previous home are relevant to your new home. For example, if you are downsizing and moving from a house to a condo, you will likely need to cancel accounts with many of these companies, such as lawn care services. So [...]

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Preparing to Sell Your House

By SOS Simple Organized Solutions|2022-03-14T10:34:38-05:00March 16th, 2022|Categories: Moving|Tags: decluttering, donate, downsizing, preparations, process, recycle|

This is a very good time to sell your house for a lot of reasons. The main reason is that there is low inventory for available properties and sellers are at an advantage. This situation is commonly referred to as a ‘sellers market’. There are currently more buyers than available homes for sale, which creates competition among buyers to get the seller to accept their offer. If you have ever sold a house, then you know that there are many preparations to complete in order to put your house on the market. Several years ago, I wrote a post called [...]

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Downsizing Those That Have a Generous Heart

By SOS Simple Organized Solutions|2021-08-27T13:18:25-05:00September 1st, 2021|Categories: Rightsizing|Tags: clutter, discard, donation, downsizing, purge|

Since I specialize in downsizing client’s belongings, the subject of finding good homes for discards is one of the first things we discuss. Most, if not all of my clients are generous, sometimes to a fault. Not many of my clients want, or have a need to sell their discards, but they do want to make sure they go to good homes. There are various reasons why people downsize their belongings. It may be to move to a smaller home, it may be to clear out a home after a death, or it may be an accumulation of clutter that [...]

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Greeting Cards – Storage & Organizing Tips

By SOS Simple Organized Solutions|2021-03-17T17:19:00-05:00March 24th, 2021|Categories: Storage|Tags: clutter, containers, downsizing, labels, organizing|

Do you keep a supply of greeting cards on hand to be ready for occasions that pop up? Do you have a pile or two of greeting cards that you received from others that you just can’t bear to discard? If you answered yes to either of these two questions, this article may be of some help. These issues fall into two categories – supplies and memories. Solutions to both of these categories is all about storage and organization. How you store them is just as important as how you organize them in in their containers. I often see piles [...]

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How Much Trash Can I Find?

By SOS Simple Organized Solutions|2021-02-15T12:46:41-06:00February 17th, 2021|Categories: Downsizing|Tags: discard, donation, downsizing, purging, recycle|

The answer to this question is, a lot! Depending on the size of the items and the amount, a junk hauling service may be in order. Whether you’re moving to a smaller home or not, it often surprises my clients how much trash we find when downsizing. However, when you’re downsizing to prepare for a move, the purging process is more involved. Since you are moving to another home, you have to literally touch every item you own and look in every nook and cranny in your home to determine what to keep and what to discard. Your home needs [...]

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Discarding Regrets – How to Avoid Them

By SOS Simple Organized Solutions|2020-11-17T13:41:14-06:00May 6th, 2020|Categories: Downsizing|Tags: decisions, donate, downsizing, important papers, sentimental attachments|

As a professional organizer specializing in downsizing, I have yet to come across a client that had discarding regrets. A lot of their spaces are consumed by things that can’t be donated or sold. Things like broken items, clothing with stains, or rips, or boxes they held onto instead of recycling them. These items are the no-brainers. They engage my services because they need to reduce the amount of their belongings for various reasons. The most common reason is that they are moving to a smaller home. They understand that they can’t take everything with them because it won’t all [...]

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Remember The 3 R’s as You Downsize

By SOS Simple Organized Solutions|2020-11-17T13:41:17-06:00December 4th, 2019|Categories: Downsizing, Recycle|Tags: downsizing, recycle, reduce, reuse|

The 3 R’s are - reuse, reduce and recycle. These are very important R’s to remember at all times. I just read something the other day on the internet somewhere, I can’t remember where, that suggested we add a 4th R – refuse. The context pertained to refusing to use disposable plastic water bottles. That’s a great idea. I think it could be added to the 3 R’s and considered as you downsize, and not just for disposable plastic water bottles. Refusing to add another unwanted or unneeded thing to our living environment makes sense. Throughout our lives we downsize [...]

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Pros & Cons Of An Interim Living Solution For Retirement

By SOS Simple Organized Solutions|2020-11-17T13:41:17-06:00November 13th, 2019|Categories: Downsizing, Retirement|Tags: decluttering, downsizing, purging, retirement, storage|

My friends Cindy & Joe (not their real names), that are in their mid-60’s recently retired. They lived in a beautiful, 3k+ square foot, 3 level home on a lake with their dog. Both of them love the outdoors. They didn’t plan on retiring that soon, but their situation sort of pushed them into it. They wanted to get out from under the costly, and physical maintenance of owning such a large home so they put in on the market. At this point, they weren’t sure where they wanted to live in retirement. Another thing I need to mention, is [...]

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3 Reasons to Start Downsizing Sooner Than Later

By SOS Simple Organized Solutions|2020-11-17T13:41:18-06:00October 30th, 2019|Categories: Downsizing, Home Remodeling|Tags: decluttering, downsizing, planning, purging, storage|

At some point everyone needs to do some downsizing of their belongings. This post is about starting the downsizing process sooner than later. Purging and de-cluttering are also terms that have the same result, to reduce the number of the things we own. We accumulate many items throughout the course of a lifetime. Things wear out, or we grow out of them, or our tastes change and we get more things, maybe different things. What we do with the things we are no longer using may be different for each of us. A lot of times we stash them away [...]

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