Search

Down Sizing To A Caravan/RV

FavoriteLoadingAdd to favorites

A House to Hayman

The first bit of downsizing our belongings was due to moving out of a large, four bedroom, rental house. Into one bedroom on Hayman Island. It’s amazing that the bigger your space the more stuff you buy to fill it.

We sold our large items on Gumtree and local Facebook pages and smaller things on a local market. Larry was and still is amazed at what “crap” as he called it, others will buy. I thought my crap to be quite nice actually!

We rented out a shed so we could store our Ute and things we thought we would still need. We kept kitchen equipment, paperwork, photos and trinkets we had collected. Funny thinking, I cant even remember the other things we stored and have now gotten rid of ?

Living in one room, was a great way to see how life would be living in a small space with less stuff.

We only needed a TV and clothes and that’s pretty much all that would fit.

Purging the personal stuff

I’m the main person that likes to keep photos and keepsakes so most of it was mine.

I went through photos and got rid of ones that were not worth keeping. I mean an uninspiring photo of a landscape that has no meaning or a blurry picture that you will never look at. Then my birthday and Christmas cards, yep I used to keep most of them, why? I have no idea! they all had to go. Gifts that people had bought over the years were the hardest to get rid of. My only solace was most of our stuff that we did not sell we took to charity shops.

Selling to move to hayman

We lived on Hayman for almost four years and so we could go through boxes bit by bit. Just when I thought I had finished, I would get a second wind and think “No, more can go” it got easier with time. You also start thinking more about the weight of your belongings. The more you look into you start to realise how much you really can take. We still have empty cupboard space in our van but that doesn’t mean we are not over weight.

The purge continues

We have been storing our van and staying at Gunna-Go for a few months. We have been able to slowly empty the shed and fill our home with the belongings we chose to keep. As it happens we still had to much stuff. We had way to much in our cutlery draw, to much bedding and towels, so more out the door.

I’m shore we will get ride of more once we hit the road and discover what we do and don’t use. Or when we go to our first weigh station and discover we need to lighten the load.

I would recommend, if you’re like me and like you’re memories, start purging as soon as you decide to hit the road. It might take you a while to realize what’s definitely a keeper and what’s not.

Have you had to downsize dramatically ? How was it for you ? 

(Visited 1,754 times, 1 visits today)