Downsizing your home takes a lot of thought and planning. Get prepared by asking yourself these essential questions before downsizing!
Essential Questions to Ask Yourself Before Downsizing Your Home
Downsizing your home can help you save money, free up time for other activities, and possibly even help reduce stress. But before you decide to downsize your home, take the time to ask yourself these essential questions. Answering these questions can help you to have a smoother transition to your new lifestyle!
What are your goals in downsizing?
Before beginning the process of downsizing, it is very important to have a clear understanding of your goals. Why are you interested in downsizing? Are you wanting to save money? Is it more about freeing up time and energy? Do you simply need less space? Understanding what motivates your move is key to making sure that the transition process is successful.
What is your budget for a “new” home?
Your budget will greatly influence the size and scope of your “new” home.
Create a list of must-have features, nice-to-have features, and those that are completely unnecessary. This way you’ll stay focused on your primary goal of finding the right fit within your budget range. It’s also important to keep in mind that you may end up spending slightly more than planned throughout the downsizing process, so it’s wise to plan ahead for these contingencies as well.
Where do you want to live and why?
Before you can truly decide whether to downsize or remain in your current home, you must consider the location. Do you want to stay in your current area or move to the suburbs? The country? Move to a different state? Are there economic benefits of relocating, such as lower taxes? More job opportunities?
Think about your lifestyle and how it aligns with different neighborhoods and communities. Consider important amenities like shops, restaurants, parks, and even school districts. It’s also important to ask yourself if you’re personally content with where you live — this could be the deciding factor on whether or not downsizing is right for you.
What kind of lifestyle change will you encounter by downsizing?
Depending on the size you decide to downsize to, lifestyle changes may need to be taken into account. If you’re used to having a large home, downsizing may mean making do with less space resulting in a more minimalistic style or approach. Alternatively, if your current home includes lots of knick knacks, books, and collectibles that you treasure but lack the storage for them, don’t forget about utilizing creative storage ideas. Evaluating all possible lifestyle changes before proceeding is an important step.
My Real Life Example
When I was growing up, we lived in a 14-room farmhouse. I think it started out as a 12-room farmhouse but they added on at least two rooms. We basically lived on the first floor which left the entire upstairs for storage. Plus, we had all those outbuildings where neat stuff could be stored.
After spending the first eight years of our married life living in the community of Champaign-Urbana, IL , my husband and I moved into the farmhouse and had a modular home build in the back for my parents to live in. When my parents moved into the modular home, they took very little of the things that belonged to them that were stored upstairs. My Mom would periodically come get one or two things. Over time, my stuff got mixed in with her stuff and it became quite messy upstairs. Perhaps one day I will share how it looked before we got serious about clearing things out.
After my parents passed away, we bought a home in Florida that had belonged to my Great Aunt. We originally planned to be snowbirds for several years.
In mid-October 2018, I came to the realization that it didn’t make sense to try to maintain the houses in Illinois and the house in Florida. Dave really wanted to leave Illinois. He was tired of the cold winter weather. The picture below was actually taken in February 2007. I included it just to show what the snow looks like after a particularly bad blizzard!
After a lot of soul searching, I decided that it was thyme to let Dave choose where we would live. He didn’t really like living in the country. I decided to sell my pizzeria and put the Illinois property on the market. There was still a lot of work that would need to be done before the houses could go on the market.
Downsizing from a relatively large property to a much smaller house was a big challenge for me. Even though I worked really hard to streamline my possessions, I still have quite a bit of “stuff” that I feel I still need. I am working on finding more creative ways to store these things.
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