Consumer Tips on How to Downsize

Consumer Tips on How to Downsize

In a prior blog-post on crashproofretirement.com, we focused on three areas of household spending, on which you need to pay attention if you want to save money in retirement.

One of those areas is housing costs.  You definitely need to consider downsizing your home to save money, and ultimately reduce stress in your life. But it can also be difficult to determine which items you should transfer to your new home and which you should give rid of.

To help you with this challenging task, as a consumer advocacy organization, Crash Proof Retirement is providing four tips for downsizing with ease:

1. Embrace minimalism
The art of minimalism has been recognized in Eastern countries for ages, but it’s becoming more and more popular in the West as time presses on. As you can imagine, just by looking at the title of the movement, Minimalism is pretty simple.
Clean your house — your whole house, crazy spring-cleaning style — and touch every single item you own. This includes furniture, knick-knacks, decorations, keepsakes — all of them.
Then ask yourself one very simple question: “Does this item bring me joy?” Really think about it. Don’t ask, “Will this item bring me joy one day?” or “Has this item brought me joy before?” Ask, “Does it bring me joy at this time in my life?” If the answer is no, get rid of it. Recycle it. Donate it. Sell it. Dismiss it from your life. You’ll be surprised how easy downsizing can be if you look at things in this way.

2. Go camping
OK, we know this sounds silly, but hear us out: It’s easy to realize how much you need — or more to the point, don’t need — something if you don’t have it. If you spend a weekend in the woods roughing it, you’ll get a different perspective on your belongings. You might find that you return to your home and realize that you’re living in a state of excess, and you’ll be able to get rid of many more items than you might have previously imagined.

3. Measure your new home
After finding a home that meets your basic needs and your budget, measure your new room sizes. When you understand how much physical room you have, you’ll be able to make decisions more easily about what you should throw away and what you should keep.
You might have a 20-by-15-foot living room right now, but your new home only has a 12-by-12-foot living room. When you measure, you’ll know you probably have to get rid of that antique lounger you never sit on and that bulky hutch that’s just for show.

4. Go digital
This tip concerns your keepsakes, collectibles and photographs in particular. These are items that may bring you joy, but they’re also things that take up a lot of space when they don’t have to. Scan your pictures onto your computer so you can look at them anytime without having to rummage through clunky, old photo albums. Take pictures of your larger keepsakes and upload them instantly to your phone or computer.

Downsizing you home is definitely a great way to save money in retirement, but what about safe-guarding your financial nest-egg from the risk, fees and corruption on Wall Street?  If your life savings is invested in stocks, bonds or mutual funds, that means your money is in securities, and there’s nothing secure about securities!

Planning for a successful and worry-free retirement isn’t always easy, but you can get educated on the exclusive Crash Proof Retirement System from its creator-Phil Cannella and the company’s CEO- Joann Small. This proprietary system is designed to ensure safety for your accounts so when the market goes up, your accounts can experience gains, but when the market goes down or crashes, your accounts stay even; You never lose a penny of your principal and that’s guaranteed! Get educated on the proprietary Crash Proof Retirement System at the next Crash Proof event!

Register here.

There is no cost…No obligation…Just a Crash Proof Education from the creator of the exclusive Crash Proof System-Phil Cannella, and the CEO of Crash Proof Retirement- Joann Small.

See what you’ll learn at a Crash Proof Retirement Educational Event. Watch below.