granparents and parents 'stuff' siting in boxes

I don't have sentimental memories invested in 'stuff' I'm quite ruthless at getting rid of things. I keep some things the children and grandchildren made or gave me otherwise it's gone. Paperwork has been whittled down to a minimum. I had to do two house clearances for family members and its not something I want my children to do.

We’ve been through downsizing and the death of our parents. It’s hard, isn’t it? Fairly ruthless in downsizing it now feels manageable. At heart I’m an organised soul, sadly Mr C isn’t.

There was little from parents in law as other family disposed of 90% of it without consultation. Difficult and a very tense time but in the past now. The family things we do have are few, mostly things given to us while ma in law was alive. Our family know what they are, their decision what to do with them.

Loads of photos from my parents. I sorted, made albums for us and our family, handed their albums over and let the rest go other than a small,, labelled, file. Our photo albums are labelled, still use them, so at least they will know what they are.

Have just begun to take photos of the family stuff and the bits and pieces that have meaning for us. Will make a small album of them with notes so our family will at least know what they are looking at. Will do the same with the very few pieces of not valuable family jewellery (from my Mum and grandmother) and the even fewer pieces of mine with value.

Our paperwork is under control and will be as long as Mr C isn’t left to deal with it. There is one (small) box with things like original passports, driving licences from two generations, job references, some pay slips, general interesting paper. Two others (again small) with items my Mum made and personal items from the family. At least gathered together and relatively little.

Done my best to make the future easy at a stressful time. It’s actually given me pleasure to do it.

I think part of my soul goes into a book when I've read it, and vice versa....

I sometimes think that it's things like bank statements etc that would be of most interest to future historians when most source material will have disappeared because everything is now on computers

Tegan I feel exactly the same way. I am supposed to be getting rid of excess clutter, but so much has (I feel) historical value. The world is changing so quickly. As someone who enjoys museums I get the feeling there will be no artefacts donated from the times in which we've lived because we all seem so intent on throwing it all away or disposing of it.

I am dreadful when it comes to parting with 'stuff'. Rubbish and tat goes straight in the bin/recycling but I see 'value' in things that are unlikely to be ever made again. I am told off severely by all who know me for having this sentimental attitude. I am learning to let go, slowly. Now my children are questioning why I have books and bookcases because I own a Kindle. They have a point.

my lovely MIL tells me every time we speak about the masses of stuff in her attic that she's leaving for US to sort when she dies.Its almost as if she's rubbing her wee hands in glee at what we have facing us ..lol I do know she has hardly set foot in it since FIL died nearly 12 years ago and he was a great hoarder of everything .So something to look forward to.We have been clearing stuff for a couple of years as we had hoped to move but the house we wanted was taken off the market AFTER our offer had been accepted ,so we'll continue to throw stuff out and keep looking for another house.Our other issue is we have two businesses with all the usual paperwork etc and 40 odd years of negatives and files from over 4000 weddings ,portraits and commercial work .Reluctant to throw them out just yet as there is always the odd request for family shots from weddings for funerals ...two this week alone and I wouldn't like to let anyone down by not having images to hand .We are hoping to retire next year so maybe we'll bite the bullet and dump everything then

the best thing you can leave to your children is a tidy estate!

I am going to keep repeating that as I go through the house

In fact, DP did do that, DM was a great thrower-out, but can't say the same for DMIL and it is much of her stuff I am sorting through at the moment years later.

Having said this I still have a folder of my parents finance stuff etc and they died in 2002 .
I have just recently been rationalising my old bank accounts and lots of paper stuff from old family history notes which is now done on line.
My poor little ASDA shredder is working hard at the moment. It needs to rest frequently. All these paper shreddings will go on the compost heap.

I must say I tend to wear silver more often.

negatives of old photos, slides, they’ve all got to go.
Oh no! I just tidied them all up and carefully put them back again

A lot of things which used to be treasure are now not much thought of. In Bernardos a few weeks ago was some lovely gold jewellery. The lady told me that people more often wear silver nowadays, so donate gold to charity.

I have the same problem, there were things I held on to when we cleared their bungalow. Fortunately they had downsized when they moved up north.

My OH is a hoarder and whoever gets landed with his junk and musical instruments to sell will have a job on, the loads of hoarded books that will never get read and the charity shop CDs will also be able to be given away .

I still have my fathers chess clock and we finally found a home for his small snooker table and his chess set. There was a not a lot of their clothing worth sending to a charity shop. We swapped their newish washing machine for our older one and someone furnishing a rented house bought the lot in the end .

When my father died, he had moved only a year before and had had a good clear out then so there was no rubbish to clear but still lots of stuff. My brother and I shared out what we wanted and the rest went to either the extended family or a charity shop.
I'm hoping to downsize and have been getting rid of more in the last year. All the old silver plate and EPNS has gone, some to a neighbour who likes it, the rest to charity. Lots of pictures have gone, as well as CDs and old vinyl. I clear out paperwork and books regularly anyway.
My sons won't want the fine china but my DGDs like it. We have a family agreement that the display cabinet made by my great-grandfather will be kept in the family but the rest of the heirloom furniture can go.

Just GET RID!

Last year I had to clear my stepmum's house after she died. I live hundreds of miles away so I had no opportunity to take things away and dispose of them thoughtfully. With help from neighbours, we took 6 carloads of stuff to the tip and filled a van for charity. The rest, including some fine china and decent studio potttery, went to auction where it raised pitifully small amounts.

We threw out thousands of photos and old greetings cards, and a good deal of clothing and shoes, although the better stuff went to charity. It was an exhausting and rather depressing task, as so much stuff that could have been useful to someone just had to be thrown out.

I am determined not to burden my children with such a task. I am trying to get rid of something every day this year (pass it on, give to charity, sell on eBay, or bin it) which is proving very easy so far. If I don't actually use or enjoy a possession, it might as well go to someone who will use or enjoy it now. If it's stuff that belongs to my children (now 40-ish) they can either have it now or chuck it out. Even things of "sentimental value" are a bit meaningless if I don't actually look at them any more, and in most cases the value will be nil for anyone else. If I have books I will never open again, or CDs I never play, or clothes I never wear, they should go to friends, family or a charity shop. Not when I die - now!

Have a heart - the best thing you can leave to your children is a tidy estate!

I had to clear out my parents house when they died. They had some lovely china crockery, I took pieces to a local saleroom, but they said no demand these days.
So sadly it all went to the tip.
I kept all the old photos and documents, and will pass them on to one son, who's interested in family history.

Anything you never look at that you know your kids will chuck in a skip isn’t worth you giving house room. University notes, old school magazines, books that are yellowing and dusty, instruction books for gadgets you no longer own, negatives of old photos, slides, they’ve all got to go.

Gawd, yes, photos. Too many to count. Some stuck in albums, some piled in shoe boxes, lots of people I don't now. What to do with them? Lots belonged to my parents, some belonged to my grandparents, some belonged to DH's parents, I stopped taking photos and sticking them in albums some years ago and I left a note in the last one telling my children I'd given up because digitalisation had taken over. I do have a lot of more recent photos on my laptop and my phone but rarely look at them tbh. We also have a few family pics in frames around the house to remind us of happy events. It wold be wonderful to chuck a load out but I can't bring myself to.

My husband was convinced his mums china would be worth something but has realised it's incomplete and unless you are an eBay whizz it will go to a charity shop in the hope someone with a first house and no money will appreciate it, but it's hard, I am a bit more ruthless as you say if you imagine what the children will do with it that often helps make a decision

Photos - thousands of them!

HELP indeed littlemisssunshine
I am having the same problem and was this morning sorting through piles of old books (could they be valuable first editions, probably not), there is china, more books in the attic.
The piles of junk treasures are all around me at the moment.

Sorry I can't help.
I am just not Ruthless

It is hard isn't it. When my Dad died my sister, who lived locally and had done the bulk of his care and visiting when he was in a care home, wanted to put all his stuff in the local charity shop straight away after we had picked it all up from the home - this involved bunging it all in the charity skips in a dirty old yard round the back of the station. I felt awful about it, but also felt that she had borne the brunt of so much that her wishes should be paramount.

I’m just back from depositing car load of stuff to auctioneer. My mother died 13 years ago and father 30 years ago! I was left the house but it suited us for adult children to live there so didn’t clear out all the clutter. Both parents were collectors/hoarders. There was a mix of quite valuable things, which i’m now selling and other stuff. After my mother died, I used Freecycle a lot. She had a fur coat which someone took for a play and lots of fabric scraps which another freecycler took for patchwork.
More recently charity shops have been the main recipients, even of possibly valuable things like silver plated articles, as well as tea sets and other crockery.
There’s a great sense of satisfaction in depositing box loads of stuff somewhere else!

This is. VERYclose to home, having just returned fro the dump to dispose of years and years of *paw’s” back copies of History Today/History Scotland and History Ireland and () his OU history degree notes.
I am slicing the tops ( where it shows address and account details) off pre-2000 bank statements then putting them into separate recycling bags for different weeks.
Things and “stuff” are another matter.

I remember when my grandmother died, we found drawer after drawer stuffed full of those boxed "Bath Salt Gift Sets" - the ones with the bath salts in neat blocks, with a tin of talc next to it - perfumed with lavender, mostly . I don't see them around much nowadays.

What about all the stuff on our computers? Should we clear that out or maybe they won't bother to trawl through it all.

tegan yes. Up in my loft is a metal box containing amongst other things a Burnley Building Society paying -in book, in my parents’ names, dating from the time when you went to the Building Society in person and repaid your mortgage in cash.

We had to sort out three years ago when moving from a house we had lived in for 35 years. We had loads of paper stuff from both our parents as well as our own. Some of it was actually quite interesting so I did take photos of most of it with an app on my phone and now it is stored on the PC in different folders. I've done the same with old photos. We shredded the hard copies. We still have all the stuff to look at when we are feeling nostalgic and my son has actually taken an interest in some of it. No answer re tea sets and ornaments etc - still got loads of those!