We’ve all heard the phrase “less is more”, but modern living would have you believe quite the opposite is true. Constantly being told to buy more, desire better, upgrade and accumulate objects to prove we have somehow succeeded at the game of life.

Thankfully more and more people are realising that owning “stuff” isn’t a sign of success, it’s a sign of escapism.

“I’ve worked hard, I deserve to buy myself something” is a thought process I’m sure you’ve experienced yourself.

After a particularly tough project or series of work tasks, it’s all too easy to treat yourself to something shiny and new.

The truth is the more you buy the more chains you have tying you to one location.

You can’t take all this stuff with you on an extended trip, you have to store it somewhere.

That “somewhere” often has to be an ever increasingly big house with more rooms, more storage, and more space to fit your accumulating collection of stuff!

Yet the life we all dream of is having freedom to move, to explore the world, to live an easier life.

I’ve got news for you, all that stuff you bought isn’t going to give you that.

In this guide to downsizing and freeing yourself from the chains of possessions, we’ll explore many of the aspects you’ll be confronted with.

Firstly, let’s tackle what exactly downsizing is, as it’s often misinterpreted. This failure to understand its definition can often lead people back to a life of endless purchases and increasing credit card debt.

Think of it like weight-loss. The goal is to create a new, sustainable and healthy eating routine, but far too many people diet for short periods before accumulating the weight once more when they think they’ve completed the task.

The entire point of downsizing is to create a new life free from the notion that material possessions bring happiness. Your life is worth more than that.

I’ve grown to feel very strongly about this topic and feel people do miss the point of downsizing.

So let’s lay it on the table right now.

You’re not selling your stuff so you can buy new stuff in the future.You’re not downsizing to make money by selling your stuff

You’re not downsizing because you’ve failed at life

When you start downsizing you find a whole new way of looking at life

Ok that last one sounded pretty dramatic right?

But believe me this is how you will feel when you’ve completed what I like to call Downsizing Phase One.

Let’s face it, the world we live in is geared towards us consuming things at an ever increasing rate. We used to own objects for 5-10 years and now we’re being told to upgrade every year or we’ll be missing out.

There’s a constant message of “buy the latest!” And “Follow this trend” that we’re all expected to take part in, and for the most part societies all over the world submit to this notion and play along.

While the world has become more accepting of alternative lifestyles, people still turn their noses up at ideas like downsizing.

No doubt most of your friends and family have moved into increasingly larger houses or bought more expensive cars. They’ve accumulated shinier smart phones and snazzier new home decor that’s “in fashion” right now. They long to build an extension on their house for a bigger kitchen or extra bedroom.

Let me be clear, I’m not knocking this lifestyle. If it’s all you desire then more power to you. I have a feeling that the reason you may be reading this article though is because you’re starting to realise this lifestyle isn’t for you.

And that’s great! Also don’t worry, downsizing isn’t anywhere near as scary as you’d think.

But rest assured, while 99% of the world appears to be buying and consuming, you’ll stick out like a sore thumb when you’re the one selling and downsizing your life.

We’ll touch more on this later, but just know that downsizing will feel weird for a while, but it gets easier (more on that later too!).

I’d also like you to note that downsizing isn’t some hippy notion of a life free of stuff. You’ll still need stuff to survive, you just won’t need an entire house full of it.

So how do you even start to downsize?

Well, here’s a little window into my world and what happened when we started our journey.

After 6 months of living in a small apartment in Mexico, we returned to England and moved back into our 3 storey town house. We quickly realised we didn’t actually need such a big house, we didn’t use all the stuff in it and in fact were a happier family when we were all together on one floor, in smaller cosier rooms.

We realised that downsizing was for us and started looking to see what we could sell.

I created a Google sheet and started wandering around the various rooms of my house. Occasionally I pointed at items and thought “aha! I could sell that!” My spreadsheet grew to around 40 items. I figured they had some value and I’d now look for ways to sell them.

“Easy!” I thought. Sell a few items and make some extra money for whatever we decide to do next.

Of course, it was a naive idea that only these 40 objects in my house would actually be put up for sale. As I began to sell more and more I soon realised that actually EVERYTHING was for sale!

Every ornament, lamp, cushion, curtain and couch could be sold, and if we really wanted a new digital nomad life filled with overseas adventures, we didn’t need 99.9% off what we’d accumulated over the years.

You may have gathered from my experience that my spreadsheet was ultimately pointless, but you’d be wrong. It gave me a starting point, something to methodically work through and add to.

So take a walk around your home. Some items will jump out as obvious candidates.

Add those to your sheet and give yourself somewhere to start. If you just tried to sell everything, you’d soon feel overwhelmed at the prospect and potentially get overly sentimental about things as a coping mechanism.

Just be aware that after a while you’ll soon be selling much more than you initially listed.

You may not even have time to keep the sheet up to date as the selling increases, but at least it got you started on the road to downsizing.

On the face of it, downsizing sounds like it should be a simple process of just selling your old unwanted stuff, but it’s definitely much more complicated than that!

There are a number of emotions you’ll feel along the way that will trip you up and quite a few opinions that will bubble up too.

So let’s acknowledge some of them now and celebrate their existence.

I’m sure you’ve got plenty of items in your home that you are attached to in some way. That’s often the reason we buy things, filling our home with stuff we like.

Because of this, it’s all too easy to apply a financial value to an object you’ve loved for years.

This however is not how the world works. Everything has a market value and depending on its age, condition and current trends, that value will fluctuate.

What you think something is worth is not what others will be expecting to pay.

In order to keep selling your items at a regular pace you’ll need to research current market values and be prepared to accept less than what you expect for some items.

Don’t worry, along the way you’ll be equally surprised to find how much more something is worth than you originally thought.

When you first start selling you won’t even notice you’re naturally filtering out items you think you should keep. A trophy you won when you were 6, a picture frame with photos of the kids in it, or a set of handmade cushions you bought at an art market.

It’s all too easy to want to keep so many items for sentimental reasons. I’ve done that myself for sure, and granted there are some items you know you’ll regret if you ever throw them away.

But once you’ve acknowledged their “Utility vs Sentimentality”, you’ll be surprised just how little the objects actually mean to you. More on that in the next chapter.

Downsizing is not just a case of just picking random stuff and selling it on Facebook Marketplace and eBay.

There is an important order to the items you sell, as you still need to live in your home for the time-being.

Here’s an interesting concept that will help you sort your items and sell them at the right time.

Items with the most utility should be sold last Items with the least beauty can be sold first

This may sound odd, but let’s walk you through it.

If you’re currently using an item or can remember a time in the last month or two that you used it, then you probably still need that item until close to the date you plan to move out.

If you currently enjoy the look of an item, be it a cushion, painting, picture or lamp, then this item brings you joy and plays a small part in your mental health. Don’t sell those first, pick the unloved, unused and odd items first.

You know the ones…

• The objects gathering dust that you keep in the spare room.
• The ridiculous number of books you keep on shelves but haven’t read in years.
• The collection of devices and cables in drawers that you never use.
• The weird looking set of shot glasses you bought in Majorca in 1996.

Make a start with those items first, begin small and work your way up to the bigger items. Your goal is to move out with the big things being sold on your last day if possible so you can still enjoy your home and traverse the downsizing process with ease.

Now we come to one of my favourite downsizing sub-topics and one that will no doubt be a light bulb moment for you. So here it goes.

All of your possessions have a utility, but we are programmed to view them as objects we are emotionally attached to.

Have you got old smartphones in a drawer?

A collection of old photo albums in your garage?

Books you read once and keep on shelves all around your house?

Boxes of items from your childhood stuffed in the attic?

The list of items you’ve kept over the years runs into the thousands I’m sure and the reasons for keeping them all too often just boil down to it being your stuff.

The bigger picture is that these items once had a utility, you made use of them in one form or another. Documenting your life, keeping you technologically connected, entertaining you and educating you.

The truth is their utility has long gone, you keep them because they’re yours, you’re attached to them, but their usefulness has evaporated. They’re now just relics of your past.

Once you realise this, it becomes much easier to disconnect from all your stuff and be much more ruthless with your downsizing.

Objects that once were important to you now seem obsolete and devoid of use. Why would you keep so many objects when their utility has run out?

As you downsize, take a look at the objects you’re contemplating selling or throwing out. Do they still have a use? When was the last time you made use of them? Are you just keeping it because it’s yours and it was once useful?

Chances are that is not a good reason to keep it any longer. In fact, would you feel better knowing you could give it a new lease of life with someone else who actually wanted it and could make use of it?

For me, this was such an enlightening realisation, once owning so many items I couldn’t bear to throw away, but now happily handing them over to strangers on my doorstep who were keen to buy them and put them to good use.

So stop viewing your items as sentimental and start seeing them for what they really are, objects you may or may not utilise any longer. Find new homes for those you don’t use and be ruthless with those that have no value to anyone. It’s time to declutter and downsize away from those useless objects.

If we were to draw a chart of your downsizing experience, the X axis being time and the Y axis being items currently on sale, you’d see something of a bell curve. Peaking roughly half way through and potentially turning your house into what appears like a bunch of stock rooms for a home decor store.

I feel it’s important we acknowledge the process and just how intense it can become, because it’s all too easy to panic and freak out when you’re in the thick of it selling your things.

Part of the reason for that panic is that this is in all likelihood a new experience for you and a surreal one at that. While your friends and family continue to buy more stuff, you’re putting it all up for sale and downsizing massively.

I want you to expect this bell curve rather than fear it, as I believe it’s important to see it coming and enjoy the feeling. It may be the only time in your life you experience this, so embrace it.

You tentatively start selling your stuff. Finding things you feel you can sell right now and start listing them on Facebook Marketplace, eBay, Gumtree and Craigslist.

You begin to enjoy the process, adding more items to these sites as you gain confidence in negotiating prices and handing over those long held possessions to total strangers.

You start to get a buzz from it all and really ramp up what’s for sale.

You’re aware that there are some things you can’t sell just yet as you’re still using them.

You reach the point where rooms start to look bare except for piles of items you’re yet to take photos of to list somewhere, or you’re yet to wrap and post to eBay buyers, or that are waiting to be picked up.

You start to spend every waking moment dealing with messages on your smartphone - “Is it available?” pings up endlessly.

Eventually, you start to run out of easy things to sell. You’re down to just the expensive bulky items, some of which you still sit on, cook with and sleep in.

Downsizing changes from a flurry of selling activity to the hard task of negotiating for couches, bed frames and dining tables.

The last few days of your downsizing experience end with sleeping on mattresses on the floor and visits to recycling centres with car loads full of useless items.

You are eventually down to just the last few items that for some reason nobody seems to want. You somehow find buyers or give them away for free.

Suddenly, you find yourself in an empty house, ready to live life out of a suitcase, total freedom from the objects that need a home. Now it’s just you and your loved ones!

Your experience may vary of course, but you can expect something along these lines to happen to you.

The reason for sharing this experience is so you can see just how each stage of the process may affect you. The increasing intensity of selling and removing things from your house, the peak when your home may look like it’s been burgled, the feeling of overwhelmingness as the realisation that you’re actually doing it sinks in.

The surreal experience of living in a house with a decreasing amount of stuff in it.

The admin of downsizing can often be so intense that you forget to enjoy the bigger picture. So it’s important to take stock and reflect on just what it is you’re doing.

With every item that you give away, sell or recycle, you’re creating a lighter, leaner future for yourself and your family.

Not only that but you’re also learning a valuable lesson, one that is so profound you’ll want to teach it to others.

You’re learning that you don’t need all this stuff to be happy. In fact, you feel happier without it.

Not only that, but something even more impressive!

It actually stops you wanting to buy stuff!

This diet actually works! You’ve reduced the excess fat from your lifestyle and found a way to stay lean and flexible.

Now how awesome does that sound?!

With a leaner mindset that requires less things in your life, you can travel more easily and more regularly without the need to constantly accumulate.

For me, this was one of the driving forces of my downsizing experience. Not only did I want less stuff to worry about and pay to store somewhere, but I wanted to release myself from the cycle of always buying more.

Travel is vitally important for me, as my worldly adventures are where I really come alive.

My movement doesn’t restrict my buying, it was my buying that used to restrict my movement.

This is an important lesson and if travel is part of your bliss then downsizing will have a greater impact on your mindset and your future life than you could possibly imagine.

All of the above is sage advice of course, but I know you’re probably screaming at the thought of throwing or giving away your beloved possessions.

In fact I’m sure your mind is probably racing, thinking about all the wonderful memories you have tied up in so many things you’ve bought over the years.

I hear you, I really do. For years I’ve kept boxes and drawers of mementos from my travels and events I’ve been to. I’ve lovingly created photo albums and framed beautiful pictures. I’ve bought souvenirs, knick-knacks and ornaments to decorate my home with.

It’s the toughest of all to let go of those things. After all, you’ve spent the best part of your life collecting them.

Your first thought is always “Oh no I couldn’t possibly get rid of that!” And you’ll feel this over and over as you start going through every old box in the house.

When was the last time you looked at that item?

Did you even remember you still had it?

How did you react when you saw it again?

Chances are a lot of those items you rarely ever look at. Some of them you won’t have looked at in years, maybe even decades. They’ve been stuffed into a drawer or kept in a dust-covered box for a not inconsiderable percentage of your life.

And even when you did rediscover them as you were downsizing, you probably reacted to seeing them with a “oh yea” or a slight nostalgic smile. You won’t have felt like you’ve rekindled some long lost passion for something.

These items were just a small moment in your life and the truth is their utility has long gone. Even as mementos.

So let’s fast forward through the next 20, 30, maybe 40 years. How often do you think you’ll look at these things again? When you do stumble upon them in 10 or 20 years time, will your reaction be any more than “oh yea” as you remember you still own this stuff?

While these tangible objects are cute triggers of distant fond memories, it’s actually the sight of them that you enjoy the most.

Would a photo of this object have the same effect?

If in 20 years time you saw a photo of this item, would it trigger those fond memories and cause a quick ‘oh yea” reaction?

I’m willing to bet for many of these items, a photo would suffice. Sure, maybe not for all items, but a good number of them could live in digital form.

This is especially true of photo albums and framed pictures. It’s cheap and easy to scan in all your old photos these days and remove those heavy albums from the clutter you simply must keep.

The same goes for old theatre and event programmes, ticket stubs, even souvenirs and ornaments. While you may be emotionally attached to them, they serve no purpose in your life and rarely see the light of day anyway.

So let’s be ruthless. Take photos and scans if you must, but it’s time to move on and embrace your new downsized lifestyle. And if in 20 years time you ever wonder what happened to that thing you bought on holiday in the Mediterranean in the early 00’s, you’ll always have a photo of it ready to say “oh yea”.

A quick note on scanning and photo taking, make sure you have a backup! I recommend backing up to an external drive so you can access your photos from any computer, and also backing up the cloud. There are some great cheap services available like iDrive, Acronis and Crashplan.

An inevitable part of downsizing is that you can never hide what you’re doing from your friends and family. It’s pretty obvious when your life becomes an endless selling of items from your increasingly scarce looking home.

Let’s face it, how many years did it take for you to reach that lightbulb moment when you knew downsizing was the right thing for you? Do you really expect your loved ones to understand overnight just why you’re selling everything?

It’s important to know that awkward conversations and many looks of concern will come your way as you downsize your life.

There’s a few important points to raise here so that you’re well prepared for these occurrences.

What you’re doing isn’t normal, almost everyone around you is doing the exact opposite, so expect them to make you feel like a freak.

This will inevitably lead to moments of doubt and even short panic attacks as you realise you’re getting rid of so much of what made up your entire life.

Embrace the weirdness of it all and know that you’re doing it because it feels right and the upsides are many. It’s just stuff anyway, you can always buy more stuff.

Your downsizing experience is your own and your end goals are personal to you. You will at times feel a desperate desire to make people understand why you’re doing this seemingly abnormal thing.

You will seem crazy to some people, even family members, and no amount of explaining will ever convince them otherwise.

So save your breath and go about your downsizing tasks with a quiet confidence. Stick to the plan and see it through.

Consistency and conviction will show everyone that you know exactly what you’re doing.

Ultimately, downsizing is just one of the steps on the way to achieving your bliss. Whether that’s living a simpler existence or embarking on a nomadic adventure. Your biggest goal is your driving force, with downsizing just a process you must undertake to achieve your bliss.

So share your bliss with friends and family. Tell them all about what you’re working towards. People love to know what the end goal is, even if achieving your Bliss Investor lifestyle is often just the beginning of a new adventure!

But that conversation is for a whole other article.