Monthly Archives: May 2020

Downsizing: A Great Solution to Job Loss

By Claire Posted in downsizing, My Books, Personal Tagged , ,

One of the saddest effects of the coronavirus lockdown has been the number of people who have lost their jobs. Although the government did send many of them a stimulus check, that will only help for so long. Then what?

If you’ve lost your job, unless you work in a sector where you can always find work, you might want to consider downsizing to either a smaller house or a less expensive area. When we went through our business loss several years ago, we found that downsizing was the perfect solution to our dilemma of an unemployed breadwinner in a career field that was disappearing. All of our financial pressure disappeared once we did that. It was amazing how well it worked out for us.

Of course it’s not for the faint-hearted. If you can’t find more affordable housing in your area, you have to leave town or even leave the state. It’s not easy to start over, especially when you’re, um, older. But the freedom and peace you can find by downsizing makes it worth the trade-off.

Consider also that downsizing is much easier when done voluntarily as opposed to waiting until you’re forced to do so. You can read stories of other people who downsized proactively in my book Downsizing Your Life for Freedom, Flexibility and Financial Peace.

See more downsizing posts here.

Second Thoughts About Decluttering

By Claire Posted in Clutter, Simpler Living Tagged , , , , ,

Yes, I know I said this time of lockdown is a good opportunity for decluttering, even though most thrift stores are closed and there’s nowhere to donate our unwanted clutter. But some items in the news have given me second thoughts.

JC Penney’s has been in bad shape for quite a while and now they are shutting down. Ditto for Neiman Marcus.  Yes, you can buy clothes online, but thanks to the virus, supply lines are down and inventory has been greatly affected. Even appliances aren’t always easy to find now. For instance, people have been buying up freezers to store meat; at the local chain appliance store, there is not a freezer to be found under $2,500.

So I’m thinking we shouldn’t get rid of things unless we already have their replacements. The virus has changed everything and we don’t know what to expect. So let’s hang on to things we might need down the road until we see how things shake out.

No New Furniture for the Foreseeable Future

By Claire Posted in Personal, Small-House Living Tagged , ,

(Warning: Whining Ahead)

So I’ve discovered that the place where we were going to buy carpeting is closed until further notice. And the furniture store where we were going to buy our sofa and chairs has put our favorite brand on sale…but only the floor models. What does this mean? Is the factory not running anymore? And if so, when will it be up and running again? Or won’t it?

These are small inconveniences compared to those who are fighting the virus. But they’re still real. We can make do with our old furniture, but it sure was fun thinking about the changes we were going to make.

It seems like this isolation is just taking the fun out of life. My grandkids are going to forget how to hug Grandpa and me; a couple of months is a long time for a little kid. Thank goodness we have Skype.

Now that it’s getting nicer out, it’s a good time to go through the house and declutter, finding everything we’re not using anymore and donating it or having a garage sale…except that that Goodwill is closed and people aren’t supposed to go to garage sales. I’ll just have to keep that excess in a corner of the basement until it has somewhere to go, I suppose.

(Whining Over, Hopefully)