Video: Three Ways to Downsize Your Belongings

SAN RAFAEL — Host, Sarah Rutan: If you’re downsizing in advance of a move, make sure you consider all available avenues for discarding your unwanted items. Today we’re in San Rafael with Diamond Certified Expert Contributor Mario Batz of Johnson & Daly Moving & Storage to learn more.

Diamond Certified Expert Contributor, Mario Batz: Here are a few tips on what to do before you move, if you’d like to downsize. We recommend downsizing as much as possible before you move, because you absolutely don’t want to pay the movers to move things to the new place that you haven’t used in a while or that you don’t need.

The first thing you should do is try to sell it. If you can’t sell it, try harder. What you need to do is you need to get it on Craigslist. You need to get it on OfferUp. You need to put it on Nextdoor. Any possible way you can get some money for it, sell it. It’s probably worth something. It’s just probably not worth what you think it’s worth. But sell it anyway. It’ll save you from moving it, it’ll save you from storing it, and it’ll save you money in the long run.

If you can’t sell it, my next advice to you is to donate it. There’s a lot of people that can use it. There’s a lot of charities out there. Goodwill. Salvation Army will come pick it up if you give them a couple weeks notice. There’s a lot of ways to donate. A lot of people could use the help, and you can get a nice tax deduction for it. It’s a great way to get a little money without having to sell the things if they’re not sellable.

If you can’t sell it or donate it, your last option is going to be to dump it. Unfortunately, it’s going to cost you a little bit of money. There are ways to do it a little more cost-effectively, which are take it to the dump yourself. If you don’t have the time or the resources, you can always call services like GOT JUNK, 800-GOT JUNK, to come get it. You can call a hauling service. There’s many in the paper. But get it out of there. You absolutely don’t want to pay the movers to take it to the new place, and we don’t want to haul junk. [laugh]

So, those are your tips. A normal family of four accumulates about a thousand pounds a year, whether that’s through gifts, whether that’s through holidays. And to give you a little frame of reference, 5,000 pounds is a sparse two-bedroom apartment. So in five years, if you haven’t moved, you’ve accumulated—your family of four has accumulated a two-bedroom apartment’s worth.

So even if you think, “I haven’t bought anything new, I haven’t gotten anything else, it’s the same stuff as when I moved last time,” it’s not. You have more stuff. And getting rid of ahead of time—getting rid of the stuff ahead of time is a great financial decision before you move.

Host, Sarah Rutan: To learn more from local, top rated companies, visit our Diamond Certified Expert Reports at experts.diamondcertified.org.