alt Hacker NewsHonestly the best way to move is to sell or donate everything and buy new for your new place. Get down to suitcases or stuff you can pack and ship via UPS.
Yeah some stuff has sentimental value but try to get past that as much as you can. It’s just stuff.
When my uncle moved when he retired he took what would fit in his car. I have never gotten that lean but I admire him for it.
Replies
At some life stages and situations, this makes total sense. I’d think those are predominantly when one is embarking on a new stage, and moving as a part of that. Graduations, retirement, marriage, divorce, … . But someone moving involuntarily (job change, new posting, …), perhaps with a partner, perhaps with children … it’s hard to begrudge that person bringing many of their things along to ease the transition.
There’s a reason the US military pays for movers.
If someone gave me replacement value for my stuff I would not have an issue with this. But realistically nobody is going to give $50k+ to replace all your furniture, electronics, dishes, tools, and so forth. And it only really adds up if you either (a) are wealthy enough that it's not a meaningful cost, or (b) barely have anything in the way of furniture and tools. It's also complicated by things like decently made shelves that aren't wildly expensive being much harder to find than 20 years ago. Like if I could get equivalent shelves adjusted for inflation donating and replacing them would be fine. But I literally can't - I can only find cheap crap or rather expensive stuff that's moderately nicer than my old stuff.
Yes, next time I move I will sell or donate my $100,000 piano and simply buy a new one in the new place.
This works when you have cheap and/or limited furniture.
Better/more expensive furniture is difficult to sell but also valuable enough to keep.
>> Honestly the best way to move is to sell or donate everything and buy new for your new place.
One problem is the delays on new furniture. I saw delays of 6-14 weeks on furniture when I last moved. I purchased a kitchen island from Ashley Furniture in 2021 which has still not fully arrived (the side-pieces are still pending in 2025) even though payments started as soon as the first item was shipped.
Also, you may find that furniture prices in 2025 are not what they were when you last moved given inflation.
I ordered by new sofa in February. I expect it in May.
It's just stuff you can or can't get. How would I know I can't get sofa? How much does assembling the furniture take? Do I book someone to help me with that or so I just pay for assembly? How much is the new mattress and why waste the old one, expensive and now destined to the skip?
How much is going to cost me the living room equipment? Not much, two gaming consoles, TV, 7+2 setup with a decent, 8k, flexible AVR.
Do I take the hit on buying the new motorcycle? Old, perfectly fine but a bit beaten bicycles will have to be thrown out as they look quite nasty (even though they ride well, in my currently 5th house), so it's a few grand on bicycles as well.
Do I need to throw out my network equipment as well? I mean, I could probably sell it on ebay for a fraction of the value and buy new for 20 times what I'll get from my old one, then just get through the pain of setting new software anew...
Etc, etc. I'm glad it works for you but it's laughable to offer your solution as a "best way to love" to everyone without knowing their circumstances.
That sounds super wasteful.
I'm my 40s over here and in my life I've owned 3 full houses of...stuff, so much stuff, really nice stuff!!! Now I own almost nothing and life is much easier. I find the comments here really funny, now I am free I realize how trapped I was by my trappings, your uncle was a smart guy.
>Honestly the best way to move is to sell or donate everything and buy new for your new place. Get down to suitcases or stuff you can pack and ship via UPS
The best way? Really? Perhaps if you're comfortable enough financially in a way that most people in the U.S, or even more so, the rest of the world are not.
I mean, how wonderful if you have the discretionary budget to simply sell at a typical major discount or donate away most of your major physical possessions and just buy everything new. For many, many, if not most people, attempting such a thing would be a huge economic blow in addition to the already often heavy costs of moving.
If some of the advice and observations often given on this site seem like naval-gazing, bubble-dwelling nonsense, it's due to laughable comments like this one.
Yes. It's a cliche but it's true. Your stuff owns you.
This is very situational. Many people have tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of items, especially furniture.