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ARTICLES Free! Download Dawn's complimentary 51-page workbook: Moving: A Guide for Downsizing for Rightsizing Your Life Downsizing - Do It Yourself? By Dawn Provan Are you or someone you know considering an environmental change that involves relocating? People are living longer, healthier, and more active lives than any generation in history and this gracefully aging group encounters different problems associated with changes than were realized by past generations. Longer, more active lives, fewer children, and increased mobility mean that the extended family that was dependend upon in the past, may not be available to provide the personal coaching needed to sort through a life-time collection of treasures. How do you begin to identify what to keep, and what to toss, what to donate, and what to pass on as you consider furniture, memorabilia, antiques and personal items? As someone once said, "By the years, life is hard. By the inches, it's a cinch!" The same advice applied here. Start by breaking this monumental job into doable tasks. First identify what your sort options are for off loading things: donation, passed down to relatives, garage sale, consignment shop, antique dealer and toss. As you conduct your sort, list each item on a 3 x 5 card and group the cards into appropriate categories. Read more of Downsizing - Do It Yourself? Should You Downsize? Professionals offer their help in your decision making By Amy Cavalier To move or not to move? That is the question for many seniors.Whether it’s for health, financial or space reasons, deciding whether or not to downsize is one of the most difficult choices senior citizens will have to make. Weighing the advantages and disadvantages of cleaning out, packing and moving, not to mention finding the perfect new place to live can all be the cause of much anxiety. So when is the right time to move and how do you do it after living in a house for decades. Is moving the only option? Here are four women based in the Rochester area who can help answer your questions and guide you through the process. Dawn Provan —A real estate agent with Nothnagle Realtors, Dawn Provan started up her own business New Dawnings because she saw people needed help downsizing. “It’s a big change, whether you’ve lived somewhere for a couple of years, or you’ve lived someplace for your whole entire life, moving is traumatic,” she said. There are many questions, like “will I like where I’m going, do I really need all these things, or is it all right for me to get rid of these things I’ve held onto for so long?” That’s why she created “A Guide for Downsizing” to help her senior clients decide whether to stay put or to move. According to the guide, sometimes a home and its upkeep can become too much of a burden for a person to stay put. For others, the solution might be bringing services into their home to assist them with everything from housekeeping and yard work to meals, laundry and health care. The guide includes tips on everything from selecting a new home based on your personal and financial needs to making the actual move. To get started on the process, Provan recommends separating things into piles such as things you can’t live without, things you don’t really need, and things you want to give to families members or donate to charity. According to her guide to downsizing, you can use different colored sticky notes to differentiate between those three categories. “I try to stress, if you’re going to a small house or apartment, don’t take too much stuff because then you’re really going to feel overwhelmed and overcrowded,” she said. For those things you don’t want to keep, or can’t keep, there are estate and yard sales, donations to charity, or you can even donate old photos or yearbooks to local the local historical society, schools or churches. Some of your vintage clothes might even bring in some cash from a consignment shop. Provan’s guide includes a checklist for moving, a list for a survival kit for the day of move, and even a sheet to help you calculate your current expenses. If you decide moving is the right decision for you, Provan can do more than help you sell your home, she can also help organize and staff a household sale, as part of her New Dawnings business. She charges 25 percent of the sale total. “We do it all,” she said. “We bring the crew and tables in, we do the advertising, we man the sale, and with all the stuff that doesn’t sell, we can get rid of it by donating it to whatever charity they want to donate it to." |