Jenny McQueen

When we officially made the decision to pursue an RV lifestyle, it was June, and we had a timeline of about 6 months before we would have to be out of our rental home. I knew that time was going to fly. We were moving out of a 1300 square foot home that we had been renting for nearly 5 years in Richmond, Virginia. We had hunkered down there during the pandemic, brought our twins home from the hospital and lived a very cozy, comfortable life…which meant lotttts and lots of stuffed tucked into the corners, closets & attic.

After attempting to do some research for plan to get us rolling, everything I found online felt either really impractical or just unattainable for us; we weren’t purchasing the RV until right before our move because of budget, and we weren’t selling a home with equity to spend. So I sketched out a few lists for us in a cute little notebook and we called it a plan. And somehow, we (barely) pulled it off!

So how did we do it? By starting with a list, of course.

1. Inventorying our stuff. I started by making a list of each specific space that needed to be handled. Not just a room, but spaces within that room, like the bedroom dresser, the front hall closet, etc. They each got their own section on a google doc, and then I made a list of the larger items or categories with in them. Things like pre-pregnancy clothes, school books, etc. Having our stuff listed in one place helped me tackle bite sized chunks during the little windows of time….twin parents do not get big windows of free time, so this was crucial!

2. Having a staging area. Because we weren’t really eating family meals all together, (hello twin toddlers) half of the dining room table and one of the shelves above it became home to our “out” pile. When I was able to multi-task, having a landing zone for anything that needed to go also meant I didn’t have to sort it or deal with it at that moment-just make a decision and add it to the pile.

3. Getting stuff OUT. Once I had my list, my car was basically a conveyor belt to the thrift store. I had boxes constantly ready to go, and every round of errands usually resulted in a trip to either goodwill or my favorite local non-profit thrift . I sold lots of the twins baby items at kids consignment shops, and I passed on almost all their outgrown clothing to other families. I even found a local org to donate the cribs that would then go for free to new parents.

4. Selling the cars . This was easier than I expected, partially because we sold them at a time when used cars were really holding their value. Instead of hassling with private party buyers or losing value on trade in, we both sold our cars to large used car retailers; my husband’s ford fusion when we started planning this, which was an easy decision because we couldn’t fit two carseats in the back. Then we sold my 2019 Kona the day before we purchased our truck so I could use it as a large downpayment. I put in for purchasing quote online from several places, which made it easy to pick who to sell to. The process was simple; I walked in with the keys and the quote, and walked out with my check 20 minutes later. Of all the tasks we had to knock out, this ended up surprisingly being one of the easiest.

5. Downsizing even more. Once we put a good dent in all the clutter, we had to start selling the big stuff. We mainly used facebook marketplace for things like our king size bed frame, treadmill, and sectional sofa. We gifted items that probably wouldn’t sell, but had lots of life in them, like the fancy queen size air mattress, and our flatscreen TVs. aaaand as much as I hated to do it, we took multiple trips to the dump, because some stuff even goodwill can’t take. I even gave away a bunch of stuff from my pantry, because i’m not going to be baking from scratch on the road.

6. Scheduling specific time to work. Because our twins were 18 months old when we started the downsizing phase, multi tasking was not easy. I started putting specific tasks on the calendar, and booking sitters or telling my husband “Tuesday afternoon i’m working in the office for an hour, then you take a turn”. The small things added up, but this is where the real progress happened.

7.. Measuring out the RV storage compartment…in our living room. I think this was probably the smartest thing I did. By December we had figured out which 5th wheel we wanted to purchase, and we hadn’t closed on it yet, but I had the salesman actually measure the dimensions of the pass-through storage so I could use painters tape to lay it out, height included in our living room. If we were keeping something, into the space it went, and when it was full, that was it. Of course this didn’t account for cupboards and closets, but it helped me let go of my christmas tree and whole lotta other things.

8. Putting stuff in storage…sort of. We knew we did NOT want to pay a monthly storage unit fee. Okay I wanted to get one for a few months, but my husband said absolutely not, and he was right. So instead I begged a few friends and sisters to let me stick a bin in their basements. I can’t toss things like business tax records, and I didn’t want to haul around all my photo albums in the RV. Thankfully everyone said yes…and I’m probably still going to throw more of it out the next time I visit.

Even after allll of this, 8 months total of downsizing, we STILL had too much stuff. We still had to take three trips to the dump during moveout week, still had to downsize for both weight and space once we moved into our RV…and we’re still doing it. I’ve probably taken a trip to a thrift store every couple of weeks since moving in. But we did it, and we’re here!! and we have a little breathing room now!