You Know What’s Not Easy? April 11, 2007 zuzu Coming up with a list of everything you own and its value. Oy.
Not just yet. I have to file all my paperwork for the residency card by the 25th, so I’m doing that. I still need to figure out timing. And sell my apartment. Once nice thing: the list will force me to pare down my belongings.
Well, I suppose if you want to tell us any more, you will (and yet I can’t quite restrain my curiosity enough to refrain from giving you this (I hope very inoffensive) nudge).
I would be glad to take some stuff off your hands, like a tv, or other electronics, anything antique, paintings, furniture… Just to help you out, of course. 🙂
There is no greater incentive to pare down than the need to write it all out on a list and realize just how much crap you actually have. Good luck with that!
Everytime I schlep my stuff to and from college, I vow to never buy anything ever again and end up giving everything that doesn’t fit into my two huge suitcases away. I spent last semester in France and there was no way that I was going to pay the fee for extra luggage on an international flight. The French version of Goodwill got a lot of American stuff that day.
My immediate reaction was “who’s getting a divorce?” Maybe I spend too much time dealing with family law. I would totally hate to have to compile that list. The total value of what I own is probably too depressing. The market value of my car is probably only a little more than what I paid to replace my starter last month.
I’m moving to Seattle in the fall – my third transatlantic move (with all my belongings) in 5 years. You can borrow my list… Take your laptop, sit down in the middle of each room and type out everything you see that you want to bring along. Count your books, take out 10 at random and figure out the average price. Use this price for every single book you have. Same for everything you have a lot of (e.g. CD’s, records, pants, sweaters, jeans etc.). Kitchenware, cutlery, glassware, ceramics, pots, pans etc. is the major time-killer as it tends to be many expensive items. Furniture is easier because there’s (usually) not so much of it. If you are not sure what it’s worth it’s usually not worth a lot. There’s no need to haul IKEA-type furniture across the ocean because it doesn’t always re-assemble well, it’s easy and cheap to buy new at your destination and it’s easy to sell what you have to students, friends etc. prior to departure. Bring a table and a couple of chairs, though. Give away A LOT of clothes and sell all books that haven’t been read in the last 18 months.
We had a house fire and in order to process our claim, we had to list every single thing that had been damaged or destroyed. We ended up with a spiral-bound spreadsheet that was an inch thick. And this was back before I had kids and had a very sparsely decorated home. But when you really sit and list item-by-item what you own, you’ll surprise yourself. Think about every spice bottle and dinner plate and blouse and chair and hairbrush and on and on and on… Partly because of the trauma of the fire (not only had we lost everything we owned, we also lost our puppy) and partly because of the overwhelming job it was, it took me all of the two-year time limit to compile the whole list. Made me wish I had inventoried at least the major stuff before a catastrophe happened.