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Empty nesters are growing in number every day. The babyboomers are the ones most affected by this and it can be a real adjustment. If you are unfamiliar with this term it refers to the adjustment of having all your children leave home to start their lives. Many look to downgrade from a four bedroom home to a condo or apartment. Some become overwhelmed with all the choices they now have. But before you run out and start evaluating apartments for rent in Toronto, have a look here at ways to help you adjust from moving from a house with tons of stuff to a smaller home with less room for all that stuff.

The first thing one should do when deciding to move to a smaller home is take stock of all the stuff that they have. In North America there seems to be a common practice of hoarding stuff, regardless of whether you need it or not. You know those bell-bottom pants you have in your closet from 1977, it may be time to re-examine you decision making process for what you decide to keep and throw away. Understand you do not need all this stuff to be happy. And the cost of keeping is more expensive than re-buying a few things over the next ten years because you tossed that whatever you could have used 5 years from now.

Loose what you don’t use. If you have not worn those bell-bottom pants since 1980 maybe it is time to donate them to someone without pants at all. Sit down and brainstorm how to decide what to keep. Setup rules like: if I haven’t worn it in 5 years then out it goes. Yes, they guy who only owns one blue/black suit should keep the suit for emergency situations like funerals, job interviews and other important life events.

Once you have a pile of stuff you want to keep and need to store consider getting clear plastic boxes to let you look inside it without opening it. Work towards only keeping about 25% of your things and if that number scares you ask yourself way it does. We really don’t need all this stuff to be happy. So why keep it and more important why buy a lot of these things in the first place?

Another way to keep some stuff is to give it away to family and friends, this way they can use it and you can borrow it in the future if you need it. Reducing the total amount of stuff you have to move on move day and the days that follow when you have to organize all of it can really reduce the overall stress of re-locating.