The most common options I discovered were:

Store it all Give it all to family & friends Give it all to charity Sell it all Some mix of the above

Let's take a brief look at each of these choices.

STORE IT ALL - There are several alternatives here. The obvious one is to put it all in a storage unit. While obvious, this can also be expensive, especially if you require a climate-controlled environment. Do you have a friend or relative who might be willing to store your stuff in their attic or basement? This is cheap but probably not the most convenient arrangement. Many difficulties and complications can arise when it comes time to coordinate your visits to "reclaim" or "change-out" some of your stuff. (What do I mean by "change-out"? Most RVers don't have room to store clothing and sporting goods for all seasons so they need to "change-out" their summer stuff for winter. ) One other possibility, if you have a retirement home somewhere, your might want to store all your stuff there.

GIVE IT ALL AWAY - "Hey, I can give it all to charity and take a great tax write-off!" You're absolutely correct, but will this cause problems and upsets among your family and close friends? If so, you may want to simply give it all to them. But if they're scattered all over the country, as ours are, that may not be a very practical solution. Do you really want to incur the cost of shipping your 300 pound sofa-sleeper to Alaska?

"Okay, so I'm not going to give it away and I'm not going to store it. I'll just SELL IT!" That definitely works but there are a couple of options here as well. The most obvious is to have a huge YARD SALE. Less obvious choices are to find a second-hand furniture dealer or call in a broker to purchase it all for auction. The final choice depends on your own personal situation and your tolerance for bargaining. You stand to make more money with the yard sale but you bargain on almost every item. With the broker or dealer, you bargain once. Remember, you're going to use this money to help finance your dream.

What happens in real life? I think most people, ourselves included, end up with a MIX OF THE ABOVE. No matter what you do with the majority of your "stuff", there will inevitably be things you will not want to give up. The memories of a lifetime; wedding and other family pictures, the lamp your grandmother left you, the lopsided desk with the kids initials carved in the top. These are hard to give up, so some type of compromise will be required.

And what about us? There were a few key pieces of furniture that went to our kids. The cobblers bench that my mother left for me? That was a tough one. I thought about using VELCRO® to hold it down - just kidding - but ended up leaving it with my brother and his wife. The stained glass lamp from our trip to the Adirondacks went to our youngest daughter, with the understanding that it's still really ours. I kept a few favored pieces from the many collections of antique bottles, pitchers and baskets. Anything that could be transferred to everyday use - was. Family pictures and snapshots were sorted through and culled into a size that can carry with us. The rest were handed over to our eldest children for safekeeping. We now have one tote designated as a Memory Box to hold various sentimental items.

Once all the sorting was done, we had a GIANT yard (moving) sale. I have a love for these and enjoyed seeing the purchase of my favorite winter dress coat by someone who really needs it, my varied collectibles by another eclectic collector and my marred but utilitarian dining room set by someone who sees the beauty buried deep inside. To me, that is part of the joy of a yard sale, seeing the light in someone's eyes when they realize that they will soon own their heart's desire.

I am not minimizing the difficulty of all this. When I was sitting in my home office, I really wondered how I would be able to scale it all down. There were three phone lines, four modems, two desktop PCs, one with a 17" monitor, a laser printer and a fax machine. I had a wonderful u-shaped desk that I really hated to give up. And then there was my HealthRider ... but I did it. One desktop PC went to a daughter in college along with the laser printer, the other was sold to a good friend to finance the purchase of a laptop. A smaller footprint printer was bought and the fax now sits on the dash of our motorhome.

Once you make the decision to move into full-timing, you'll notice yourself thinking about new purchases with a different mindset. Months before we found ourselves asking each other "Does this make sense when in ...". We didn't even have to finish the sentence - when in a few years we'll be in an RV full-time. Little did we know that it would be months, not years!

We have no doubts or second thoughts about what we have done. It's all been very exciting and I'm glad our adventure has finally begun. It has forced simplicity into our lives. This is good - it comes at a time when I welcome the simplicity. And with that simplicity comes the joy of living!

Come back next time for more information on the full-time RV Lifestyle. In the meantime, keep on rolling!