How many pounds of stuff do you own?

[KoalaMama]

We're getting ready to move across the country, so we had a moving company come through today to prepare an estimate for us. This lovely lady did a walk through and checked a bunch of stuff off on her list, then went back to her office and calculated how many pounds of stuff we have to move. Her estimate is 6400 lbs!!!

My husband and I are chuckling a bit because she's estimating we'll have 60-70 cartons of stuff (at 35-50 lbs a carton) and we think we have far less than that. We figure her estimating software is probably not used to people who have so few things as us. For example, I doubt most women could fit all of their clothing in a couple of boxes, or that most kids only have about the same amount of toys.

I find it fascinating that she said we have *far less* than what most families in a home our size would typically have, which usually falls in the range of 10-12,000 lbs of stuff. WOW. I know we don't have lots of stuff, and I know we have far less than most people, but when you put numbers on it like that... it just makes it all seem, well, huge! Also, I would imagine those are the numbers after people have paired back, because who moves without doing at least some decluttering?

So, let's say you had to pack your belongings into boxes, with each box of stuff weighing about 35lbs, and books weighing about 50lbs. How many boxes of stuff would you have? How many pounds of stuff do you think you own overall?

Basically it's going to cost us about a dollar a pound to move our stuff. That's a really interesting number to consider as I look at everything and ask myself if it's worth the money I'm about to pay to move it.

[clutterwarrior]

NO idea!

[ChristyMarie]

When we moved they made two trips.  With a full size semi each time.  *blush*

Now, they didn't pack it full - we were moving so close that they just loaded quickly, moved, droped off and went back instead of playing tetris with the boxes.

But, um, yeah.  Stuff.

[emmaegbert]

I just moved across the country and decided that I would NOT move most of our stuff, precisely because even if it only cost about 3K (would be a low estimate I think), I made about $800 selling it all, and seriously I could replace for $3800.

I shipped books media rate (.50/lb) and packed (FULL) the back of a Toyota Tacoma, and then ended shipping about 10 medium boxes (at the last minute, lol) at parcel post rate. I worked HARD to get rid of our stuff, and not to toss it. Much was given away but I wanted to find a second life for it. I did sell a fair bit too and if I was a SAHM (not a madly-working f/t student and mom of 2) I would have sold a lot more.

And I thought we didn't have a lot of stuff! We were living in 860sf, no basement, no garage, etc. And absolutely my clothes fit into maybe 2 medium boxes, my kids only had 2 dresser drawers total between them, etc.

And FWIW I've heard from many people that moving companies routinely underestimate by a great amount the shipping weight, basically so they can give you a low quote. I wouldn't assume she's overestimating your belongings!

[KoalaMama]

Actually, they have a guarantee that the actual price won't be more than 10% higher, so lowballing us would not work in their favour at all.

Fabulous idea to sell all your stuff rather than move it! I would do that but we have some nice pieces of furniture that would cost more to replace, and I don't want to try and sell things in the middle of Christmas season. Also, thankfully, my husband's business is paying for part of our moving expenses so it won't be as much for us out of pocket.

I'm excited to get rid of even more stuff and see how low we can actually get with weight. The more I let go of, the better it feels!

[zh97]

We are in the process of an international move.  We currently live in 3000sf home and in the end, the plan is to take only what we can take in our luggage

I have been working hard to re-home all of our things, and the more I get into it, the more I wonder why I didn't do it sooner.  The vast open space in our house has created a great energy.  Rooms take minutes to be cleaned up and I feel a little more focused.  Most surprisingly (for me) is to watch how my kids continue to find things to play with, even though we are down to such a small amount of "toys."  Yesterday they spent HOURS playing with their duplos and today was spent drawing/cutting/pasting computer paper.  With less to do, they seem to be spending more time on each task.

So, with a 50lb limit per bag- and taking 6 bags (plus two bikes and carry ons), I guess our total will be somewhere around 450lbs.  Actually, more like 500lb because we will leave one box of sentimentals with my parents.  We will be traveling in a caravan (similar to a travel trailer here) while in Europe so hopefully won't be accumulating much more than that.  

[zoebird]

we did the same. we brought 8 bags total, all under the weight limit. we had to pay $200 to the airline to get them from philly to SF, but nothing to get them from SF to NZ. 

two old army trunks held all of DS's toys. one small bag carried jewelry and anything that was "really important" to us (but not so important that it couldn't be lost), and the remaining bags were our clothes. it's been amazing, btw. we did have to get the basics for our kitchen, and  we still have 25 boxes in the US (books, favorite items that we couldn't part with, some art works, one chair) and we will likely have those shipped over eventually. 

but, i would say that our max, then was 400 lbs plus whatever is in the boxes (which i believe would be one pallet on a shipping crate). and now, we have kitchen goods here, and also our bedroom furniture. even so, it's nice living so simply. :D

[limette]

You'd be surprised.  I estimated and the movers estimated our stuff at 4000lbs.  We sold a lot of our stuff beforehand  and we don't really have a lot of stuff anyway.  It came in at over 5000lbs.  We had debated renting a small trailer but it's a good thing we didn't because although it would have fit, there's no way our van could have towed that weight.  Selling everything was not a financially wise option in our case.

[~Adorkable~]

we just moved across country and the shippers weighed in at 12,080 lbs! and that is not counting a lot of heavy stuff that we packed into the car, that was another 1000 pounds and that was after decluttering. clearly we could get rid of more! the army pays to move us and we have weight limits and are right up agaisnt them currently, so its kinda a good thing for us to keep in mind that we need to loose a pound to bring home a pound or it can cost us $2 a pound if our move ever goes over.

boy and this move was with no kids, we have twins coming next month, im sooo scared to move the next time!

[OkiMom]

We moved from California to Japan and I felt bad for the movers thinking how much stuff they had to pack. I mentioned it to one of the movers and he laughed and told me ours was the least he had ever had to pack, even with the stuff we put into storage. I guess it might have been true since we were pretty much newlyweds (we had been married 1 1/2 years at the time and had a 4 month old) so the only furniture being moved was a bed and chest of drawers. Our initial shipment was allowed to be I think around 1000 pounds and it came up almost 300 short. Our "big" shipment was I think around 5000 lbs if not less. I have no clue what we left in storage, Im scared to get that stuff back.

We have a bit more stuff than we did now. Two kids bed, a living room set, tons more toys/books since we went from 1 to 3 but after being in other people's houses I don't feel like its that bad comparatively. We will be getting rid of a bunch of stuff before moving but not everything. Specially since we aren't paying for the move.

Edited by OkiMom - 12/25/10 at 2:51pm

[Aliy]

we did a move a few months ago and filled a 26foot moving van..... FULL... we have too much stuff. I have a really hard time though getting rid of stuff

[PeacefulSeams]

we just moved recently across town and all of our stuff fit into a 14 foot truck...with room to spare. when we unloaded it, it all fit into 1 large bedroom.

[pearl2]

This show on TV (TLC, started with "Stuff...") had a 3-person 5-room house that emptied the house into the backyard onto platforms that were on scales...all their stuff weighed over 12,000 pounds!! After they decluttered their stuff weighed just over 5100 pounds. 

[34me]

I don't know how much it would way but before our fire with had 26 pages of line item "stuff" that was lost.  We have about half that now......... 

We lost about 500 paperbacks but dh has since bought an e-reader so it's down to about 20.

[KoalaMama]

I love hearing about how much stuff you all have! Thanks for sharing. :D

The movers loaded our things onto the truck last week, and we will have everything delivered on the 12th. That's when we'll be told how much it all weighed... I'm super curious to know! One thing I will say is we surely had a couple hundred pounds of stuff that we could have just tossed with a little more time to take care of it. It seemed like there was so much I ended up throwing into boxes to deal with later because I just ran out of sorting time! I'm guessing there will also be lots of stuff I unpack and think "why the heck did I keep this??"

My husband and I both left the packing experience thinking how freeing it would have been to just let it all go. Part of me really wishes I could just fit all my personal belongings in a back pack and be done with it!