Forty years in one house means forty years of things — furniture bought when the kids were small, tools in the shed nobody's touched in a decade, jewellery, art, a garage full of "we'll sort that out eventually." When it's finally time to sell or move somewhere smaller, "eventually" is now, and it's a much bigger job than anyone expects.
Why downsizing turns into a bigger job than expected
Working out what to keep, sell, give away or insure during a move means actually knowing what you own and roughly what it's worth — not always obvious after decades of accumulating. Valuable items get missed in the rush, insurance during the move itself gets overlooked, and things with real value sometimes end up in a garage sale for a fraction of what they're worth simply because nobody had time to check.
It's also the point where a lot of families realise nobody quite knows what's actually valuable versus sentimental versus just old — a proper record makes that conversation a lot easier.
What makes the process smoother
- Photos of higher-value furniture, art, jewellery and collectables before the move starts
- A rough value for anything you're unsure about, so nothing valuable gets sold cheap by accident
- Insurance cover confirmed for the move itself, not just the two addresses either end
- A record kept separately from the boxes, in case anything goes missing in transit
Where My Asset Mate comes in
My Asset Mate lets you photograph and log everything as you sort through it — what to keep, what to sell, what needs a proper valuation — kept safely on your phone, and in the cloud too if you choose. It's genuinely useful for working out what's actually worth insuring for the move, not just guessing.
If anything does go missing between houses, you've got a real record, not a memory of "there was definitely more stuff than this."
Doing it as you sort, room by room, beats trying to remember it all once everything's already in boxes.