I’m getting ready to deploy again in a couple of months, and the base is closing while we’re gone, so I won’t be keeping my apartment. So I’ve started looking through all my stuff and trying to figure out what to keep, what to trash, etc. Of course, I could just take all the stuff I don’t want and throw it in the trash or give it to Goodwill, but is there a better or more profitable way to deal with this stuff? Is it worth keeping old CDs if I transferred music to my computer? Clothes? Old electronics? Random house stuff? Part of me wants to take the lazy way out and just throw a lot of stuff away rather than go through the pain of cleaning and packing it up, especially since I’ll be deployed for 6 months, then back in the US for 6 months, and then deployed and moving again. I’ve moved plenty of times before, but this time I seem to have a lot more crap. For instance, I’m deploying to the Middle East, then I’ll be in San Diego, then back to the Middle East. I’m not sure I really want to drag around boxes of winter clothes for another two years.
Any suggestions on good ways to do this would be welcome.
Craigslist as much as you can. There may also be other charities out there that can use this stuff. Goodwill is easy but shelters will likely benefit more as they don’t have as many donations.
Toss old CDs. Some music stores will buy them from you.
We had a loca High School offer to recycle our electronics for us for a donation. I was pretty damn excited to get rid of several old computers, a microwave and old CRT monitor.
Moving is a good opportunity to assess what’s important to you. Unless you are by nature a collector, get rid of things that you know are not really part of your life anymore. If you have not worn an item of clothing in the past few years, that’s a good indication that you’re not going to wear it in the future either. Electronics and CDs and such become even more outdated that do clothes. I have sometimes replaced a piece of stereo equipment and put it in the garage. Predictably, it just sits there and eventually gets tossed. Might as well just save the intermediate step and unload it the first time. Not sure what to do with CDs – they have a fairly high value to space ratio.
As far as what to do with the stuff you decide to get rid of, I think you’re on the right track. Stuff like clothes should go to charity. Stuff with limited value that’s recyclable should go to the recycler. Stuff with some greater value either goes to a yard sale or e-bay or a consignment shop.
Some people seem very happy with those self storage units. They might make sense for someone in your situation. You can go back to the storage unit when you’re sufficiently settled. Might save you some hassle lugging stuff around.
As an extra question, has anyone done a “yard/garage/moving” sale while they lived in an apartment complex? I’d probably try that first, and then donate/recycle whatever is left over after that. If anyone did that, how did you make it work in a complex, as opposed to in the driveway if you live in a house?
A yard sale in an apartment sounds like a nightmare. See if folks living near you need bigger items; if not, give them to a shelter. We got a couple hundred for some BIG furniture before we moved to San Antonio- would have sucked to lug it here.
Might be time to scrap it all, and rent a furnished place in San Diego. Costs a bit more, but no crap to drag around/coordinate/pay to store. Keep personal/professional materials, and get rid of all furniture. Maybe it’ll be liberating, huh?
I have always visualized you as some guy living in a tiny apartment with magazines, newspapers, and Sanford and Son collectibles stacked to the ceiling. I see this walkway between your computer to the bathroom and kitchen, which is stacked with dishes in the sink. Oh, and there is newspaper taped to the windows so no one can see in. Poor cats, how do they make it.
Seriously, do you know in advance what kind of ship you will be on, and what your assignment will be? Do you request the assignment, or do they give you whatever the need is? When you are not deployed, are you training for a new job? If you are always on the same ship, do you always have the same crew? Like on a rotation?
The joys of being in the military. I remember my parents going through this every time we moved when my dad was in the airforce. You can have a garage sale, ebay it, throw it out, give it away, but if you decide to keep it there are storage rental places where you could keep it for the next couple of years for a small monthly rent.
I remembered reading a post, I think it was on another forum, about somebody who had copied all of his CD’s to his computer and then the computer crashed. It wouldn’t let him access the music again after he had gotten rid of the CD’s even though he had backed it up to a disk.
Personally I am a hoarder so I have hundreds of CD’s, many that I haven’t listed to in years…
As an extra question, has anyone done a “yard/garage/moving” sale while they lived in an apartment complex?
In my area, there is a community group that will have a “Community Garage Sale” type thing. They rent out table space (say $10/ 8 feet or something like that). You rent the space on the day and set up shop. I know several garage sale veterans who swear by this method.