for that matter). The list might include aunts, uncles, cousins, and your parents’ friends, neighbors, and fellow worship congregants.
* * *
Real-World Downsizing Discovery
Ellen says: After our mother’s death, my only brother and I had the arduous task of digging through all the papers and memories she kept throughout the years. As I held 12 years’ worth of my report cards and went to put them in the “keep” pile, he grabbed them, looked me in the eye, and asked “Why?” When it came to his stuff, I did the same. Though sad, the task brought us so much closer as we shared the memories and stories with just each other. I will treasure it forever! In my own house, I am constantly going through papers, since I never want my son to have to do that chore alone!
* * *
Though your parents are gone, they’ll continue to live on in the memories and stories that these people carry around. I think this is a great way to extend your parents’ legacy.
Of course, you and your siblings have the option of bundling up all the worthy items right away and selling them for cash or donating them for tax purposes, instead of distributing them to yourselves and friends and distant family. Or you can go this route with the remaining items after everyone takes home what they want.
STEP 8: OFFER WORTHWHILE ITEMS FOR SALE THAT YOU AND YOUR SIBLINGS DON’T WANT
After distributing the treasures and worthy items throughout your family (and perhaps to people who cared about your parents), you and your siblings have several options if you want to sell the items of value that remain. Choices include a garage sale, an estate sale, or selling the items online. I’d like to offer some suggestions on how to use these strategies efficiently.
Not only can these steps turn your parents’ valuables into money that becomes part of their legacy, they also offer a way for you to share your parents’ stories. (You could include a notecard with each item you sell that tells a little anecdote of how your parent used or cared about the item.)
Before we discuss these options in depth, I’d like to help you develop some realistic expectations about the money you might make. If your parents were wealthy collectors of art and antiques, then you may enjoy a windfall when you sell their possessions. Even if your parents had more modest circumstances, maybe you’ll be lucky enough to have one of those Antiques Roadshow–like stories about finding a previously unknown Norman Rockwell painting in the attic. But that’s highly unlikely.
Often families find that their parents’ valuables aren’t so, well, valuable, warns Julie Hall. She’s an estate sale professional and the director of the American Society of Estate Liquidators.
In Chapter 1, I discussed that few people want those huge wooden TV entertainment centers that were once common in living rooms, and many millennials don’t even want a television. I was hoping to prepare you for this moment.
If buyers turn up their nose at your parents’ prized possessions, the experience may feel like another painful jolt. Their reaction might feel to you like they’re disrespecting your parents or criticizing their sense of style.
If this happens, in some cases your would-be buyers may simply have homes that aren’t suited for what you’re selling. “In the Carolinas, we have fabulous historic homes, then you see the older vintage houses from the 1930s and 1940s that are being bulldozed, either to put up a McMansion or a petite, simple midcentury look-alike. There’s no dining room. There’s no formal living room. It’s all an open concept. This is what the thirtysomethings want,” Hall says.
Or the collectibles that your mom insisted were valuable may have been at one time, but they aren’t anymore. Maybe an object she had appraised years ago has fallen from favor. Maybe the silver market is down. Maybe she’d been treasuring family antiques for decades without realizing that “just because it’s old doesn’t mean it is valuable. They made junk in the 1850s, too,” Hall says.
The price of many possessions is also being pushed downward because your potential shoppers can find objects for sale all over the world through their computers and smartphones. “I don’t want to point the finger solely at huge online auctions, but when you thought something was rare in your region, go online and suddenly there’s 9,432 of them on eBay,” Hall says.
In addition, huge shifts in the nation’s aging population mean that “thousands of our