Відео

I was thrown into this situation when my father became ill and passed away over a 6 week period. He was my mother's caregiver, although with them in their 90's, I had taken on a certain amount of care for both. Mom, now 97, has been a widow 2 1/2 years. During this time I have been decluttering their home, somewhat at her pace. My brothers and I know just this much should make a difference when we clean out the house, which will be soon. A major sorting is most helpful.

I AM the parent trying to declutter so that when I need to go into care I will not place a big burden on my children. Having seen what happens when a parent die or suddenly goes into care. Also, there are valuable items that might bring a good price when sold, my children won't know which of these are valuable so I am selling them now.

Thank you.I love the humane way you handled your parents decluttering process.

Can I hire her for sock finding?

It is impossible to declutter successfully when your adult children want to keep too much of theirs and your othet half is a hoarder extraorinaire

My Mom will have to move soon, and suddenly. We may get one or two days’ notice when she has to go, and will have to drive two days to even get to her place. Mom did not want to declutter earlier-even things like cookbooks, when she hadn’t cooked for herself for a few years. I wanted to put aside a few of her photo albums for her to take with her, and bring others to my home so I could share pictures of my childhood with my son. Instead they are collecting dust and spiders at her place. Her drawers are full of mixed papers. Some are letters from family friends who I will want to keep addresses for, some contain important documents, and some are just old bills-all mixed together. There are mouse droppings in some of it. She still wouldn’t let me go through any of it when I was there. Now, my husband says when we have to move her, he’s going to take 4 days off, we’ll go get her into the care home, and we’re “just going to have to throw everything out”. He’s not renting a van to move her stuff to our (somewhat cluttered) home. Neither is he willing to sort or bring things to sell (if anything is worth anything, that’s my “inheritance”), to give to any of her friends, etc. I may get to bring home one box of important keepsakes. In any case he seems to think we can move her, clear out the (rented) apartment, clean the place for the landlord, and go home in a few days, nevermind a few weeks. I’m an only child, so I have no siblings to help. I’m already making myself alternately sad and furious at the anticipation of this. I had wanted to go to Mom’s myself, move her to her place, take a couple of weeks to go through things and get the apartment cleaned (if this happens in summer when I’m not working and if we have time left in the month-we could even pay an extra month’s rent if needed just to give us that time), make sure she has what she needs and is most important to her, before my husband comes to join me to take stuff to the dump, load a box of keepsakes into the car, and brings us home. Any suggestions on what to do in this situation?

Don’t forget your cousins. A lot of times your parent is holding onto things from their parents. Your cousins have the same grandparents and may be interested in those things. I made sure the family chest from Europe stayed in the family.

I’m 81 years old, a widow and moved from a 3 bedroom home into a 600 sq foot condo. It helped me to use the term “resize”, not “downsize.” It simply helped me mentally, to accept this change and to acknowledge that life needed to be simpler. My family members didn’t want much, I shared with friends and had garage sales and donated so much. The grandchildren didn’t want the silver, crystal, fine China, linens…I learned to let the things go and to keep the memories.

As an elderly parent I was fortunate enough to organise my own support system and could organise and make my own decisions after an abrupt change in my health. I couldn't expect my children - who are much younger than me - to understand what it's like to be aged and coming to terms with, every day, living in a more fragile frame. To show empathy is important but it's also difficult for younger ones to know what is best for the parent. The parent's pace and perspective will be different. All the parent needs is support when asked for and the parent needs to be heard. That's love in action.

Some people have too many things, some too little. Some elderly people were "decluttered" by their children so much they have nothing to look at. They sit there stirring at wall when caregivers come and just talk bad about their (oftast) daughters as depression and dementia takes over. But then remember, you take nothing with you when you die...

Thank you for your wonderful advice. Downsizing for elderly parents is very difficult.

Thank you so much! This was helpful. Jesus loves you!

Well I think the first step is move all your own stuff that you left behind when you moved out. Then get your siblings to do the same.

This is such a great video. So many people are going through this or will be soon. You are gifted with the ability of imparting useful information without wasting time with needless chatter. I love how you mention that you could have done things better or differently. That's true for everyone. I am sure that your parents appreciate all that you and your husband have done. Thank you for sharing

My Dearest please accept my deepest gratitude for uploading such a Wonderful Wonderful Wonderful video

Good effort. My hardest category is paper clutter, but it’s hard to let go of anything, including books. The first point is really true, the one about the identity. I remember books that I decluttered years ago and I still feel like they’re a part of my identity, and I question whether I shouldn’t have kept them. I recently sold 34 books on Ziffit and gave another couple of piles to a bookstore that gives away free books to people. That is such a cool concept. You’re allowed 3 books per visit and when you’re done with them, you can just donate them back to avoid cluttering up your bookshelves. I am not shopping for books until I finished my TBR which consists of 32 books I believe (if I remember that correctly).

Very useful tips🙏

I like your first suggestion that focuses on safety. No matter what age we are, keeping ourselves and our loved ones safe is so important.

What challenges have you faced when helping your senior parents declutter?

Thank you for a gentle approach to what can be a difficult, though necessary and helpful task.

Giving children a budget is an excellent idea!

Thank so much for the needed reminder of playing things in clear receptacles to see how much i have so I’m not wasting or contributing to clutter 🙏🏽

What regular habits help you to save money?

I really appreciate this. I am doing this . I am old and trying to do this so my family doesn’t have to to do this together. I am the only one to know what the things I love who they belonged to before me. I liked and subscribed. Thank you

Thank you so much! This video was such a generous offering 🙏🏽

Write a budget & tweak it as u come across shortfalls. Tracking your spending will show u where u are wasting money & can cut back.

What mindset habits have helped you save money? Share with us!

Gardening has taught me the value of doing a little bit at a time.

Covid limited my coffee and restaurant outings (to zero!) which limited my spending. Four years on, what I saved by not spending on coffee (and other things) is now going toward bigger items that I have needed to replace. It was a good reminder how easy it can be to save.😊

At 77, I have been through this process twice, once as the daughter dealing with an elderly mother who needed to move to assisted living, and now as the elderly parent needing my daughter’s help. The most important lesson that I learned, was that moves to assisted living or skilled nursing were always preceded by some sort of medical issue or crisis. So my mother never got to choose her new home. I didn’t want to burden my children in this way and I wanted to make my own choices. When my husband and I were in our early to mid-seventies, we sold our home of 42 years and moved across the country to be close to one of our adult daughters. We have an apartment in a senior community that has independent living, assisted living and memory care. After Mom’s nearly fatal heart attack, she had to move into assisted living. We were able to maintain her apartment so that she and a professional who specialized in senior moves, were able to declutter and downsize her possessions without the pressure of an impending move. We were spared the emotional stress of the downsizing process and for years afterwards, the moving specialist was blamed for any regrets that Mom had. Be cautious about decluttering stuff that seems useless and unnecessary. Years after Mom passed, I found a small collection of granny squares that she had crocheted. There weren’t enough squares to be useful but eventually I took those squares, crocheted a few more from the same yarn, and made a baby afghan for her great-granddaughter that she never met. Now that I am the elderly parent, I have a different perspective. I am hard pressed to declutter items that remind of past events in my life. It almost feels as if I need a tangible reminder of those times. At the same time, I am beginning to notice my priorities continue to evolve. As the years go by, past achievements and accomplishments fade in importance. It’s our loved ones who loom large in our lives - our family members and dearly beloved friends. I saw the same shift in my mother as the years went by. At the end of her life, her working life, trips taken, possessions and other stuff were insignificant when compared to her loved ones. It’s our relationships and emotional attachments that become most precious.

Great video! I need to declutter but it's too overwhelming!

I have witnessed people who have decluttered and organized long before life forced them and others who had it forced upon them or their children with time constraints. I continue to work at being the former.

Excellent advice. I am helping my father declutter his home, to bring order back to his home, to make it easier and safer for him, for this next stage in his life. It is a long slow process as there's a lot of stuff to go through, but I'm glad he is finally on board. I am actually enjoying spending time with him doing this, we are having a bit of a laugh and making it fun, where possible! No arguments yet anyway! I think it's bringing us closer.

Such a timely video. Great tips. Thank you

I agree totally.

What lovely videos and what great advice! ❤

I would encourage families to start talking about this long before it has to happen. It can start as a discussion on how to make life function more beautifully with fewer obstructions in the way of time spent cleaning, and more focus on shared experiences. Conversations about speed cleaning can indirectly help people let go of things because it takes time to pick up every little thing and dust or wipe under it or around it. Conversations about what the kids do or don't want, or the nephews or the nieces. Passing things along sooner rather than later. Conversations about how long it takes to do The simplest of tasks that we take for granted when we're young… Only fast forward to what it looks like when older, stiffer, sicker, impaired by an accident. It comes to us all so why keep our lives so complicated? Conversations about keeping things because you enjoy them, but may be having a thoughtful plan in advance of what you would take, and what you would let go of, upon downsizing to different sizes of spaces. I think having this series of conversations sprinkled through the years could do wonders for a lot of families. i'm not a minimalist. I am a child of depression era parents. But I am so glad that I encountered online mentors like Flylady, and the many that have come after her, you have encouraged us to look at our stuff and what it does to our lives and our relationships. it means that I have continually had big ideas and small practical projects to accomplish that improve my quality of life now, and will make life easier in the future whether I die suddenly or have to downsize at some point. I involve my daughter in this, and we have been helping each other talk through the projects that are difficult for ourselves and bounce ideas off of each other, and then roll up our sleeves to physically help one another when that's a challenge. it's odd, to be approaching 65, the same age at which my parents both died. So many of my friends have died by this age or younger… Some much younger. I don't particularly want to downsize from my home, I love filling it with people on a regular basis. So I keep on decluttering in ways that make it as easy and as enjoyable as I possibly can, despite some mobility and speed issues. This week I started preparing an antique to leave the house, some thing I have loved since I was seven years old but in truth, no longer serves. Yesterday, my husband went through our remote control stash and discovered we can let go of all the two of them at this point. Today I am evaluating The airphone/earbud category of tech stuff to see what goes. and for Mother's Day, my daughter and her husband are coming over and are willing to do some physical tasks that I'm physically not able to do right now. It's part of a project to give me a wonderful, paired down, organized and aesthetically wonderful home office space, And my daughter has been helping me with some of the physical aspects of this while I have helped her with some things at her home on other days. All this to say… It's coming to us all, why not make it a beautiful part of the journey?

This is so helpful. This is hard for me because I am a minimalist, and my mother is not. She is at a place where she needs to start downsizing b/c her health has deteriorated, however, she is very resistant to doing that despite acknowledging the need to do so. What empathy I may have had has all but dissipated given her resistance and the desire to just let me deal with it when she's gone.

Great advise!

Nice video ! How can i connect with you if i want to know something?

I laughed out loud when you said you could fill your time with "maybe pickleball"!

Thanks for sharing the bit about the bathroom - I get up every night...I wonder how I would be affected if I stopped consuming so much sugar (which I should do for other reasons as well).

Thanks for your video! Useful advice!

Good video! I have cut way back on sugar, too, and lost weight and feel better overall. I'm soon to be 69. I am probably more cynical than you, but, when I heard the nurses statement that you quoted, I immediately thought, "Job security" They want to keep us coming to the hospitals and taking pills......so many things are all about the money.

P R O M O S M

Thank you so much for those good advice ☺ , im trying to do these lessons mostly the one that is dont leat fear stop you. Its a journey but i know in God i can ge through this 🙏 and i would susbcribe to your youtube channel. Blessings for you and you family 💫