We had exactly 2 months to prepare to move to the Philippines, and needless to say it’s been absolutely crazy. In two days we’re going to move out of our apartment, and then in four days we’re getting on an airplane! It is definitely crunch time.

Our single biggest challenge has been getting rid of everything we own, so that we can leave with all our belongings in four suitcases. We’ve sold, donated and thrown away so many things and wow – why didn’t I do this sooner? Probably 90% of the things we’ve gotten rid of, we wouldn’t have needed even if we stayed where we are. But our apartment would’ve been so much cleaner and less cluttered. I wish I had done this years ago.

Here are some of the things I learned about decluttering:

– You have so much more stuff than you think you do. We got rid of half of our belongings 2 years ago when we moved into a smaller apartment and declutter regularly, but we still had an insane amount of stuff.

– Selling stuff takes a lot of time. I sold as much as I could, but it was very time-consuming. Listing items, answering emails, coordinating pickup times, shipping things, etc. I wish I had started sooner and sold things at a brisk pace all along rather than cram it into the past couple of weeks.

– It was easier to get rid of everything than to put things into storage. Initially we were planning on putting some things in storage. Going through all of our things and deciding what to keep, what to sell, what to donate was causing decision fatigue and I wasn’t getting much done. But once we made the decision to just get rid of everything, that actually made the whole process a lot easier! We’ll probably be gone at least 2 years and we won’t miss any of it after that long. Out of sight, out of mind!

– Getting rid of all our belongings has been a life-changing exercise for me. I’ve had to touch pretty much every single thing we own… thousands and thousands of things and it’s shown me the ridiculous amount of stuff we owned. I don’t think we will ever own as much as we did again.

– Getting rid of our belongings was easier than I expected. Once I started selling stuff, I got addicted. What could I sell next? A lot of people asked me if it was hard to let go of certain items, but I didn’t feel as much sentimental attachment to things as I thought I would. The kids have also handled it remarkably well. I don’t sell their toys in front of them, but they realize that almost all their toys are gone at this point and seem to be fine with it since drawing tools are their toy of choice.

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– Giving away our things to good friends was very gratifying. I tried to sell as much as I could, but just ran out of time in the end. This past week we’ve invited our closest friends over and they’ve all left with at least two large garbage bags full of things. It makes me happy that our things will get used by our friends!

– I will never have another stoop sale again. After we sold as much individual items as we could, we held a stoop sale for the rest. I’ve tried it twice, and it was so much work and not worth the effort. Some people haggled so much and I’m not a haggler. Plus some people are just really unpleasant. It’s draining to deal with that and takes the fun out of it.

.  .  .  .  .

I wish I could magically snap my fingers and all our belongings were gone because it’s been so much work getting rid of it all. But I am really looking forward to moving! Not only will we get to spend a ton of quality time with Mr. Bee’s parents, but I think it will be the most awesome adventure.

El Nido life will be the complete opposite of Brooklyn life! In the end, the #1 thing I will miss about living in Brooklyn is our wonderful friends. I was truly touched with how big of an effort our friends made to spend as much time as they could with us before we left. They flew cross country to visit, babysat our kids, bought meals for our last week so we wouldn’t have to cook, and rented a moving van to help us take the rest of our belongings to charity. We didn’t get as much done in two months because we spent so much time with our friends. We’re not really the big “going away party” type, so it was all one-on-one dinners, drinks, and playdates, but I have no regrets.

We honestly don’t have a firm return plan just yet. For now, we’re going to spend as much time as we can with Mr. Bee’s parents, and see how it goes.

Back to packing.  We’re in the home stretch and we still have so much left to do! Wish us luck!