How We Fit All We Own
Into Our RV

WE DID IT!
It was a mad dash to the finish! We were packing things into our RV and still getting rid of things up until 4pm on New Years Eve.  We were able to ring in the New Year with the peace of mind that we had done it!  Everything we owned fit in the RV and a few storage bins that we were driving to Jimmy’s parents place to store (thanks mom and dad). As much as we didn’t want to store anything, there were a few items that we wanted to hang on to for a bit longer to decide what was best to do with them or possible pick them up later down the road.

New Year’s Eve 2015

CLOTHES
Getting rid of clothes was relatively easy. We both went through our wardrobes several times, paring down things each time and getting rid of more and more each time. Going through our clothes several times felt better as we thought carefully about each item, rather than getting rid of them haphazardly. We both believe we can get rid of more but we feared getting rid of too much and then we would have to go out and replace those items. We’ve agreed that we are going to give it some time and then purge more. We have equal amounts of clothes that we kept (truthfully, I think he might have a little more than me – ha ha!). We keep all of our clothes in bins in the cabinets above the couch, some temporary bins we have at the foot of the bed over the cab and in one very small closet. Keeping the clothes in bins makes getting to certain clothing a little easier and keeps them a little more organized.

Shoes!

SHOES
Our shoes are stored in shoes racks just under the desk and in a large drawer at the base of our closet. It wasn’t as difficult to part with my shoes as I thought, but then again, I kept ten pairs. Surely I can get rid of some of these shoes but I didn’t want to part with them just yet. BTW – Jimmy has seven pairs! I was surprised that he kept so many. He insists that we will get rid of a few pairs while on the road. I kept the following:

• 2 Ankle Boots – one black /one brown
• 2 Heels – one black /one tan
• 2 Ballet Flats – one black / one cream
• 1 Athletic Shoes
• 1 Water Shoes
• 1 Hiking / Cold Weather Boots
• 1 Ugg Boots
• (2 Pairs of Sandals – my Havianas & my beloved Rainbows – these don’t count right?)

TOILETRIES
Toiletries was a hard one. As mentioned in a previous post, I had a zillion different lotions, body sprays, body washes, hair products, face products, and then I had a ton of testers. I also had a lot of makeup. Much of it was old and out of date so I didn’t feel so bad. But, what a waste! I hated doing it but who really wants my half used products that are old anyways? I did give some away, but at least one full garbage bag was taken out to the dumpster. I kept what I felt were the “mandatories”, but that ended up still being a lot. I don’t think of myself as someone that uses a ton of products but apparently I do.  I think I can get rid of more, but again – I feared that I would get rid of something and then miss it. I definitely know that I have more toiletries than Jimmy so maybe we’re even?…

SpiceStor

KITCHEN ITEMS
The kitchen items were fairly easy. There is not much room in the kitchen of the RV so we had to be selective on what we brought.  We brought a basic set of pots and pans, a slow cooker and enough plates and eating utensils for 4 people. We plan on having guests! 🙂 There is not a lot of room for food storage but our diet mainly consists of meat and vegetables, so we didn’t need a lot of room in the cupboards for carb items like: bread, rice, chips, pasta, etc. Thankfully our frig is rather large so we have room for a lot of food in there. We have a lot of seasonings we want to use while on the road, the storage of these was made easy by a kit we bought online (SpiceStor) that holds several bottles by clips. We thought this was very handy until the sticky tape failed us. Now we have a ton of spices floating around in the cupboards. We hope to remedy this soon.

TOOLS
We have a lot of tools. Did I mention that Jimmy is an eagle scout? I blame us having a zillion tools on this fact alone. He wants to have the tools on hand to fix anything if it breaks. I love that he never wants us to be stranded or without something we need to get us to our destination safely. We had originally had all of our tools in hard cased tool boxes that were going to be put in another large lockable aluminum box that was to be mounted on the back of the RV.  This was a great plan until we ran out of time to find the perfect holding box and the time needed to fabricate a mount to put it on the back of the RV, so instead, we put all of the tools in large canvas tool bags we got from Home Depot. They are stuffed to the gills and we can barely lift them, but for now, we have all the tools we need and we can keep them inside of the RV safe with us.

GADGETS & GIZMOS
We had a lot of miscellaneous electronics. Between the two of us we had too much. We had to sell, donate, gift and throw out many of our gadgets. We had extra digital cameras, TVs, recorders, DVD players, etc. We had a ton of cords. We don’t even know what some of the cords went to. We kept what we needed and got rid of the rest. Who needs 6 digital cameras when 99% of the time you use your cell phone for pictures anyway? We kept a laptop for each of us, our cell phones, 2 digital cameras, 1 tablet, 2 kindles, roku box, bluetooth speaker and other little things I cannot think of that I am sure we kept.  We think we can probably ditch one digital camera and probably both of the kindles. We brought all of our gear for hiking and some gear for the beach. We really have too much but we are not sure what we will want for the next year.

GETTING RID OF STUFF
We had a lot to get rid of and we did it in a relatively short amount of time. We recommend getting rid of  stuff over the period of a few months so that you have time to sell your items and get top dollar. We did very little of this. One might argue, what is our time worth? Selling stuff takes time and can obviously be very frustrating haggling with people over the items you are selling and then coordinating a pick-up/drop-off for purchases. For us, the way we did it was just fine. We weren’t looking to make a lot of money for our stuff. We felt best when our items went to a good home. We gifted a lot of our stuff and for us that was perfect. If you are interested in selling or buying used items, we’ve found a few we like below.

• Ebay
• Craigslist
• Close 5 App
• Facebook Groups – We used “OC Sell My Stuff – South”

HOW DO WE FEEL ABOUT IT NOW
We definitely have fewer things after having moved into the RV, but truthfully we should get rid of more. We definitely kept too many things in just the rush to get out of the apartment. We’ve held onto some things that we most likely won’t use or need. We will either donate or sell these items on the road and make our RV a bit lighter. We don’t miss anything that we’ve gotten rid of, at least for now. It’s only been a few weeks, but there is nothing yet that we wish we had kept. We do still have some things in storage at Jimmy’s parents place but it was minimal. We kept a few storage bins each and if we don’t miss those things then we might just get rid of those too. We’ll have to see…