Downsizing for Boat Life

With the decision to become full-time cruisers, it was time to downsize for boat life.

Downsizing, a euphemism for letting go of things, can be simultaneously liberating and terrifying. An actual term for downsizing to live on a boat is Radical Downsizing. It is appropriate, as you usually go from a house, condo, or apartment to a few feet of boat space. The other consideration is that you use and need very different things on a boat than in a house, condo, or apartment.

My philosophy is, “If I haven’t used it for a year, I don’t need it.” This doesn’t work for everyone, but here is how we accomplished downsizing for boat life. Perhaps some of these tips will help you, too.

Allow lots of time.

Start early: This gives you time to reminisce and be sentimental. It also gives you time to develop a plan?—?one of the most crucial things you can do.

Get a calendar and drag out your colored markers and sticky notes. Write your goal in big, bold visual letters. Take small steps and establish completion dates. Reverse engineer the goal. Your steps will be different, but here is what ours looked like:

When do we plan to be living on our boat?

When will we have certain areas and rooms done?

When will we sell our vehicle?

When will we sell our property?

Start small.

By starting small, we were able to thwart feeling overwhelmed. As progress was made, inspiration rose, and overwhelm diminished. We remembered the goal of boat living and steadily moved towards it.

The first thing we did, was get three big boxes: YES. NO. MAYBE. By having a MAYBE box, it didn’t feel like we were getting rid of everything so quickly; it gave us a moment to think about things. The YES box was the things that were definitely going to be sold or donated. The NO box, we were definitely keeping, and the MAYBE box, we would come back to later and decide its ultimate destination.

If it’s not a definite yes, it’s a definite no.

The NO box is the easiest to rehome. Donate it to Goodwill or gift it to someone who needs/wants it. I posted a few FREE things on Facebook Marketplace, and people were delighted to pick them up.

Next, could you decide where you are going to start? We decided to start with the kitchen as we felt it would be the easiest, as there are fewer sentimental items. You would be surprised how many duplicate items get lost in kitchen drawers and cabinets.

Do we need four spatulas? No. We need one.

Do we need a potato masher? We don’t even eat potatoes, so the answer is No.

Do we need 10 coffee cups? No. We needed two, which allowed us to select the special ones.

From there, we moved into other areas of our home: the garage, closets, and bathroom -little by little, day by day.

Places to Donate:

We posted some free items on Facebook Marketplace. It was great because a person could come by and pick up the item, and we didn’t have to be there, so our schedule stayed open.

We donated a lot to GoodWill.

There are many places to donate eyeglasses: eyeglass donation boxes at LensCrafters, grocery stores, Walmart, etc. We mailed ours to Eyes of Hope. You can visit their site, print out a label, and drop them in the mail.

Some things are really hard to sell, and ours was a specialized motorcycle bike lift for our semi-truck, which we used to haul our Harley across the country. We were very happy to donate it to the branch of the local sheriff’s department that teaches motorcycle safety. They could now haul bikes to locations for their students.

To Store or Not to Store?

A storage shed, bin, or locker is the bane of my existence, but I am not immune to it.

We all have collections of big, space-consuming things that require dusting and maintenance: ceramic thimbles, snow globes, music boxes….you get the idea.

One suggestion is to save some very special ones and take high-quality photos of the rest. Make a cool little flip book…which is inexpensive and easy to make online. It saves space, and people will look at it when they arrive.

Over the years, I have collected, boxed, and stored some bulky treasure troves:

1. Vinyl Records.
2. Photo Albums.
3. Souvenir Spoons.

Digitizing things is an obvious solution, but I have not been able to implement it yet?, ?which means I have a storage locker. It’s small. It’s cheap?—?and who knows, maybe when I am an old lady, I will sit in my rocking chair and listen to those old Nine Inch Nails records.

Where to Sell.

Not everyone loves selling things online, but I do. To hedge my bets, I list my items on every possible online outlet: Facebook Marketplace–(my favorite), OfferUp, Poshmark, eBay, etc…

Craigslist has lost its allure for me, as it has some deal-breaking drawbacks. Aside from the fact that you’re not making a lot of money, the risk of scams and sketchy people is more probable than not. These safety issues zap the joy from the experience.

I have had great luck with Facebook Marketplace. I know there are scams and sketchy people, but I haven’t experienced nearly as many.

You could hold a yard sale if you have the time and space. Again, you won’t make much money, but it can be fun. If you don’t have space, head out to a flea market. You will meet cool people and sell all kinds of stuff.

Our Experience: 

We had a 204′ tiny house that was stunning, but after talking about it, we decided to sell it. We had bought bare land in Oregon and had thought we would do something spectacular with it, but the fact is, bare land is a lot of hard work and expense. The question became, do we want to continue working and investing in the property, or do we want to invest in a non-traditional life and the adventure of a lifetime? At the age of 55, we chose the latter.

We ended up selling the tiny house on Facebook Marketplace.

Next, we listed our property with Brennan Claus. He did a fantastic job, and we 100% recommend him if you want to buy or sell in the Roseburg area.

We sold our Harley Davidson on Offer Up, the only time anything had ever sold there, and we were delighted. Next came all the other stuff.

We sold our Big Rig semi-truck with an ad in The Truck Paper.

Chris had gone to Texas for a week to do specialized helicopter training. I stayed with the explicit instruction to sell, sell, sell. What Chris didn’t seem to understand fully is that I am a kick-ass salesperson. When he returned a week later, I presented him with a detailed inventory of all the items I had sold and an accompanying money envelope.

With an underwhelming sense of enthusiasm, he perused the list in silence until he got to the weedeater, at which time, tears rimmed his eyes, and he cried out: “OH NO! Not the weed eater.”

To say he was crestfallen is an understatement, and my explanation of how we won’t need a weedeater on a sailboat fell on deaf ears. Of course, it wasn’t about the weed eater; it’s about the fact that everyone?—?and I do mean everyone?—?who takes on an adventure of this magnitude has that moment when they realize that we have passed the point of no return. Shit gets real?—?-fast.

The last thing we sold was our vehicle, which turned out to be surprisingly painless. We went to KBB, filled out the form, were contacted by various dealerships in the area, and decided on one, and 48 hours later, we had a check in hand for an amount everyone was happy with. I had more trouble selling the weedeater.

I’m not going to tell you that downsizing is easy because it’s not.

Downsizing isn’t about getting rid of things. It’s about living a life aligned with your values and goals.  I wrote a big poster board with our goals so that we could see the plan and the progress. It felt good checking items off on the board.

Downsizing is about freedom, clarity, and simplicity.

Thank you for reading!

If you liked this essay, check out Trading our Life on Land for a Life on Sea

Here is a quick video of our sailboat.