Getting Ready to Retire? Six Tips for Downsizing from Huge House to Efficient CondoIf you’re getting ready to retire, you may be thinking about downsizing. Having a large house makes sense when you’re raising kids, but once you reach your golden years, it usually makes sense to move into a smaller, more efficient condo. While downsizing may seem impossible, these six tips will help you reach your goal.

1. The Six-Month Rule

If you’re finding it hard to figure out what to keep and what to get rid of, stick to the six-month rule – if you haven’t used an item within half of a year, you probably don’t need it. Seasonal items aren’t used as much, but if you haven’t used them within a year or two, it’s safe to get rid of them.

2. Measure Twice

Measure your furniture, your current room sizes and your future room sizes. After you’ve done that, do it again. Nothing’s worse than wrestling with your heavy sofa for hours on end to find out that it won’t fit in your new living room after all.

3. Pre-Arrange Big Items

Once you know where your new home is going to be, get the floor plan or draw one up yourself. Use measurements from your furniture and other big items to figure out where you’re going to put things. If it looks crowded on paper, it will probably look even more crowded in person, so make sure your plans look okay before you decide to hire a mover or move everything yourself.

4. Get With The Times

With all the new technology coming out, it’s easy to transfer almost all of your physical media to electronic form. While you might want to keep your all-time favorite books and movies in physical form, you can put most of your reading material on an e-book reader and most of your movies on a computer or external hard drive.

5. Multiples Multiply Headaches

Yes, you need to have a