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Matt Feret:

Hello everyone. This is Matt Feret, author of Prepare for Medicare and Prepare for Social Security Insiders, guidebooks, and online course training series. Welcome to another episode of The Matt Feret Show, where I interview insiders and experts to help light a path to successful living in midlife retirement and beyond. Julie, welcome to the show.

Julie Coraccio:

Thanks so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here.

Matt Feret:

I am thrilled that you are here. This is such an interesting topic. I want to get into it right away. But first of all, tell everybody what you do, how long you've been doing it, and how you help people.

Julie Coraccio:

So since 2009, I have helped and continue to help people to clutter their lives. I'm a little different. A lot of times when you think of a professional organizer, you think of just the physical stuff, but clutter is so much more than the physical stuff. So we talk about emotional relationship, social media, it's all clutter. So I help people to clutter their lives.

Matt Feret:

I already said it. I'll say it again. I love this topic because I don't know, you read stuff like professional organizers and I look at my closet and I go, well, I'll just throw three quarters of my stuff out, but I want get, and sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. But I think I'm pretty good at it. I want to get into though, as it pertains to clutter two specific topics, and I won't not limit it to that, but let's talk about downsizing. I think even over the pandemic, a lot of people moved. A lot of people took the opportunity for remote work or said, this is not the way I want to live or where I want to live, picked up and left. And of course, when you do that, especially if you've been there for a while, stuff adds up. So if people are moving or downsizing, where do you even begin? Let's start maybe talking about that if you don't mind.

Julie Coraccio:

Sure. Well, what I would say the first thing to do is have your end date. So I'm moving May 1st. So as we're recording this in August, then that gives me plenty of time. Now, what I always say is give yourself as much time as humanly possible. I know in theory that doesn't always work, but I say that. So then you work back from there, okay, I'm working May 1st, and then you come up with a plan. And so I like to suggest breaking it down into manageable steps because a lot of times with clutter moving, people are overwhelmed. Well, if we break 'em down into simple steps, then it is much better. So you have that end date. Then you want to make sure that you choose in the movie company, you've done all your research, you do all that. But then you start with one room, and I'm a fan of writing stuff down, whether it's in your planner, it's on an app, whatever works best for you, and you work one room at a time and then you go from there. People tend to think, oh, I can just do it really easily and really quickly. And that doesn't always happen. We get stuck on certain things. So that's why I'm take as much time as possible. So start with run room and begin there.

Matt Feret:

Do you, I've always heard if you haven't used it in 90 days or if you haven't used it in a year, or is there some rule of thumb I should think about when I open my first room? Which by the way, would probably be the least cluttered so I can knock it out.

Julie Coraccio:

Right, exactly. Which is great because then that gets you motivated, it gets excited. Look, I just did that. I don't necessarily believe you have to have these hard and fast rules because 90 days might work for you, but it might need to be a year for someone else. So it's a good thing you're like, if I haven't used it maybe in a year or pick an arbitrary date that makes sense to you. What I see to people where we get stuck is I might need that someday, right? Oh yeah. That's why we want to hold onto it. So what I say to people is, can you trust that you'll get what you need when you need it? Because if you think, oh, I haven't used that garden tool. Okay, well, can I trust that when the time comes, maybe I can borrow it from a neighbor, maybe I can, there's a rent place, a place where you can rent items that I can get it.

Maybe I'm not going to need it. So trust that is what I say to people because okay, I'm going to trust that I'm going to be able to get what I need it when I need it, and then I'm going to let it go. So that's what I always say with that. But you can start out with an arbitrary thing such as a year and if that works for you. So some people a year would make a panic, 90 days would put people I've worked with, they'd be like, oh my gosh, I'm in stress mode now. Don't even suggest that.

Matt Feret:

Yeah, I mean, I don't know. Like I said, I go through my closet every once in a while and do a purge, but there's always something that I go, what happened to that shirt? I really liked it. And then they go, oh yeah, I gave it away.

Julie Coraccio:

Sometimes that happens, but are you going to die? Probably not. Then, you know what? Maybe you celebrate and go out and buy a new shirt. That's maybe necessarily the answer, but really, how much is it affecting you day to day? That's what I want people to think about.

Matt Feret:

So I guess let's go into the whole downsizing piece. So it really doesn't matter if you're retiring or the kids are out or you're literally just downsizing because you don't want a big thing anymore. I mean, personally, I'll tell you this, right? I've got one kid left in high school and I've rehabbed this house over many years and it has more bedrooms than it had when I bought it, and I don't need all of these. It'll just be me and my wife. And it's full of areas we don't use. So we're thinking of like, okay, well where do we go and what are we doing? But I look at our storage room, there's a fake Christmas tree or two in there, and there's Easter decorations and there's a couple of tokens. I think we're pretty good with it. We don't keep everything from their truth, but there's this stuff in there. How do you start thinking about downsizing, literally downsizing from, I don't know, like 22, 2500 square feet home down into 18 or 16? How do you start thinking about that emotionally?

Julie Coraccio:

That's a great question. Well, one, we've done it twice, so I understand that we're on one floor living. I'm like, as I age, I want to simplify, make it easier. So you have to really ask yourself what's most important if you don't need to. Christmas trees, right? Fake Christmas trees are all the Easter gifts. So it's about being discerning and using that muscle and saying, what matters most to me and do I really need this? And you have to remember, that takes up time, that takes up space that costs you money. That's something you have to dust. I mean, think about all the work that it's costing you to keep all that stuff around. So if you say, okay, I'm going to go, I'm not good with math, 2,500 to 1500, then you have to think about, okay, what can realistically fit? There are apps out there that you can do for planning and you can say, okay, this is a furniture I really like.

So you kind of get an idea and then you say, okay, if my closet's cut in half, well alright, so what is it that I need to let go? And so you understand how much you have and the space that you're going into and then you say, okay, this is what's realistic that can fit. And I'm a fan of, A lot of times people talk about this more in depth about memories. People get hung up. Oh my gosh. And so I'm a fan of maybe if you were a runner that you take all those T-shirts and have 'em made into a quilt, that's something that you're going to use or you create a really cool shadow box. On my to-do list is my mother was an artist and she made the Christmas card every year. So I'm going to get a shadow box and put all the Christmas cards and then put it on the wall.

That's important to me. My mom did all these great Christmas cards, but then it's just going to take up a little space in the wall instead of where it is now in the filing cabinet and the to-do list, but that's just paper and that takes up space. And just this popped in my head, but I want to share this. Our filing cabinets, even with technology, tend to be stuffed. There's a great website called manuals online.com, and it's probably going to have the manual you need. Those things are bulky and they take up a lot of space. So that's something if you know you're clearing out your filing cabinet, I'm going to let those go and I can have my resource online. So if you use a resource online, use that and let the physical or the paper item go.

Matt Feret:

That's very practical. And the practical piece is, I don't know, in my logical brain, it makes all the sense in the world, you go from 2,500 to 1500, you got to save a thousand square feet, so you have to downsize by let's just round it to almost a third and maybe have one leftover so you don't move into a packed new house that's just teaming at the gills with stuff. I want to go to the emotional piece though. Sure. Why do people collect? Is there something to do with hoarding, not just TV level hoarding TV show level, but I mean emotional attachments to things that you walk into that one room and go, oh, I couldn't possibly get rid of this or this has value and someone might go try, maybe I should give it away. Maybe someone else could use this. What is it that hangs us up as human beings around emotional attachments to either memories or assigning value to something that may not be valuable to anyone else?

Julie Coraccio:

Okay. I have a couple thoughts on this. First about collecting feng shui, which is the art of placement in your home believes you collect what you believe you're missing from your life. So I'll share myself as an example. When I lived in Los Angeles, I was a victim of a violent crime. And after that happened, the first thing I did is I went and I got this beautiful angel and I placed it over my door. And now remember, this is just happening. I'm not thinking logically or thinking through this. And later after I read that book, I'm like, oh, I collect angels about angels to me represent love and protection, which makes sense why I started collecting them. As soon as I figured that out, I'm like, I don't have the need to collect them anymore. And I still have angels. I love them, but I wasn't collecting them.

So I just want people to consider that for a moment because people really can have huge collections. And it's not only the collections, but having several collections that have several items. So just stew on that. And then with memories, where we get tripped up is we believe we place our emotions onto the objects, but the memories are in our hearts and they're in our heads. And if we let that object go, the memory's not going to go right. But we uhoh. If I give away grandpa's golf clubs, then grandpa's going away, grandpa's not going away. Those memories are still there. So that's a lot of times what trips people up. Now if you have the luxury of time, it is okay, and especially with seniors, I want to share this because if you're able to have the time, don't rush them. And so if they need to hold an object and tell you a story, allow them to do that.

A lot of times if they are able to tell that story, then they're able to release it. But when my mom was dying, she wanted to tell the story of every Christmas tree ornament. My mom was like a kid loved Christmas. That was her jam. And so we were able to say, okay, let her tell the story. And I think that's really important because that supports people in letting it go. But the main thing is to be like, okay, know that if I let this object go, the memory's in the heart and my head. Does that make sense?

Matt Feret:

It does. It does. What's the difference between collecting and something else? I mean, I guess I use the word hoarding, but I'm not a hoarding expert. I don't know if you are but-

Julie Coraccio:

No, I'm not. And you need people that are trained in that. And so the difference is, I would say hoarding you can't- they actually have a really interesting definition. I haven't looked at it in a while, but if your clutter only comes out 16 inches, I think that's the cutoff to being a hoarder. But there's a mental illness aspect to hoarding. And so I would say if you can't move in the house, you've just full of clutter. That's when you're talking about hoarding. But I remember going to a party when I lived in Los Angeles and this woman had a celebration at Christmas, and I'd never seen so many nutcrackers in my life. I probably didn't know that many nutcrackers existed, but this was a huge house. It wasn't cluttered. She obviously had the room for storage who was like my mom. That was her thing.

But if we have the nutcrackers, if we have albums, if we have clothes, then that's when it becomes overwhelming. And I would say, can you let some of it go? And if you're like, oh, really struggling to let any of it go, that's when we might say, oh, you know what? I might need some support on that. What's going on here? I mentioned what Feng shui believes about collecting. What's the deeper issue? Because if we have to hold on to stuff, maybe we have a scarcity mentality or you know what? I grew up really poor and I don't want to go back to that. And I'm afraid I've worked hard and gotten these things that if I let it go, what's going to happen? Or if you grew up in a home where life was chaotic and everything was everywhere, that's your comfort zone to have everything neat and organized.

Whoa, we're going into unchartered territory that I'm feeling a little nervous. This is out of my box. So always try to think, is there a bigger picture or I think with life transitions, that's when you have to cut yourself some slack, maybe you getting married, you're getting divorced, you're having a baby. Life happens. And so things might get temporarily crazy. We're remodeling, shoot me now. We're at the end, but my office has my bedroom stuff in it. That's just how it is. We don't have a huge house. That's where it has to go. So I'm like, okay, it's going to be over soon. And I just power through it sooner. Just different things to take into consideration.

Matt Feret:

I guess. I'll ask something you probably already talked about, but I'm going to do it again just because want to, when I think there's something valuable and it's a collection, let's just pick LPs, right? I mean it's coming back into vogue, it's been back in vogue. People love doing records and people with record collections and they're like, well, I need to downsize, but I don't want to get rid of my record collections. It brings me joy and it brings me pleasure. And they're valuable even though you may not have room for it. So when there's a very logical kind of feel to it, it's not like, I'll take your Nutcracker example. Like you said, I don't know too many people that collect thousands of nutcrackers. I suppose they're out there, but I guess LPs are a little bit more like, oh, that's a collection. How do I feel about that? If I don't have the room, do I give some of 'em away? Do I try to sell 'em or do I just say, you know what, this is my jam, this is my collection and we're going to have to make room for it. How do you think about something like that?

Julie Coraccio:

Actually, it really depends on, it goes back to what's most important. If you're album collection, you know what, Julie? I listened to an album every single day. I'm retired. I love music. I was a music professor. Then make the space for that. Now, because it's me, I'm always going to encourage you, can you at least let some of it go? I recommend going through everything you own every year because people haven't purged in 20, 30, 40 years and they're, oh, I've got to downsize. Oh my gosh, I've got a house full of stuff. So once you do that initial purge, it's really easy. So then again, what's important and then what's going to work for me, first of all, a lot. I don't know about LPs, but a lot of times we think stuff is valuable and it's not right. And we think, I think of those humel figurines or Pokemon things or whatever those things are, and people, no, a lot of times they aren't valuable.

People are not going to pay you money for it unless you get maybe a crazy collector who's willing to shell out. So that's where you'd have to do your research. Antiques, I don't know where they are. I remember when we were downsizing and they're like, oh, you just missed it by a couple years you could have made 10 grand, but now we're going to pay you 600 for this. So a lot of times the money that you think there isn't, alright. Or then you have the option of curating, like I mentioned with my mom's Christmas cards, okay, I'm going to go through my albums and because of space pick my top 50. So you've got to kind of navigate it. What's going to make sense for me, again, you can have that strict, this is the one thing I'm keeping everything, but if you keep all those albums, you better be going through your closet.

You better be going through your kitchen items. It can't be that rule for everything. So you have to have flexibility with this. The other place people get caught up is, oh, well Martha Stewart did it this way. Okay, well Martha never sleeps and has a staff, so it doesn't have to be done. That what's my lifestyle? What is important to me? People say, how much clutter should I have? It's like, well, if someone drops by, are you going to be mortified? Or someone says, "Hey, I'm going to be in town," and you're okay with, okay, it takes me an hour to straighten up, I'm going to go. But someone else may be like, nah, I want to be able to straighten up in 10 minutes. Right. Work with yourself and what's important to you.

Matt Feret:

That seems like a really good way to check yourself. I love what you just said is like, okay, if it's clutter or level one hoarding or just I got too much stuff and it's seeping out of every pore of the house, that's seems to be a really good check. If somebody dropped by right now and sat down for a cup of coffee, would I be embarrassed?

Julie Coraccio:

Yeah.

Matt Feret (18:52):

That's a really good place to be. Not just have a pillow awry. You've got a little cat here someplace. This is like, could I make space on my countertops or table? Yeah.

Yeah, that's a really good one. It's funny you mentioned the whole collecting thing and then selling it. I mean, I have friends. I mean, heck, I've done it right? I've got all these old CDs from the nineties, maybe people want them and then I go, well, they probably do, but do you know how much time it would take for me to take pictures, type whatever it is I'm typing, throw it on eBay. Oh, then someone buys it. Now I got to put it in an envelope. I got to ship it. If it's scratched and they don't like it, they're going to yell at me and rate me. I mean the amount of hassle it would take to part with it's right there. It's right over there. I probably have 350 CDs. Do I listen to them? No, I don't. But can I part with them right now? No. Are they all on Spotify for $14.99 a month? Yeah, they are. I don't know why I have them, but I have some emotional connection back to my high school and my college and it's sitting right over there. What do I do? I mean that's the LP example, but what do I do? Do I throw 'em out? They have value. I don't know. How do I think about it?

Julie Coraccio:

Potentially donate 'em to a library. I mean I know our library started, I was really excited, but I'm a game person. It's like board game person. And so they've started to saying, Hey, give us your old board games so that people can take out board games. So libraries are possible. You're about my age, so I don't know if our music's considered classical like a unit.

Matt Feret:

I got bad news for you. It is.

Julie Coraccio:

We're in trouble. Classic. Yeah, I'm like the Old East Station. I'm like, I'm not that old. So probably university probably would not be interested in that, but depending on some books, that might be an example. And so I had a friend and he just moved in with his girlfriend and he went from 750 CDs. I think he told me he got it down to 150. So he went through and purged everything. Now, when I was in the Raleigh area in Durham, they had a really great reuse store. And so for instance, they had all these leftover wallpaper samples is one of the things I always remember. And so there are creative people out there. I'm not one of them. I've seen wind chimes made with old CDs. And so there might be in your area a repurposing store that you can donate them to. I'm going to admit, I hate to create trash. I really try not to that sometimes that's just how it is. But I would say library is the first place for the CDs that I would suggest starting. And then you can always put stuff on free cycle a lot of times or Craigslist. If you don't want any money for it, someone will probably want it.

Matt Feret:

Yeah, those are good outlets. I dunno. I'm thinking about my own CDs. You know what I do? Here's what I do. So here's my emotional hangup. I paid $12.99 for that.

Julie Coraccio:

Oh, good one.

Matt Feret:

Yeah, in 1992. Surely with inflation, that's worth double it. This, I don't know. This is this weird thing that I guess everyone has about their own thing, right?

Julie Coraccio:

Yeah. I'm glad that you brought that up because that's a great point because especially I see women do this a lot with clothes. Oh my gosh, I still have the tags on it, but I paid $150 for that blouse. I can't give it away. So a couple things there. I encourage you to ask you what is it costing you? Peace of mind. The older I get, you can't put a price tag on peace of mind. It's costing you real estate. They're out there in the office, it's taking up space. I'll argue till the cows come home. If you've got a cluttered office you can't think as clearly because the inner clutter affects the outer clutter. So the costing you peace of mind, real estate, that's just one of those things you have to let go. And that's a mental block. That to me blocks your abundance.

Well, I'm being stingy here. I spent all this money in 1992. What are you putting out there to the universe? And then the other thing I would say to that is ask yourself, who can get better use? When women get stuck in the closet, I'm like, is there a battered women's shelter for someone who's leaving in the middle of the night that has nothing? Because that would bring joy to someone. And I found when I give, I feel like the other person gets a short end of the stick because I'm like, oh, I feel so good. I'm making a difference. Someone's going to have an outfit. And so those are different things and then there's no judgment here, but if you have to ask yourself free, let's take your CDs. Is peace of mind more important trying to get some money, more important? What is it that you need to do for yourself? And then let that dictate your choices.

Matt Feret:

Yeah, that's a good call. I'm looking over at 'em right now. It's not a burden yet. They're just off in a corner.

Julie Coraccio:

And so that's okay. And it's a process. That's why I said, oh, as much time as possible. If you're thinking about moving in 10 years, five years, start the process now, then that makes it easier. We're not going to tackle the CD tower the first thing because that's a hard decision. We wanted to do the easy stuff and then we build that muscle and it makes it easier.

Matt Feret:

Yeah, that's a good call. Talk about giving stuff away. I mean that could be its own if you're not eBay and everything, that could be its own, or I guess I should come up to speed Facebook market placing things that can be its own hassle. I mean absolutely. You've got a closet full addresses, they have some sort of value to someone surely must want them. And then you could spend a ton of time figuring out whether or not it's your community theater, but it's whether or not it's your battered women's shelter, whether or not, how do you start thinking about how much time do you give to giving stuff away? That could be its own outlet and own time.

Julie Coraccio:

Absolutely. But it goes back to what's more important time or peace of mind. That's why I exist. People can hire me if they don't want to deal with it or do it right, or you have some of those just 1-800. I love when I was in Raleigh, there was this guy, he'd go pick up, he'd figure out what could get donated. He'd figure out what could get recycled and he figured out what he could sell. And that to me was a win-win win. We're going to keep stuff out of the landfill. He's going to make some money and I'm getting it out of my house. So it's figuring out what is most important. If you're retired, you have all the time in the world, you're like, I'm going to put all those CDs up and I'm going to see if I can get a dollar a CD. It's worth it to me. Then have at it, then go for it. So you really have to figure out what is it that I'm willing to do? And you can hire, I'm always like to my nieces and nephew, I'm like, offer to take pictures, post it on eBay or whatever. I'm like, there are people out there that will hire you charge 15 bucks an hour. It's more you'd make at McDonald's and it's win-win.

Matt Feret:

Go to retirees and I mean, I don't want to sound depressing, but let's go. Maybe your last move, it may not be, but maybe you're no more stairs. Maybe it's into a community, but either which way you're downsizing. I have to think there's a lot of emotional buildup with not only your stuff but the actual family home. This is where my children were raised. This is where little Johnny took his first steps. And I always go in my brain, I think I've got this down, but I heard one time a long time ago, it's just bricks and mortar. The siding doesn't care about you, the floors don't care about you. It's an inanimate object. Someone lived there before. Someone's going to live there later. That helps me, but it doesn't help everybody. When you're downsizing for your retirement home, what's different than just say moving, moving and downsizing that way?

Julie Coraccio:

Well, it's the end of an era. You're ending something and beginning something. One thing that I've done that helps me is I thank my house before I move into a place. I sage it and I welcome it. I talk to the house energy and I am the weirdo in my family. I have no problem with that. And so when I leave a place, I thank it, do the same thing and say Thank you for everything. Thank you for housing me, thank you for keeping me warm. And then I'm like, enjoy the next people, enjoy the next people coming here. And then when I go, same thing like sage. Hey, I'm so excited to be here. And so for me, ceremonies are very important because that kind of helps with the closure. I'm going to end this chapter in North Carolina and I'm going to begin this new one in West Virginia.

And so I've found that that's really helpful. There is a process, emotional process. And so that's why it's important to have support, to take the time to walk around and thank the house. Maybe that's all you need or you need to do something in the neighborhood. It was such a great neighborhood and honor that or have everyone over find out whatever that is, it's going to allow you and you process emotion. If we don't process the emotion, then they tend to come out. I believe for me personally, when I'm angry, I always like to dig deeper. I'm like, am I really angry or am I really sad? Because I found a lot of time there's sadness underneath my anger. But if we don't process those emotions and express 'em, they'll come out at the most inopportune time. Do you think all the crazy flight, air flight rage, people are upset about the plane being three hours delayed? Yeah, a little bit. But it's more if we were more regulated emotionally, that's how it comes out and usually in the most inappropriate times. Does that make sense?

Matt Feret:

Yeah, it does. So what if, let's say I'm downsizing, right, and I'm going to move into my retirement home and my kids are the ones that are emotionally? That's a great question. I've been coming home for holidays my entire life and now that's gone. And some other family, I mean I say it like I'm making a teenager voice there, but I'm talking adults too. They influence their parents sometimes. And how do those people, how do we worry about or handle that when our parents are moving out.

Julie Coraccio:

Well, you've got to figure out something that works for you and it's not fair for you to put that burden on your parents. You're in a grown adult, come on now. But then you can say, "Hey, can I just walk around the house one last time?" I'll tell you we have done this. And my brother did it. I was like, "Oh, when we travel, we've gone to see our grandparents' house, the one that's still standing." And we was like, "Hey, would you mind if I looked around?" And sometimes they're get away weirdo and other times they're like, sure, tell me when were your grandparents here. Or even just looking at the outside. So you always have that option that you can do that. But just ask your parents, "Hey, can I just have a moment with the house?" Or maybe you have that party and that celebration or the family hangs out and eats pizza and reminisce and talk about all the great times and all the things that were here, but your parents need to move on. You can honor that. And if you're really super upset, then maybe talking to someone because maybe it's about something else. The house is just kind of representing that and that's where our emotions can go, but maybe there's something else that we're not ready to examine or deal with.

Matt Feret:

Yeah, that's good. What about when are parents or grandparents are downsizing and they're looking at that collection or whatever? I got to imagine there's a lot of, "Hey, do you want this," or, "Hey, take this," going on, take this something that means something to me and therefore you are my offspring. It should mean something to you and if you don't take it, it's going to offend me because it validates my emotional tie to it. How do you handle that if someone's trying to do that to you?

Julie Coraccio:

That's great. Well, first of all, this younger generation doesn't want your stuff. Let me repeat this. Younger generation does not want your stuff. So that's about you don't guilt trip, right? If you ask and they respectfully decline, honor that. Now if you're the child or whatever grandchild, navigating that, I'll share an example for me. So when we had downsized once and we had my grandmother's furniture from when she was a child, but this was a hundred years old, built solid. It was great. We used it in both guest rooms and then we moved to this house and we don't have a guest room or well in the process of making it. And so my father's like, you've got to ask your aunts if they want it and if they don't, then you've got to ask everyone, okay, I will honor you. I'm stuck with everyone in my hometown, so I don't want my life to be made awful.

(31:35):

So I did that and then, and I said, I have a great charity to donate that to. And then my aunts were like, oh, no, no, no, you can't. So where's the furniture now? It's in my aunt's basement. And then I'm like, okay, I don't have to have it. It's out of my house. And I was willing to compromise. I was okay with that. Some other people, you might not have the option to store it in someone's house, so maybe you do like I did or you just say, you know, why don't we find a charity where all this stuff can go? Or I know my friend could really use it and try to sit down and brainstorm solutions. So a lot of times when people and I get it, they think that it's, it's just going to be thrown away. Here's this nice object.

And it's like when I talk to families about their kids have your kids have a charity that they want to donate to? And so you know what? I know these books are going to go to a young person that doesn't have any book. And when kids make that connection that, okay, my stuff's just, it's going to be taken care of, someone's going to value. And the same with adults, then it's easier sometimes to let it go. So brainstorm different solutions and those are just a couple things I'd start off with. Does that make sense?

Matt Feret:

It does. When someone passes, let's just say grandma or grandpa and let's say they're married, let's just for this example and one of them passes and now you've got grandma or grandpa living at home by themselves. Is that, and I don't mean the day after obviously, but is that the time to step in and say, Hey grandma, do you want to start decluttering or is that not the time to do it? And how do you handle that if there's a way to handle it?

Julie Coraccio:

Well, you might be surprised. My mom two years actually today passed and my dad was like within a month, okay, because my mom wasn't a hoarder, but she held on to stuff. My dad literally had in the basement pitched when Jenny dies. He just was like, like, I'm being free. I'm excited. Not everyone was going to be in that same situation, but I just share that because it might surprise you, not immediately. Obviously grief is happening. Well, within a year. I mean a year would probably be the end of it, but if you can gently bring up the conversation, Hey, are you overwhelmed in this space by yourself? Is there anything? Or if there's something, Hey, I'd like this. Or do you think grandpa would want this donated? Just start bringing up the conversation gently.

Matt Feret:

Yeah, they might feel right. I mean, I don't know. I kind put myself in that place, which I'm not sure I can, but you get two closets in the bedroom and one of them full of your now deceased spouse's stuff. I don't know how fast I'd want to go in there. And then if it's getting cleared out, I mean that's an emotional hit big time, right?

Julie Coraccio:

Yeah, it is. It really is. Depends on the individual. They could be like my dad, like, oh my gosh, I'm so ready to let all this stuff go. Or they might be like, you know what? I need a year. And sometime I know they've say since I've just gone through this and it's two years today that a spouse shouldn't make any major decisions two years after the passing and then the rest of the family, they said, if you're really grieving, give it a year. So it really will depend on the individual, but I think it's important to have these conversations. The problem is, at least in America, we don't want to talk about death and dying. I think there's this sometimes misconception, if I talk about dying, I'm going to die tomorrow. And so there's this great fear behind it. But the problem is I want to bring this up because I'm passionate about it.

I just read the other day, two 10-year-old cats because the owner died, didn't make any plans for the cats. And so now they're trying to find a home for the cats. If you have pets, you need to make a plan for it and your children and all that. But then it's the stuff then if someone dies suddenly and you've got a house full of stuff, I have a neighbor 18 months to go through. She did it by herself to go through her parents' house. 18 months of her life dealing with that, you are leaving a burden to someone if you have a bunch of stuff. That's really what it is. It's a burden. If you don't have a plan, if you haven't said, okay, in my estate, hire a junk person, hire a professional organizer that is going to fall to someone to take care of.

Matt Feret:

So let's go there, let's go. Grandma and grandpa have passed and there's a house full of stuff and a house sometimes. And sometimes if they've downsized or whatever in an apartment, that's probably a little easier. How does a family approach that? Is it everybody swoops in on a weekend and uses packing tape or painter's tape, different colored painter's tape? How do you start?

Julie Coraccio:

Well, you have to think, alright, is there a power of attorney? You have to think about the legal aspects and family dynamics can be absolutely crazy. And so you're going to want to come up with a plan. Again, if there's a power of attorney, if there's a certain thing you have to do, because they might say you can't go in anything and touch it until whatever's happened. But if you don't have all that drama, then I would say you come up with a plan, okay, we're going to take a weekend, we're going to go to grandma and grandpa's, let's start decluttering and let's, first of all, is there anything anyone wants? Let's get that out, put it in your cars, and then we're going to go through the process of let's, okay, do teams. We'll take on a room and do all that, and then slowly get everything ready. You know what? Then you have to get the house ready to sell and who knows if there are repairs that need to be made and all of that thing. So it's really a process that can take a long time. So I'm a fan of working as a team, creating task lists for everyone to do. And it's hard if it's just one person, like I told you about my neighbor, 18 months to clean it out. So you have to come up with a plan to do that.

Matt Feret:

You mentioned you're obviously a professional organizer, right? So I've seen people in my own family take a very long time to clear things out for a number of reasons. The amount, the emotional connection, the distance between point A and where you live. I mean people are working. They can't go take a week off to go A, help B identify what you want or what you don't want. You said there, put it in a plan, a professional organizer, is that something you put in your estate plan?

Julie Coraccio:

You absolutely can.

Matt Feret:

Or is that something you hire? How should I attack this smartly with, and then you mentioned this guy that you said in Raleigh who used to just come in and do it and he'd make a little money. You'd make a little money and it would, how do I find that or how do I start thinking about that?

Julie Coraccio:

Okay. Well, so for the first thing in Raleigh, I knew that was a resource. I had that on my website at the time as a resource for people. So you just start Googling, downsizing, junk removal and just find out what the resources are. Now again, I don't know if he did a estate, I never worked with him. If people had passed, these were all people who I got to get rid of stuff. And so start that plan or reach out to professional, do your zip code and Google professional organizer and see who's in your area. Go to their websites. Maybe they hit the easy button and have resources already listed. And I forgot the first, the other question-

Matt Feret:

Sorry, I did the whole 18 part.

Julie Coraccio:

No, no. And I wanted to answer that. And I'm trying to remember... about the estate? Well, yeah. So if you're creating your estate plan, you go to attorney or if you're not hiring an attorney, write it out. Say, okay, I've allotted X amount, or if you all aren't going to deal with it, then take money from my estate to have an organizer come in and clear it out. It also depends. Do you have a lot of valuables? Again, we think a lot of our stuff is valuable and might not be because if you can get money, why not? If there are things to sell, but then if you have a pros going to know things. We have a person in my area who has a store, and so she's really good at knowing this'll sell this won't easy button. I'm in a small town. If we've got someone here, probably most big cities or areas are going to have that, but if not bright, it is a part of your estate plan and I'm going to lot the fees to pay for this.

Matt Feret:

Oh, that's smart. And then I guess obviously have that conversation while you're alive with your family.

Julie Coraccio:

Oh my gosh, I can't express how important it is to have these conversations. When my mom died, my dad, one of the reasons I got interested in end of life organizing, my dad's like, okay, we're going to meet. I want the cheapest coffin possible. And when your mother objects listen to your mother. So of course, God, we plan, God laughs. Of course my mom dies first, right? Well, so my mom died. Okay, well what are we going to do? He's like, well, your mom didn't want to talk about. I'm like, what? I'm like, we had all these conversations. He's like, yeah, it was just me. I was like, well, it would've helped to have known this, and so you're grieving the last thing you wanted. Well, okay, I guess. We'll, cremate mom, you guys had some conversation about it. It would've been nice to not have to worry about this when I'm trying to grieve and do 5,000 other things.

It's so important to start to have these conversations and what's important to you, and not just, I've talked about cats and animals and kids, but what are your values? What do you want to leave the world? Maybe you want to write to your family, you know what, this is how I try to live my life. This is what I hope that you will do. These were my values and I hope that you share something like that that's really important. Or you want to make sure that family stories in our family, the house was burning down and he grabbed the clock on the mantle. Really? Okay, well, why? Not what I would've chosen. But things like that that I think aren't the stuff, but they're the experience or the good juicy living life things that we want.

Matt Feret:

Is there a dollar amount in your brain? As I go back to the valuables, when you bring somebody in or do it yourself? I think maybe, I bet all of us listening or watching have been there. Here's a question that I got. There's a lot of golf clubs, they're all old. Should I sell? Well, what am I a golf club collect? I don't know. Is there a market for old golf clubs? I guess if it's got a wooden, you see what I'm saying? Is there something in my CDs? Let's just go back to me. I'll be selfish for a second. What are they worth? Two bucks, five bucks. Maybe I've got something rare and it's worth 20. Is there a dollar amount that you're like, okay, I get it. It probably has some value, but if it's under a hundred bucks, don't even mess with it. Just give it away or throw it away. Is there some marker you get?

Julie Coraccio:

Again, individual, right? If you have a hundred dollars, say something's a hundred dollars, you have 10 of 'em, that's a gram. I mean, I'd try to do something with that. Again, it goes back to, do I want more time? Do I want more money? Can I hire someone so I don't have to deal with this stuff? I can pay them 15 an hour and I get whatever, 15 or a thousand or 1500 for it. So I think that that's what you have to think about. Again, for me, I wouldn't probably, for me personally, 500 or less, I wouldn't do anything for me. Probably would not be worth my time.

Matt Feret:

Yeah, because trading time for money. I mean, it's like working, right? It's like working a job. What essentially are you doing? You're trading your time for money and you got to think about it the same way when you're clearing out or looking at your own stuff. Got to think about it the same way.

Julie Coraccio:

Yeah, exactly.

Matt Feret:

Yeah. I spent an hour and a half getting five CDs on eBay for $13.

Julie Coraccio:

And the golf clubs, I'd try to see if your community has a program for low income kids to learn how to golf. That's where I would donate those.

Matt Feret:

Yeah, I actually did that once. I got some old golf clubs from my grandfather and they hung out in my garage for 10 years, right? Yeah. They were his, and he golfed with them and he held onto them and he loved golf. And finally I had to go, I don't think he'd want these hanging out in my garage for 10 years just to stare at 'em. So I went to the PGA tour store, and they have a donation place where they give golf clubs to kids. I think specifically city kids that aren't exposed to golf or don't have many golfing opportunities around. And then I had to go like, well, that's cool to me, and that's probably really cool for my grandpa as well. I think he'd be alright with that.

Julie Coraccio:

This is what I tell my clients and what I truly believe. When people have gone on to the next adventure, they don't want their stuff to be a burden. They're not angry at you. They're not guilt tripping you from the other side. They want you to be happy if their stuff has become a burden to you. They wouldn't want that.

Matt Feret:

That's a really good piece of advice to keep in mind.

Julie Coraccio:

Yeah.

Matt Feret:

Yep. Geez, I could talk about this so much more and I could be, again, really selfish and talk about my own stuff, but I know we're on a bit of a clock here. What questions about, well, we didn't even talk about end of life planning, right? We talked about stuff. Are there other things? Let me ask that first before we-wrap. What other things do people not really think of? There you go. Your will, your trust, your

Julie Coraccio:

Your digital afterlife. What do you want to happen to your social media? What about if you have your music collection online, you have movies online? What about all your travel points? What do you want to do with all of that? So that's something that you need to think about.

Matt Feret:

Alright, go. How do I think about that? What do I do to prep that stuff?

Julie Coraccio:

Well, so we still haven't been able to get, I haven't had time. I can't get my mom's Facebook account closed on Facebook. I presented a death certificate. It's like screaming into the void. So you want to be able to leave your Facebook and your password or your Google and all that. So have a thing with your passwords for all of the things that you have. Create a list, right? Hit the easy button for people. Okay, here's my music collection or the other thing. Do you want an online memorial? If who is going to have that? I've written books. I'm going to leave the royalties to my nieces and nephew. That's what I'm going to do. But just start. Begin by starting that list of all your digital assets that you have, passwords and everything, links, and what do you want done? I mean, to think about that because it, it's a pain in the butt. I'm your business person. I am. I can't remember what was the thing that failed that Google did and they removed a Google Plus or whatever it is. But then you have all these profiles and stuff hanging out. I have a Google account. I have more than one. It's a lot of stuff, and you have to think about that as well.

Matt Feret:

That's a good call. What other questions did I not ask that I should have?

Julie Coraccio:

Well, you asked a lot of very good questions. I would say, I can't remember if we talked about this, but just to remember, if everything has value, then nothing does, right? And so that's about becoming discerning and the wheat from the chaff and knowing what is clutter and what isn't. And I would say the other thing that's really valuable is in general, to dig deeper. What is my clutter really about? What is my clutter trying to say about me? I talked briefly at the beginning about collections and how I believe collections represent what you feel you are missing or want or desire in your life. So look at the clutter. What is my clutter saying about me is the same thing. Am I missing something? Is it what I desire? Am I trying to not deal with something? Am I trying to ignore something? Be like an archeologist and try to discover something about yourself. The inners relat to the outer. The more you clear out your inner emotional, mental relationship clutter, it affects your physical environment. You're like, oh, if I release my jealousy, I can let this go. I don't have to keep up with the Joneses anymore. I don't have to keep buying. Just go on a discovery with yourself. If people go to my website, reawakenyourbrilliance.com, I have 10 quick tips for them to take action to declutter 10 areas of their life, including holidays.

Matt Feret:

Julie, this has been really fun. And you know what? I'll say it personally helpful. Thank you very much.

Julie Coraccio:

Thank you so much for having me, and I appreciate your podcast and everything you're doing to support people.

Matt Feret:

Awesome. Thank you very much.

Matt Feret:

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