Slowly learning our lesson as we've downsized a few times during that past 15 years - including 4 moves in 7 years. The garage sales have gotten smaller and smaller as most of the "good stuff" was sold off early in our travels. The first garage sale netted close to $1000 and our then 14-year old son was flabbergasted at our "success". He couldn't believe our windfall and (with dollar signs floating behind his eyes) thought we had stumbled across an incredible money-making scheme.

You should have seen his face when we broke it to him that the stuff probably cost us $20k or more to purchase.

The lessons are ongoing. Every once in awhile we still come across a box that was lovingly sealed from our first big move in 2012, deemed so important to survive a dozen garage sales and 3 additional moves - yet contained unknown and forgotten items that were obviously non-essential to our survival.

Baby steps indeed