"Honey, if I die before you do..." (non-dark content)

First of all, big shout-out to the Carousel Buffet Restaurant in Peterborough ON, closing June 2 after 50 years.  It's been our go-to gathering place for 6 years or so.  Great people and great food, and they deserve a great retirement.

Anyway, fellow diners tonight included a couple of dozen ham radio guys with their wives, and we got to talking with one of the wives.  She says it's a running joke in the hobby that, in the event they die first, the guys want to make sure their widows don't sell off their stuff for what they said they paid for it.

I guess this is the other side of "I know what I've got," right?

Old car guys often say the same thing about all the parts they have stuffed in the garage.

I won't care what she gets for my junk. I'll be dead.

I'm sure my 'friends' will circle like vultures though.

My eldest son knows the deal. He'll keep mom straight. 

In reply to Toyman01 :

Sir, you raised your kids well .

Topic well mapped out in our household.

Sign on front yard will read:

"Free car stuff  and tools in garage. Must take everything. "

I have tried to help a couple of widows monetize the remains of their husbands car hobby  after unexpected deaths. What they ended up getting in the end was hardly worth the effort. Having random strangers show up and diminish your loved ones hobby in the effort to lower the sale price is kind of a heartbreaking thing. So, I have made it clear that there is no leftover value to the stuff I have accumulated. The junk is only of value because it makes me happy, so no need to make it a burden. I am pretty sure that the offer of free stuff in return for leaving a bare wall garage will be taken up quickly.

Pete

In reply to NOHOME :

gotta watch out, though.   the right taker might even be willing to hasten your demise.

Although a joke, the real answer here is to sell/give away/donate your stuff before you die. Ever been to an estate sale? It is shocking to see how little everything in your life is actually worth. 

My dad has my brothers and I well prepped for this eventuality though. While there are no secrets between my parents among what things cost, it is not moms game whatsoever to sell things, or even know what they're worth years down the line. In any case, my brothers and I will upgrade where we can, take the valuable items and sell them in the correct places (i.e. reverb for guitars, ebay for random items, craigslist for the stuff that is odd but valuable, etc.), then estate sale/donate everything else. 

I have purchased a guitar from a widow before. She didn't play, it was her late husbands. I came over and looked at it, said I wanted it, but told her her asking price was too low (she was asking $800 for a guitar worth about $1400 to $1800), but I could only pay $800--I told her what it was worth and where to list it and how to sell it. She said she didn't care, she'd take $800. Okedoke, fine with me. At a certain point in life, $500 doesn't matter anymore. 

In reply to NOHOME :

You've got it exactly right. That recent Dilbert about restoring other types of trash too or just old cars? Comes to mind.

Also, it should provide a bit of incentive to keep our hoarding tendencies at bay.

Me and the other half have talked about it before. 

We share most hobbies so none of it will go to waste. Im pretty sure she would thing out "our" fleet and probably sell all my cars except Tabbie and the Iris car. 

As of now my son shares my automotive hobby so all car related stuff will just be handed down to him.  He can use it or dump it as he sees fit when the time comes (hopefully 40 or so years from now).

In reply to mtn :

And, you did the opposite of what nohome described. You valued her late husband's hobby. That was probably worth $600 to her.

Wifey and I just had a quick chat about this because of this thread. 

I told her to put up nohome's sign. She said instead she's having a BBQ and inviting my friends and all you jokers. She said she doesn't care who takes what, but it all has to be gone. And she wants to hear some good stories.

And she said she might keep one car, so that's some motivation for me to keep at least one cool car very driveable at all times.

I always knew she was smart.

Robbie said:

In reply to mtn :

And, you did the opposite of what nohome described. You valued her late husband's hobby. That was probably worth $600 to her.

Yeah, good point. Turns out that her late husband and I would have probably gotten along--played the same types of music. The widow asked if I knew any John Prine. Well, I can play about 15 JP songs off the top of my head, so asked her which one. Paradise. Sure can, probably the second song I ever learned. 

nohome's story reminded me of another similar story of people devaluing things to try to get a better deal. My dad was out of town on a business trip, but there was a guitar show going on in town that he wanted to go to to sell a couple of his guitars. One was a '58 Guild, probably worth at the time around $1,200. So, he sent Mom and my 13 year old brother--my brother was the final decision maker, dad didn't really even prep him since he knew what was up. Mom was only there to drive him. Well, folks kept coming up to mom trying to buy "her" guitar, she kept referring them to my brother. One guy kept insisting it was worth only $400, he was crazy for offering $700. Right. My brother kept saying "no, we want $1200". Negotiator kept trying to appeal to Mom. She kept deferring to my brother. 

Don't mistake age for stupidity or ignorance, folks (in either direction). Then my brother pulled off an amazing negotiation over the phone with my dad to convince him that, after my brother had gotten more than they expected for both the guitars, there was this Gibson that they NEEDED to buy at the show. Dad relented and mom and my brother came home with it. To his credit, the 13 year old picked out a guitar that 14 years and probably 50 guitars later is still in the arsenal. (At one point we were buying and selling at least 10 guitars a year)

We hauled 70 tons of scrap metal off my family farm after my dad died. Even at scrap prices it would have netted my dad enough to build a pole building shop twice the size of the shop he worked out of.

And the fact that I just put those two things together for the first time last fall is why I have been selling off projects left and right. 

oldopelguy said:

We hauled 70 tons of scrap metal off my family farm after my dad died. Even at scrap prices it would have netted my dad enough to build a pole building shop twice the size of the shop he worked out of.

And the fact that I just put those two things together for the first time last fall is why I have been selling off projects left and right. 

70 tons!!?!?! WOW! 

While not a minimalist, it is important to remember some good guidelines: 

-It will cost more than $20 or take more than 20 minutes to replace this

-I have used this in the last 9 months

-I will use this in the next 9 months

If the answer to any of these is yes, then keep it. If not, toss it/sell it/donate it. Obviously not a perfect system, but pretty good. And if you got it for $0, then the "$20/take 20 minutes" is irrelevant and only the bottom two apply. 

I walked my wife through my guns and tools, told her this stuff has real value, and if something happens to me, don't sell it cheap.  Fortunately I have a pretty good group of friends who would be happy to be gifted some of it.  The tools are actually listed specifically on the will, under the condition of "must have built an adequate shop first"

mtn said:

If not, toss it

This is where I run into problems.  I hate seeing things go to the landfill.  I'm in the middle of an extensive purge right now, but I don't want to throw some things.  And I dont want to take things to goodwill so they can throw them away :(

Robbie said:

And she said she might keep one car, ....

 

I want to ask Mrs NOHOME if she would keep the Molvo, but not sure I want to know the answer.

Pete

ProDarwin said:

mtn said:

If not, toss it

This is where I run into problems.  I hate seeing things go to the landfill.  I'm in the middle of an extensive purge right now, but I don't want to throw some things.  And I dont want to take things to goodwill so they can throw them away :(

Eh, I figure that if it can't be donated or sold, it is trash. You get to decide where the landfill is--your house, or somewhere that you don't have to deal with it every day. Eventually someone is going to put it in a landfill anyways. 

In college I helped a lot of people move and learned how much stuff people have that they don't use. Even "sentimental" possessions were often thrown away because nobody has the time to even find a suitable place to store them.

These days I try to ask myself two questions when I acquire new possessions: First, if I am unsatisfied with my purchase, will I ask for a refund? If the answer is no, it probably isn't worth buying in the first place. Second, if I no longer need it, will I be able to give it away? Again, if nobody wants it for free, then why should I? Exceptions of course are consumables like food, paper, hardware, stuff that you intentionally have excess of knowing that some of it will inevitably go to waste.

Sometimes I do make poor choices and end up tossing things I thought I needed, but I allow myself to make some mistakes and throwing things away reminds me to be smarter next time.

Also, this is why buying car parts is always a good idea. Once it's installed on the car, it becomes one with the car and no longer counts toward your inventory of possessions!

PM's from this forum go into an email account my wife and I share.  If you all ever read "RIP Kazoospec" on here, one of you aviation junkies needs to PM the Mrs. about my ejection seat.  She wouldn't have a clue where/how to sell it.  Truthfully, the rest of my stuff is probably yard sale/estate sale material and I'm perfectly OK with that.  

mtn said:

ProDarwin said:

mtn said:

If not, toss it

This is where I run into problems.  I hate seeing things go to the landfill.  I'm in the middle of an extensive purge right now, but I don't want to throw some things.  And I dont want to take things to goodwill so they can throw them away :(

Eh, I figure that if it can't be donated or sold, it is trash. You get to decide where the landfill is--your house, or somewhere that you don't have to deal with it every day. Eventually someone is going to put it in a landfill anyways. 

Well, everything can be sold, its just how much effort you are willing to go through to sell it :)

In reply to kazoospec :

Dibs on the ejection seat.

I wonder what lucky berkeleyer's gonna get all my weird E36 M3?