Getting Your Edge: How to Downsize Your Home.
Life Happens to Everyone! These events can force changes in how and where you live. How you react and manage those events is what matters.
Join Judy Gratton and Dennis Day, two agents with over 30 years combined experience in real estate, as they provide you insights into managing the twists and turns life throws at you, so you can land on your feet and in the right place.
Whether you need to downsize from your forever home, upsize to handle a growing family, or moving an aging parent into a safer setting, the “Downsize" Podcast will share the information you need to be ready.
Using their personal experiences and interviews with experts in a variety of fields, like: financial planning, estate sales, or living abroad, our hosts will dish out the information and advice that will help you take on life’s challenges informed and prepared. For more information about the Edge Group Real Estate Team:
www.EdgeGroupTeam.com
Getting Your Edge: How to Downsize Your Home.
Keep the Best, Let Go of the Rest: A Guide to Meaningful Downsizing
Jeannine Bryant's journey from North Dakota farm girl to right-sizing expert began with a childhood surrounded by grandparents and a natural gift for organization. Today, as CEO of Changing Spaces SRS in Lincoln, Nebraska, she leads a team helping seniors navigate the emotional journey of downsizing with compassion and practical solutions.
"Keep the best, let go of the rest" isn't just Jeannine's business tagline—it's a philosophy that guides her approach to helping clients find the perfect balance between too much and too little. She introduces us to the concept of right-sizing, a positive reframing that focuses on keeping what's meaningful rather than what you're losing. Through stories from her decade of experience, Jeannine illustrates how our attachment to possessions can become barriers to necessary life transitions.
The emotional aspects of downsizing take center stage as Janine explains how our identities become wrapped up in our things. She shares a poignant example of helping a couple move to assisted living—a necessary transition made significantly more difficult by their extensive ceramic figurine collection. This story perfectly illustrates her company tagline: "Life is hard enough. Don't let your stuff make it harder."
Jeannine outlines her systematic five-step approach to right-sizing: decide what to keep, give to family and friends, sell what you can, donate what didn't sell, and remove the trash. She emphasizes that following this order is crucial—by identifying what you'll keep first, you can more easily let go of the rest. She also dispels market myths about the value of china hutches, punch bowls, and other once-prized possessions that now flood the secondhand market.
Beyond her business services, Jeannine shares her passion for supporting seniors through volunteer work with caregiver organizations, offering insights into intergenerational living experiments, and providing resources through her books and website for those who can't access her in-person services. Whether you're planning a move, helping parents downsize, or simply seeking a more manageable home environment, Jeannine's practical wisdom offers a roadmap to living with less stress and more joy.
Check out Jeannine's resources at easyrightsizing.com or learn about her services at changingspacessrs.com to start your own right-sizing journey today.
00:00 Introduction and Host Greetings
00:12 Meet Jeannine Bryant: Right Sizing Expert
01:57 Jeannine's Journey from Farm to Business
04:05 Understanding Right Sizing
06:12 Challenges of Downsizing
09:16 Emotional Attachment to Possessions
12:43 Strategies for Letting Go
17:53 The Five Steps of Right Sizing
21:13 Downsizing Without Moving
22:33 Safety and Comfort in Aging
24:15 Common Downsizing Mistakes
24:41 Understanding the Time Needed
26:01 Senior-Focused Organizations
29:18 Services Offered by Changing Spaces and Easy Rightsizing
33:47 Unique Downsizing Experiences
36:07 Compensation and Pricing
38:57 Handling Family Heirlooms
41:16 The Value of Items
43:06 Resources and Contact Information
44:45 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
We Would Love to Hear Your Feedback!
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Hello everyone. I'm Dennis Day with Getting your Edge how to Downsize your Life. I'm here with my co-host, Judy Gratton. How was your day going so far, Judy?
Judy Gratton:So far, so good, Dennis, thank you.
Dennis Day:And we have our guest,
Dennis Day:Jeannine Bryant from Lincoln, Nebraska, here to talk about her business. Our guest, Jeannine Bryant, is a right-sizing expert and author. She's worked hundreds of families over the last 10 years as they downsize or clear out their home of loved ones who have died. She presents at workshops across the Midwest offering practical advice on right-sizing, downsizing, cleaning out an estate and more. Cleaning out an estate and more.
Dennis Day:height: normal; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); white-space-collapse: collapse;"><span style="font-size: 13. 5pt; font-family: "Segoe UI", sans- collapse;"> collapse;"> Segoe is the CEO and owner of Changing Spaces SRS in Lincoln, nebraska, where she leads a team of 20 employees who help her clients through the transitions. She is an author of three books and two yearly calendars about downsizing. Janine's website offers a plethora of information about right-sizing and downsizing. She is also an active member of Lincoln, nebraska's Coalition for the Older Adult Health Promotion, as well as a member of the Lincoln Caregiver Education Group. Her company, changing Spaces, was selected to receive the Small Business of the Year Award in 2019 from the Lincoln Chamber of Commerce She's originally from Hillsborough, north Dakota Jeannine now calls Lincoln, Nebraska, her home and she lives with her husband and two children Jeannine Welcome
Jeannine Bryant:Thank you, I'm so happy to be here.
Dennis Day:I appreciate it. You've got a thriving business in this. You've got a podcast and you've got books. You've got a great website that offers amazing information. How did your journey from growing up on a farm in North Dakota to founding Changing Spaces SRA shape your approach to supporting downsizing?
Jeannine Bryant:I always say that I was very blessed to grow up surrounded by older adults. I grew up on a farm. My folks were farmers up in North Dakota. My brother is still a farmer and my dad lives up there. My mom has passed away but I grew up one mile from one set of grandparents and a mile and a half from the other set of grandparents. We were the only grandkids around that. We had some cousins in another state, but it was like my brother and I and then all four of our grandparents. We had a great aunt and uncle who never had any children, so my mom was the entertainer of our whole extended family. All these older folks would always be over at our house for every birthday, every holiday. Families All these older folks would always be over at our house for every birthday, every holiday, and I just grew up around them.
Jeannine Bryant:I've always loved working with seniors and I've always been gifted and really enjoy organization. For me as a kid, reorganizing my closet was like the most fun thing I could think of. I used to stay up late and do it. When I discovered that that's something the world needs, that organization piece mixed with working with older adults, I thought, oh my goodness, this is the job for me. When I came to Lincoln, nebraska, we could see that there was a real need for older adults who had been in their homes for decades and then moving into these gorgeous, wonderful retirement communities that were popping up all over. But it's overwhelming to think about. How do you even make that kind of a transition? How do you cut your square footage and your possessions in half and move into a smaller apartment like that and to do it well? And so that's where Changing Spaces was born Fantastic.
Dennis Day:It sounds like a wonderful childhood. Fantastic, it sounds like a wonderful childhood.
Jeannine Bryant:Oh yeah, it was great. I loved growing up on the farm, but my number one goal was to get off the farm. I always wanted to be a town girl and so now I am. But now as a mother and I have a couple of city kids, I think, oh man, I wish you could have the farm upbringing, but I like living in town personally.
Judy Gratton:You use the term right sizing. Can you explain what right-sizing means to you?
Jeannine Bryant:Yes, we love that term because it puts a little bit more positive spin on it, but I always say it's right-sizing is finding that perfect place between too much and too little. My job is not to encourage people to get rid of all of their stuff. My job is to help people keep their favorite stuff and then let go of that stuff that doesn't mean so much, so that their favorite stuff can be beautifully displayed and used in their new living situation. Keep the best, let go of the rest. That's the phrase that I always say yeah it's a really good one.
Jeannine Bryant:It makes it more. I think when people hear that term downsizing it just feels like we're focusing on what you're giving up.
Judy Gratton:I know it's a negative connotation, but right-sizing is also very dependent on who they are and their personality and where they're going or not going.
Jeannine Bryant:I think it's a really good it yeah absolutely, and everyone gets to choose for themselves how much is enough. Right? We work with some gals, maybe, who are quilters, and so they need and want and use a whole bunch of fabric, right, that they want to keep with them, and they want to fill their sewing room to the gills with fabric and whatever, whereas someone else might be totally comfortable with more of a minimal lifestyle. And so it's whatever works for the individual. But what we want to do is we want to let go of that stuff that is weighing on us and causing us stress.
Jeannine Bryant:If you love it, I want you to keep it, but it's that excess stuff. Too much stuff is just like too much food. We eat food, we need food and we enjoy food, but if you gorge yourself at some point, you make yourself sick with too much food. Same thing with stuff. Right, we want our homes to be beautiful and we want to enjoy them. At some level. It becomes the opposite, and now it's your home is not enjoyable to be in because there's too much stuff.
Dennis Day:Now your business has also has a tagline Life is hard enough, Don't let your stuff make it harder. How did that phrase originate and how does it fit in with your business?
Jeannine Bryant:That phrase originated just from me watching our clients struggle with their stuff. And just a recent example two weeks ago we moved a couple into an assisted living apartment, and the majority of the folks that we work with are moving either to a townhome or independent living, and so it's a happy move. They're proactively choosing to right size and move to a more manageable home. Assisted living is another level of care, and the only reason someone goes to assisted living is because life has gotten hard enough in their current home that now they need more nursing help to help them with their activities of daily living. And so this couple really needed to move. It wasn't a I want to move, it's we need to move.
Jeannine Bryant:But their stuff, every horizontal surface in their house was covered. Every horizontal surface was covered with a little ceramic figurine. I've been doing this a long time. It was the most ceramic figurines I've ever seen in one place at one time, and they love their collections and it was extremely hard for them to let go of those collections and it became a huge barrier and a very high hurdle that they had to jump over. Honestly, we had to drag them over that hurdle to get them to the other side where they could move into assisted living, and again we packed their favorite collections and brought them to their new apartment.
Jeannine Bryant:But they had to leave a lot behind, and when your things accumulate and you don't address maybe your attachment to your objects in your home, it can become a big hurdle to living your best life at whatever stage it is that you're in, and so that was an example where life is hard for them. They needed to move to assisted living and their stuff made it even harder. It would have been hard even if they had not had all this stuff, but all that stuff made it a whole lot harder to let go, and they're stressed now they're worrying about. Of course we moved them to assisted living. The majority of that stuff is still left in their house right.
Jeannine Bryant:And we've had conversations. The adult son is totally fine not putting the house on the market for a while. They're going to let it sit, but eventually all that stuff will need to be dealt with. So there's a quote that I often use by a professional organizer, Sue DeRoos. She says that we all get organized eventually. We just might not be around for it, and so either we deal with our possessions or someone we leave behind will have to deal with them eventually right.
Dennis Day:Yeah, we've talked about that numerous times on the podcast, about if you love your children, you will get rid of your stuff. You'll be part of that process because your children have lives and they have other things to do. They may not have their own kids, so they don't want to sort through your stuff and get rid of boxes and so forth. Talk a little bit about that attachment.
Jeannine Bryant:I know we all suffer from that. Especially if we're not careful, our identities can become wrapped up in our possessions. I have a 14-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son, and it struck me recently I was trying to teach my teenager about how you never really be satisfied with your stuff. She wanted to buy an expensive pair of jeans and I was trying to tell her, hey, that's be fun for about a week, but then after that you're over it and it's not really make you happy anymore and I thought, oh, wait a minute. That's the same kind of lesson that I'm teaching older adults and it's the same lesson that I need to learn as well when I'm sitting there scrolling and buying because I'm bored or whatever.
Jeannine Bryant:Stuff does not bring us contentment or peace. Right, contentment and peace to come from something other than our stuff. And in fact, if the stuff gets out of hand, it can bring us the opposite of contentment or peace or certainly rob that contentment and peace from those we leave behind. Like you were saying, if we pass away and our kids have to come and take I don't know, a week off of work, it's take longer than a week to empty out a house, right, and so maybe they spend every weekend for six months or 12 months, coming and trying to empty out your house. That's robbing them of contentment, peace, their opportunity to mourn you, because they're stressed about dealing with your stuff.
Judy Gratton:Resentments. Trust me, we're going through that right now with my mother in law passed. We're very fortunate that we don't live there, but my sister inlaw is like full-time trying to take care of this condominium. That is huge and I've never seen so much stuff All very nice stuff, my gosh. I was talking to a client that we're going to be listing her home here shortly that is downsizing and she brought up the idea of condominiums, our grandparents and our parents and how our parents were raised in the depression era. So I think some of the environment or what we live in affects how we look at quote-unquote stuff. With me, I felt this responsibility to take on all of the family heirlooms and now no one wants them. It's interesting to see how different generations are looking at stuff.
Jeannine Bryant:Absolutely, and you're so right. Past generations didn't struggle with the sheer amount of stuff because getting stuff was hard right, it was expensive and you couldn't just order it on your phone and have it delivered to your door. It used to be really expensive to fill up your home. When you think about your first home, perhaps we used to get a lot of hand-me-downs from our parents and now it's cheap and easy to go to Target or Ikea for a newlywed couple and outfit their whole place.
Judy Gratton:I've heard that yes, I've heard that over grandma's China closet or whatever it is. They don't want it and it's really hard to get that point across to people who feel that there is this value behind their china closet. It's really hard to get them to understand that there really isn't anything there.
Jeannine Bryant:I know it's a hard pill to swallow.
Judy Gratton:So what are your strategies then? When you approach people, do you have a strategy of how you start to get them to understand the importance of letting go of some of the things that they're holding on to?
Jeannine Bryant:The majority of the clients that we work with, the issue has been forced because they are facing a move. They've decided that they're going to move by the time they contact us. So then we're dealing in a space where we have to just face reality. We always start with a floor plan. We measure their furniture that they think they want to take. We have measurements of the new place and we create a floor plan so that they can see it on paper what's going to fit and what's not going to fit. So is the apartment or is the new townhome big enough for your dining room table? And if so, then is there also room for the buffet and the china hutch, or is there room for only one of them? Or do we need to take just the small curio cabinet that goes in the corner? We really get down to brass tacks. I remind them they can't put 10 pounds of flour in a five pound sack. So we just got to work with what our new space looks like, what's going to fit in there, furniture wise. Then, after we know the furniture, we can start going through the little stuff the dishes, the books, the clothes, the holiday decorations and deciding what's going to fit in that new space Because, for instance, the china Okay, if they can fit the china hutch into their new place and they want to bring it, then great, they can fill that thing with china if they want.
Jeannine Bryant:But if the china hutch can't go, then can the china go? And if it does, then where is it going to live? Are we going to put it in one of the kitchen cupboards? Everything that we pack? We have to have an answer for where are we going to put this, have to have an answer for where are we going to put this? And so that's why we always start with that floor plan, because we just have to face reality that we need to. We can't just bring it because we want it. We have to have a place to put it, because it's not all going to fit.
Judy Gratton:Yeah, and that many times they'll just go, we'll get a storage unit. Yeah, it's like what.
Jeannine Bryant:I know I always joke. Lynn, you must have too much money. You can just send me money every month instead of sending it to them. Because what's the next play? If you're downsizing, if you're moving to a retirement community, do you think you're going to buy a house in five years where you're going to have more room? That doesn't make any sense. No one's going to ever go get that stuff.
Jeannine Bryant:And so when we're dealing with estate sales, my company runs estate sales and online auctions as well, and so we have to have that conversation that we're not going to get out what we put into it, probably because it's all supply and demand. And if we're dealing with a client who is 85 years old, everyone in their generation has very similar things in their house they all have the china huts, they all have the curio cabinet, they all have the snack trays, they all have the punch bowl, and they're all downsizing, and so a lot of those things are flooding the market and there's more supply than there is demand. If you need a punch bowl, it'd be hard to go to Target and buy a punch bowl, but you can find a lot of secondhand punch bowls, because there were a bunch that were produced in the 1950s and no one uses them anymore, right? So we're all trying to get rid of them. So that drives the price down. Big brown china hutches are a dime a dozen now and then I try to tell my clients that that's okay.
Jeannine Bryant:Because, again, going back to our identity, however much money you get for that item is in no way a reflection of how much you loved that item, how much life happened around that item. You bought that item is in no way a reflection of how much you loved that item, how much life happened around that item. You bought that item 30 years ago and you have loved it for 30 years and you've had dinners for family throughout the year and it served its purpose. So God bless it. Maybe a 25 year old is going to buy it and paint it pink and that's okay. The secret to drama-free downsizing is to let go of it first emotionally and then itfree downsizing is to let go of it first emotionally and then it becomes a lot easier to let go of it physically.
Dennis Day:That's a really interesting point. Do you think people are getting caught up in the price? So if I have this thing that I think is incredibly special, meaningful to me, and nobody wants to buy it, does that bring negative feelings to people?
Jeannine Bryant:Yeah, it does. And so that's why we say, boy, if you think it's incredibly special and meaningful, then if we can figure out a way for you to keep it we're going to try to figure that out right, let's try to find a place in your new home to keep it. But if it doesn't fit, then here we are back at reality again. You think it's incredibly special, but you cannot physically keep it. You tried to talk your family into keeping it. They are not willing to keep it.
Jeannine Bryant:So now here we're in a position. Right, beggars can't be choosers. We have to find someone. And if it's a big item, it has to be someone local who will buy it and then have the ability to move it. And if they have to find someone and if it's a big item, it has to be someone local who will buy it and then have the ability to move it. And if they have to hire movers, then that's a couple hundred dollars more. And all of these things factor in. And I always joke that show Antiques Roadshow is a very it's a fun show, I love watching it, but it's not very realistic and most of us don't have these priceless treasures in our homes. And I often say boy, I hope you have some mutual funds because your used couch is not going to fund your retirement.
Dennis Day:It's just not. That's great. So in your book Ready to Right Size and on your website you break down right sizing into five steps. Can you list those steps and walk us through one of those steps that your clients often find challenging?
Jeannine Bryant:Yeah, I think that the biggest challenge that my clients face is not going in the right order when we're doing those steps. So the first step, when you're emptying out a house, is to decide what you will keep. And this is if whether it's your own house, you're moving, or if it's a loved one's home, when they've passed away and you're tasked with emptying it out. Decide what you're going to keep. Right, you think about all the stuff in that house as being in layers. The top, the best layer, should be what you want to keep, and you get to decide okay, don't let guilt factor into that decision what do you want to keep? The next layer is give what you're going to give to family and friends. Giving could be keepsakes and, emotionally, things with emotional attachment, those kinds of things that you want to give away. Or it might be practical things. Hey, I have a nephew who's setting up his first apartment and he needs a crock pot and a chair and a kitchen table. Great, take these things. The second is give away to family or friends. The third step, then, is sell what you can, and the reason we do that is because you know when you're selling what you can, it's like we've been talking about and you think you're China Hutch, you should be able to get at least $425 for it, right? And someone comes along and no one's interested. Finally someone offers you $175 for it.
Jeannine Bryant:It feels insulting, but because you've already gone through steps one and two, now you realize that everything that's left in the house is stuff that nobody needed, nobody wanted or nobody had room for. So here we are facing reality again. We love this thing, we'd like to get $425 for it, but here's someone offering us $175. What other options? No one wanted this. So what other options do we have? So it makes it easier to let it go for maybe less than you had dreamed you would get for it.
Jeannine Bryant:And then step four is donate what didn't sell. And then the fifth step is remove all the trash, because every house, even the cleanest house, has trash, and I always remind people that. Step four, that donation. We want to make sure that we're donating quality items to the charities, things that could be used or things that would sell in a charity shop, because those places are running on shoestring budgets. Don't just bring them your trash that then they have to turn around and sort through and then dispose of themselves. So, just going in that order is the secret sauce to those steps.
Judy Gratton:And your organization will handle that entire package for them.
Jeannine Bryant:Yes, we do, and that's what my team. We will stand alongside you as you do all of that. But what I would get all the time is phone calls from people outside of our geographic region saying, boy, could you help me through this process? And as much as I would want to, I couldn't. They couldn't afford for me to send my team out there to help them. That's when I started writing the books and the website Easy Right Sizing that I have, because I wanted to educate and help people. Even if me or my team wasn't physically there to help them with the sorting, I could at least tell them what to do.
Judy Gratton:So in a recent blog the title of the blog Calcizing Supports Aging in Place Even If you Don't Move you stress that downsizing isn't just for people who relocate, and I find that to be a great topic. Could you give us some examples of where you've worked with people who've stayed in their present home and still you've dealt with downsizing with?
Jeannine Bryant:them, folks, and I tell them what I do for a living, they always say I'm not going to move and I'm like that's okay, I'm not going to make you. They're worried that I'm going to make them move. But really this isn't just for older adults. All of us, at any age, right in America, we have stuff in our homes that we don't need, we don't use and we don't particularly want. So really this should be a lifelong practice of going through and culling through your items, but particularly for an older adult.
Jeannine Bryant:I have even visited with clients in their homes and they say I'm thinking about moving, I really don't want to, and they have these gorgeous homes and obviously enough money. And I think to myself and sometimes I say to them boy, I wouldn't want to move either. This is amazing. You've created an amazing home and if they have the money, even if they end up in a place where they need the help, they can have in-home health care coming into their homes and helping them there. So not everyone has to move, but going through that downsizing process can make the home safer and more comfortable, even if you're staying in place. So I think about a client that I worked with a couple years ago, where you go up the stairs but there's little piles of stuff on each stair that you were going to bring upstairs or downstairs, and then you get up to the second floor and you walk down the hallway and now there's the stuff has started like leaking out of the rooms and into the hallways and so there's stuff on both sides of the hallway and mobility becomes an issue.
Jeannine Bryant:And tripping and falling hazards are always a red light for me when I'm visiting with a client.
Jeannine Bryant:If you or your spouse ends up having to be in a wheelchair or use a walker or even a cane, or if they're just not quite as nimble on their feet or steady on their feet as they used to, anything that's sitting on the floor, even a simple throw rug, can be a trip or fall hazard, and we've all seen those statistics that a fall after the age of 75 is a big deal right, and some people never recover from it.
Jeannine Bryant:A lot of people recover halfway from a fall like that. So anything you can do to prevent falling hazards, but also even in your cupboards and closets and drawers, getting out the stuff you're not using, just makes life so much easier. You don't have to wrestle with the stuff. Maybe you have things in your home that you used every day for many years, but now we're in a different chapter and maybe it's been five years since you've gone fishing okay, but yet all that fishing tackle is still out in the garage. Let's get that out of your home and into the hands of someone else in your community or your family who can put it to good use.
Judy Gratton:Yeah, that's wonderful.
Dennis Day:You've highlighted 10 mistakes that families make when helping seniors downsize. What mistake do you see most frequently and what's your advice to families to help avoid?
Jeannine Bryant:I w w wonder what it was that I wrote down. So this is one of the downloadable resources website,easyrightsizingdotcom ., . e e easyrightsizing. com website, easyrightsizingcom, and I had a hard time picking just one, but I chose mistake number nine. That's listed, which is understanding the time needed, and it goes back to what we were talking about earlier. If you've lived in your home for 20, 30, 40, 50 years which is a lot of our clients it's going to take more than a week to empty it our clients. It's going to take more than a week to empty it out, and it's going to take more than a week to even just to move out.
Jeannine Bryant:Things tend to accumulate over time and it's very easy to kick the can down the road and procrastinate. But what I tell folks is that it's my recommendation that they're proactive and they start early, because in three years or in five years, you will have even more stuff right, because it keeps coming in every day. We got more stuff coming into our house. You'll have more stuff and less energy with which to deal with it, and so do it now. But if, particularly if a loved one has passed away and maybe the adult children are coming into town to empty out the house, like you were saying Judy, with your mother-in-law, emptying out that condo is going to take more than a week.
Judy Gratton:Oh, so far, I think they're into it about four months. Yes, right.
Jeannine Bryant:You just don't when you haven't done it. And most people don't right. They maybe go through this process once or twice in their life. They just vastly underestimate how much time and energy it's going to take.
Judy Gratton:That's true. So you are a member of some senior-focused organizations the Lincoln's Coalition for Older Adult Promotion as well as a member of the Lincoln Caregiver Education Group. Can you tell us about those educations and why you're willing to volunteer?
Jeannine Bryant:Yeah, my city of Lincoln, Nebraska. I love it, it's the perfect. I guess it's a small city. To a farm kid from North Dakota it seems like a big city, but we're about maybe 300,000 people here and it's a perfect size community because everyone who works in the senior industry most of us belong to this coalition for older adult health promotion and I'm quite sure that a lot of cities around the country have groups like this where it's just a networking group, where everyone who works in the senior services industry gets together monthly for education or social.
Jeannine Bryant:And it's so important because when we're working with the senior population, it's a vulnerable group and they have lots of different needs right. They don't just need, maybe, my help with right sizing, they need help with home health care or hospice or insurance or whatever. And it's so powerful to know, when you're sitting with a client, to hear about their needs and to know exactly who they should call and not just a 1-800 number for a company it's oh no, I'm going to suggest you call Andrew at this place, Tell him I sent you and to know really that client will be taken care of because you know these people right and you all work together. So that's why, to me, that's a very important organization group and we are a group of professionals who give presentations and provide support groups for people who are serving in that caregiver role, and that is not a role that any of us ever expect to be in, but most of us, or at least half of us, probably will find ourselves in at one point or another.
Jeannine Bryant:There's a great quote I don't have it in front of me, but it's something like at one time, everyone will either need a caregiver or be a caregiver in their life, and that is a difficult time.
Jeannine Bryant:It's a difficult time for everyone for different reasons. For a lot of women that we work with who are in that caregiver role sometimes this generation this might be one of the first times in their life where they're making all of the financial and sort of household decisions. Maybe their husband primarily served that role and if he's not able to now, they're thrust into that. On the opposite side, a lot of men of this generation are maybe not used to being a caregiver, right? My father is 77. He has never once changed a diaper in his life, right? And that's just the generation and the culture that we grew up in. And so for someone at the age of 77, to suddenly be a caregiver for their wife is a whole new world right, and he's not prepared for it and they're thrown into it, and so to be able to provide the support and education of resources for those caregivers is really important.
Judy Gratton:That is wonderful. I love that. I'm wondering if we have any groups like that here. That is really a great idea.
Dennis Day:Did you start either of these groups?
Jeannine Bryant:No, I didn't start them, but I just recognize a good group when I see one and I thought oh, I can volunteer my services.
Dennis Day:Okay. Well, let's get the extent of your business here. You provide, it seems like, all kinds of different services. What are the things that you do with your business and the things that you don't do?
Jeannine Bryant:Sure, yeah, I have two businesses right Changing Spaces and Easy Right Sizing. So Changing Spaces is my service-based company in Lincoln, nebraska, and we help with moves and in-home estate sales and online auctions. So we help get someone moved and then we help empty out the website where I have videos and blog articles and downloadable resources that you can get. And then I've self-published these books on Amazon on the right sizing process. So the first book I published is called Ready to Right Size and it's basically a step-by-step handbook of how to downsize right. If someone called me and said, exactly, tell me step-by-step what to do, that's what this book is. And then my second book is called Keep the Memories, not the Stuff, and I wrote that because I knew that the hardest category of stuff to let go of is that keepsake clutter, the stuff that's all wrapped up in the emotions of lots of times it's someone you've lost. And then my third book that I just put out is called 101 Ways to Connect with a Senior and that came out of.
Jeannine Bryant:I always joke that I should have called the book what Are we Going to Talk to Bernice About this Weekend? Because my mother-in-law, bernice she was 90. She's passed away now, but she lived in a retirement community and we'd go and visit her and you talk about? We talk about the Nebraska Cornhuskers she was a sports fan. We talk about the weather, catch up on the family gossip, and then what do we talk about? And so I'm trying I was trying to always think of ideas to deepen that relationship, to help my kids connect with her in a new way. Older adults have this fount of knowledge and experience and I'm always trying to figure out different ways to tap into that and to hear some of that. And so that's what that book is. It's just 101 Ideas for Connecting with a Senior. And so all of that is available over at EasyRightSizingcom. Wonderful, okay.
Dennis Day:I guess from the title. When I saw that I was thinking it's a how does somebody who doesn't have a connection to a senior can get connected to a senior as a volunteer or something like that? Family members, Absolutely.
Jeannine Bryant:Yeah, I sent copies of it to the local retirement communities for their activities directors because it would work for that as well. But yeah, I primarily wrote it for family members, because some people are naturally good at that and other people are not, and other people need some ideas and some prompting.
Judy Gratton:Is there an organization? I think there is. There's Big Brother, Big Sister for kids. There's something like that for grandparents or where you're adopting.
Jeannine Bryant:Yeah, I do think there is. I don't know that it's a nationwide thing, but I think that there are programs like that throughout the country. Something interesting that's happening here in Lincoln, nebraska, is a new community that was built by an organization here. It's called Sage Living, and it is every other floor it is older adults, and then on the other floor it is college students, and they're primarily nursing students who are in our local college of nursing and they live in the same building, and so then there's opportunity for interaction there, and which I think is a it's a great. It's one of the first I think of its kind and they're testing it out. But I think is a great. It's one of the first I think of its kind and they're testing it out, but I think that's great. Anytime you can mix generations right, that is wonderful.
Jeannine Bryant:Lincoln sounds like it's got it going, yeah it's a great city, except it's too hot in July and August, but other than that it's a great city.
Dennis Day:Actually I love Lincoln. My son went to Nebraska, Wesleyan, to play soccer and get a degree in finance and we would come, of course, and visit and I thought, gosh, this is really good. It's very flat, yes, going from Seattle, but it was a nice little town. You could get around and people were always friendly. And one time we came and we said we're from Seattle, oh, you brought the rain with you. You were grumpy because it was raining. Anyways, it's a lovely place. We really enjoyed it. One of the things I ask anybody who's involved in estate sales or helping people downsize we ask what's the most unusual, interesting thing you have found or experience you have.
Jeannine Bryant:That's an interesting question because there are so many. The thing that came to mind initially I'll tell you is and I'll keep it clean, but it was a very long walking stick and it was made from the reproductive organ of a buffalo a male buffalo. And we were like what, how could that possibly be? And we googled it and, sure enough, it's a thing. Apparently I think it was a souvenir that someone had bought on a trip somewhere. But, we sold it.
Dennis Day:Okay, Somebody wanted it, that's right. Now out in Nebraska are you doing a lot of farms, this sort of downsizing.
Jeannine Bryant:Yeah, a lot of our clients are right in the city of Lincoln, but sometimes we do operate out of acreages, which can be more of a challenge. I grew up on a farm and I always say on a farm you don't just have a house full of stuff, you have a shed and a barn and all these other outbuildings that are filled with stuff, and we do operate estate sales and online auctions out of acreages. Sometimes, if there's a really large amount of stuff on an acreage, then we will refer that out to a traditional in-person auction team where they're out there with the auctioneer For farm equipment and the things that you would find in the outbuildings. Online auctions are still definitely on the rise and there's some very large companies in the Midwest who do farm auctions. But yeah, it's that much harder when you move off of a farm or off of an acreage just because of the sheer amount of stuff, and so even more incentive to think ahead and plan and maybe do it earlier rather than later. Okay.
Judy Gratton:Wow, my son-in-law bought recently and I was like why they don't have acreage. And he bought a tractor online, nice, okay. Yes, he lives in a small town in North Carolina and his family he has family who are farmers, so apparently it is out at one of the farms there, but I'm like a tractor.
Jeannine Bryant:It's like a Tonka truck for a kid. They grow up and they still want it Exactly what?
Judy Gratton:it was.
Dennis Day:Nice. So, Jeannine, you have this business. This is your part, or maybe large source, of your family income. You have 20 employees who have to compensate for their work. Tell us about how you structure getting compensated for this expertise and time.
Jeannine Bryant:Absolutely yeah. Everyone who's interested in our services gets a free in-home consultation, because people want to know how much is it going to cost? And our answer is always how much stuff do you have? Because there's such a wide variety, right? Even if you're moving from a three-bedroom home into a one-bedroom apartment. Some three-bedroom homes are packed to the gills and some three-bedroom homes are neat as a pin. So we always go out and we visit with them, we explain our services and then we get a tour of the home, and the whole time we're making notes about how full the house is. But we're also making notes about the client as we have a conversation with them. Is this a client who's going to need a lot of hand-holding? Is this client already pretty organized? And really we just have to come in and do some packing and unpacking and it'll be done. And so from that we put together a quote that we send to them and then they can decide if they want to use us or not.
Jeannine Bryant:I would say for us to help with a move, which means floor plan sorting, packing, managing move day and unpacking. Depending on the size of the place they're going to, it's anywhere from $3,000 to $9,000, depending on if it's a one-bedroom apartment or if it's a whole house move. And then for our estate sales and our online auctions we take a percentage. We specialize in larger sales, so we look for a total of $15,000 or more in total sales. So that means that the wholesale is going to bring in $15,000 or more. On average our sales would be about $18,000 to $20,000 total. We take 35% of that, and then there is also a setup fee, depending on how much work there is to be done in the home.
Jeannine Bryant:One of the things I say, unfortunately, is that it costs a lot of money to have a lot of stuff. And so even if we get a phone call and it's a beautiful million dollar home and it's filled with things and it's going to be a great estate sale, it still takes a lot of manpower to set up that estate sale because we empty out every drawer, every cupboard, every closet, we organize it, we throw out the trash and then we price everything and that takes a lot of manpower. And you know, unfortunately we can't pay hourly workers ten dollars an hour anymore. So you know, unfortunately we can't pay hourly workers $10 an hour anymore. So you know, our fees have gone up. And so then the fees for our services have gone up as well.
Jeannine Bryant:But what we do at the end of that sale? I mean we hand them a nice size check, but then what we're also handing them is an empty house, and that's what we have to remind them. What we're doing is we're emptying out your house so that it can be put on the market and sold, because that's your main asset here is the house, not the stuff inside of it. But in order to sell the house, we got to do something with the stuff inside.
Judy Gratton:You deal a lot with the family after someone has passed Do? You do a lot of work with them as well.
Jeannine Bryant:Yeah, I would say maybe half of our sales that we do are a situation like that where someone's passed away and the family is emptying it out, and so our first rule is that we want you and your family members to go through and remove anything you want to keep, and then we come in and we'll sell whatever is left, and that's another thing we're watching for when we do that.
Jeannine Bryant:In-home consultation is any kind of red flags or anytime someone is saying, oh, this is a very special piece, and then we'll gently have that conversation and say, boy, if you are able to take that with you, we would love for you to take that with you, because I always say I don't want to have a sale for someone who doesn't want to sale. And if you don't want me to sell it, then you can keep it and we'll just sell the things you are ready to let go of, and we'll sell it for as much money as we possibly can. And after all this time in business we have about 18,000 people who get our emails, and so we do have quite a following, and we have anywhere from one, two or three sales every week. So we see a lot of the same shoppers every week, and so we are able to get pretty good prices. But we're also able to sell about 85% of the stuff in the house, and that's the real value is again emptying the house out.
Judy Gratton:But you understand the values, you understand how to price things correctly.
Jeannine Bryant:Yes, absolutely.
Judy Gratton:And when my I had two mother-in-laws the second one is one that recently passed, but when the first one passed she had a white Bieber coat and the family. I was holding a garage sale, estate sale, whatever you want to call it and this woman came in and she wanted to buy quite a few things, including the coat, for around a hundred dollars. And I'm like, yes, go, goodbye. And the family was like, absolutely not, that coat is worth thousands. And I'm like that coat is not worth anything because I'm not wearing them anymore. And they refused. The woman went away with the other things, but not the coat. The coat went from child to child to my daughter and my daughter never wears. And I'm like, how did you end up with that coat? I don't know, but I don't want it. I'm like exactly, exactly.
Jeannine Bryant:Yeah, your stuff is worth whatever. Someone will give you for it, right, right. And if you are selling things at a garage sale, then you are limited to the people who come to the garage sale and who have cash in hand. That's who you can sell it to. And you're absolutely right With something like furs, you have to take a lot of things into account. Now, here in the Midwest people still do wear furs, but it has to be cold enough, it has to be the right size, it has to be the right style and not outdated, and yeah, and so sometimes we do hold on to things for guilt or pass them on and think that they're worth a lot of money, and it's just a fool's errand, isn't it?
Judy Gratton:I think that China is another one that I had three sets of sterling or sterling plated flatware and I'm down to some crystal glasses, and I basically have given it away to friends who wanted it, because my kids didn't want any of it.
Jeannine Bryant:Yeah, they're not using it. And I have that. I did not register for China when I got married because my mom had passed away and so I knew I'll just take her China whatever. So I have her China. But ask me, how many times a year I use it? Maybe once.
Judy Gratton:Went out and bought cheap China, because if it broke then I didn't have to worry about it like I literally walmart china, that I didn't care if the kids dropped it on the grounds and I thought if I don't want it, why would they?
Jeannine Bryant:don't on'd on'd , don't don't, life changes and that's okay, and because it's not like a moral, that's again. It goes back to what how we started. It gets tied up into our identity. It's not a moral issue on whether or not you want these items or don't want these items, and so we have to be careful about not guilting our family members into keeping things.
Judy Gratton:That's great. I like that.
Dennis Day:Jeannine, thank you so much. This has just been absolutely fantastic, and if people are interested in your books, where would they find them?
Jeannine Bryant:Absolutely. They're all available on amazon, but an easy way to get to them is easyrightsizingcom. You just click on books and there's a link to purchase any book that you would like, and I also have an online course on there as well. It's actually over three hours of video content me walking folks through each of the lessons of going through the right sizing process, and there's a bunch of free materials on there as well. So easyrightsizingcom.
Dennis Day:And if they were in the Lincoln, Nebraska area, how would they locate you?
Jeannine Bryant:Absolutely Yep. Changingspacessrscom the SRS stands for Senior Relocation Services. So changingspacessrscom and I should mention that we run online auctions every week and we do provide shipping, so even if you're in another state and you buy something on our online auction, we can have it shipped to you.
Dennis Day:Fantastic, I'll have to look at that.
Judy Gratton:The online auction. Where did they find that Fantastic?
Jeannine Bryant:I'll have to look at that. The online auction where did they find that? That's at changingspacessrscom.
Dennis Day:Great Again, thank you. Such valuable information, interesting insights and what a resource for Lincoln you are. Thank you Keeping in touch with these volunteer organizations so you can help people further. Really, an amazing, amazing system. You have Fantastic. Thanks so much for joining us. Appreciate you taking the time out of your day to be here.
Jeannine Bryant:Yes, thank you guys. I love talking about it, so thank you for the opportunity.
Judy Gratton:We really appreciate you coming on.
Dennis Day:Thanks again, and that's it everyone. This has been Getting.
Judy Gratton:Your.
Dennis Day:Edge Out who Downsized your Life, and we hope you enjoy this information. And if you want more information about Janine and her business, we will have links on our website and in the podcast notes and so forth so you can contact her and easyrightsizingcom is pretty easy to find. Thanks so much.
Jeannine Bryant:Yes, thank you guys.
Dennis Day:Appreciate it. We'll see you next time.
Jeannine Bryant:Cool, thank you.
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