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How exciting to be getting married! How joyous the occasion!
How much extra "stuff" you’ll now have.
Gone are the days when a girl had a hope chest where she saved the things she’d eventually need for marriage. These days, people are getting married later in life, which means they often come into the marriage with a full house. Suddenly, you’re the proud owner of two of everything and not sure what to do.
Five tips for blending lives:
- Go through each house together, and identify which items are duplicates. Talk about each item honestly. This is the time to decide whose wine-rack you’ll keep, whose kitchen table you’ll keep and so on. If you can legitimately use two of something in your new life, such as televisions or stereos, go ahead and keep both. Try not to be too attached to something simply because it’s yours and realize that the more you streamline now, the easier your move will be. If your kitchen table is circa 1971 and your partner’s is only two years old, be realistic about which to keep. The idea is to choose the things that will blend well to best furnish your new place, not to fight to keep everything that is yours.
- For things such as silverware and kitchen items, cookware and other small items, do the same evaluation process as for the larger items.
- As you decide which things to keep, tag the things you are letting go with brightly colored sticky notes.
- If it’s not winter where you live, pull your tagged items outside and have a yard or garage sale. Don’t be greedy. Remember, you want this stuff to sell quickly so you don’t have to move it.
- Everything that doesn’t sell, donate to an organization that can use it, such as your church or synagogue, The Metro Atlanta Furniture Bank (404-355-8530), a homeless or day shelter, or the Salvation Army.
Presto! You’re down to one set of furnishings and you’ve donated things to people who can use them.
The Filing Cabinet
When blending your personal files from two separate households, remember, it’s not necessary to keep all your files in the same file cabinet. You don’t have to combine your household files if you aren’t comfortable doing so. Just be sure that your filing system is easy to navigate in case your partner needs to retrieve any of your filed information.
If you do elect to combine your household files, be sure to keep files of the same type together, in a truly integrated filing system. For example, keep both your auto insurance information under the same category, instead of filing yours under CAR and your partner’s under INSURANCE. Also, don’t keep all the paperwork for any given subject in one folder. Divide it into two folders, one labeled with your name and one with your partner’s. You can successfully blend two households if you take the time to set it up right in the beginning.
