Step-by-Step Guide to Packing up Your Whole Life into Ten Suitcases

In the last ten years, I have lived in four countries and six states. At one point I had my belongings stored across three states and one country. I have no permanent residence—unless you consider four boxes in my parents’ attic a permanent residence (that is where I get my mail).

In the hypothetical situation that I am moving, I decided to make a step-by-step list to keep me on task.

Step 1: CALCULATE THE NUMBER OF BAGS. Count the number of children you have, and multiply by two, to calculate the number of “extra” bags you will need. Surely, your kids can pack all of their personal belongings into their carry-on.

Step 2: SELL, SELL, SELL. Sell everything you own so you can move to Africa or Asia or South America. Whatever you can’t sell, pay people to take it off your hands. Whatever you can’t pay people to take off your hands, donate in a whirlwind trip to Goodwill on the way to the airport.

Step 2B (SHOUT OUT TO ANTMAN IF YOU ARE INTO MARVEL): Realize that you still have too much stuff. Make your children pick between taking their picture Bible and their favorite stuffed animal.

Step 3: LOAD UP. Load what is left of your life into the back of your car. Check into your flight. Arrive in a new country. Begin to carve a new life out of nothing.

Step 4: MAKE DO. Make do with the few belonging you have, so you don’t spend money on extra scrap. After all, you don’t know how long you will be in this new country. It could be one year or twenty years. Sit on the floor to watch movies off a laptop. Eat on a card table with plastic stools. Roll up blankets for pillows. Cook all your meals with only one pan.

Step 5: FINALLY INVEST. Decide you can’t eat off the card table for one more meal and invest in furniture. Decide you need more than one knife and pan

Step 4: GO BIG. Over the next three years bring sixty bags worth of belongings over to your new home. You have no idea how long you will be in this place, and you can’t be without a blender and picture frames for even one more second, let alone potential decades.

Step 5: TIME TO MOVE. Once you have really settled into your new home, find out you are moving back to your passport country. Get really overwhelmed about all of the stuff you have accumulated in such a short amount of time. Eat a pound of chocolate to make yourself feel better. That’s one less pound to shove into your checked luggage.

Step 6: SELL, SELL, SELL. AGAIN. Sell everything you have—deeply discounted. Pay people to take stuff off your hands. What you can’t pay people to take off your hands, leave outside your home for strangers to rummage through.

Step 7: HARD CHOICES. Realize you still have too much stuff. Pick between your underwear and favorite pair of shoes.

Step 8: ARRIVE BACK WHERE YOU STARTED. Load up what is left of your life in the back of your car (including the dog). Check in at the airport. Arrive back in your country with only ten bags, ready to re-carve a new life.

Step 9: SETTLE IN. Return to step five and repeat: Make Do. Invest. Go Big. After six months in your host country consider moving to a new country. Return to Step one.

Step 10: Spend your life packing, unpacking, sorting, selling, donating, and repacking.

Life lesson: Don’t accumulate anything, ever. Learn to survive with a toothbrush and a pair of socks.

The characters in this story are purely hypothetical. This is NOT happening directly to me AGAIN.  Do I sound bitter? But in all seriousness, I am learning not to hold onto possessions. You would think I’d have learned this in the first couple of moves!