Episode Description
In part two of the two-part series with “Things Forgotten, Not Gone”, Rick Troyer and Jennifer Brink share tips on where we can shop for the great stuff that others part with. And, we dig into the reality that even expert-declutters can hold onto too many things.
Produced and Edited by:
Sabrina Hill
“That’s why you don’t want to get rid of them. Because if they do go away, you might forget about that special occasion that that particular thing had in your life.”
RICK TROYER
Resources Mentioned in this Episode
Things Forgotten, Not Gone: https://goodwillcolorado.org/services/things-forgotten-not-gone/
Goodwill Finds: www.goodwillfinds.com
Shop Goodwill: www.shopgoodwill.com
Other (potentially) Useful Links
We suggest infusing a little gratitude into your day. Here’s a way to begin from Mindful.org: https://www.mindful.org/an-introduction-to-mindful-gratitude/
Transcript
Pat:
Hello, welcome to Going Older Podcast. I’m your co-host, Pat Going.
Amy:
And I am Amy Going Haworth.
On today’s episode, we continue our conversation with Jennifer Brink and Rick Troyer from “Things Forgotten, Not Gone”, a division of Colorado Goodwill.
Pat:
Well, I’m curious what your relationship might be with real estate brokers. Many of the folks I see that are downsizing are doing that in preparation to sell their home. So is that a handoff that you typically do with them, or is there something like staging or, you know, the photographs or whatever that you would do for a relationship with a real estate agent?
Rick:
So with realtors, it just depends on the circumstance for each family or each home. If there’s extra help and they’re needing to stage or whatever, they can talk to us and they’re like, hey, leave this furniture here. We want to stage it. So it just depends on the circumstance. Do we directly work with them? Sometimes, but sometimes not. So sometimes a realtor, will reach out and we’ll clear a house for them because they’re in charge of that part. If the clients have a realtor and we all work together. But we don’t go out and look for a realtor for the clients or anything like that. So it just depends on the circumstance for the realtor situation. A lot of times when we’re working with realtors, it’s because they want the house cleared out. Yeah. they want to stage it with their own furniture that they have and that they’re used to work for. So their main reason to get a hold of us is to say come look at this house. How much is it going to be to clear everything out? We give them a bid price. We arrange everything needed. We box everything up and it’s all gone. It goes away. All right.
Pat:
Well, it sounds again like this great flexibility that you have. Case by case.
Rick:
We can do a number of things and you can have everything or you can just pick out a couple of items that you want us to do and we’ll do it. And getting back to the real estate, but we do get a lot of referrals from real estate people who have used us. They’ll call one of their real estate buddies and we get calls from them to say, hey, can you come and take a look at this house? The people are gone and we need to clear it so that we can put it on the market for sale. That’s what we do. The nice thing about it, and I’m trying not to talk too much here, but as we’re clearing the house, If it’s good stuff, it’ll go to a store, a Goodwill store, or it gets donated and it gets repurposed. It’s not just you can call 1-800-JUNK and they’ll come and just throw everything in the garbage. Rather in the items they’re throwing away there may be items valuable to somebody else. That’s what we’re trying to do – repurpose as much as possible on this end. If it is trash, then thrash is trash. Metals we can take and recycle to a metal recycler that Jennifer mentioned earlier. We can recycle glass, computers and so on. We can take any old computers and they get recycled. They’re not just thrown at the landfill. So That’s an E we can also get rid of all the chemicals and paints and stuff that are in houses that people leave behind. We instead of that going into a landfill, which it’s not supposed to, but our people can dispose of that properly too. We take it to our recycle place They put it all together and dispose of it.
Pat:
That’s great to know.
Amy:
So I’ve heard rumor that there is a giant warehouse on the other side of this operation. Maybe take us behind the scenes and paint the picture of your operation and some things that people in the general public might not get the chance to see.
Jennifer:
So the warehouse…so what typically happens once we leave a house and we have items for the e-commerce department, which is shopgoodwill.com, we bring it to the warehouse. It gets listed. It gets quality checked, to make sure it’s not broken or make sure it works properly. It gets tagged with the consigner’s name and then it goes to photography. Once it leaves photography, it gets at least six pictures taken of it, depending on the item. And then it goes over to the listing department and they jazz up what the item is. So it’s not just a red vase. It’s a cranberry vase from the 1970s or something along that line. And then it goes in the shelving department. Once it gets onto the shelves, it is there online. You can shop for it. And after you buy it, then it goes through the shipping department. And the books are handled the same way. and it’s enormous. There are so many books and so many trinkets and clothing and so much in our warehouse that the sky’s the limit on what you could buy back there.
Rick:
They’ve really outgrown the space that they have here in this building. And so it’s a big operation.
Amy:
Sounds like it and Dad yet a chance to see it, right?
Pat:
I did and Rick gave me a tour. I don’t know if he gives tours that often. I think there’s a group at Aberdeen Ridge that are really interested to come through and see it. I was just amazed. And I’ll send you some pictures, Amy. I think you’ll find them very interesting.
Amy:
Perfect. We’ll share those if Rick and Jennifer are okay with it on the website too so people can get the visual of what we’re talking about.
Pat:
Can we mention those websites again real quick?
Jennifer:
It’s shopgoodwill.com. Oh, I’m sorry, that’s the old one. It is goodwillfines.com. And that was the one you had mentioned earlier. Goodwillfines.com. Yep.
Amy:
Awesome. Well, I’m kind of out of questions. What else to think would be interesting? I don’t know, okay, here’s a new way to phrase this question. When you are at a party and you meet a new person and they ask you what you do for a living, how do you describe what you do at Things Forgotten Not Gone?
Pat:
That’s a loaded question.
Jennifer:
I tell them that I’m a senior Move Manager and that we’re able to help seniors in all aspects of downsizing and or moving.
Amy:
Yeah, makes so much sense.
Pat:
It simplifies it just right.
Amy:
How do you answer it, Rick?
Rick:
Well, pretty much the same way. And you get a lot of responses saying, well, where are you going to come to my house and help me?
Pat:
And I would suspect that people would say, oh, do you do this for free. Right? For some reason, thinking that this is some sort of philanthropic service out there. Right?
Rick:
We do come across that a lot. We do tell people once we go to your house, there’s a cost involved in do this. And we explain our fee structure and all that. And some people say, oh, I thought you were with Goodwill. It was just for free. It was, since I’m donating this stuff, it shouldn’t cost me anything. But no, there’s no free lunch. I mean, you still have labor involved. It’s labor intensive. Absolutely.
Amy:
Very labor intensive, I would imagine. And so then the other loaded question I have – how do you do on your own stuff? Is it easier to declutter other people’s homes?
Jennifer:
So personally at my home, so I’m a military brat. So we always had to get rid of stuff. So I tend to collect things that I probably shouldn’t, but I’m getting better at like decluttering because after going into someone’s house, it’s really easy to see that I don’t wanna make my kids ever have to worry about stuff like that. So it’s easier now, but sometimes I still struggle because, oh, that was my grandmother’s or that was my aunt’s. My kids don’t want it. So why am I gonna save it? So I just try to keep that in mind, but some some days are a little harder than others.
Rick:
My wife has one junk room that seems to accumulate items. I think it’s because of the pandemic because we never had this room. She would start buying various items like paper towels, soaps, or toilet paper. Remember that was a big thing. So that room now that used to be very manageable is now different. I say to son, Matt, we need to have another roll of paper towels. Go up in the ‘warehouse room’ and get it.
Rick:
And the warehouse is our extra bedroom. Like Jennifer said, we don’t want to leave it to our kids, although our kids are in their 30’s. It’s just a situation you have to stay on top of it yourself because it’s real easy to just say, well, I might use this, I’m going to go stick it in here for a while. Then two years later, it’s still there and it’s got dust all over it. Why do I need to keep this? And it’s not just trinkets and items, it’s clothes too. If you haven’t worn something in a year, it’s probably time to get rid of it. There’s no reason to have it.
Jennifer:
I’m bad about that, the clothing. It’s hard to get rid of clothes.
Amy:
Well, I have a confession. Since you’ve shared your own stories, I feel like now is the appropriate time to tell you all that until my parents started to declutter in preparation for their move, I was using their house as my storage room, even though we’re at least 2,000 miles apart. And in one of their closets, there was everything from notes that had been passed to me as a sophomore in high school, which is many, many years ago. They were written on notebook paper, this pre-days email and text. There were boxes full of notes and letters. Every bridesmaid’s dress that I’d ever worn when part of a wedding. My Dad’s letter sweater from high school in that closet.
Amy:
I brought it home with me because I refused to let that one go. There were way too many 50s dress-up parties where it served me well. And plus I’m really proud of him still. He’s worked hard for those varsity pins.
And what else, Dad? Because every time for the last four years, every visit home that I made, my amazing father would ask with deep longing and invitation for me to go visit that room for at least a few hours. But finally, I think this last visit, I let go of the bridesmaid’s dresses. I don’t think I will ever wear those again.
Pat:
Thank you. Thank you. I love hearing this confession. I will share it with your Mother.
Amy:
It feels like a moment of pride. I’ve come a long way and you didn’t give up on me. So you it’s been very inspirational to watch you honor the these things to even Jennifer and Rick. I cry every episode. So, you know, here we go.
Amy:
I cry about everything these days.
Jennifer:
Me too.
Amy:
But just to see the memories and the things that you choose to keep, Dad, has been fascinating because you’re amazing at just getting rid of so much stuff now. But I take very special interest in the things you don’t wanna get rid of. And that’s been funny. because Mom kind of rolls her eyes.
Rick:
Well, they’re memories that help trigger your brain to remember those things.
Amy:
Yes.
Rick:
That’s why you don’t want to get rid of them. Because if they do go away, you might forget about that special occasion that that particular thing had in your life. Whether you were a little girl, teenage girl, or what have you, and you don’t want to lose those precious memories. It just goes to show that you are getting older but our parents are getting older. So you realize each day is precious right now in our lifetimes because you just you just never know what tomorrow brings. I mean it’s a cliche but you never know. Memories are wonderful and you need to live each day in the fullest and just thank the good Lord that you have your parents alive for the day that you wake up to. Because you just don’t know.
Amy:
Yes, that’s so well said. And just 100% confirmation that the two of you are exactly where you’re supposed to be to help people through this. And just to be able to see that these things are just physical manifestations of something otherwise conceptual. You know, I think that really strikes me in honoring the things that are symbols of the memories. And to celebrate those.
Pat:
I think we’ve covered a lot of really interesting ground. And I would say this to the two of you. I’ve been to two of your presentations, and I’ve learned several new things today. So certainly, thank you.
Rick:
So much to share. There’s a lot. I mean, it’s tough. Growing old is not for sissies. That’s for sure.
Amy:
That’s for sure. Well, we love to close our podcast with just a moment of gratitude. So we’re recording this on a Friday as you look at the week or even the day that you’ve had. What’s one small thing, Jennifer, that you find yourself grateful for today?
Jennifer:
I think I’m just grateful to be alive and to be able to share this time with all of you today. And, I’m grateful for a lot. It’s been a rough month, So, I don’t want to start crying, so I will not go into too much detail, but I’m just grateful for the people that I have around me today.
Amy:
Amazing. Yeah, we can cry together anytime you get in touch. Rick, what about you?
Rick:
Well, I have a couple of things I’m going to say. Today, I went into my office, and my office is on the second level of our house. And the window faces west. There was just this beautiful picture of Pikes Peak right there. With the way the sun was hitting the snow, and it was just so calm. And I just thought we way we too often take living here for granted. We take the mountains for granted because they’re there all the time. But today it was just the color and everything was just very unique. And the other thing I have gratitude for is tomorrow, my parents are celebrating their 66th wedding anniversary. It’ll be next week, but we’re going to go out to dinner tomorrow night to celebrate it. So I’m very grateful that I’ll have that opportunity to celebrate another anniversary with them. especially with their health and how they’re declining. So I’m looking forward to that. And, you know we are all so blessed, whether you and Florida, us here, and we take, sometimes we just take this stuff for granted. I think we need to just be thankful and cognizant that we are so blessed with the lives that we live.
Amy:
That’s beautiful.
Pat:
Well, my gratitude is not going to be quite as deep as Rick said. And I certainly honor that. Mine’s going to be a little more pedestrian. I have rediscovered the Apple computer classes. And they are so fun. And we are starting to go back. These are free classes. I don’t know if you two have ever been there. We’ve been to about 40 of them. And you talk about iPhone features and your iPad and how to make movies and, and how your Apple Watch works. And it’s just fascinating. And so for some reason, well, I guess because of COVID, they shut down. They weren’t offering those. And so started back on those and they’re really fun and has gotten me out of the house. So they’re in-person classes. Obviously, they probably did get shut down to covid. To Apple’s credit, if you’re hard of hearing, they have assistive devices to help you. And they’re very accommodating. So sort of a mundane gratitude, but it was a lot of fun this week.
Amy:
Well, I’m grateful that my almost 80-year-old father is going to take the Apple classes, so he can teach me how technology works.
Pat:
Ha ha!
Amy:
I’m so grateful, grateful for this time with you all, and that we actually have technology that can enable us to have a conversation like this. Thousands of miles apart, a couple of time zones apart, and yet we can really meet here to help others who are stuck doing some of this on their own. There is a group of compassionate people who are available to help. And I think that’s really exciting. So I’ll close with this. So while this is a podcast about aging, it’s actually a podcast about living. So get out there and live life well. Thank you so much, Rick and Jennifer. and we’ll talk to everybody next time.
Rick and Jennifer:
Thank you for having us.