Catch and Release Your Stuff by Susie and Greg Calhoon and M.Wild King--March 2025
- Martha Wild King
- Mar 28
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 4
Captain Mike and I have been privileged to be neighbors next door to Susie and Greg Calhoun in Littleton, Colorado, for the past seven years. Living downtown means space in our dwellings is at a premium, so Greg and Susie said they would answer my questions about downsizing.
The Frugal Catholic: Greg, you, and Susie moved from a suburban house of 4,200 square feet to a three-story townhome with 1,700 square feet and 38 stairs from top to bottom.
Question #1: WHY?
It was a passage. We looked around at how daily life had changed since both of our boys (now men) had moved out and onward. That landscape, that time was over.
Speaking of landscape, viewing our yard from our back windows at all that grass and all those trees that needed an annual trim and all those thousands/millions? 🙂 of leaves that would soon fall and said, OK .. Don't really want to spend my time doing that!
Our job in that place, in that space, dream fulfilled- simply nothing left to prove or do. Time to mix it up!
Question #2 What have you experienced in this space downsizing?
Three words - exhilaration, variety, and freedom.
Exhilaration -doing something new, taking a risk, and switching it up
Variety- we are walking down a road without any ruts. Finding it's OK for there not to be a road necessarily.
Freedom - Less to watch and worry, more space to create and live
We have lived in this area for 40 years and have many life long friends. In this new space we are experiencing relationships with new friends with less to bow to and less dragging behind.. Both the good and the bad.
And yes, it is smaller. We run into each other a lot more. Literally and figuratively. Susie and I are much more intertwined in this unique old-town urban setting with our neighbors and city. Its a little nutty sometimes.. But I'm up for a little chaos.
Question #3--Now, Greg, years ago, when I first began sharing frugal retirement tips with you and Susie, you once said, "I've spent all my life with arms open shoveling it in. Now I want to shovel it all out!" What exactly did you mean by that statement, and do you think many folks above age 50 feel the same?
We got up every day (for a while) chasing this idea in the 1980s and 90s, especially the 80s when he who dies with the most stuff wins.
Some of the shoveling was practical because we wanted to give our boys lots of experiences and give them any advantage we could. I'm definitely much less impulsive now.
Regarding shoveling out... As we (I) age.. And time moves on...
Nobody wants our stuff when we are gone.
The need behind the need for those things no longer exists.
Honestly, I have so much more to do than look at it and watch it.
For folks over 50, I think it's a mixed bag, with different reactions and circumstances. We have friends who actually bought larger homes and kept/moved all their stuff with them in the past few years. But in general, I find that people 50 and older can release themselves from status-seeking and other people's opinions and judgment. We see the world from a higher vantage point.
So, if you are concerned about the amount of "stuff" you have caught throughout your life, take a hint from Greg and Susie and learn to see the world from a clearer vantage point, as Greg and Susie stated. It's clearer because the "distracting stuff is gone."
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Luke 12:33--"Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near, and no moth destroys.
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The Frugal Catholic--Martha Wild King, M. Ed. Author
Learn to Live on Less to Give and Save More
Frugality gave us wealth, BUT the Catholic Church made us rich!
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