Extreme downsizing: Lessons from selling everything you own

In the middle of the online auction, Perry changed the online description of the sale to say that any proceeds over a certain amount would go to the charity Heifer International. Unfortunately, that change violated eBay's rules and they canceled her auction. She had to start over again.

This time, she broke the selling into smaller chunks of her possessions and put many items on Craigslist.com. In a few months, everything — about 800 items — was gone.

"It was fun," she says. "It was interesting to meet the people who picked up the stuff."

Knowing the items were going to be used by other people made it easier to let them go.

Perry also says she felt a relief in gaining simplicity. To move to California, all she had to do was pack her car.

The persistence of stuff

Jump forward to 2013 and Perry says she still has very few material possessions.

"If I need something," she says, "I will try to borrow it first."

She also replaces things — getting rid of an older sweatshirt, for example, when she buys a new one.

Ironically, John Freyer, now 40, never did make it back to live in New York City. He fell in love and married a woman in Iowa City, where he became an assistant professor of art at the University of Iowa. They had two children and eventually filled a home with clothes, furniture and all the toys and things that go with typical family life.

His 2000 project came back to mind at the end of 2012 when he and his family moved to Richmond, Va.

"We've been in the house a month," says Freyer, now an artist in Richmond. "I have plenty of apple boxes (he says they are great for moving) filled with books I wonder if I'll ever open."

Part of Freyer wishes he had created a "Sell Everything That I Own 2" project. But he couldn't sell everything. He was no longer young and single.

"When you are responsible for other people," he says, "your relationship to stuff is also their relationship to stuff. It's not just my decision."

This doesn't mean he didn't downsize. Freyer says he got rid of a lot more things on this move than he did in his 2000 project. "But we moved about 10 times that amount of stuff to Richmond," he says. "If you are looking for advice about downsizing, ask a 10-year younger John Freyer."

Freyer does, however, recommend selling things online — particularly if they are heavy and the people will come and pick it up themselves.

He also says people should think about their possessions as if they were moving.

"Ask yourself if you had to ship this, would you do that?" he says. "If you wouldn't, you don't need it."

Anchors and homes

Ian Usher, 49, is another extreme downsizer. A few years after a divorce, he auctioned off his life online. Like Lisa Perry's original idea, it was one large auction. Everything was part of the auction — his expensive home in Australia, his TVs, furniture, clothes, vehicles and more. His friends even promised to be the winning bidder's friends.

Usher left in August 2008 with the clothes on his back, a wallet and a passport.

"It's all just 'stuff,' I reasoned, and if I ever needed anything, I would just end up buying more 'stuff' when required," he says.

Freyer and Perry had both continued working and built up their lives again. Usher, however, traveled the world for two years on the money he made from selling everything. He had enough adventures for Disney to now be in the process of making a movie based on his book,"A Life Sold: What Ever Happened to that Guy Who Sold His Whole Life on eBay?"