I can help with the downsizing part. My wife and i each lived with our parents after college and before we got married, my family home was 4200 sqft, and her family home was 3100 sqft.
After we got married we rented a 1300 squarefoot bungalow in LA before we moved to San Diego. It was real tough at first until we realized we had too much junk, so over the course of 2 months we threw everything we hadn’t used in a year out plus any extras, like furniture that was rarely used.
We had to do it again when we moved to a rental in SD that was 900 sqft. I found that after growing up in so much space, i really like a small place. Less to clean and i don’t buy junk because i have no pace to put stuff. We’re planning to move soon, since we have 2 kids now, but we have a soft cap of 1700 sqft and a hard cap of 2000sqft.
