Division of non valuable assets

[threesecrets]

When you get divorced, how do you decide how to split up the contents of the house eg random things like bed linen, towels, Crockery. I wouldn't normally care but if money is going to be a lot tighter I want to keep hold of as much as possible (and especially my expensive high quality thread count sheets lol).

Not a divorce but when I split from long-term DP we sat down and went through everything like that - it was a negotiation - 'you can keep the lamps if I can have the coffee table' sort of process.

I would separate things into groups - things you really want such as your high TC linen, things you definitely don't want, and things you're prepared to bargain with. If your ex does the same you may find many things are uncontested and hopefully you can negotiate for any that are.

I'd add, assuming that there are no high-value items, don't go into the process thinking about the cost of things, just focus on what you want and need most. Be generous if it's something you're not really bothered about as it's more likely to invite reciprocal generosity.

I think the coffee machine could be a cause for contention!!

Are there any other things besides the coffee machine that you'll definitely both want?

You could end up with a list of contested items, like the coffee machine, tv, dyson and iPad. If so write them down and then toss a coin to get first pick. Then take it in turns to select something off it. But do as Pelleas suggests first so this list is short.

I've done this when splitting from a house I jointly owned with a friend.
Basically we went round each room, and decided anything that was definitely owned by one or the other, anything remaining was scored 1 to 5 by us, and whoever got the highest score had that item. Anything with a double 0 was destined for the skip! After that round anything on equal points we haggled eg if I have x for 5 points you can have y for 2 and z for 3, till it was all split.