Again, this maybe hard with wife/kids.

When single I changed countries every 1-2 years (moved a lot around Europe). I learned to live with very little, but it isn't as easy when you have wife/kids (and uprooting your kid just for the sake of minimalism isn't really fair).

You don't have to change cities or even neighborhoods to move every year. I've gone through phases in my life where I get tired of my apartment every year and move across the street.

FWIW, I have a wife and 4 school-aged kids. :-)

Whoa! 4? My life is chaotic enough with just one :) How do they feel about the moving around?

Wife and I talked about moving in a couple of years, but I'm reluctant because of the kid.

My kids are used to it at this point, at least that's what they tell us. Whether it's completely true or not, only they know. We do our best to make sure and move to places that are interesting for them and then to enjoy whatever is around that area as a family.

That works pretty well.. but I'd also throw in that once you move, any box that you haven't opened in a year should be tossed. The same should go for clothes, tech gear, etc.

* I use a year instead of six months because occasionally you get that holiday-specific stuff that might be good to keep but only comes up annually.

What about old pictures of yourself, family, or other keepsakes?

I'll admit, this has been the toughest thing to deal with. At the moment we've left a sort of breadcrumb trail with family members in various parts of the world (a box here, a box there, almost exclusively with photos). I like the idea of scanning everything, but for those of us born well before digital cameras became the norm, that would be a lot of photos. :-)

Scan and put them on dropbox/flickr? Use iPad or one of those digital frames to display them?

Do you really even look at them? When I'm with relatives, I remember events, not pictures. I say dump the photos.