We’ve continued downsizing – at times it feels as though it will never end. We have discovered it to be a process, rather than a finite event or project, as we never dreamed when this all started how much we would really be letting go. We’ve gone from a crowded three-bedroom house and shed to a nearly empty shed and three-bedroom house that now echoes.
Our furniture is empty inside, save for storing a few boxes we’re keeping; our kitchen cabinets have very little left; our hall closet and linen closet have only the basics; the two bedrooms we have available are down to the essentials, or hold only the boxes we are putting into storage. The shed has been cleared out, with only essential tools left – we have even taken all our old paint and construction materials to the hazardous waste facility.
We had yet another garage sale in early August, but this time we joined in with our neighbor Ivar, and last Saturday we added yet another few things to one of his regular garage sales. The most recent garage sale was the most fun of our series – we met many of our neighbors we hadn’t seen in several years. They stopped by to look so we ended up chatting for a few minutes, catching up on the past three years.
After the garage sale, we posted everything left on FreeCycle, and went through that merry-go-round again. We had so many things we were giving away, that one particular afternoon we had a revolving front door – I think we had eight pick-ups within an hour. The downside is how tired we get doing it; the upside is meeting fun, often quirky people.
One very moving experience was meeting a father whose daughter just had a brain injury. We had a chance to talk for a few moments, and he loaned us a book he’d come across on recovering from brain injuries. He’s got another book he’s currently using; I’ll borrow it from him when I finally get thoroughly underway with writing.
And of course, there’s always Craigslist for the items we think we can sell. Craigslist is good for electronics or for the bigger items like furniture and appliances. We’ve not had too much luck with smaller things like our new life vests, luggage, and clothing. We are still looking for homes for some of these items, and may FreeCycle them soon if they don’t sell. We did sell a concrete outdoor table and benches through Craigslist, and of all things it went to a wonderful woman only three blocks away from us. We also sold one of our two generators. Both items were bulky, heavy, and costly, so we were glad to move them on.
We still have two tall (but narrow) bookshelves filled with things that need to be moved on to new homes, but we are so sick of doing it that we wish could just wave a magic wand and have everything disappear, preferably putting some money in our wallets, too. We just re-posted a half dozen items on Craigslist; we moved some things on at Ivar’s garage sale on Saturday; and we’re about to list some FreeCycle items.
In addition to the selling and giving away of our goods, we are also downsizing by transferring our old cassette tapes to digital, scanning photos and documents into digital files, turning slides into digital files, and transferring our old VHS tapes to DVD. We will be able to toss at least eight more boxes after we finish those projects.
After much soul-searching, we did put our house up for sale, but South Florida is one of the hardest hit areas in the nation in the foreclosure mess, so selling isn’t looking like too much of an option. House prices are dropping precipitously, far below what they were even well prior to the bubble, and there’s no telling what will happen with the latest freeze on foreclosures. We are now thinking of renting the house; we’ll have to deal with the multitude of issues on that before we leave, if that’s what we decide to do.
If we sell, we’ll still need a local address for our bank accounts, driver’s licenses, passports and so on. We’ll probably ask Paul and Denise to take our mail for us.
We’re looking at banking relationships again, too. We need to look at the banks’ international presence in areas we’re traveling; look at any banking relationships American banks may have with local banks; and perhaps most all, analyze any fees for international transactions. We chose Washington Mutual carefully back in 2007; who knew they’d collapse and be bought by Chase.
We’ve gotten everything renewed that we can – our bank cards, driver’s licenses (read my journal entry on renewing my driver’s license), and our passports. Some things will expire while we’re gone, and we’ll have to rely on someone locally to send us the renewed cards. Our biggest challenge will be renewing Chelsea’s driver’s license, because of the RealID law passed in 2005. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
As the months come to end next spring, we have to close out our utilities accounts and change our cell phone plan. We’ll keep the current one till we leave the US, but we want to essentially put it on hold with a minimal plan while we’re out of the country, still keeping our local phone numbers.
By utilizing Catalog Choice we have stopped about ninety percent of our junk mail and catalogs; Chelsea is still adding names to the list, so our junk mail continues to decrease. We’ll forward our mail at the last minute.
And finally will be the last minute packing and disposition of any remaining goods.
Meanwhile we’re living in an odd nether world. It’s still our house, and life goes on as usual, but without most of our old familiar items. The clothing we’re keeping has already been packed, so now that the seasons are changing we need to get into those boxes and get out what we need. We look for something in the kitchen and realize we sold it or gave it away. The cupboards and furniture are bare. We are stripped nearly to the bone, but we’ll still be here another five to six months. It’s truly an odd feeling living between our old and new worlds.