As of today we've shown the property over a dozen times and had the hopes of an offer just this week...that didn't pan out. With this kind of activity, we'll should sell quickly. At any rate we are now almost fully packed, boxes neatly numbered and labeled, and put with our other "keeps" in a segregated section of our basement storage. At this point we are basically fully packed and ready to go. What's left is what we use everyday--dishes, cooking utensils, and clothing. Whatever you can see, except for a few pieces of special furniture, will be sold.
Interestingly there has been very little emotion on letting go of most stuff. It's been a quick "yes, we keep it," or "no, it's time to go." We've been spending a lot of time digitizing old photos and documents and loading it all up on to a large portable hard-drive. Some stuff is being copied to the Cloud as well. We'll be using the hard drive as our file archive and it will stay in storage.
Since we plan to donate or sell most our electronics, we are beginning the process of migrating our files, programs, and whatever else we'll need while traveling. Our Tablet/PC of choice is a Surface Pro with plenty of storage. That along with a local cell phone is hopefully all we'll need for the whole time we are abroad. Warning to those reading our blog and thinking about becoming nomads, this is no easy task. Allow plenty of time before you depart to make sure you've got everything backed up, transferred, and stored. We know that once we are on the road, all this early planning will serve us well.
Over the last few weeks we have been using Craigslist and Ebay to sell some of our stuff. Furniture has gone fast and done well in price. It's a lot easier to get it out of the way now than to store it for a garage sale later. Craigslist is great for this because it is free, is a local market, and folks pick up and pay in person. Ebay has been useful for some of the more exotic stuff like pieces of a former high end set of china, silver, some jewelry, and art. In then end whatever is left will go in the house/garage sale.
The house/garage sale is also in preparation even though we're not under contract. To clear out the clutter and stage the house, lots of stuff had to be put away. We loaded it all into boxes labeled TO SELL. When the time comes it's simply a matter of unpacking the boxes, laying it all out, and selling it. If at the last minute a bit of remorse sneaks in, the item gets a second chance to be saved, Here's hoping that won't happen too much!
