Well, I feel like we're finally getting somewhere. When we first came up with this idea, we had about $12,000 in CC debt that needed paid off before we could even start saving for the actual trip. So I just paid off another credit card this month and our total is now under $4,000!!!
We also have been super lucky so far (fingers and toes crossed) in that we haven't had to replace the a/c yet. We got another opinion from a very nice guy named "Bubba"...seriously, the guy's business card says Bubba. But we now LOVE Bubba because he was willing to try to fix our leak. We figured it was a long shot, but we really didn't have anything to lose if we tried letting him run some StopLeak through our system. It's been close to a month and the a/c is still running nice and cold!
So my brother is leaving in a few weeks on his trip to France...he got the idea from me, but he didn't have all the technicalities to deal with that are holding us back. I had been thinking that we would just have our "estate sale" in January before we go (did I mention January is our new goal?), but yesterday, I started having second thoughts. I didn't like the idea of trying to sell everything at the last minute - what would we do with the stuff we couldn't sell and didn't want to keep? It would also help with planning if we knew how much money we would have from selling off our stuff. After talking it over with my brother (he does estate sales for a living and was planning on doing ours when he got back from his trip) and with J last night, I think we are going to have the sale in........3 WEEKS! I still don't know for sure if it's going to work out, but at the moment, that's the plan.
We've got a ton to do in the next 3 weeks to get ready, but I really can't wait. I was talking to a friend today about selling everything, and I think she was surprised how excited I was to be selling all my stuff. I just think it is going to be liberating. You know the old saying about how you don't own your stuff, it owns you? That's exactly how I feel...we've been owned by our stuff for too long and I'm ready to be free. But like J was saying last night, we don't want to be stupid about deciding what to keep and what to sell. I told him my plan: anything that we either wouldn't replace if we sold it or would replace with something different or better, we sell. I don't see a point in selling something that we know we would have to buy when we come back. That just doesn't make any sense. Consequently, we'll be keeping a fair amount of kitchen stuff - it would be super expensive to have to come back and buy a whole kitchen's worth of stuff. But do we need 2 sets of mixing bowls? 2 sets of glasses? 4 pie plates? When was the last time I baked a pie anyway? (I wish I could say I bake all the time, but I actually can't remember the last pie I made) And how did I end up with so many casserole dishes anyway? Do I really need to be able to make 6 different casseroles at the same time?
Some things will be easy to get rid of, but some of the family items are a little harder to let go. For a long time, I had this attachment to all my "family" items, but I've really reached a point where there is very very little that I wouldn't part with...for the right price. I don't want to give the stuff away, but I'm tired of holding on to stuff just because it belonged to my grandmother, aunt, dad, etc... I want to keep a few momentos that will remind me of those family members and let the rest go. It's just stuff. All of it is just stuff and I'm tired of having too much stuff.
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