Discovered a New Blog

Today's New York Times had a delightful article about two Senior Nomads.  The couple decided to sell a bunch of their possessions, store the rest, and rent out their townhouse.  They have been traveling Europe for almost two years now and use AirBnB to find their rentals.

I just started reading the blog, see link above, and will be interested in seeing how it develops.  My one dislike, is probably one that others will have about this one.  It is difficult to read from oldest to newest.  I'll have to investigate Blogger settings to see if there is a simple way to do that.  For now I clicked on the oldest year, 2013, and then the first month they started posting, June.

Kelly and I will read a month of post each day as incentive for our own downsizing.

A Minor Break

   Last week I was looking at the schedule for the Tannahill Weavers and noticed they were playing at a library in Western Virginia at the end of March.  There was another Irish group playing the day after I looked at the library schedule.  So, we decided to drop the downsizing and made the four hour drive to Bedford VA.  We found a nice AirBnB to stay at and enjoyed a lovely concert by Socks in the Frying Pan.

  The group is on their second tour of America and Bedford was the first stop.  Check out their website and if you get an opportunity, go listen to them.  One suggestion, if you find a concert you can go to, use your browser to go to the venue's web site.  The app they are using for ticketing is cumbersome and requests more information than I want to provide.

  This week it is back to downsizing and hoping the sun will come out.  Right now it is cloudy with occasional rain.  There is still snow on the ground from last week's storm, but it is melting.

A Good Day

  Today may not have looked like a successful day downsizing, but I feel like we did accomplish quite a bit on the monetary side.  We reviewed all the various insurance policies Kelly has and discontinued three of the five policies.  One because she is no longer working and workers disability insurance will have no benefit.  The other two were duplicates of her medical insurance.
   We also updated her name with that company.  I completed my initial tax estimate.  I just need to wait for some figures to complete them.  Ends up I contributed twice to an IRA in 2013 and I need to correct that, so I have to wait for the final interest estimate from my investment company so I can complete the paperwork for my taxes.
  We also sold the rower via Craig's List and have an offer on the treadmill, but we will hold off on that one for a few weeks as we would like to get a bit more than was offered.
    The snow started coming down around 3 this afternoon and we currently have a light dusting, but estimates are for up to 8 inches by the time the snow stops tomorrow afternoon.  Doesn't sound like much, but it is a surprise to me.  I wasn't expecting any snow in Virginia.

Were Does the Time Go?

It's hard to believe that a week has gone by with neither of us posting.  Kelly was going to post a few days ago, but her computer froze and when she brought it back up her lengthy post was no longer there.  Ah, the joys of not saving.

We have had good progress in downsizing.  The room that must not be entered had maybe a fifth of the items removed.  Some for donation and others that Ava was able to take for her rental.  We also got some of the exercise equipment posted to Craig's List and hope to sell the rower this evening.  (We are meeting with the buyer, but you never count on a sale until the buyer shows up and gives you the money.)

Today I saw this TED talk in my Google stream, it's a few years old, but a good reminder of why we want to downsize.

http://www.ted.com/talks/graham_hill_less_stuff_more_happiness#t-323198

Having both been in the military and moved many times, Kelly and I both relate to moving boxes a number of times before actually opening them to see why you kept it.  I'm of the opinion that if you have moved something two or three times and never opened it, then you should just toss it.  I think Kelly would want to go through the box and make sure she didn't have anything tucked away like money, savings bonds, or other valuable item.

The trip to Italy is on hold for now.  We both decided to wait for the weather to be a bit better and also to let us get rid of more stuff, so we don't feel guilty about taking a "vacation."  Kelly has also added some cities to her weather app, so she looks at what the weather is in Frankfurt Germany, Catania Italy, Montevideo Uruguay, Taos NM, Fort Bragg CA, and Brookings OR.

What is our end goal?

Kelly and I have talked over the downsizing options that I laid out in this post.  We both agree that we need to focus on option three, take a bit more time to save the items we know we will use in our new location.  What we still talk about, but haven't made a decision on, is what will our final living situation look like.

Kelly said that she wants to spend more time in New Mexico, to see how she likes the town where my condo is.  Maybe six or nine months, to get a good feel for the place.  We both agree that even if she does like the town, that we should downsize and sell my place.  Our future should include, not her place or his place, but our place.

What we are still unsure about is what will that place be?  Will we go the rental route and move as we tire of a location?  Or will we buy and always have a base to come back to when we travel?  I have done home exchanges and had very good luck with them.  What I like, is the people I have exchanged with have always been pet people, so there is built in pet care.  I take care of their pets and they take care of mine.  We both leave info for a pet sitter in case any longer trips out from the exchange home are taken.

If we rent, exchanging is questionable.  In theory, you should get the permission of the rental owner before you initiate an exchange.  However, renting allows us to move to different locations in the U.S. and Europe.  But moving every few years may be hard on Trinity, my 8 year old cat.  She really
doesn't like the car.  Lokki, on the other hand, loves the car and travels well.  Lokki is Kelly's Toy Pomeranian.

If we buy a home and do exchanges to feed our travel bug, will that be enough travel?  If we exchange a couple times a year for a month each time, will that allow us to see all the places we think we want to see?  What about far away destinations?  If you sit on a plane for 20+ hours, i.e. New Zealand or Australia, would we be happy with only 30 days away?  Or would we rather spend six months or more?

Our Western tour of NM, AZ, and UT was just over 30 days and while we both felt it was a good amount of time, it was also time to get back to our pets.

So, do we rent and stress the cat every 9 to 24 months or do we buy and go away from our pets when travelling?

The Many Options of Downsizing

   What does downsizing actually mean?  For many it is just a matter of simplifying the existing living situation.  But others have taken it to the extreme, in my opinion.  A few years ago I read a book by Tammy Strobel.  The book documents her journey from living in a large apartment, to a smaller apartment, and then into a home built on a trailer.  Smaller than many people's storage shed.

   I don't want to go that far.  Here are the options I see:
1)  Sell or give away everything, nothing remains except the clothes we want to wear.
2)  Keep some things that mean something to one of us.  (Still no home.)
3)  Make the effort to identify items we will need when we are in one home.
4)  Sell the big ticket items and put everything else in storage.
5)  Sell what we can and keep what we don't give away, but do buy a place to live and setup a home.

Option 1:  This option gives us the freedom to travel and not have to worry about a house being left empty and if the money from the sale is invested wisely we can use the interest earnings to cover our rentals.  However, it means we need to be lean enough to bring all we keep in one car.

Option 2:  This is more practical, but requires us to find some storage.  We would be paying storage unit fees, but that would be less than maintaining a home.  We could travel as we like, and use our travels to find our eventual new home location.

Option 3:  This would probably take a bit longer as we would need to put more thought into what we keep and get rid of.  However, it would make it less expensive to setup home, when we eventually get to that point.  It would also necessitate a larger storage unit.

Option 4:  Yet a larger storage unit and it puts off deciding whether to keep something or not.  Not an option I like, because we would end up paying to store things we probably don't need or want.

Option 5:  This gives a place to move everything to, but we need to know where we want to live.  Kelly has only visited New Mexico for a week and half that time she was sick.  So, she doesn't know if she could live there or not.  We are also both interested in looking at Northern CA or Oregon.  Why buy a place before we know where we want to be.

   The kicker with any of these options is, what do we do with the pets while we travel?  If we are driving we can bring them with, but if it is a flight to Europe or Latin America, I would only bring the pets if we knew we were going for three months or longer.

 

An Inspiration and The Room That Must Not be Entered

  Thanks to Kelly's daughter Ava, one bedroom looks like this.  Ava recently moved to a new apartment and was able to take the California King.  Now we have one room to inspire us.
  However, next to this bedroom is another which is known as the Room That Must NOT be Entered.  It is locked, the key is not in the door.  The room is full of many boxes that will eventually need to be opened.
  Part of me is glad that we are starting on Kelly's home.  It is far easier to tell someone else to get rid of something.  I don't have the history.  I don't know what piece of furniture was given by a friend or relative, what may have special memories or what can never be replaced because it just isn't made any longer.
  I wonder what will happen when we get to New Mexico and Kelly thinks we can sell this piece of furniture or that piece of artwork.  I do have all the memories of where we bought things or which ones were gifts.  After my first wife died, I gave away things to the people I thought would appreciate them.  Many were things that had associations for Laura, but not for me.  How different will it be when it is an item that has memories for me, but not for Kelly.

Creating a New Life and a New Blog

In November 2014 Kelly and Paul got married. Before we ever knew each other, we both had been considering downsizing our homes and moving. Kelly and I corresponded by email and phone, met, and got married, yes in that order. Now we have twice the stuff to downsize. We have two homes, three cars, two motorcycles, abundant kitchen dishes, glasses, and appliances. We are also book lovers and have libraries to downsize. We are now at Kelly's home and working to downsize and sell her home. We hope to document the process and also discuss books and travel. Kelly has many food intolerences, so she will write about her challenges to alter recipes and finding restaurants that will work with her.