by Hope
We are just over a month away from moving. It’s time to purge.
TVs…listed on our local ‘garage sale’ sites.
Books…sorted and boxed for storage, give away or sale at homeschool sale in May.
Computers…restored to factory settings and listed for sale.
And the list goes on.
I don’t know what is coming for us…but it’s been amazing to me how easy it’s been this time around to purge so much of the stuff that we felt was so important to us just a year and a half ago when we went through our first purge to go from 1800 square feet to 900 square feet. Now as we go from 900 square feet to what about 300…it’s okay and I’m excited to see what’s next.
Financially speaking I am about $1500 behind on bills. I’m hoping this purge will bring me closer to having a $0 late status by the first week of May, my first month with no rent or utility bills.
Hope is a creative, solutions-focused business manager helping clients grow their business and work more efficiently by leveraging expertise in project management, digital marketing, & tech solutions. She’s recently become an empty nester as her 5 foster/adoptive kids have spread their wings. She lives with her 5 dogs in a small town in NE Georgia and prefers the mountains to the beaches any day. She struggles with the travel bug and is doing her best to help each of her kids as their finish schooling and become independent (but it’s hard!) She has run her own consulting company for almost twenty years! Hope began sharing her journey with the BAD community in the Spring of 2015 and feels like she has finally in a place to really focus on making wise financial decisions.
It seems like once you start to pare things down it just becomes easier and easier to pare them even more. We have 3 children under 4 and are going to relocate 1800 miles. It just isn’t worth the cost to move all the stuff we have accumulated, but the very thought of trying to purge makes me want to cry. I also have no idea how to explain to a 4 year old that he just can’t keep it. He has a melt down if there is a crayon missing.
Hi Taira,
I have certainly been there with the little ones. It helped mine to have some control. So I bought a big plastic tub and we decorated the outside of it with Sharpie’s and their names, and then I told them they got to choose what went in it. That way it would be safe as we moved across the country. I did that early in the packing process, so that we could slowly purge the other stuff, either to friends or garage sale. And then at the end, they each got to pack a “back pack” for the trip so they got to pick their every day favorites for that. There were definitely meltdown moments, but now looking back they don’t mind and they still have those tubs which are now called “memory boxes” for keeping their fav stuff that they may not play with anymore but do want to keep.
300 square feet for 5 people?
Yes, the RV sleeps 10 and I’m guesstimating on the actual square footage. There’s a ‘room’ with bunks and a double where the boys will sleep, a ‘room’ with a double and a couch that folds out which Princess and I will use.
We will leave the booth as a booth for school work, working and snacks, but will primarily use the full kitchen and conference table and bathrooms in the mobile home/office next to the RV. Barring bad weather, it seems like it will be a pretty good set up.