T-Minus 157 days: Purging, Selling, Donating

 Video Link (40 seconds): https://youtu.be/xUcwuICsK1A

T-Minus 163 Days: Purging The Gym (and other updates)

We continue to work in the basement cleaning stuff out. It is amazing how much stuff a basement holds! As we free up space, we bring down items from the other two floors (although, honestly, not that much has come down). 

If you saw the basement tour, you saw what the gym looked like before. And here is it after pictures. Much of the stuff has sold, I fixed the ceiling, did some painting, and rearranged the floor mats. 

I went back through books I had previously purged and found another bag full to donate. We went through my shop and pulled out two or three garbage bags of stuff. Our garbage collectors limit how much garbage they'll take each week, so, we have to stage it to make sure we don't go over the allowable amount. 

My youngest son is in school to be a carpenter. He and I returned to the basement office and did some much needed work on that DIY project. We framed in the basement window, completed the shelfing backboards, and drywalled a portion of the ceiling that didn't get completed when the room was originally constructed.

Marketplace has been busy, slowly chipping away at the pile of stuff we have to sell. We are hoping for a huge yard sale in the spring to get rid of a lot of stuff that won't sell on Marketplace. In the end I believe we will be lining the street with tons of free stuff and trash.

While this is happening, I'm thinking about my Florida Job. I work from home and my job is going to keep the bills paid through November 2021. I would like to find my next job in July. In preparation, I have completed two Scrum certifications and an ITIL certification. I just started a cloud security certification. The training for the cloud certification is not difficult, but it is time consuming (there are many labs) and will probably take 120 hours of technical training. That will eat into my purging time, but, it is all about finding a balance. 

T-Minus 173 Days: Almost Ready To Quit Facebook Marketplace

 Facebook Marketplace has turned into a lot of work. I'll often have three to five things selling per day. I'll get anywhere from five to ten contacts per day asking question. I have a lot of people who will negotiate a price and then back out. I have even more people who will agree to do a pickup and then never show up. When they don't show up, I am left trying to contact them multiple times to figure out what is going on. Recently, I have started shipping items, which brings an entirely new dimension. Everyday, I am posting products, updating prices, and renewing products. Few of the items being sold are over $5.

I am busy. I have a full time job and many things going on. Facebook Marketplace is a huge distraction! 

I have sold several hundred items and made thousands of dollars. Because of that, I will keep going. But there are days where I'm ready to just quit!

One such day happened today. Someone agreed to buy a book and was going to arrive in an hour. I spent that hour looking everywhere for that book! It wasn't in the Marketplace Street in Tub City. It wasn't at the Photo Studio. It wasn't at the Marketplace Staging Area. I finally found it in a misplaced tote in Tub City. I spent an hour looking almost everywhere for a $5 book. 

Hopefully it becomes less crazy, but I suspect it won't because we need to ramp up Marketplace selling as we march closer to move day.

T-Minus 176 Days: Tour Of The Basement Purge Project

 Why is it taking so long to purge our basement?

Video Link

T-Minus 177 days: Another Weekend of Purging

 Whether using PODS or a moving truck, moving items to Florida is expensive. The best approach is to only take to Florida what you really need. Under that theme, we had another weekend filled with purging. We have so much trash that we have to stage putting it out for collection because we can only put out a limited amount each week. And our Market Place is huge. Most groups on Marketplace only want you posting 3 to 5 items per day, but, I have so much that I have been breaking the rules and getting kicked out of some of the groups as a result. Best of all: we have emptied many totes and Tub City is getting lighter and lighter.

My wife and I got married almost 30 years ago and you wouldn't believe all the stuff that we kept from that day. Catalogues from dress shopping, catering notes, wedding cards, and more. I took all of the bridal shower and wedding cards and took pictures of them, then uploaded the pictures to our google drive. That allowed us to keep the pictured digitally and then throw away the physical cards. 

I have a room in the basement that used to be my office. It was then taken over by my youngest son, who is studying to be a carpenter, to use the room as a workshop. We have to get the house ready to sell, so, this became our first room to get "Broom Swept Clean."

BEFORE:

JUST STARTED

PART WAY DONE

ALMOST DONE

FINISHED

My wife also went through many of her items from high school and got rid of most of it. Out of sight, out of mind. Those high school items were stored away in Tub City and forgotten about. 

I put some baseball cards on Marketplace. I researched the selling prices on Ebay, and marked them for sale. Within an hour, someone jumped on them and said they wanted them. But the next morning, he said 'they are worth a lot more and I don't feel right ripping you off.' He was lying. They aren't worth more, he just wanted to get out of having to buy them after he committed to. In fact, most people are interested in buying my baseball cards and then turning around and selling them for the price I have listed - thus, they only want to pay half of what I have listed so they can make a profit. That was today's disappointment. So, I'm going to keep them at the price I want, and then lower the price every month until the cards sell. 

I like to hit the After Christmas Sales every year and stock up on new lights for next year's Christmas. If you hit the sales right, you can usually get a box of lights for under a dollar. Instead of untangling old sets of partially working Christmas lights every year, I use brand new ones. As a result, I have a significant stock of new Christmas lights that I sold on Facebook Marketplace for $1 per box. I probably didn't make much money on the sale, but the lights are now out of my house and has freed up two totes.

Most of the weights from the gym are sold too. There is still some gym equipment, but that is going to be a lot harder to get out of the gym and sell because they are big and heavy. 

We continue pushing forward in this monumental chore. We have only 177 days left to get it all done!

T-Minus 178 Days: Facebook Market Place

 I have sold nearly 200 items on Facebook Marketplace using something called a "Porch Pickup". In this video, I explain how the porch pickup works.

Video Link

T-Minus 179 Days: Good Progress

 Some great progress was made in several areas. First, we wired our deposit to KB Homes and signed the Intent To Purchase. We will be building the Plan 3016 at Lake Ridge in Minneola. Next step: by mid-January, we will select our lot and sign the building contract. 

In other news, my parents live in an in-law apartment attached to our New York home. We offered to take them to Florida with us, but they want to stay in New York. After many many months of searching, they found a place that meets their needs and agreed with them on an open apartment. 

We continue to purge and sell items on Facebook Marketplace. We have a gym in our house and I've sold some items from there. I organized some sports cards to sell, a guy agreed to buy them, and then he contacted me and said the cards are worth 5 times what I am selling them for and he wouldn't feel right buying them. He agreed to give me the names of a few people who would give me a fair price. And then he never provided those names. So... was he just trying to back out of the purchase? Or is he right? I don't know.

Moving to Florida is very expensive. I have a goal for how much I want to contribute toward that expense by selling our stuff. Here is the progress: we are 50% of the way there!

 As we close out 2020, we are happy to report this great progress!

T-Minus 182 Days: Back To Purging

 We are back to purging!

Video Link

T-Minus 258 Days: Purging Halloween

 We pulled out the Halloween decorations to decorate the house for the last time. I have decorated this house for Halloween 17 times, and this is the last time. I would like to say I'm sentimental about this, but I'm not. Either it really hasn't hit me, or, I think about how happy I will be in Florida instead of dwelling on these final moments.

We decided that any decorations we didn't use we would sell immediately so that others could decorate their house this year. The best time to sell Halloween items is before Halloween, not after. 

This presented some difficult decisions. We have these large ceramic pumpkins that I love to decorate with, but they will never survive a trip to Florida without breaking. If I decorate with them this year it means I won't be able to sell them. But if I sell them instead of decorate with them? I could maximize the amount of money I could make.

In the end, I decided to decorate with them. Other decorations? Went to the Facebook Marketplace and sold quickly.

I think we have kept nearly every Halloween costume our kids have ever warn. We have a Halloween Costumes tote in Tub City with two dozen outfits. 

Perhaps I can sell the costumes BEFORE Halloween (because for certain, no one is likely to buy them AFTER Halloween). Costumes that I paid $30-$40 and were warn for a few hours on one night are now sadly for sale for only $5. 

I listed the Halloween items on Maketplace three weeks before Halloween. Perhaps I should have done it sooner? I'm not sure. But one thing is for sure: I am going to get the other holiday stuff posted four weeks before the holiday. 

Also... I'm considering posting the items I decorate with, but put a really good price on it. If someone wants to buy it? I'll take the decoration down, put it in a bag, and sell it. That's a difficult decision, but, maybe I should just do it.

One item I decorate with is Spiders: giant spiders and huge spiders all over the house. I have thought about taking these with me to Florida. However, according to the stories I have heard, the real spiders in Florida are larger, so, I probably don't need them.

T-Minus 268 Days: Tub City Update

 Our purging effort is chipping away at Tub City.

65 Empty totes

25 Holiday Totes

12 Marketplace Totes

15 Packed and ready for move

133 Totes yet to go!

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250 Totes total

T-Minus 278 Days: All Of Our Possessions

 Today's Video: https://youtu.be/J_onNg4HJ_w

T-Minus 288 Days: Housing for In Laws

 Our house has an inlaw apartment with.... inlaws, of course. And they don't want to move to Florida. Therefore, as part of our move to Florida we need to find them some place to live. They asked if we could simply sell the house with an inlaw apartment that comes with inlaws already populating the apartment and the answer was "no". People buy a house with an inlaw apartment because they have inlaws they need to take care of, not because they want to take care of someone else's inlaws!

Our plan is to get the inlaws settled in their new home in February. Put the house on the market in April. And be gone in June. We can't replace carpets and do repairs while we moving them, so, they need to be all settled. In addition, we don't know how the house selling will go. We might have to rent an apartment for a while if there is a gap between selling the old house and moving into the Florida house. It is all going to just work out better to have them happily settled in their new home away from the chaos of us trying to move.

My wife and I have been researching various options, but the inlaws have only recently became interested in the topic. I think they were hoping the move wouldn't happen and they would be able to stay.

This past weekend we went over their finances, discussed options, and made a plan. Then we traveled several hours to tour a 55+ apartment they might be interested in. The tour lasted two hours as the office manager tried to pressure us into moving in five months early - not happening! 

We will continue to look at other facilities in the coming weeks. Most of the facilities have long wait lists so we want to find something and get our name on a list by November.

There is a lot to think about: moving closer to family means they need to find new doctors. They like their doctors. And they like the area we live in. But staying in this area will be expensive and too far away from family. There is one family member 30 minutes away, but, he can't do it all. That means some difficult decisions will need to be made.

T-Minus 302 Days: August Yard Sale

 The August yard sale was no where near the success of the July yard sale... and the July yard sale wasn't all that successful. We were open Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. On Friday we barely broke $80. Saturday was a wash due to rain. On the last day, we drop the price 50% and try to just get rid of stuff. We ended the sale at $220 - almost a quarter of July's sale.

Sunday is the most fun because that is when we just give stuff away. Friday and Saturday are for making money, Sunday is for getting rid of stuff so we don't have to store it. We gave kids bags to fill with free books and free toys. We took 50% off everything and then rounded it down. If anyone looked at something and then passed it by? We told them to just take it. Linda gave away an entire tote of maternity clothes at the end of the day. One family had two little girls and they each got a bag to fill with whatever they wanted.

At 7pm Sunday we were still giving things away. We pulled the remaining items into the garage, closed the door, and will deal with it on Monday. Do we donate it? Or do we store it for the spring-time yard sale? Difficult decisions will have to be made.

We don't like donating to the Salvation Army and Good Will. They put the items in their stores for a few weeks to sell. If they don't sell, they rip up the clothes into rags. This is our cherished children's clothes that we have cared for two decades - we don't want them ripped into rags! We would rather give them directly to a family that needs them. Therefore we have never favored donating very much to them.

While we didn't do a great job helping our move budget, we did a good job at reducing our belongings. We are slowly... ever so slowly... chipping away at a house filled with belongings. 

T-Minus 310 Days: Packing The Rooms

Several weeks ago I created a schedule for packing every room/location in the house. According to the schedule, if we packed one room/location per week (got it completely ready to load onto a moving truck) we would have just ten weeks to spare! That isn’t a lot of time.

I decided to get a jump start and do the easiest room in the house myself: the basement storage room. This storage room is filled with (mostly) my stuff. Everything is placed into neat uniformed boxes with labels, and all the boxes are in alphabetical order. I need a cable strap? Those are under “C”. Need a power cord? Those are under “P”.  

I thought this would be easy: I would just throw away stuff, put it in the yard sale, or sell it online. What I discovered is shelves hold a lot of stuff! By my second day, the room looked nothing like I thought it would. I thought it would be all empty and swept clean. There was just so much stuff in that room... I still am not done.

Another room in the basement was once the kid’s toy room. When the kids became older and stopped using it, I turned it into a man cave. That made my boys say “this would be a perfect room for playing video games” and they took it over. Then the room became the staging room for the Facebook Market Place sales: the room that we cleaned things up, took pictures, and stored until the item sold. My wife thought: let’s pack up that room. After 8 hours of dusting and cleaning and sorting, throwing away three garbage bags, and getting stuff ready to sell? The  isn’t “move out” ready yet, but it went from looking like a bomb went off in the room to something much nicer.

Packing a full house is a ton of work! I am not sure we can do one area every week!

T-Minus 322 days: We have a lot to pack!

 We have 46 weeks left before we move. I thought it might be fun to ask "If we pack one room per week, could we get it all done?" I identified 35 areas of our house that need to be packed: garage, storage room, pantry, kitchen, hall closet, kids rooms, the kids closets, etc etc. If we pack one area per week we will only have 10 weeks to spare!

After identifying the 36 areas of our house, the next thing I did was list the rooms and then select the one room I thought should be done absolutely last. That was: The essential kitchen items. We have to eat and we have to cook. We don't need to have everything that is in our kitchen available right up to the last moments, but we do need some basic items. So, the essential kitchen items went into June 2021 to be packed last.

Then, I looked at the list again and pick the next item that should be last. Of course, that was the master bedroom. Sure, there might be some things we can pack along the way. But when I say "packed" I mean it is ready for someone to walk into the room, grab the items, and put them on a truck. My bedroom is going to be the last for that! So, the week before the kitchen gets done, we'll do the master bedroom.

I repeated this process, putting each location in order. The kitchen and bedrooms will be done last. The garage and the rooms in the basement will get done first. Everything else fits somewhere in between.

I can't imagine we'll stick to this schedule. But what this exercise showed how much work we have yet to do, and there really isn't a lot of time to waste. We work all week and have a lot of things going on - finding time every week to complete packing one area is going to be difficult. But that is pretty much the pace we'll need.

As I already mentioned, packing isn't just purging and spring cleaning. It is getting the area ready to be loaded onto a moving truck when the time comes. That means (in addition to purging and cleaning) boxing things, labeling items so we know where they are going, etc. It also means that for a while we might be living out of boxes for some of our non-essential items. But there is no way we can wait until the end and do all this work within a few weeks.

T-Minus 330 Days: Cleaning Totes

If you read this blog enough, you know we have around 250 totes. Most of the totes are stored in our basement in an area known as "Tub City" (see Tub City Tour).  Everything is carefully organized and inventoried. Tub City even has street names! Getting ready for Christmas? Grab the Red Totes on North Ave. Going camping? Get the Green Totes on West Ave. 

A significant portion of our purge effort has been to attack Tub City. As we clean out portions of Tub City, it makes room for other items from around the house to come to Tub City. We stage things in Tub City as we get ready to sell it on Market Place or the next yard sale. Several dozen tubs went to empty my mother's antiques at the antique store (which are now in the garage portion of Tub City).

I would like to report that we are whittling down Tub City - that it is getting smaller and smaller. I suppose it is, but it doesn't feel like it. North Ave has been cut in half, West Second Street is empty, and the Sump Pump Storage Room is about half empty, but the remaining areas remain mostly populated. My wife isn't very concerned about this... but I am! In 330 days, this place needs to be empty - all the way to the walls. And we are no where near that.

We spent part of this past weekend cleaning empty totes. We want to make sure that as we fill the totes with packing for Florida, the totes are clean. We set up an assembly line: one person scrubbing, another rinsing, one drying, and one putting stuff away. It felt like we were washing the kitchen dishes!

In the end, 50 of the totes were cleaned and ready for their next purpose. 50 done, 200 left to go!

T-Minus 335 Days: Purging and Selling Update

With the weekend's yard sale, I am ready to provide an update. Our goal is to sell enough stuff to pay for the move to Florida so we don't have to use our savings. 

The cost to move to Florida is anywhere between $10K and $20K. We have settled on a goal of $12K for our move. That means we have to use yard sales, Craig's List, Facebook Marketplace, and whatever we can to sell our stuff and raise the money.

We are just about 25% of the way there!

The majority of our sales income is coming from Facebook Marketplace.

I posted 224 items on Marketplace and Craig's list (I post them in both at the same time). The majority of our items have sold on Marketplace. Just 21% of the items I have posted are still for sale.

It is clear to me that Facebook Marketplace is where I should spend most of my effort.

My approach is to post items online at a good price. If the item doesn't sell within a day or two, it is unlikely to sell. After two weeks at that price, I drop the price by 10% and renew the listing so it appears at the top of the Marketplace list again. After the initial two week wait, I switch to waiting 7 days - then drop the price and renew. Marketplace lets you renew the listing 5 or 6 times. 

When I run out of renews, the product has been online for nearly two months! Anyone who wanted to buy it would have. I pull the product and put it in the next rummage sale for liquidation. If I think it is a really good product? I'll set it aside to be tried again in a few months.

This is the strategy I am using and so far it has worked pretty good for Marketplace. It isn't working for Craig's List and I'm not sure why. Perhaps people in my region don't use Craig's List very much. Or, perhaps I'm just doing Craig's list all wrong. 

That is the purging and selling update!