T-Minus 169 Days: February Trip to Florida

 We are planning our February Trip to Florida! We'll be in Florida for three days. During that time, we want to walk the lot where our house will be built, go to the Design Studio to pick out everything for the house, look around the surrounding area, and visit some furniture stores to get ideas for our furniture budget.

We were on the fence about returning to Florida only 3 months after our last trip because COVID is pretty bad in both Florida and New York. Also, the two week quarantine that is required when we return to New York is very harsh. But the timing is right to get off from work, and we found an incredible discount on airline tickets.

My wife has been pouring over AirBNB to find a place for us to rent. The place we rented in November was good but it isn't available for our February dates.

We will be moving to Florida in July but our house won't be ready until sometime in August. Therefore we will need to rent a place for four to eight weeks. This trip will give us a chance to confirm a few short term rental communities we might want to live at during the Summer of 2021. 

We are excited to be making these plans and look forward to our upcoming trip!

T-Minus 170 Days: Going To Prison

 We are very excited to be building a house with KB Homes at the Reserve at Lake Ridge in Minneola. We used Google Maps and looked around the area. There is a winery nearby, a gym, McDonalds, CVS, and many other items in this mostly rural farmland area.

While looking at some areal shots, I noticed a water tower in the distance.

A few weeks passed by and I decided to use Google Earth to check out the water tower and see what was around it. To my shock.... it was a water tower for a prison!

This community is only a mile or two away from a prison! It is the Lake Correctional Institute. 

I was immediately concerned and turned to several Minneola groups on Facebook to ask them about this. Everyone said there was nothing to be concerned about. I even heard from several people who live closer to the prison than I will and they said it was fine - nothing to worry about. I asked my agent about property values and she said it shouldn't be a problem in most cases, but there are always some people who have various preferences that influence their decisions.

My wife and I thought over whether or not we were comfortable being this close to a prison. We weighed what our agent said and all the input from those living in the community and we decided to accept the location. We will continue with the process of building our house at KB's Reserve at Lake Ridge.

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 174 Days: House Selection Compromises

This video will review 12 of the compromises we have made.

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

 Why is it taking so long to purge our basement?

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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.

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