Your Escape Blueprint

One of the ways of selling your unwanted items is to hold a yard, estate or moving sale. We held a “Frickin Huge Moving Sale!”  That’s exactly how we worded the advertisements which were placed on Kijiji, Craigslist and in our local paper. It certainly got people’s attention.

Fun, chaos & frustration in equal measures

It was a huge success, although not without its trials and tribulations. It was also a good learning experience.

You may find like us that it is not worth paying advertise in the local paper. The real action is on the online sites which are FREE! Most areas have a Craiglist and it is very easy to post your item, garage sale or event.

We have a couple of tips based on our own experiences.

Seriously consider whether to include any phone numbers on your advertisements,  you may be bombarded with calls from “people” who just happen to be looking for bikes, stereo equipment, custom jewellery etc. Replace “people” with dealers who want to get a head start on their competitors.

A solution that worked well for us was to include a cell phone number and then record a message giving directions and ending with how much interest we have had. Then turn it off until after the sale.

If you have time we recommend you sort and price all your for sale items (this was really helpful for our lovely assistants Jane & Albert).

Be refreshed and alert as you will have a early start! The “Early Birds” will see to that!

Despite our scheduled start time of 9 am we were interrupted during set up by more than one friendly, smiling soul who just happened to be in the neighbourhood and would we happen to have a…………………… ? As their niece, nephew, wife, husband needed one!

Dealing with these intrusions put us way behind with getting our stuff out and displayed! We advertised a later sale with NO EARLY BIRDS! and roped off the driveway, which was a more successful deterrent.

We have no problem with people making a little profit from their efforts and our stuff! However, some of the tactics are downright insulting,  “Oh! This is all I have left” as they toss a handful of small change into your palm instead of the measly $2 you had agreed to! Or the “will you take $5 for a item priced at $15” which is of course already deeply discounted from retail!

On the flip side it can be a lot of fun, especially if you like to barter and haggle yourself. You may like us, meet some interesting people, like the young fellow who grew up in our house years ago. One lovely lady  zeroed in on one item, paid the price without bartering and told me that she collects them and knows the real value! We were also able to help one half of an estranged married couple who had been sleeping on the sofa. One spare bed sold!

Our “Frickin Huge Moving Sale” was a great success we turned our unused items into cash and stopped “stuff” from ending up in the landfill! It’s a Win, Win for all!

Good luck with the de-cluttering and we look forward to hearing your “Moving Sales” stories.

Making the decision to go exploring, renting your house out and selling most of your belongings, is not a decision that anyone comes to lightly.

We spent many hours discussing the idea and planning what we wanted to do.

Actually, doing it and breaking out of the rat race, is a completely different ball game. It has and will stir up a plethora of emotions! Firstly, there is a sense of freedom from discarding the clutter, the stuff that has been unused for years.

There is lightness from living the simple life. I can see why religious orders choose to live with the minimum of personal belongings. It allows the mind and soul, space to simply BE.

With the clearing of excess belongings and the trappings of your daily life, you may also experience the need to get rid of emotional baggage. The hurts, angers, grievances and frustrations many of us carry around for years.

After a morning purging my closet, I had the urge to clean up old sour relationships. I wanted to clear out some of my emotional garbage along with the physical.

Speaking to people that you have not spoken with for years–due to disagreements and misunderstandings–can be daunting and rewarding. You will probably find, as did I, that some will be pleasantly surprised and receptive and some will still not be speaking to you. The majority eagerly took the olive branch held out to them.

What I got out of it and what you will too is the knowledge that there are always possibilities.  That slammed door on what was once a warm relationship can open once again!

You never know there may even be a welcoming smile on the other side!

We found that de-cluttering and downsizing is liberating for the mind as well as the body, maybe you will too. We would love to hear about your own de-cluttering experiences.

Cleaning out the closet of the mind!

Wow! The accumulations of 17 years are disappearing, it has seemed a daunting task, as the more cupboards I cleaned the more STUFF I found!

Selling off furniture and belongings is not as hard as we had expected. Either physically or emotionally, for instance a dining room set sold within an hour of posting it on Craigslist. Other items took longer but were all sold for a reasonable price, including some pieces to our renters.

Emotionally it is a little tougher, the little voice in my head was saying “You should have asked for more!” I choose to ignore it, the reality is that I bought that table and chairs at a clearance store and got a $100 discount because they put a ding in while delivering it! I sold the set for more than I actually paid for it!

It can be tough to sell your beloved possessions for a fraction of what you paid for them. I found it easier if I remembered that they were now second hand and that I did not need them anymore, if I kept them, they would cost me a lot more in storage fees.

The upcoming Moving Sale may be a little different as the dealers will be out in force! They want your treasures all right but at bargain basement prices! This is where a sense of humor and an iron will is going to come in very useful. I would rather give my belongings to friends and relatives than sell it for pennies to the dealers. Watch out for the dealer stories to follow!

“We’re not looking to be the bargain basement provider!” ~ Sky Dayton

We have a love, hate, affair with our banks……… coming from England I was used to paying no fees and getting interest on my money. Good interest too, yeah I know it is a thing of the past, but hey the interest rate on my mortgage was around 14% at one time.

This is probably why we have been using a credit union for years!!! No fees, you earn a little interest on your money and have a really cool online feature where you can set up multiple sub accounts, for things like savings, big annual expenses such as property tax etc. and of course the 10% that you always pay yourself first right?  If it wasn’t for what we learnt about managing our money, we would maybe not be heading off on this great adventure!

Reality is that when you are planning on being an itinerant wanderer you have to have a bank and a banking system that fills your needs. Our credit union was not able to help with mitigating those crippling ATM fees or even being able to transfer money from bank to bank.

Neither of us were impressed when we went in to discuss our needs recently, despite advance warning of the questions we had, we watched one “account expert” scrabble through the brochure looking for the explanation of a “feature” in the account he was promoting as best for us. As Queen Victoria would say “We are not amused”……………..

Back to the drawing board for us! What do we need and where do we find it without paying crippling banking fees and charges?????

Mike drew up a flow chart of our accounts as they stand right now (he must be a Engineer or something!), it was very helpful to see what we have and easier to see how we might best link them.

Along with extensive internet research and some crazy telephone calls, some answers started to emerge. Note: do not believe everything some operative on the end of the line tells you!!!!! One representative of a major bank told me that I could set up my credit union as a payee…… then I would be able to “pay” them just as I would a phone bill!! #$%&$%!

Some friends steered us to their bank as they have a reputation for being “International”  let’s see if you can figure out who they are. They do have branches worldwide and are even affiliated with other banks, if we use their ATMs …zero fees, however no email transfers and you need to have at least a $25,000 minimum balance or $100,000 of business in place with them to qualify for free banking.  The representative was knowledgeable, friendly and very keen to sell us some mutual funds to take care of that minimum investment. If your guessed HSBC, you are correct.

Bank # 2 was CIBC who we do already have some business with. Their representative was  friendly, helpful and they are affiliated with one other country for banking purposes……. downside – to transfer bank to bank in person no problem, only way to do by distance is a “E” transfer…… one slight problem, maximum amount you can transfer is $1,000 per day, which they charge $1.50 for. Hmmm!!!

Bank # 3 was Scotiabank. Again they were friendly, kind of helpful…. they didn’t seem too sure about some things. On the plus side they are affiliated with two other big banks and the minimum balance for “free” banking was only $1,000.

Bank # 4 was TD Canada Trust who we already had some dealings with. They were friendly, knowledgeable and  very helpful. In fact once our lovely account expert knew what we wanted she steered us to a fee free account, no ATM charges other than what is charged by those foreign banks and the offer of free E transfers. Minimum balance required $5,000, included in the account is a free safety deposit box and a travel rewards credit card with a normal annual fee of $120, card and secondary card included for free.

Which did we choose?  TD Canada Trust mainly due to the willingness to provide what we needed, in fact they went out of their way to make sure we could get the services we needed. Our lovely account manager has even volunteered to be available via email to assist us as we need it! What a bonus, a lovely helpful lady and bank just an email away.

The love, hate relationship is taking a turn for the better………….

We had our first viewing! That is the first time we let potential renters into our home. It was not as bad as expected, although the preceding few days have been!

We met with our property manager Wayne last week, signed all the paperwork took some photos etc. His next step was to post our house as available on his website and Craig’s list and Kijiji. Yep! Even the folks who do this full time use those sites……. its free and easily accessible by potential renters. The only downside if any, is that your home address is posted with the rest of your details, this allows people to check out the area before they come to view. Makes sense right?

What we didn’t expect is that some of these people, who drive by, see that someone is home and come knocking on the door asking to see inside! We turned them away with a request to call our property manager. Wayne had already filled us in on his vetting process and part of it is how people react when they arrive to view a place. Do they take their shoes off without being prompted? Are they polite? etc.

I was really surprised at how perturbed I was by this….. it was then that I noticed that we were having a few people slowly drive by, turn around and do another drive by…… just like people do when a house is for sale (after all we did when we bought this place). Difference is there is no sign on the lawn and these people are not buying they are renting your space.

I have sold homes before; the last was in the UK after the breakdown of my first marriage. That was a traumatic time of course mainly due to the separation, however selling the house and walking away from the place that had been my home for the last 5 years was emotionally easy.

The thought of letting someone else live in my home, while I still own it is actually rather perturbing! It is not just me either, we have both been going through some ”mindfrick”  over this, causing sleepless nights and yes some irritability. Perfectly normal after all we are going through some major perturbation here.  Every time we have gone through this perturbation before we have survived and thrived! Thanks to some of the things we learned at various Peak Potentials  courses we know that intense pressure can cause irrevocable changes- after all a simple lump of coal can become a priceless diamond if enough pressure is applied.

Here’s to the positive changes that pressure brings!

I am not sure how much you have collected, I do know that 11 years in one house has led to a substantial collection………. do I really need a punch bowl, stacks of wicker baskets and 3 full bookcases?

No and it is time for them to go! I have already sold off some of the stuff we had floating around using our local Craigs list, its cheap aka Free and easy to do. For better responses use attention getting headlines and don’t forget to include what benefits they will get from having your……….. having a photograph really helps too. Use a good quality photograph you can take your own or use a photo pulled from the manufacturer’s site. While you’re there check to see how much the item sells for at retail cost. However don’t expect to sell it for that, realistically to get half price you will be lucky, a third is probably more realistic. It just depends on who is looking for that item at the time.

Watch out for the scammers! Do not accept Money orders and bank drafts especially when they are long distance purchases. The draft may appear to clear your bank until they try to redeem it with the issuing bank, which doesn’t exist….. you are then liable for the funds and you may have even paid for it to be shipped to the fraudster! Someone tried that with me……. be cautious.

Consider selling clothes on assignment, especially if you have good quality classic pieces. Check your area for consignment stores and pay them a visit, to see what they sell and discuss how the process works. Some stores only take seasonal items, unluckily for me a store I really like is taking only spring items, if you’re able you can wait till the fall. Unfortunately this is not going to help me at all. I kept looking and found another store that will take all seasons. Be aware though that your dearly beloved outfits may not be considered so desirable by the store owner. They know their clients and have a good idea of what will sell and after all you want it to sell don’t you?

The remainder of your excess wardrobe will always be gratefully accepted by any number of charitable organizations! Developmental Disabilities Association, Big Brother, Salvation Army local thrift stores, you can de-clutter and help a worthy cause…. how awesome is that?

“How many things I can do without!” ~ Socrates (on looking at a multitude of wares for sale)