Once we decided to live a Nomad Life, we had to get rid of our stuff. A lovely 2900 square foot house in the suburbs, filled with a lifetime of our stuff and that of our families needed emptying. From heirlooms to paper plates, each cabinet overflowed.
We thougth we’d leave the house with a bucket of money to enjoy experiences during our Nomad Life. We soon learned that no one wanted our stuff, and those who wanted our stuff didn’t want to pay what we thought it was worth.
Everyone wanted to nickel and dime us on prices.
We realized quickly that if we had to negoitate every penny on every item, we’d end up not only spending an inordinate amount of time in the disposal phase, but we’d probably divorce each other in the process.
There had to be a better way.
Below we share our three best tips to execute doing your disposal phase. These are the best ways to quickly get rid of it all, get the most money for it, and end up with one bag of trash on the way out the door.
Secret Tip #1: Start with the End in Mind
As soon as you have your departure date circled on the calendar, pack the bag(s) you’re going to take with you. All of your undies, bras, shirts, shoes, razors, deoderant, toothbrush, socks. Everything. If you feel you must buy something “for the trip,” go buy it. Pack it.
EVERYTHING ELSE you see in your house must go.
Secret Tip #2: Hire an Estate Sale Company
If you’ve got a household of stuff, hire an Estate Sale Company. You don’t have to be dead to use an organization that will come into your home, stage it, price all the items in it, and sell most everything.
Estate Sale Companies are experts in what will sell in your market and how to market the uniqueness of your items. Their reward comes in the sale, so it’s in their best interest to get top dollar for your items. We negotiated a contract where we split the proceeds 60% to us, 40% to them, and we paid the sales tax and credit card transaction fees.
Our Estate Sale Company told us to leave everything; from the half bottle of Windex to the fine art on the walls. They arrived at our house the week before the sale and staged and priced. They had a few questions about provenance, and then we left for the 3-day sale that began on a Thursday.
On Sunday when we returned, they handed us a check. It was more than we expected and probably less than if we’d sold the items ourselves. IF.
Secret Tip #3: Be Your Own Goodwill Store
After the Estate Sale, you’ll still have stuff left in your house. Junk is probably the better way to describe the leftovers. We had the broken chair, stained shirts, tents missing their poles, mismatched Tupperware, etc. You get the picture.
So instead of loading up a U-Haul to take the things to Goodwill, we had “Goodwill” come to us. We put an ad in Facebook Marketplace. This is what it said; you’re welcome to use.
The line started queuing at 10:30. At 11:45, we had staged one person on each of our three floors of the house, and we allowed ten people in at a time, starting with the teachers. They had ten minutes each.
It was a frenzy! They grabbed the trash bags laying around the house and stuffed them with whatever they could grab. Three colored pencils, a spatula, two t-shirts, spices, a pillow. We couldn’t believe how quickly people could snatch anything in their sights and jam it into whatever bags they could find.
By 1:00, there was nothing left in the house. Nothing.
I take that back. We had one bag of trash. One. Everything else was gone. And the best part? We didn’t have to rent a U-Haul to take anything to the dump nor put too much trash on the street for pick-up.
In one weekend, our posessions went to places that needed them and away from us.
We still have no regrets. And the check we deposited? It’s paid for repelling into a cenote, hiking the Camino, watching the fireworks over Sydney Harbor for New Year’s Eve, and taking a boat ride to a glacier.
How’s your disposal of your life’s things going?
~Chris
P.S. You may have items you don’t want to put in the Estate Sale. Plan ahead for getting rid of these items. Whether you want to give the items to friends or family, you want to sell them, or you want to try Facebook Marketplace, these processes take more time than you think. Create a calendar and make goals each day/week/month/year that you have.
Small goals make the big goals happen.
Or download our checklist, broken out on a timeline, for how to get rid of your stuff. Our book, Two Carry-ons and a Plan, also lists details for how to get rid of each item, from yearbooks to bed mattresses.
For more info about developing your timeline to get rid of your stuff, read this post in our website, Develop Your Timeline to Depart for Your Nomadic Lifestyle.
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That "Goodwill" you did sounds crazy!!! I can't believe went crazy for all that stuff, but, well, yes, I can!
But you've provided exactly that-- evidence that Nomad Life is attainable, one step at a time. Congrats on getting to your dreams your way.