Where do you start when you are getting rid of everything?

So it has now been only 19 days since my husband and I made the final decision to move to New Mexico.  I mean we had wanted to relocate some day in the next year or two, and we had visited Albuquerque a couple of times and realized that was where we wanted to live one day...it just seemed a little farther off that this when we would talk about our dreams and plans.  

What happened recently to speed up this plan was really a couple of unexpected events that seemed to just open this door of opportunity.  After 10 years at the same company my husband Chris was actually laid off in January and though he had updated the resume, posted it on all the right sites, met with the right person at the local Career Link and applied at dozens of locations (adding weekly to the number of apps he applied) still it didn't seem like a job was coming his way.  We had talked about opening a new business but as we got closer to actually doing this it didn't really feel like the time was right, then, our son and his children moved out of our house.  For the first time in a our lives together Chris and I were alone.   

We felt like there was something we needed to face; right now was probably the best time to do something big, and this was only a window of time that would eventually close.  What were we going to do?  It seemed to come easy to decide that we were going to take the plunge and move across the US and relocate to New Mexico.

We went through discussing several scenarios of how we could do this.  I think now how quickly we ruled out the ideas that we didn't like and how quickly we narrowed things down to a pretty clear plan of action. We were going to sell most of what we owned, sell our home, get rid of our current vehicles and obtain a more practical one and say good bye to PA and head on out.  

Options we axed were things like:

• keeping all of our belongings here in PA in a storage unit or container while we went out and sought our home...
• driving out in a big truck with most of our stuff, towing a car on back and camping as we traveled across states till we got to New Mexico and found our home...
• buying an RV and slimming down to absolute necessities and planning on driving it out and living in it for the first 6 months to a year before settling somewhere...
• packing everything into a container (selling what doesn't fit as well as our vehicles) and flying out to NM, getting a place to rent and a car when we got there and then sending for our stuff.

There were other details that as we would think of them we would easily nix them and move on.  It seemed easy to hone down to this plan with precision and detail...

So-

1. We are selling almost all we own through yard sales, internet and private sales
2. We are freshening up our house (even traded a paint job to the exterior for paint supplies and equipment)inside and out and then we will sell it
3. We are going to take our bed and a few other items that will fit in the smallest rental truck or van option and tow a small car behind
4. We are getting rid of our minivan and his truck to get this smaller more practical car 
5. We are going to be here to see grandchild number 6 born and get a time with our kiddos & grandkids, then...
6. We are mapping out a plan to drive out and take about 4 days to enjoy our trip out.

When we get to NM we know of housing options for fully furnished rentals that you pay month to month, we will grab one to explore for a month and decide if we will rent for a year first or find a place to buy right away...in the meantime we will put out the job applications and find employment but with the lower cost of living and the opportunities we already know of out there we feel this will be a matter of deciding what we want in relation to where we want to live...I will write more about the financial process involved so far and in our plans because I am amazed how things are working out, but that is for the next post!

Our first yard sale was reeeaally successful, we will have to have at least 1-2 more but we did see a lot of items find their new home and money find it's way into our bank account ;o)

SO so far, all is fitting together and happening rather quickly.  I will continue to fill you in on details and events along the way, with the progress we have seen so far getting out to NM in July seems extremely doable!

Westward ho!!!!!