OUR ROAD TO FULLTIMING
October 2, 2000: SIX WEEKS TO GO!!!
Over the last two weeks or so, we have found that things are coming together and rolling smoothly ahead. On the "house in escrow" front, our buyers have a buyer for their home, and the closing of escrows has been coordinated for November 15. Ron's retirement is set for November 1, so his last day at the office will be October 31. With these two dates confirmed (and hopefully with no complications), we proceeded with our next important step---ordering our fifth wheel!!!
Over a year ago, after going the Pomona RV Show, we decided that our fulltiming rig would be a Travel Supreme fifth wheel, pulled with medium duty truck. Our friends, Sue Ann and Ed Miller, in Louisiana, first told us about Travel Supreme, after visiting the factory and a local dealer in Elkhart, Indiana. I have been in contact via email and phone with this same dealer for the last seven months. After numerous conversations about what options and customizations that we wanted, this past week, we placed our order, and in approximately six weeks, our "new home" will be off the assembly line. We will be taking our present trailer, a SunnyBrook 30FKGT travel trailer, back to Indiana as a trade-in. Now, picture this: a medium duty truck pulling an itty-bitty tagalong!!!! I think that we will need a sign on the back saying "I want to be a Travel Supreme when I grow up!!!" or something along those lines. If anyone has another suggestion, please email me. (By the way, there will be pictures on the website before we leave!!!) More on the actual delivery date and our trip later....
With respect to packing up our "stuff", I have found that making an inventory of each room of our house has been invaluable in figuring out "what to do with what"!!!! In an MS Excel workbook, I made a worksheet for each room with subcategories of Furniture, Pictures, and Other, listing everything in that particular room. Within each category, across the category, I put in these columns as follows:The sheets are in each of the rooms, and as I go through each room, gathering items, putting them in the respective boxes, sealing up the boxes, and moving them to the garage for transport to the storage locker, I cross each item off the list. We are making slow, but steady, progress, but there is still much more to pack!!!!
- SELL--items that we will sell at an estate sale
- 5ER--items that we will take with us to transfer to the 5er
- 5ER STORE--items that we will store temporarily
- STORE--items that we can't part with, but can't take with us
- GIVE--items to give to family members
This past weekend, we finally really "weeded" out the garage and an overheard storage area in it, that I call the "mezzanine". With all that "stuff" added to the "stuff" that was already accumulated, at least half of the 2-car garage now contains the next garage sale. Hopefully, October 14 will be the last one of those!! Now, in the other half of this garage, boxes have been piling up and various other "stuff" has been moved there, to ultimately go into storage. We were running out of room, so we decided to rent the storage space NOW, rather than waiting until the last minute, and subsequently moved the majority of these boxes there yesterday. One more step accomplished....
This week, I have an appointment with a lady that handles estate sales. I'm hoping to learn more about how they are handled and what to expect. I am also planning to finally go through all the kitchen cupboards and drawers to sort out everything that we don't need and add it to the "garage sale stuff". More on this later....
November 1, 1999 THE BEGINNING January 25, 2000 THE DOWNSIZING BEGINS February 6, 2000 RECEIPTS AND TAX RETURNS March 12, 2000 THE FIRST "DENT" April 27, 2000 DUMPSTERS, DOCTORS, AND TRUCKS May 24, 2000 OUR TRUCK DECISION July 2, 2000 BITS AND PIECES July 21, 2000 MEDICAL CONCERNS July 27, 2000 STEPS TO A FULLTIMING BUDGET August 8, 2000 OUR TRUCK DELIVERY SAGA September 15, 2000 AN UPDATE ON OUR PROGRESS October 15, 2000 MORE HURDLES CONQUERED November 14, 2000 ALMOST THERE!!! December 21, 2000 ELKHART.....FINALLY!!! December 21, 2000 LET THE COMEDY BEGIN!!!