Our Story

Well, we finally took the plunge! We are nomads traveling the country in our Subaru Forester.  And, no, we absolutely do not need an RV!  We plan to camp all the way….just kidding.  Hotels here we come!  We have no home and few physical belongings to our name.  

The Covid pandemic (2020) threw a wrench in our well thought out plans putting our original start date on hold.  I retired during the fall of 2019 (pre-pandemic) to complete some of our tasks (more on that below). We continued preparing what we could and Don postponed his retirement almost a full year.   Now that things are better (2021) and we are vaccinated, we decided to go for it, while still taking the necessary precautions. For those of you wondering what planning we did to get to this point, read on….

The financial experts are so right when they say that you have to set retirement goals and then do what it takes to meet them.  We planned on an early retirement date and estimated our annual financial needs as retirees, then worked towards meeting those goals.  We still had fun before we retired, but we were mindful of extravagant purchases that would put a dent in our nest egg and delay our early retirement.  No boat purchases or wild get rich schemes for us.  We got by with one car.  I took the train to work, so Don could drive.  We only argued once when we both wanted to use the car at the same time one weekend - well, maybe more than once.  LOL!  Another big expenditure we decided to avoid was the upkeep of a home base once we retired and began traveling.  This required us to somehow get rid of almost everything we owned (more on that below)!  The proceeds from the sale of our house and the annual maintenance savings are funding our first years of retirement until social security kicks in.   As you can see, it helps to be "numbers" people, though we reached out to financial experts several times.

As our retirement date inched closer, we had two big hurdles to jump - getting rid of years and years of accumulated belongings and selling the house.  I retired before Don just to tackle these big tasks.  My full time job in the first months of retirement was getting ready for the LARGE garage sale.  It is amazing how much stuff gets stored away in closets, attics, cupboards, the garage, and several imaginative places around the house.   How much stuff can one store under the bed in the guest bedroom?!?  It was hard at first deciding what to keep and what to get rid of.  While it would be wonderful to have our treasured furniture, electronics, and closets full of clothes, not much of that would fit into our Forester.  We considered towing a trailer, so that Don could watch sports and I could watch Hallmark movies on our big screen tv in our cushy recliners.  We took one look at each other, laughed at the thought, and redoubled our efforts to divest ourselves of everything we didn't have to have.  

Our garage sale was held in early 2020, with everything priced pennies on the dollar.  All kinds of crazy people came.  Ya gotta take some humor from the garage sale because holding one is such a pain in the @*#! There was one crazy lady that wanted to negotiate the $1 price tag on a large Christmas elf with a china head (original purchase price $45). After some discussion, she decided she would pay the buck.  A few minutes later while still shopping, she dropped it on the concrete floor.  Everyone heard the crack.  After a little bit, she casually put it back on the table.  She hadn't paid for it yet.  Don and I looked at each other.  It wasn't long before she picked it up again and asked for a discount since it was broken.  Really???  After I said with an exasperated voice that we saw her drop the elf herself, she reluctantly paid the dollar along with the rest of her purchases and left.  There is a reason why the city of Dallas only lets you have one free garage sale per year - they don't want you to have that kind of fun too often!  After the sale, we dropped some remaining items off with kids, neighbors, Goodwill and, as a last resort, the front sidewalk.  Guess we have good junk, because all the stuff disappeared from the sidewalk within hours.

With most of our possessions divested, it was time to tackle the house itself.  In order to sell the house, we had to make it "sale ready".  Even though we performed regular maintenance on the house and took care of our yard, we were surprised at all of the fixes and improvements that were required to make it "show ready".  We also had to change our Harry Potter décor house to something more fitting for showings.  (See the "Our Harry Potter House" page for pictures.)  It was hard to say goodbye to our Harry Potter world as we had spent many hours designing, crafting, and creating.  Most of the decorations were given to a group that has a Harry Potter themed camp every summer for children.  We hired a house painter and wore ourselves out fixing, updating, cleaning and decluttering. 

With the pandemic worsening, we weren't sure when to sell the house.   However, we noticed that neighborhood houses were selling like hotcakes!  It seemed a seller's market, so we jumped at the chance to actually list the house.  Fortunately, we have a friend who is a home inspector.  He walked around the house informally and provided very valuable information about what we should do before listing.  Thanks George!!!  Some things were minor cosmetic fixes, but a few things were critical tasks that would cause the house not to pass inspection.  So, we were back to wearing ourselves out fixing….. And hiring an electrician.  With that done, we selected a few realtors to assess our house.  Each one arrived at a wildly different selling price from the others.  Lesson learned - make sure the realtors know your neighborhood and the type of market.  We chose the best one from the three.  Within 48 hours after we listed the house, we had four offers at or above the asking price.  Fortunately, the buyers took our remaining furniture so no worries about getting rid of it quickly during the pandemic.

House free and Don still working, we had to quickly find somewhere to live.  Under a bridge was not an option!  We found an extended stay hotel near Don's office and moved ourselves and belongings there.  What a mistake - the dishwasher leaked and the smell in the room was horrific.  We opened the windows for fresh air….however, in less than 12 hours our belongings smelled like old smelly food. We were moved to another room with similar issues and someone smoking weed nearby.  Needless to say, we moved out of that hotel very quickly.  The second extended stay hotel has been much better, though we have learned that there are all kinds of people that stay at hotels.  We never really noticed before because we didn't stay long enough in any one of them to really see what takes place.  Lesson learned is to go with the flow and turn a blind eye to some of the craziness!

Which brings us up-to-date with our happenings, except for the facts that Don has retired, we've been vaccinated, and the states are opening to travelers.  Our journey begins………….. We will miss our home having lived in it for many years and we will especially miss our friends with whom we have laughed, lived, worked, and taken many an adventure.  You mean the world to us and we will never forget you.  Our plan is to return to Dallas at least twice per year in April and October.  Perhaps we can meet again.  Stay tuned to our blog.