Now if only it were really as easy as just sell everything and go. In our previous article about living in your RV full time we touched base about how it’s not really that easy and some of the steps you need to take to move forward with that plan.
Honestly it has been a real pain in the ass. Now it could be that maybe our stuff is just crap? However I know that after 25 years of workin my ass off, I’ve got a decent collection of cool tools, and even they weren’t selling at bargain basement yard sale prices…
Maybe it was just the wrong weekend for it. We did have some of our previously loved stuff adopted by a few new families, but we put more back into the garage than into other peoples cars.
Point of the story here? DON’T think you are going to put clothes in your RV, Have a yard sale Saturday and then hit the road Sunday. Not gonna happen. In fact, we would suggest joining a club like Escapees which brings everything you need to do into one membership. We used them and have had no complaints at all.
In fact, start having yard sales, posting things on sites like craigslist, and marketplace as soon you decide to sell it. Have a few things that you know will be easier at a yard sale? Cool, put them on one side of the garage for yard sale day. Have stuff that you know you can sell quick and for a good price? List it online so its not taking up room in the garage.
Remember, the more of the house contents you sell or give to someone else, the more you are keeping out of a landfill or having to haul to the dump.
Remember the last time you moved? That was a pain in the ass right? Now try to do it with 10 per cent of the available space in the new “house”… This leads us to step one in this part of the series, Sort It Out. What are you taking with you, what are you throwing away, what are you giving to your friends, what are you selling.
Loretta has spent almost 3 days taking pictures off the walls, out of frames, and putting them into photo albums because there isn’t nearly as much wall space in the camper as there is in the house, and storing them in totes in the basement of the RV is sure to ruin them.
We have an entire house full of furniture that needs a new home as well since the RV is fully furnished, so what do we do with all of that? Well, our RV has a full size queen bed that came with a brand new mattress still in the wrapper, so that mattress is going on our bedroom platform, and our sleep number is going into the RV. Now we can sell the entire master bedroom set, with a brand new mattress.
The living room is a whole other headache. My buddy could use a new recliner, and is always willing to lend a hand, even when my ideas aren’t the brightest, so we are going to drop our recliner love seat off to him. So now we are down to the giant entertainment center, the tv, the sectional, the coffee tables, the reading chairs…
What about the closets? Lets face it, there’s stuff in there you are never going to wear again. Hell there’s stuff in there you’ve never worn once. Take the next rainy day to go through your closets and get some donations ready to go to the local good will store or thrift shop.
Don’t even get me started on the garage. I knew I had a bunch of stuff in there, but holy hell… It’s not so much the big stuff, but all the small stuff. The tinkering stuff, the shelf full of spray paint, the bike parts, the truck parts like spare bulbs and that electric fan I bought for it 6 years ago that I’m going to put in it one day…
(Insert an entire rainy day worth of sorting things in every room into piles or garbage cans here…)
Now that all the sorting is down, your house is a disaster right? Piles of crap everywhere. Probably even came across a few things that ya don’t even remember buying or why ya bought it right? Looking around it looks like all ya did was make a giant mess and didn’t accomplish anything. Here’s how ya make the next few steps efficient and maximize your efforts.
Take all of the donation stuff to where you are donating. That’s your next step. They’re closed for the day already? Cool, grab a beer. That pile of clothes on the recliner you are giving away? Put them into bags, and sit on the recliner one last time cause ya earned it today. First thing tomorrow, start with the donations.
When you get back, drop off stuff to your friends. Now that you have some extra room around the house, you have the space to spread things out and get some good pictures of them. Start taking pictures of your big ticket items, Entertainment Center, the Beer Fridge in the garage, the couches, the fish tank, all the big stuff.
Next thing you are going to do is post all of those items for sale on your favorite place to sell stuff. Hell post it everywhere, ya never know where it will hit and where it will bomb. Now you have a sale going on that you don’t have to be sitting around monitoring, AND people can come pick up big ticket items which will throw some cash in your pocket as well as open up more room in the house and visually be more progress.
Next step is to start getting your yard sale pile a second sort. Keep a garbage can handy for this one. Go through the pile, like really. Is anyone going to buy a socket set with 15 missing sockets? No. If you managed to find the twenty 10mm sockets you’ve lost in the garage over the years, you could probably sell them for 100 bucks.
Point is, be serious and throw the shit away. It makes your yard sale tables look better when they aren’t full of “crap”
Last step, is to plan a few weekends of yard sales. Start them as early as you can. And here’s the best part. You can do it either way, just sit outside in your camping chair and “man the tables”, or be organizing the keep piles into the RV while you are waiting for customers to show up and kill 2 birds with one stone.
Went from a 6 drawer tool box and 5 shelves of tools down to a small tool bag of “essentials” But the gas money envelope is a lot more full for “Pull Out Of Town Day”. So where are you headed first when you pull out of town?
Click here to see how things are going now that we are full time in the RV
