Sell It, Donate It, Discard It.

Our first step in getting ready to leave for our long-term continuous travel adventure is to get rid of our stuff. We'll sell, donate, or discard almost everything we own. We plan to keep somewhere in the ballpark of 6-12 boxes that we’ll store at a parent’s house.

How To

There are two options

Keep everything and put it in storage. Get rid of as much as possible and have little to no possessions.

Depending on how much stuff you have, the first option can be dramatically expensive. The more stuff you have, the larger the storage unit. If you opt to keep your apartment or house, you then have the cost of securing your belongings and the intangible cost of worry and lack of ‘freedom’ by always being attached to your stuff in some way or another.

On the other hand, if you get rid of as much as possible you can reduce your storage footprint, therefore cost. We plan to keep only a few boxes that we can store with a parent and pay a small monthly amount out of gratitude.

We know our stuff will be safe and we’ll be free of it; not worrying about it while we're gone.

Him Versus Her

Sergio has been looking forward to this step for months, probably years.

Shannon has been kind of looking forward to it, but is also terrified of it.

Let us explain our difference in feelings with this step...

We're both minimalists, but let’s be clear, Sergio is extreme (Sergio here! - for the record, I don’t think I am).

Ninety percent of Americans would probably walk into our 500-square-foot apartment, look around and think “where’s all of your stuff?” And yet, Sergio would still get rid of another approximately 30% of what we have.

So, that explains why Sergio has been looking forward to this. On the other hand, Shannon worries that if she gets rid of it she’ll never get it again, since Sergio is so averse to accumulating stuff. On top of her fear, she frankly falls into the female stereotype and is emotionally attached to many of her things.

Excited or Fearful, the Show Must Go On