Donna here. Mike told me this morning that he wasn’t planning to write a post today, so I figured this would be a good time for me to make an appearance on the blog. As a cleaning and organizing expert, I’ll chime in from time to time on those subjects as well as general RV lifestyle topics such as cooking (it’s all about the food for me).

Anyway, I thought I’d share with you what it was like selling our home and everything in it in preparation to hit the road as full-time RVers. We made the decision to do this in late March and for the next four months, selling everything became my second job. I assured Mike that I would make it all disappear. As the author of How to Declutter and Make Money Now, I knew what I needed to do. But I didn’t realize how much work it would be, especially at the end.

I started by photographing some of the larger, pricier items and listing them on Craigslist. This resulted in the quick sale of our living room furniture, guest bed, gas grill, wicker patio furniture, lawn tractor, and other items. I also created a photo album called Moving Sale on my Facebook page and invited my friends to take a look. One of the items – a genuine black bear skin rug – sold to a friend in California who was willing to pay for the cost of shipping. Our washer and dryer also sold through Facebook to a friend’s son who was willing to wait on picking it up until the weekend before we left. Suh-weet. I sold books and a few other items on Amazon. Between Craigslist and Amazon and sales to friends, we made about $14,000.

Sold!

We took our motorcycles to a local BMW dealer to sell on consignment. When we first talked about becoming fulltime RVers, Mike said he was going to sell his bike and I burst into tears. He said, “You don’t have to sell yours!” We both had touring bikes and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that we didn’t need bikes that big for our new lifestyle and we hadn’t ridden much in the last few years and probably wouldn’t ride much as fulltime RVers. It was time to sell them and get a scooter that would be big enough to carry both of us, but not too big for me to ride on my own. The funny thing is that way back when I told everyone I wanted to get a motorcycle, I didn’t realize that what I really wanted was a scooter! But we did have a lot of fun on our bikes over the years and I’ll always have those memories.

“What about your clothes?” my friends asked. I sold a lot of clothes at my favorite consignment shop. I ended up going through my closet about six times and every time, I was able to let go of more and more, especially once I decided against keeping any items that required ironing (so I could ditch the iron). And shoes? According to a survey by The Container Store, the average woman has 40 pairs of shoes. I am no longer average. My everyday shoes (mostly sandals) fit neatly in a 10x10x10-inch bin. I packed all of our dress shoes in a larger bin that we store in the basement of the coach. Rearrange as I might, I just couldn’t close the lid. So I decided to eliminate one last pair of pumps. Problem solved.

The next phase of our downsizing plan was to have an estate sale. I considered prepping and running the sale myself, but then decided to hire an estate sale company and I’m so glad I did. If you ever want to do this, be sure to book your sale well in advance. The first two companies I called had no availability prior to our departure date. But we found a company that did a great job for us. The gals from Kane’s Estate Sales spent three days at our house, pricing and setting up for the sale. They did a great job with marketing. And they had four people on site every day of the three-day sale. We could not have done what they did with everything else we had going on and we were happy to pay them their 35% commission. Our share was just over $7,200.

By the way, I kept a spreadsheet on what we sold, to whom, how, and for how much. Page two of that spreadsheet itemizes what we bought – everything from bedding, kitchen and bath items and organizing products to our new Kymco Downtown 300i scooter and a 10-foot cargo trailer that we use to haul it.

The final phase of our move from real estate to wheel estate was the hardest — what to do with everything that was left. I listed a couple of desks and a bookcase and some other items on Craigslist at rock bottom prices and they sold pretty quickly. I gave away some glass art and an antique side chair to a couple of friends who had admired those items. It felt good knowing that my stuff was going to good homes where it would be loved and appreciated. Mike gave two high-end guitar amps that he had built plus a 212 speaker cabinet to his friend Gerhard. We donated a whole bunch of stuff to two charities — an animal rescue organization and an organization that helps abused children. They came and picked it all up and gave us a tax receipt that we will use to offset our 2013 income taxes.

At that point, there was still quite a bit of stuff left, including just plain junk. I put it all in the garage and posted to Freecycle.org that I was giving away “Leftovers from Our Estate Sale” to anyone who would come and take it all. The first person to respond said they had a 19-foot trailer and would be happy to come and collect everything for a church yard sale to benefit their youth organization. I chose to believe them and we got our garage cleaned out for free.

And then the only stuff that was left was the stuff we had yet to pack into the basement of the RV and our trailer. Amazingly, it all fit. Barely. The crazy thing is that I am quite sure that we will downsize again down the road.

We have yet to miss anything (though we are still searching for Mike’s cordless power drill and charger). Are we bound to miss something eventually? Probably. Meanwhile, we have everything we want and need to live and work on the road — laptops and smartphones (and a Verizon JetPack for WiFi), printer/copier, my digital piano, Mike’s guitars and amps, hundreds of books on my Kindle reader, our bicycles, my hoola hoops, Vitamix, and other wouldn’t-want-to-live-without things.

We knew what we wanted to do – live the RV lifestyle. We knew what we had to do to get here – sell everything. We did it and now here we are enjoying a beautiful summer day at a campground in Wisconsin, getting ready to head to Minneapolis tomorrow morning – right after the pancake breakfast.

Closing the door to our sticks and bricks home

Opening the door to our new life