Selling it All - Tips and Tricks

The girls started school yesterday, hence my delay in posting.  It was emotional for me because I was used to being with them 24/7 for the last 6 months.  I realize that it is good for them and blah blah blah, but the truth is that I missed them.  Anyhoo, I am learning to enjoy this freedom of alone time during the day to prepare for the adventure and blog away.  So, I write all that above to make excuses for why I have not posted in 2 days...sigh.

In the last blog post I discussed selling everything; the process and emotions behind shedding your belongings, why we did it, etc.  I wanted to write some tips and tricks on how I sold most of it so if you were in the market of shedding all of your belongings too, you can use some of these.

Furniture:

• Craigslist.  Although obvious to most, it is also a scary thing to some to put your stuff up, have a random person come to your home, etc.  I totally get it.  I tend to judge the responders to my ads by their email etiquette.  So far, I have had pretty good luck, and I have probably sold 100 things on Craigslist in my life.  I sold all of my furniture on Craigslist, nothing else.  I have found that selling clothes, small household items, etc. does not work very well on this site.  Furniture on the other hand, I was able to sell weeks before we moved.  Take good photos and put a simple description to include measurements.  If you are selling your stuff to take off on an adventure, put that in the ad.  People like to know why you are getting rid of your couch, it makes them trust that your stuff is not crap.  I'm just saying.
• Yard Sale.  I had a yard sale to rid everything before moving to our small DC apartment.  I did not do it living in an apartment as it is pretty difficult.  However, before we moved to DC, I set up everything in my garage like a store and posted an ad on Craigslist and put signs up in my neighborhood.  I sold at least 75% of the stuff, so I think this option is great if you have a house or location you can do this.  
• Friends and Neighbors.  Believe it or not, your friends and neighbors are fantastic resources to buy and donate your stuff to.  I mentioned to a few friends and family that we were moving, and they were practically begging to come buy stuff.  I probably sold half of my furniture to people I actually knew.  The downside is that there is always this internal guilt about offering them a deal, but in the end, it's worth it to know your belongings will be loved :)  I also gave away a ton to new loving homes.

Clothes and Shoes:

I used to sell everything on eBay, I mean EVERYTHING, but that was back in the day when they were charging 1% of your sale price.  Now, they charge a whopping 10% of your final sale price, combined with PayPal's 2.2% fee, I was shelling out 12.2% for nothing but a platform.  Those days are over.  On top of that, if a buyer changed their mind on an item, they could make up some ridiculous reason they wanted a return, and eBay and PayPal would just freeze the funds.  It got out of hand.  So, below are what I did to sell everything and avoid all the ridiculous eBay fees.

• Instagram.  I know, crazy right.  I went on one day and made a profile just to sell some clothes on.  I had zero expectation that anyone would buy off of Instragram, but hey, it was worth a shot.  I see many consignment stores using Instagram, so why not give it a shot.  I posted one photo and in the description I put the size, the price, used hashtags (#sellinglilly for instance if it was Lilly Pulitzer), and told everyone to Message me if they were interested.  I charged $2.50 for shipping and when they Messaged me, I gave them my Paypal email address to send the total to.  Using PayPal, I received their address and shipped the item.  To my surprise, I sold 24 items in 3 days.  It was awesome.  I will recommend making sure you have all your items up that you want to sell within a few hours.  I found that it caught on in a massive wave, then after that it completely died and I knew my time was up.
• Local Consignment Stores.  I google'd "Consignment stores" in my area.  Fortunately, I live in Washington, DC so there are an abundance of them.  I knew I wanted cash that day (to pay for boat stuff), so I searched through them to find 2 that offered cash on the spot.  If you are more patient than I am, you could wait until they sell it and write you a check (you make a higher percentage doing the latter).  
• Online Consignment Stores:  This one is a little harder, but I love TheRealReal.com.  They only accept designer clothing and have specific brands they take listed on their website, but if you have anything that they take, they give you 60% commission once it sells.  I have sold many designer items very quickly because they have a huge, almost cult following.  Another new thing is eBay consignment where you can make between 60-80% and someone else takes care of posting, shipping, etc. for you.  The catch is that they have to be able to sell the items for a minimum of $40, but it could be a good option for some of you.  I will note that I did not use this because I discovered only after I had already sold everything using the other methods.

Hopefully, if ever you are in the position to get rid of anything...or everything, you find some of these methods useful.  As always, please feel free to email with any questions!

Renn

Selling it All - The Process

We have moved into our temporary "house", a 2 bedroom Airbnb that is furnished.  We decided to move into a furnished place to give us time to shed our belongings in steps, not all at once.  I work better in steps...

We moved from a 2200 sq foot home to an 1100 sq foot apartment last year.  We thought that we had slimmed down to accommodate city living; boy were we wrong.  When we found our boat in July and knew that she was going in the water after hurricane season, we knew we had to get moving, literally.  We had 3 weeks to get rid of everything.  I have NO idea what I was thinking when I put that timeline on us...looking back, I had probably consumed too much wine.  Luckily, I am an expert at craigslist and before we knew it, we were sleeping on an air mattress and living out of suitcases because everything had sold.  The good part was that we had sold/donated everything we thought we needed to, the downside was that it all sold faster than expected so we were living in an empty apartment and sleeping on air mattresses and blankets...glad that is over.  We moved about 12 plastic bins, and 8 suitcases to the new place.  We are now down to 4 plastic bins and 4 suitcases...this is what we will take. 

Our new "home" for the next 2.5 months gives us what we need.  It has 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, a small 4 person card table that we use as our dining room table, a small fridge, microwave, and coffee pot.  It is pretty amazing what you can do with that setup.  Outside there is a grill, so we use that to cook our meat, and the weekly meals are just very well thought out.  We watch youtube videos and research how to make meals with very little.  So, for the 2 weeks we have lived there thus far, we are getting better by the week at planning.  We are very fortunate to have found such a wonderful place to finish out our time here in DC.  With all that being said, it is harder and much more inconvenient than our plush apartment in the sky.  My husband's commute went from a 1 block walk and 2 metro stop ride to a good hour (if he's lucky) each way, and we cannot just throw something in the oven or walk downstairs to our resort like pool.  We have to drive everywhere we want to go and it is so temporary that we are basically living out of suitcases and eating off paper plates for another 2.5 months....

I think by the time some of you get to this paragraph you may be thinking, this kinda sounds like hell.  I agree, it totally could be, and it has come with some days that it is just harder to see the light at the end of the tunnel...but we have made it a priority as a family to have a good attitude about the situation and look at the bright side.  The temporary piece is what is hard, but it is only temporary because in only 74 days, we will be traveling the world in our sailing home, and for that, we are forever grateful.

Till then...counting down the days...

Love,
Renn, Rob, Elle, Berkeley

We Bought a Boat!!

We have finally closed on Kanaloa.  Our beautiful 38' Beneteau who will take us around the world and beyond.  We wanted to share with you our boat buying process, including some sites, how we found her, and the costs to purchase her and refit her.  Hope this helps inspire any of you other dreamers out there...

Our Criteria:  Although new to this process, we knew we wanted certain things in a boat.
          1.  The first being, a blue water vessel.
          2.  Under $70,000 (we did not want to take out a boat loan)
          3.  Monohull (many reasons, but also Catamarans were just not in our price range)
          4.  Length between 37' and 42'

The blue water requirement is pretty self explanatory, and the under $70,000 requirement would just allow us to leave sooner and have enough money to refit her to circumnavigate.  The length comes from our comfortability with handling a boat larger than 42' as well as living on a boat smaller than 37'.

So, we started our search from there.  We went to blogs upon blogs of people who were sailing and took note of what type of boat they were doing it on.  The following websites also provided a wealth of information for comparison:

Yacht World - fantastic resource.  I set it up to alert me when boats within my criteria came up and this is how we were able to jump on our boat (more of this below).
Boat Trader - another resource if in the US, but I found the boats to be overpriced.  Personal opinion.
Cruising World - article on best boats to sail around the world.
Boat Dealerships - we are fortunate enough to live about 30 minutes from Annapolis, MD which has a wealth of boats.  We wanted to get on some, feel the difference between a 36 foot and a 42 foot.

After a few weeks of searching and research, we had decided on Beneteau or Jenneau.  Jenneau actually went under a few years back and the French government had Beneteau take them over, so that is why they were both in the running.

From here, we went to a boat dealership in Annapolis and climbed on some 38', 39', and 40's.  To be honest, I could not tell a difference when I was on one or the other, so I knew we could stick with our length parameters.  Now, onto price.  We found one we loved in Annapolis, a 39' Beneteau...she was a beauty.  As soon as we walked on her we were in love.  She was having a new mast put on and was ready to sail.  When we left the boatyard that day, I would have given my left arm to be able to buy her...but at a "bargain" price (according to the dealer) of $115,000, we would have to work for another 6 months and then be left with nothing to refit.  So, we had to let her go.

I began thinking that there has to be other places to buy a boat, and that is when I looked to yachtworld.com.  The US is expensive when it comes to buying a boat.  In Croatia, you can get 100 Beneteau 40's for $60,000.  Now, these are used to charter, and when done chartering they sell them.  I was not comfortable with taking a former charter boat around the world due to high engine use and wear and tear on everything else that comes with a 100% charter.  So, we began focusing our search on the east coast of the US and the Islands.  I was able to set up an alert on yachtworld and every week it would send me an email with the new boats posted that were within my parameters (Beneteau or Jenneau between 37 and 42' and under $80,000).  Week after week I would get boats that were great, but there was something about it that would ultimately push us over our budget.  We never lost hope, but began to wonder if we were going to need to go up in price or change something else....

Then, one day, my weekly email came with one boat in it.  She had just been posted that morning and we knew that this was our boat.  Her name was Kanaloa and she was a gorgeous 38' Beneteau in St Maarten.  Her owner managed a boat yard down there and had done many upgrades to her in his years of ownership.  He had to go back to the UK where he was from, and because of that, the boat was priced to sell.  She had a water maker already installed, which we had priced out between $8 and $10k.  She had 9 solar panels, a wind generator, new rigging, a new dinghy and outboard motor, a rebuilt engine with only 256 hours on it, and had been loved her whole life.  This boat, which was even better than the Annapolis boat to us, was $49,900.  We knew we had to jump on it.  We called that morning and put down a 20% deposit pending survey.  Our offer of $49,000 was accepted, and on August 15th, Kanaloa joined our family.

Yes, we bought her without seeing her.  Yes, this gave me a few panic attacks along the way, but every day I feel a little better.  She is out of the water (on the hard for you sailors) for hurricane season until we come down at the end of Nov.  In the meantime we are getting a ton of work done on her so she is ready to go when we get down there.

One of the main things we wanted to know when starting this journey was, how much did others spend on their boat and how much did it cost to get "stuff" done to it.  This information is not easy to find, so I figure while it is all fresh in my brain, I will share it with you guys.  Mainly because we want to inspire others to get out there and do this and let you know that once you make the decision to do it, it really is possible.  The pricing is below and could be lower if you did the work yourself.  However, we wanted the boat to be as "homey" as possible for my girls upon our arrival.  We did not want it to be trashed upon our arrival and they get totally discouraged from the start...so that is why we are having someone else do the work initially.

Boat:  Listed for $49,900, purchased for $49,000 (no taxes in St Maarten :) )
Closing/Registration/Flagging costs:  $400
Deep Cleaning of Boat:  $260
Spraying for bugs (preventative): $275
Deep Cleaning of Cushions and Cushion Covers: $370
New Teak Flooring inside the Galley:  $1,000
New Offshore Headsail and Main sail (old sails have 2 years left so we will use as spares): $5500
Engine maintenance to address Surveyor finds: $270

I hope this helps anyone else who is thinking of purchasing a boat, in the boat buying process right now...or even just you dreamers who are putting your feelers out there.

Please feel free to email us with ANY and ALL questions you have.  We will answer, as well as have a Q&A session via video soon.

Love,
Renn, Rob, Elle, Berkeley

The Friday Night That Started it All

For as long as we have been married, my husband and I have talked about leaving it all, buying some business on an island, and living the simple life.  Every once in a while we would pretend to get serious and look around at businesses on islands; we looked into beach bars, restaurants, and even a sailboat that did day charters.  The sailboat charter business was the one we really wanted, but to quit our jobs and sell everything we own to move to an island and buy a charter business still seemed absolutely insane to us.  So, we would close our computers and continue with the daily grind, but hey, at least we could dream.

As consultants for a Big Four firm in Washington DC, working 15 hour days is all we know how to do, and last year when my husband lost 100 hours of vacation days because he had accrued too much and not taken enough, well, we hit a breaking point.  It was not one event, but a culmination of things that made us realize there was no way we could wait until retirement to do this, because at this pace we would die off early from stress.  

So, we did what most people do on Friday nights (just kidding) and started scouring YouTube for anything island related.  We wanted an escape and HGTV had run out of "Island Hunter" shows that we had not watched 100 times a piece, so, we needed new material and YouTube was a jackpot!  Hours upon hours of funny animal videos to buying a business on an island, to island life...we were in heaven.  Then, we stumbled upon videos of different couples sailing around the world.  What?!?!  Who knew this was even an option?!?  Well, those YouTube videos turned into google searches which turned into buying every book Amazon had to offer on the topic, and finally to us realizing, this was our path....now, where to start....