The only time I felt depressed or questioned the around the world decision was when I began selling my personal belongings. It was tough parting with the Los Angeles-lifestyle possessions I purchased when I thought I was spending the rest of my life in Manhattan Beach. It’s depressing selling a surfboard on Craigslist and then driving home after delivery in an empty car. It was depressing when someone stopped by my house for my beach cruiser and then watch it disappear down the street in a pickup truck. The beach cruiser that I loved riding up and down the beach every Sunday morning. Gone for $60.
The last nights, when you are in an empty apartment and can’t fall asleep because you sold your bed and are sleeping on the floor using a one-inch-thick inflatable mattress, that’s depressing. During those nights I thought a two-month trip, that wouldn’t require selling all my personal items, may have been the better decision. Those feelings and thoughts didn’t dissipate until after two weeks of travel, after the trip turned from a vacation to a long-term adventure. When I think about those final days now, my attitude is “Bring on the inflatable mattress!” but in October 2013…those were long and sad nights.
You need a selling game plan to keep your emotions in check. The first action is figure out what not to sell. Don’t sell possessions that have sentimental or emotional value. The remaining personal-item inventory becomes a judgment call. I had a set of golf clubs that I may have been able to sell for $100-$150. Maybe less. When I returned to the U.S., a new set would cost upwards of $500 not including the driver, putter, golf bag, and balls. Now that I’ve returned, I know there is no way I’d purchase a new set of golf clubs, so it was a smart decision to keep my set.
You can either put the items you are keeping in storage or if you are fortunate, your parents’ basement. I fell into the latter category. If you don’t have your parents’ basement at your disposal, then you’ll need to perform additional math and evaluate whether $100 a month for storage is worth the value of the stored items.
The last nights, when you are in an empty apartment and can’t fall asleep because you sold your bed and are sleeping on the floor using a one-inch-thick inflatable mattress, that’s depressing. During those nights I thought a two-month trip, that wouldn’t require selling all my personal items, may have been the better decision. Those feelings and thoughts didn’t dissipate until after two weeks of travel, after the trip turned from a vacation to a long-term adventure. When I think about those final days now, my attitude is “Bring on the inflatable mattress!” but in October 2013…those were long and sad nights.
You need a selling game plan to keep your emotions in check. The first action is figure out what not to sell. Don’t sell possessions that have sentimental or emotional value. The remaining personal-item inventory becomes a judgment call. I had a set of golf clubs that I may have been able to sell for $100-$150. Maybe less. When I returned to the U.S., a new set would cost upwards of $500 not including the driver, putter, golf bag, and balls. Now that I’ve returned, I know there is no way I’d purchase a new set of golf clubs, so it was a smart decision to keep my set.
You can either put the items you are keeping in storage or if you are fortunate, your parents’ basement. I fell into the latter category. If you don’t have your parents’ basement at your disposal, then you’ll need to perform additional math and evaluate whether $100 a month for storage is worth the value of the stored items.
SHIPPING
Selling your items online or sending items for storage at your parents will involve shipping costs. If you haven’t shipped items before, you’ll quickly learn that shipping costs are out of control and make as much sense as healthcare costs. There’s a reason Amazon is building their own shipping fleet—the three shipping options UPS, FedEx, and USPS are all expensive and unpredictable. When you walk into a UPS or FedEx store and place your package on the scale, you’ll be a bit nervous when the clerk pulls out the measuring tape and quotes the price. You’ll think “did the clerk say $15 or $50?” It’s always $50. USPS flat rate boxes are the easiest and usually the cheapest shipping option. With USPS shipping you know the cost in advance because there are fixed rates for the box sizes available. As a bonus, USPS provides the boxes free of charge which will save you $2-$3 on packaging per shipment.
While shipping items home I derived inspiration from an unlikely source. During lunch I walked to Staples to purchase shipping supplies. On the return, a homeless guy hassled me about why I had bubble wrap. I said, “I’m shipping personal belongings to Philadelphia.” He said, “Wrap me up and ship me to Philadelphia!” That afternoon in the office, I thought what kind of person would ship themselves cross country when it’s cheaper to fly? Lightbulb moment. Of course, it would be cheaper to fly and take two carry-ons and two checked bags on a Southwest flight than ship all those items home. What would have cost over $600 in shipping expenses only set me back $300. Thanks to an inspirational homeless guy on Wilshire Boulevard, I still have my golf clubs and snowboard. I shipped myself.
ONLINE MARKETPLACES
I used the big three marketplaces to sell my personal belongings: Amazon, eBay, and Craigslist. There's a tradeoff between sales price (your cash proceeds) and shipping ability across the three marketplaces. The best seller’s marketplaces are Amazon and Craigslist. Amazon is more convenient, but charges higher fees and you need to handle shipping. Craigslist is less convenient but has no fees and no shipping costs. The marketplace decision boils down to the ability to, and the cost of, shipping. If the item can fit in the USPS flat rate boxes, Amazon is your best option. Even if the item is slightly larger than the USPS flat rate boxes, if the item will sell for more than $30, still use Amazon because there are more potential purchasers and you will be able to sell the item at the higher price point than on Craigslist. eBay is useful for selling items that Amazon prohibits, like sports memorabilia.
Creating seller accounts on Amazon and eBay is a straightforward process. I don’t recall the particulars, but the setups took less than five minutes. Amazon and eBay will cash you out approximately two weeks after the sale was completed. Link a bank account to your seller account to receive the sale proceeds.
Craigslist is the only option for items you can't send through the mail, like furniture and television sets. Craigslist success and response times varies with markets. Los Angeles always has newcomers to the city, so there are always people searching for items on Craigslist. I think Los Angeles has full-time Craigslist experts who scan listings looking for novices or people under pressure to sell. The potential buyers haggle over price. And they haggle. And they haggle. And they haggle. We agreed to one price through email, then the person showed up and they were magically $20 short. That situation happened all the time. I had people haggling with me over a $10 toaster and over a wooden stool that was originally $140—they were trying to reduce the price down from $40 to $30.
Craigslist is painful process. It’s not worth the aggravation to make random people on the internet happy and sell quality items for $20 less than the initially agreed upon price. If you become discouraged, donate the items to charity or leave the items behind for the next person moving into your apartment. Both will be more appreciative.
Items sell on Craigslist at a steeper discount than items on Amazon. Electronics that are one to two years old, essential one generation behind current models sell for 50% less. Furniture that I purchased two years earlier sold for 75% less. I’m not sure why the discounts were so steep. Even so, I was happy to sell my bed, dresser, and couch so I did not need to move those items myself.
Selling your car is the one item you absolutely want to get correct. If you were hoping to receive $20 for a toaster but only get $10, that’s not a major issue. If you were hoping to receive $10,000 for your car but only get $5,000, that’s a major blow to your finances. Given that potential scenario, don’t treat the car sale proceeds as part of your budget goal. The sale proceeds should be a cushion on top of your budget, not the final piece of reaching your budget goal. The emergence of online marketplaces has made it easier to sell cars than in the past. The option where you will earn the most money, is selling the car yourself. Time constraints may not make this possible. I used a CarMax like used car seller in Los Angeles. Their offer was above the Kelly Blue Book value and I walked out of the dealership with a check for nearly $13,000 in my hand. I would have been happy with $11,500. I relied on a combination of public transportation and rental cars to commute to work during my final two weeks.
If you have an automobile lease, you will need to break the lease, which means cash out, not cash in.
The flip side to selling all your stuff is that when you return to the U.S., you may not have any desire to go out and re-purchase what you sold. You’ve spent a year without those items so why do you need them now. Although five years later, I’m still upset about that beach cruiser. I should have found a way to bring the bike home.
Selling your items online or sending items for storage at your parents will involve shipping costs. If you haven’t shipped items before, you’ll quickly learn that shipping costs are out of control and make as much sense as healthcare costs. There’s a reason Amazon is building their own shipping fleet—the three shipping options UPS, FedEx, and USPS are all expensive and unpredictable. When you walk into a UPS or FedEx store and place your package on the scale, you’ll be a bit nervous when the clerk pulls out the measuring tape and quotes the price. You’ll think “did the clerk say $15 or $50?” It’s always $50. USPS flat rate boxes are the easiest and usually the cheapest shipping option. With USPS shipping you know the cost in advance because there are fixed rates for the box sizes available. As a bonus, USPS provides the boxes free of charge which will save you $2-$3 on packaging per shipment.
While shipping items home I derived inspiration from an unlikely source. During lunch I walked to Staples to purchase shipping supplies. On the return, a homeless guy hassled me about why I had bubble wrap. I said, “I’m shipping personal belongings to Philadelphia.” He said, “Wrap me up and ship me to Philadelphia!” That afternoon in the office, I thought what kind of person would ship themselves cross country when it’s cheaper to fly? Lightbulb moment. Of course, it would be cheaper to fly and take two carry-ons and two checked bags on a Southwest flight than ship all those items home. What would have cost over $600 in shipping expenses only set me back $300. Thanks to an inspirational homeless guy on Wilshire Boulevard, I still have my golf clubs and snowboard. I shipped myself.
ONLINE MARKETPLACES
I used the big three marketplaces to sell my personal belongings: Amazon, eBay, and Craigslist. There's a tradeoff between sales price (your cash proceeds) and shipping ability across the three marketplaces. The best seller’s marketplaces are Amazon and Craigslist. Amazon is more convenient, but charges higher fees and you need to handle shipping. Craigslist is less convenient but has no fees and no shipping costs. The marketplace decision boils down to the ability to, and the cost of, shipping. If the item can fit in the USPS flat rate boxes, Amazon is your best option. Even if the item is slightly larger than the USPS flat rate boxes, if the item will sell for more than $30, still use Amazon because there are more potential purchasers and you will be able to sell the item at the higher price point than on Craigslist. eBay is useful for selling items that Amazon prohibits, like sports memorabilia.
Creating seller accounts on Amazon and eBay is a straightforward process. I don’t recall the particulars, but the setups took less than five minutes. Amazon and eBay will cash you out approximately two weeks after the sale was completed. Link a bank account to your seller account to receive the sale proceeds.
Craigslist is the only option for items you can't send through the mail, like furniture and television sets. Craigslist success and response times varies with markets. Los Angeles always has newcomers to the city, so there are always people searching for items on Craigslist. I think Los Angeles has full-time Craigslist experts who scan listings looking for novices or people under pressure to sell. The potential buyers haggle over price. And they haggle. And they haggle. And they haggle. We agreed to one price through email, then the person showed up and they were magically $20 short. That situation happened all the time. I had people haggling with me over a $10 toaster and over a wooden stool that was originally $140—they were trying to reduce the price down from $40 to $30.
Craigslist is painful process. It’s not worth the aggravation to make random people on the internet happy and sell quality items for $20 less than the initially agreed upon price. If you become discouraged, donate the items to charity or leave the items behind for the next person moving into your apartment. Both will be more appreciative.
Items sell on Craigslist at a steeper discount than items on Amazon. Electronics that are one to two years old, essential one generation behind current models sell for 50% less. Furniture that I purchased two years earlier sold for 75% less. I’m not sure why the discounts were so steep. Even so, I was happy to sell my bed, dresser, and couch so I did not need to move those items myself.
Selling your car is the one item you absolutely want to get correct. If you were hoping to receive $20 for a toaster but only get $10, that’s not a major issue. If you were hoping to receive $10,000 for your car but only get $5,000, that’s a major blow to your finances. Given that potential scenario, don’t treat the car sale proceeds as part of your budget goal. The sale proceeds should be a cushion on top of your budget, not the final piece of reaching your budget goal. The emergence of online marketplaces has made it easier to sell cars than in the past. The option where you will earn the most money, is selling the car yourself. Time constraints may not make this possible. I used a CarMax like used car seller in Los Angeles. Their offer was above the Kelly Blue Book value and I walked out of the dealership with a check for nearly $13,000 in my hand. I would have been happy with $11,500. I relied on a combination of public transportation and rental cars to commute to work during my final two weeks.
If you have an automobile lease, you will need to break the lease, which means cash out, not cash in.
The flip side to selling all your stuff is that when you return to the U.S., you may not have any desire to go out and re-purchase what you sold. You’ve spent a year without those items so why do you need them now. Although five years later, I’m still upset about that beach cruiser. I should have found a way to bring the bike home.