Preparing- Craiglist and I

There is nothing like two organize freaks in a family. We started planning, um in January. Our first thing on the list of preparations was, stop buying!  This was a hard one for me, because shopping is therapeutic. I turned that therapy around into selling...everything I could, and started in February. It was fun at first, a little heart wrenching at times as I watched people take my stuff that held so many memories away, but was erased somewhat when I was handed money. I didn't budge very much on my prices, usually selling for half of its selling price...although I didn't pay that price! I ended up making money on several items, oh well that's business. I knew someone would come along willing to pay the price I asked, I knew that we would both be getting a good deal. The annoying things about Craigslist are the constant scams, people crying poor, or people asking you to do ridiculous things...um I don't need to sell it that bad. It was easy for me to do that when I had several months to sell the items. The hard ones were the car, kitchen table, kids crib, rocking chair...I rocked my babies in that! Stuff that was part of many many memorize. Katy didn't want to sell the orange tent or Durango...that was her hard items...but she was actually pretty good about everything else...even coming up to me and saying, "can we sell this". Konrad cried about everything everyone took, even if he didn't know what it was. He is really big into what is mine is mine...but you can have what is yours and I know what is yours (thankfully he doesn't take toys from other kids all the time). I came to realize I really didn't need so much stuff and in fact we weren't really missing so much...until we sold the kitchen table.

= Thousands of $$, thanks to my brief addiction to selling on Craigslist.com

The hardest item to sell was that dang Durango, it was a love hate relationship. The Durango was up in the air for a while, do we take it or not. I was pretty worried about its dependability. I love everything about the Durango...its a good vehicle...but trucks are pretty cool too and we really could use a truck to haul our stuff. So I started looking on Craigslist and it took 2 days and I had found the truck I wanted (I should add I talked them down to $11,000 for an $18,000 easily vehicle, only 6 years old and low miles, +perks in the inside & tow package)...ok Kacy was a little hesitant, but I knew it was a good deal. Kacy was worried that it hadn't been inspected and we would walk away with a vehicle that needed $$$ put into it and he thought we should look around much longer than a couple days. We asked Cameron Roberts (because it was in Boise...long drive) to look at it, and then we decided to put a deposit on it and drive it ourselves.  I had a good feeling that because it was a auctioned vehicle, the seller knew nothing about the vehicle and he really didn't know its worth. The vehicle also had good ratings, I chose a Ford because of the reliability, Kacy's dad had the same vehicle we were looking at and liked it....and we like Ford because they are actually a responsible company that we didn't have to bail out! So we got our cash (yes cash, we believe in the Dave Ramsey way...we had saved for a long, long time) ...and went up to Boise and got it...that was too fast of a buy for my dear ol' Kacy. Good thing he likes to keep the wife happy, and I was pretty good at convincing him we NEEDED it. So afterwards I had buyers remorse when I was STUCK with a Durango that was not selling because I got it inspected and found out the ABS was out and the front end needed to be redone. Now I really had to sell the Durango!! I was so happy when finally after months on Craigslist the Durango was sold the day before we were going to take it to Twin Falls and see if it would sell there. I cried when the nice young girl (only the young would drive away with a problem vehicle, while paying too much for it...and still be happy) drove it away and I knew I would no longer see it again. Like I said, love-hate relationship...boys don't really understand. Kacy- "I thought you were glad to sell the Durango"...yes, now leave me alone.

We didn't sell everything on Craigslist, we ended up giving a lot away in the end. Although I am glad we didn't give away everything...as guilty as it felt...we need the money to start all over in Alaska. I guess it sorta is like the pioneers, I am sure they had it much worse...and they didn't have Craigslist.