Just some stuff that’s too small for a regular post:
- I have always enjoyed getting together with my readers and we had another wonderful meet up with Tamara (My Retirement Project) and her husband last week. She’s visiting family here from California that live nearby, and this is the third time we’ve been able to get together – in Tennessee of all places. I wish we had had more time because the four of us never run out of things to talk about. Fingers are crossed we’re all able to meet up again when we’re in Oregon.
- With just a very little over two months left in Tennessee we looking more seriously at potential places to live in Oregon. We’ve been looking at apartments out on the coast but the prices there are mostly too high and the selection very limited. Our favorite place currently has one apartment available though so we’ve got our fingers crossed that we get lucky. We’ve found a few places in Portland that would work for us as well. We know we’ll eventually find somewhere and someplace to live so are not feeling frantic . . . yet.
- What we’ll do if we can’t handle the winter weather in Oregon is a frequent topic between Brett and me these days because we both know there’s a real possibility the season will drag us down again. Leaving Oregon would be easier than last time, but where is still (and always) the question. It took us nearly four years to settle on Oregon, and we can’t imagine another place will appear any quicker if we have to start looking again.
- We have less than a year to go on our car loan! We had been thinking about selling it after we arrived in Oregon but now think having a paid off car will be a flex and something we should hold on to. Our 2017 Armada has less than 70,000 miles on it and is in excellent condition, with our model typically running for 200K miles or more. We’ve never been “big car” people but have come to appreciate the size and comfort of it these past few years. The gas mileage it gets is the only downside, but we don’t drive much these days.
- More items have been sorted, tossed, or taken to Goodwill this past month. We are torn about whether to keep, sell back to McKays, or donate our books (because of their weight), and still haven’t come to a decision – we literally change our minds from day to day. The books are currently sitting in piles on the floor while we work our way through getting all of them read. Things are getting done and getting closer to being ready for the move and our efforts to reduce stress this go-around seem to be working.
- I had been seriously thinking about ordering meal plan kits (like Hello Fresh) for our last month in the apartment, but realized we’re going to need them next month as well because we’ve done such a great job of using stuff up and don’t want to buy more “ingredients” before we go. I also really don’t want to cook so I think instead we’ll just buy prepared meals/foods from Costco and Trader Joe’s and hopefully not blow up the budget.
- I’m enjoying my teaching/tutoring job and I picked up another two students this month so that’s helping to keep me a little busier, but not too much. I’m enjoying the mental challenge of lesson planning and teaching again, and the small income I receive is also nice!
Katy at The Nonconsumer Advocate has been picking up grocery store prepared meals and I have thought about it also. I think it is a really good idea when moving. A lot of retiree folks go to the big gathering in January in Arizona that Bob Wells of cheaprvliving helps host. I have thought about it when I finally retire. They live on LT BLM land. I was thinking more of the lines of getting an apartment in a town nearby and going to the gathering during the day. I didn’t really want to deal with dumping black water in a rv but want to go to the gathering.
We have a Whole Foods very close to us – I think we’ll go up and see what those meals look like. I hate shopping there though.
Brett and I could easily live in an RV (and he would handle the black water LOL), but we decided it would just be more than we wanted to handle overall. I’m an introvert and any sort of big gathering is not appealing to me, but Arizona in January would be lovely.
Books are the hardest for me to part with. At the rate my TBR list grows, it’s not logical to think I can read a lot of them again (or some for the first time), but I just like having them around in multiple rooms. When we moved my mom to a nursing home and I had to clean out her place, she was good at honing things down to a few of her favorites, but of course, I took some home. lol. I do take piles to the indy bookstore that buys them pretty regularly, and what they don’t buy I donate, but they still accumulate for some reason. 🙂
Even though it’s a lot of work, I really like something about moving and starting over in a new place. I’m a bit envious.
I think we’ve finally decided to let go of most of the books. They will definitely be mixed but we are most likely going to move into a significantly smaller place than we’re in now and there just won’t be room for them, not like we had here. We went with reading from the library on our Kindles for 10 years, and we can do it again. But, I do love the way they look.
I am both terrified and excited by our upcoming move. Excited to be leaving here, somewhat terrified of rebuilding a life again in Oregon. The move has been good for us though with the continued downsizing, etc. We just seem to get smaller and smaller as we go.