Sell, Sell, Sell!

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The first time I became debt free, it was quite a feat. I paid off $20,000 about three months before I married into a car loan. Most of the process was tough and, for the most part, not fun. But honestly, I don’t remember much about the hardships.

What I do remember the most is the night before the first garage sale…

Jerod helped me move out of a rent house and back home with my mom so I could throw most of my income at my debt. About 90% of my belongings went to storage either to be sold or saved. Since I was piggy-backing off a friend’s garage sale, we were able to drop everything off with them the night before. The plan was simple: Sell most of my stuff and downgrade to a smaller storage unit to save money.

Coincidentally, this memory happened three years ago to this month. It was 8:50pm, a mere 10 minutes before the storage facility would lock us in for the night. Most of the boxes from the 10×10 unit were stacked down both sides of the hallway. I was still emotional about moving back home that same week (read: prideful), so the reality of selling my stuff hit me hard. I remember stopping for a moment to stare at all of the boxes in the hallway. They seemed to go on forever. The weight of materialism hit my heart like a ton of bricks as I walked slowly, running my fingertips along the sealed memories. Then, the waterworks began.

Jerod was on a fast auto-pilot and noticed my slow-motion breakdown. He swiftly ran up to me, placed his hands on my tear-soaked cheeks and said “Sweety, I love you and I hope this doesn’t sound rude, but we now have 5 minutes until we’re locked in here for the night. If you want to keep your stuff, I’ll put it all back. If you want to sell it, then let’s keep moving it out. What’s it going to be?”

My snot-nosed-babbling-brook reply was to keep moving everything out. I kept crying while loading boxes and by God’s grace we made it out of there at 8:59pm.

The garage sale was a success! It would be the first of three. Jerod sold the big stuff (because I’m stubborn and won’t negotiate) while I ran the $1 table.

Was it difficult to sell 90% of my belongings? Absolutely.
Was this shot to my pride an opportunity for growth? You bet.
Do I remember what was sold? Not really.

Was it worth it? Heck yes!
Will I eventually acquire more stuff? Of course. And then I’ll garage sell it again!
And all the people said, “AMEN!”

What have you sold to get closer to debt freedom? Do you miss it?