Tips to De-Clutter and Get Some Money For Your Stuff

It's amazing how much stuff you can accumulate especially with young children in the household.  Prior to leaving on our 'Big Trip' of 2011 and now again prior to our immigration to Canada, we had to de-clutter our house. This time, we also aimed to get rid of our 2 vehicles, almost all of our furniture and unnecessary items such as home decor.  Sure, you can throw away stuff you don't need, or give it away to friends or charities.  But for us, we also like to make a few extra dollars 'recycling' it as the money would certainly come in handy when having to replace it once we moved to Canada.  

I'm happy to report that we managed to sell most everything we had intended to, and found homes for the rest.  Here's some Tips on how to get rid of your stuff, based on our recent experience in Australia:

Where Are We Now??

Life has been so busy the past few months--where do I start??  I suppose I better start 'here' and work backwards for a bit as so much has happened.

So where are we now?   We're in Vancouver, B.C. Canada!

How We Managed To Fly With Carry On Bags Only

We’re off again on another trip to SEA, this time for 17 nights.  While we have always travelled fairly light on our past smaller trips, we still used to check 1 bag at 15kg and then carry on a day bag each plus a handbag/camera bag.  As we tend to take budget carriers, checked bags also have an extra charge.  But on our last trip that we realised that the weight of our 1 checked bag could possibly be redistributed to 2 carry on bags and that our carry on bags could be more efficiently packed.  So for this trip, we challenged ourselves to fly with carry-on baggage only!  Still, could we achieve the limit of 1 carry on each not exceeding 56cm x 36cm and at a maximum weight of 7kg, plus a handbag or laptop bag?  How did we do?

Accommodation In Asia: To Pre-Book Or Not?

One of the most asked questions we get is whether or not one should pre-book their accommodation when traveling on a budget in Asia.

As many of our readers should know, when we travel we rarely book in advance.  For many people, this is utterly unconceivable—scary even!   Here, we’d like to share with you our thoughts and tips on how we make this work.

The Big Move

Well, its done--we're officially leading a nomadic life for the next 12 months!  


We turned the house over to the Real Estate Agent this morning;  the tenants pick up the keys to their new home this afternoon.  Its been an exhausting weekend and come to think of it, a tiring 7+ months of planning.  A small price to pay!


Our last weekend at home was spent frantically, yet methodically packing up the final bits and CLEANING.

The Final Stretch: Packing It Up

Can you believe its all in there??!!  I can't!

After 7+ months of planning, dreaming, and organizing, we are finally down to the 'final stretch' before our dream holiday.  We have 13 sleeps to go--well, probably more like 12 as our flight from Melbourne is in the middle of the night, so not sure how much sleep we'll actually get!  


Many emotions are flooding our beings, ranging from panic ("Oh My God, we still have so much to do!), to excitement (especially from the girls, who can't wait to be finally on our way to our 'holiday'), to slight sadness (we've started to say our good-byes to friends and family) but most importantly, to acceptance--that indeed, we are actually going to do this!!

31 Days To Go!!!

We had a lovely Christmas with Jim's family--that is, until we broke the news to them of our trip!
Definitely what we are embarking on is not everyone's cup of tea, but those who know us really shouldn't be too surprised and have some faith in our judgment. Hopefully they'll get over it

8 Weeks to Go...

...and we (I) am exhausted!  Have been madly packing up the house these past few days, boxing up the clutter and actually seeing clear space on the horizontal surfaces in the house!  It was much easier said than done though as it really wasn't as simple as sweeping it all in a box, or the bin.  Everything needed to be sorted first, its proper home found, THEN

The Price To Pay For Cheap Airfares

Another AirAsia sale his morning so Jim and I set the alarm to get up at 4am (sale started at 3am) in hopes of nabbing some cheap airfares, only to encounter problems with their server for the next 1.5hrs.  Arghhh.  But alas, we were finally able to make some bookings. 

Update on Visa Requirements

Its a mixed result on the topic of visa requirements for the countries that we are planning to visit.  On the upside, about half of them will not required us to pay or obtain any visas in advance.  But on the down side, it looks like we'll have to fork out a bit of money for the visas that we do need to get, plus

Three Months To Go

With 3 months to go, here's where we're at:

•  Everything checked off the previous To-Do List!



Eddie & Yasmine

• House to be listed For Rent at the end of Nov
• Citizenship Ceremony: Nov 10
• Passport Applications completed and waiting to be submitted after 10 Nov
• Appointment to see Solicitor re Wills:  today
• Excess toys sold at Toy Sale:  net $71.00
• Too-small clothing culled, to be given away
• New home found for Eddie
   

•  New To-Do List for November:

• Get passport pics for Jim, Maddy & Yasmine

• Research Visa Requirements for all countries to be visited (9)

•  Vaccination Update:

• The girls have prescriptions for TYPHERIX (Typhoid) and HAVRIX JR (Hep A).  They'll get the Hep A jab the day before we leave and we'll get our TWINRIX then too so that we can all time the second jab to be received in Bangkok at the end of Feb, thus saving us money.

• We're going to get our DUKORAL (cholera) in Bangkok too--much cheaper.

• I received my BOOSTRIX and TYPHIM IV jabs today--so far, I have very sore arms :(

Travel Vaccination Update

Just spent the past 2hrs trolling through the LP Online Thorn Tree Forum on ‘Health’—such great and useful info that I wished I’d read yesterday BEFORE I filled the prescriptions today for some of our travel vaccinations!!!  Was referred to 2 highly recommended and reputable clinics in Bangkok (one of them is the Red Cross) that charge half to a third of what I just paid today :( But having said that, we

The First 'TO-DO' List

Arghh, with just under 4 months to go, the ‘To-Do List’ needs more ‘doing’!!  So to keep myself on track, I think I’ll have to break down my list weekly.  So this week:

With 4 Months to go, Book'em Dano!

We took the BIG step and booked our first (of many) flights!  Thanks to our new found ‘friends’ Our Travel Lifestyle :: Changing your families life for the better we learned about an AIRASIA sale already in progress.  Got a great deal flying Melbourne-Kuala Lumpur (KL), one way for all four of us including

Sign Of The Times

When I first started traveling in 2000, I took a pocket camera with me and lots and lots of film.  Internet cafes were around, but mostly with slow dial-up access.  I sent lots of postcards to friends and family.

On our second trip in 2003, we had a 2MP digital camera with

Blogs Are The BEST

While we had always aimed to travel in the year prior to Maddy starting school, we still had not committed to it.  At the beginning of this year, I gave us til May to do so. Come May, we committed. 

In the Beginning...

Well, this is it--our first blog, EVER.  My name is Jess and I'm a Canadian who went on my first backpacking trip solo in 2000, and ended up doing a 18 month long trip covering most of Western Europe, a bit of Eastern Europe, Morocco, Turkey, Egypt, and SEA.  I met my husband Jim, an Aussie, during this trip while both of us were traveling in Turkey.  He first started backpacking in the mid-90's, covering the USA, SEA and Europe, with favourite destinations being India and Thailand.  He generally traveled solo and did so for usually months at a time.