Now that Gene and I have secured remote work for both of us and confirmed that we can continue making a living while we travel, it was time to sit down and map this out. Getting from a 5-bedroom house to 2 suitcases sounds like a cute tagline, but in reality, it is a very large undertaking. Over several mornings (and several cups of coffee), we made a plan.
Disclaimer: This whole plan is a work in progress and subject to change, so we’re being careful not to make any plans that are set in stone at this point.
Determine our timeline and schedule
In this step, we determined a very general schedule for our return to Kansas City. While we don’t plan on maintaining a home in any one place, we do consider Kansas City our home. It is where our family and friends live, and for as long as that continues to be true, we will come back here regularly. Our current plan is to spend the summers, the time between Thanksgiving and New Years, and other random times here.
We will also have an incoming college freshman when we start this journey and it is important to us that we don’t abandon our kid to run off and travel the world. We’ve determined that our first year of nomading will be in the United States, and depending on where she goes to college, maybe even right here in Kansas City. This has two benefits: Our kid has the option to come home on weekends, and we can dip our toes into Airbnb living while staying in a relatively familiar environment. With everything, this is subject to change. She may tell us to bugger off, or take a gap year, or [fill in the possibilities we have not thought of yet here].
Make a budget
This step will get its own blog post because it is pretty important. Doing the math was the first step in figuring out if this is something we could do. That budget work led directly to determining a few other financial steps.
Tell our friends and family
We needed to let our people in on our plan. We’d been talking abstractly about wanting to do this, but now that we had a timeline and had determined that it was absolutely happening, we needed to let them know. We started with our kids and then our close friends and family. After that we decided to let the rest of the world now (and here you all are!).
Get out of debt
Like most people, we currently carry some debt. Car loans, credit cards, etc. It’s not a massive number, but it’s something we did not want to take with us when we go. The next step is to get that paid off. We found a spreadsheet created by Kati Kiefer of True Money Saver that allowed us to enter all of our debts and calculate the fastest way to pay them off (who knew there were several different ways!) We are now confident that we will go into the next chapter of our lives without debt payments!
Maximize the equity in our home
Our house is our biggest asset. We’ve lived here for 15 years (18 by the time we sell) and have built up significant equity. It’s one of the largest houses in our subdivision, on a corner lot with beautiful new construction across the street. In the right market it can fetch a very nice price, but we are going to need to compete with those newly constructed homes.
Our house was built in the early 2000s and the kitchen hasn’t been updated. It has honey oak trim everywhere (and I mean everywhere!). Most of the bathrooms have not been updated either. So we’re making a plan to give our home a facelift – updating bathrooms and kitchen, painting the whole house a neutral gray color and painting every inch of honey oak woodwork white (this last part will, we are certain, be the death of us).
This step will certainly prompt more than a few blog posts and we keep you all updated on our progress.
Minimize our possessions
Do us a favor. Go around your house and open all your drawers and closets. Take a good look at everything in them. The amount of “stuff” we all own is mind boggling.
As we look around this house, with five bedrooms, one basement, two garages, and three attic spaces, we knew couldn’t wait until we leave to deal with all of this stuff. We have to start downsizing now. But we also have to live in this house for the next 2 ½ years. It’s a fine line between getting rid of things and living in a house that feels like home.
We’ll dive into this step more later, but suffice it to say, several things have already left the house, and more are on their way out.
Let’s get started…
This is our plan so far. We reserve the right to add steps along the way. We fully admit that we’re new at this and don’t know what we don’t know. But these things will keep us pretty busy over the next few years and we’re excited that we have this blog as a way to document the process for ourselves, our friends and family, and anyone else who wants to follow this type of life. Learn from our successes and our failures! Either way, we’re glad you’re along for the ride.
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