Homeless and Jobless, Travelling the World

In the last few years, I've been working towards the typical goals. 2007 - graduate college

2008 - promotion at work

2009 - get married, buy a house

2010 - another promotion

2011 - paid off school loans

I've gone to Ikea countless times, had some fun vacations, started interesting projects at work, taken cooking classes, become a regular at the local Thai restaurant, started a retirement account, paid my mortgage, bought more Apple products than I care to admit, mourned at funerals, been scammed on eBay, occasionally fought with my wife, thought about moving to Seattle, survived snow storms... the list goes on. By all estimations I've been very lucky and have been reasonably successful, largely due to a number of amazing people that have helped me along the way.

And I'm throwing it away.

Jordan and I have spent the last 6-8 months undoing much of the progress we've made in the last few years. We've sold most of our belongings and our home. We've been living off 30% of our income. We've saved a lot of money. All so that for the next 12-24 months we can travel the world.

In future posts we'll explain how we came to this decision. For now, suffice it to say we're young and want to see all the world has to offer before we settle down and start a family.

This post is our announcement, watch out world, we're coming to see you.

In seven days we close on our house, we'll be homeless. Two days ago, I gave notice at work, on May 14th, I'll be jobless.

It's time for an adventure.

"Daniel... we have a problem..."

…these were the words uttered from my mouth when I checked my email to find the subject line “FWD: OFFER ON *address”. I had just stepped out of the shower and checked my phone. I was standing there with dripping wet hair, wrapped in my towel, and a deer in headlights look plastered across my face. I’m not even sure if I was reading the email or just staring at it. Daniel asked me a few times what was wrong, and I finally told him. We have an offer.

Seriously? “We have a problem”… THAT is my reaction?! I have no idea what made me respond like that. The offer ended up being $13,500 below our list price, which was far outside of our comfort zone. Even at full asking price, we anticipated bringing about $30k to closing. For the last few weeks, we have toyed back and forth with the idea of renting. We talked it out and decided that we had to come fairly close to our asking price to accept an offer. Our realtor called, and advised us on a fair counter offer that the buyer would likely accept without a lot of back and forth. Except the number he came up with didn’t work for us. So we countered at $2k below asking, and would include our furniture in the price. We were asked if it was worth losing the buyer over, and said yes.

The next few hours were probably the most anxiety ridden of my life. I felt nauseous, hands sweaty, with a lump the size of a baseball in my throat. We watched an episode of Glee on Hulu to pass the time. We took a drive just to get out of the house for a bit. After two long hours, our realtor let us know that the buyer was in class for the night and we wouldn’t hear back until morning. Lovely. A night of no sleep was in store for us.

Fast forward to the morning. I woke up grumpy and tired after tossing around all night. Checked my email: nothing. We discussed what our plan would be if/when we got a counter offer. We both headed to work on edge, trying our best to put on a normal face for our coworkers. I compulsively checked my email and around 10am, we had another counter offer. Our realtor said the offer was very strong, at $5,500 below list price and excluded furniture. We still had our heart stuck our our original number, and countered again.

On our way to dinner, we called our realtor to see if there were any updates. Seventeen minutes later (who was counting?), the buyer gave a final offer of $3k below listing with the furniture included. “Done” was the first and only word out of my mouth. He started giving us his realtor “fluff” about how this was a final offer and we would be unlikely to find someone else to pay that price. After a minute or so, Daniel and interjected. “We said done. As in done deal. Yes”.

…and the weight of the world has fallen off of our shoulders. The anchor keeping us here has been cut free. After months of struggling with indifference and being in limbo, we are moving forward. I am both excited and terrified!