No, this is not a reaction to non-employment. It's not that I need the money, it's that I'm not so sure that I need the stuff. I'm kind of foreshadowing some future downsizing, sort of. See footnote.
I've acquired a lot of Lego sets, and realistically, there are a several that I don't see myself building again. Some are more interesting than others. I have a handheld PC for gaming that I thought I would use all of the time, but I just assume use my desktop or Xbox. That can probably be sold. I could probably unload some of my video gear, too, though that would be associated with all sorts of negative feelings because I didn't complete the thing that I bought it for. The DVD collection, which I already reduced by half at the last move, could mostly go. There are boxes of media in the garage that I'll never look at again, or in some cases can't (no telling what's on all of that 1/4" audio tape), but a lot of that just becomes garbage.
I'm not sure what it is, but I feel like I want to be "lighter" and less encumbered. Can't even explain why, since I'm not going anywhere, as far as I know. I feel like I'm channeling "Ryan" in Up In The Air, with his backpack metaphor.
Footnote: Regarding downsizing, there's a part of me that wonders what that would actually achieve, and it raises the issue about the affordability of housing. When I've modeled a move that allowed us to use the equity in our house to buy something outright, it's just not that simple. Property tax and insurance still happen, and even here in our current McMansion, they account for almost half of our mortgage payment. Add the HOA dues and less than half of what we pay actually go toward owning the house. So when I create a budget in today's dollars for what it might cost during "offboardment," there's still a lot of housing expense even if we own the place.
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