Making the decision to do a RTW trip is hard enough but all the subsequent decisions are even harder. When you make a healthy living, you tend to have a lifestyle that reflects that, mortgage(s), car(s),credit cards, school loans, restaurants, and malls.
Once you tell yourself you are going to take a year or two off, well, keeping all the material stuff is unpractical and in my opinion silly. So, in an effort to live the dream, I am downsizing. Giving up the shopping, paying off the credit cards, selling the house and the shiny red sports car that I love.
The psychology of a change like this is hard to measure. Its kinda like the griving process of losing someone. I was in the bargaining stage a couple weeks ago, thinking I could keep the car and the $500 a month payment and sacrifice something else in my life to have it. Now, I have accepted that selling it is the best option for me. I am young, healthy, and single person and have many years left to acquire these symbols of wealth and amusement.
So as of May, the house is on the market, the car will be in Fall. The shopping stops (unless it is for the trip), credit card debt will evaporated.
The one sacrifice that hurts and will continue to hurt, are the dogs. They become a part of you and as I write this post, one of them sits at my feet waiting patiently for our walk. I am still torn about their fate and it saddens me to think I could be without them for a year. they are truely the only things I will miss in this downsizing.
I sold my house too before my trip. At the time I did not plan a RTW trip but the fact that I did it was the best thing that could have happened to me.
Sometimes the material things are hard to give up, but we can always get them back. The experiences I’ve had on my trip can never be replaced.
That is the conclusion I came to…its just stuff. Sometimes you have to give up everything you have to get everything you want. thanks for your comments.