Packing up…

This move for us as a family, is our biggest yet in terms of downsizing.

Over the last 12 years we have flipped 3 homes, and have “downsized” each time, but still we have rather a lot. We currently rent a pretty typical north American home, (luckily we sold our last home 1 year ago, so it is just the things inside that we need to deal with).

We need now to reduce our worldly goods to 6 suitcases!!!

Quite the challenge!

We are minimizing for numerous reasons, firstly there is great freedom in it, I always feel a big weight coming off when I don’t have so much “stuff” that I am responsible for. As we not sure how long we will be living in Costa Rica and where we will go after, having a lot of stuff becomes an issue when moving about, and storing it is expensive, so just not in our budget.

As a family we are making conscious effort to put a focus on what we do, rather than the accumulation of things. We cannot do both, simply because we cannot afford to, you don’t need to be wealthy to travel like this, but you do need to make some rather large compromises. Luca is old enough for us to have discussions about all this, and he very much has a say in what, and how we do things, as he has to make compromises too. So far he loves how we live, but if he stops loving it we will reassess. I really feel giving kids a sense of control and say over their life, is very important to family relations both for now and in the future, not to mention how they feel about themselves right now 🙂

We are not independently wealthy, the selling of our things will aid in our travels, every little bit helps, also Luca, who like every other kid, likes “things”, (the more the better! 🙂 ), and we are wanting to show him that these things aren’t the source happiness he may believe them to be, that materialistic things are nice, but you really need very little in terms of things, to be happy. This is not to say we are making him get rid of everything precious to him! More, we are asking him to really think about what is important. Of course the knowledge that he can pocket the proceeds from the garage sale of the things he is not taking, is proving to be quite the incentive!

Future posts will deal with practicalities like budgets, costs, schooling etc. Also the ups and downs, pros and cons, it is definitely not all sunshine and roses!!!! We have our good and bad days like everyone else. Sometimes the choices we make exhilarate me, and sometimes they terrify me, in case we get it wrong, there is a lot more at stake when you have a child, he takes priority over everything else.

Another post will deal with why we decided this particular move to the Cloud Forest of Costa Rica, is best for Luca in terms of his education.

This is Luca’s room and the suitcase he will fill, as you can see he has some choices to make!