The Plan

Though I'm certain no one reads my blog anymore (as evidenced by the fact that I have hardly any comments ever), I feel compelled to keep updating it, at least occasionally. Since I dropped my bombshell (Which no one felt compelled to comment on, really? I thought it was big news!) earlier this week, I've been thinking a lot about the plan to move to Crested Butte. After all, one doesn't pick up and move across the country with no plan, particularly if said person has two hungry puppies and a beer-needy husband to think about.

I haven't gotten very far with my planning, though. I've run all kinds of scenarios through my head, any of which could either succeed or fail. So far, I've figured out a lot of what will absolutely not work. (I have, however, accomplished one very, very important thing—getting my mom on board with the idea. This will make my life much, much easier in the long-term.)

Here's what I do know, though. I need to accomplish a few things in order to make the move:

• Sell the house. This is huge. Not only is the housing market in the crapper (although it is starting to rebound a bit and a few houses in our neighborhood have sold recently), there is a lot that needs to happen before this house will be market-worthy. I see a 40-yard dumpster, a few thousand dollars and a lot of blood, sweat and tears in my near future. I'm also going to minimize, because I am not going to move a bunch of crap like 20-year-old French class notes to Colorado.
• Save some money and pay down/off some debt. I have a couple of pesky credit card balances that need to be wiped clean. They're not huge, but I'd feel better if they were gone before we left. I have less than two years left on my car loan, so I'd like to speed up that process. Anything we can do to pay off debt and accumulate savings before we go into something as uncertain as this is going to help.
• Figure out some way to get income after we are out there. We have talked about everything from starting our own business to living off 401ks to freelance work to waiting tables to consulting to winning the Mega Millions to borrowing money from my dad. In my ideal scenario, Chris is offered a cushy consulting job following his success at setting up a Sharepoint environment for the State. He would get to work from home and occasionally travel. I would run the day-to-day operations of our B&B and enlist his help when necessary, picking up freelance writing jobs for extra income on the side. (By the way, if anyone has a cushy consulting job to offer my husband, he just got an award for setting up a Sharepoint environment for the State.)
• Learn to live modestly and frugally. Obviously, we are not going to have the type of money to spend out there we do here. Our house payment would likely be tripled or quadrupled, not to mention what would happen to our other expenses. Needless to say, we will have to economize. This will be much more difficult for my husband than it will be for me.

For now, that's what I have for a plan. I will keep you updated as we make progress (if there are any of you actually out there, that is).