A time of change (post by Kerry)

So we’re moving.  I know we've mentioned this a couple of times now, but the stuff going on inside, the emotions around this particular step in our journey have been knocking around my brain for the last couple of weeks as it becomes more and more real.  I’ve lived in Seattle (and a few outlying neighborhoods) since 1978.  I spent a couple years in Minnesota after high school and one year in Idaho after college… but otherwise – this has been home.  In order: There was the small rental cottage on Mercer Island that my mom and I moved to from Massachusetts when I was nine; the house my mom bought in North Bend, where we lived for about three years during middle school; then the one bedroom condo in Rainier Beach we moved into, when Mom married Ray, right over the water on Lake Washington.  Next, during my Senior year in High School – we rented a beautiful brick tudor in the Seward Park area while the owners were on sabbatical in France.  I spent the summer after high school with my parents in an apartment overlooking Southcenter Mall.

 

This is when I left for a couple of years and while I was gone, my parents and grandparents built a wonderful Cape Cod style house out in Woodinville.  When I returned at the age of 19, I lived there in a three generation household for two years while working and starting at Cornish.  At the end of my first year of Cornish College, I began my apartment years – first on Capitol Hill in a small studio for $350 per month (crazy right?), then on Queen Anne with a couple of my classmates in a duplex with a view to die for. 

Cue another year away – falling in love and working in a theater in Sun Valley Idaho.  I moved back to Washington with Rob and lived with my family again out in Woodinville until we married in 1995.  Then there were our houses as a couple – the two rentals in Northgate, literally three houses away from each other, and then our first home ownership – a cute three bedroom rambler in Top Hat, nestled between Burien and White Center.

After the divorce, I sold my car and moved downtown into Tower 801 – a pie shaped apartment where I started to figure out who I wanted to be at the age of 36.  My sister, Zanne, decided to move to Seattle at this point and after two years on my own, we decided to shack up as roommates – first in a beautiful three story rental house on 25^th and Madison, then in a townhouse Zanne purchased over on Yesler.  It was at this point that Donn and I got engaged, married, and moved in together in the winter of 2008/2009.  We lived in his condo at 24^th and Madison for almost two years before we made our last move – onto the boat in a gorgeous slip on Lake Union in Fremont. 

It’s been almost five years.  And now, although I’ll still be working in South Lake Union, my life and focus are moving away from Seattle to Tacoma.  My actual home won’t be changing, which is kind of cool – no need to pack or clean or any of the typical “moving” activities.  Just untie the lines, and head for our last pass through the bridges and locks out into Puget Sound this coming Saturday.  Six hours or so later, we should be in our new slip in Foss Harbor Marina.

 

I’ve had a truly amazing life in this city – filled with theater, dance, friends, lovers, family, and so many adventures and escapades.  I am lucky - I have some incredible memories to carry with me and so many friends who will always be in my heart.  But I feel ready for this shift, this turning away from my history here.  This move marks the next step, the beginning of our effort to pull away – point our bow towards our future of sailing, travelling, seeing more of this world beyond the Northwest.  For now, we aim for Tacoma and exploring the South Sound as much as possible before we cut the dock lines for good and go on the Grand Adventure that awaits….

The Money Trap vs. Freedom

Brigadoon, reaching.

Once Upon a Time...on a sea far far away...

Brigadoon courses along, pushing salt water aside, riding the pace and timing of the waves, in her element, in her home. We ride with her, on her, within her, between this place and that, on this ocean crossing; ten days behind us and maybe fifteen more to go. We've gotten used to this schedule by now, resting when it is time, working and letting the other rest when it is time. Seabirds occasionally come to rest aboard her. We are welcome for the company. Dolphins sometimes join us too, riding her bow wave, playing with us as we head ever farther west -- ever farther. It's been two years now, since we cast off the lines and headed south. We've learned much. One of those things is that our preparations were the right ones, that we made the right decisions, tool the right chances and paid the right price in sacrifices to get here -- freedom. I'm happy. We are happy. We worked hard to get here, to this place where the horizon of our past is behind us and our future lies ahead. Our past is merely what led us to this moment. Our future? Who knows but, it's our future...ours alone.

I remember all those years, working for a living, falling into the money trap. You get a job, you buy some stuff, you get some credit, and you go in debt. You work to get a better job, so you can buy more stuff on credit, going into even more debt. At some point, during that trap, I turned around and wondered how I got there, so beholding to others for what I owed them. I worked jobs I did not like for bosses who I did not respect and at companies that did not care about anything else but the bottom line.

Many times I tried to get out of debt but, I never got there. Prices rise, one has to have a home, a vehicle, and then there are the toys. Many of these things are built on debt, because we have to have them now or we are unfulfilled, unsatisfied. What a fool I was.

Then I met Kerry and we found Brigadoon. Living aboard was, at first, merely a different way to live. In finding her, we discarded many of the things we couldn't have. Living on a boat gives you only so much space to keep things. Things started to lose their grip on us. At first we sold and sold and sold things to get Brigadoon. Then we placed items we thought we would still need in a nice heated storage unit just blocks up the road. We visited it sometimes, then less and less. Finally, another price increase drove us to get rid of the storage unit and move to a smaller one at our marina. We discarded even more things and we had less.  Less burden, less obligation, and less debt.

Then we made the plan. We decided to see the world instead of just living aboard and cruising the Puget Sound for five years. Brigadoon was capable. We just needed to become capable and ready. A financial plan was developed to get us debt free. Once we owed no money, once we were beholding to no one financially, questions started to raise themselves.

If we had no obligations, and Brigadoon is a solid and seaworthy vessel, just how much income do we really need? The answer was surprising. Instead of the job that brings in large sums -- oddly connected to large amounts of stress, insanity, working in an environment that wasn't healthy for us, we could literally do whatever we want. Our choices opened up. The plan was solid. We hit benchmarks. This vehicle paid off, those credit cards cleared, and finally a last payment to the bank for Brigadoon.

Freedom. Any income we had was ours. All we had to spend money on was the actual cost of living simply aboard Brigadoon, plus any frivolity we chose to afford. We saved money, finalized upgrades to Brigadoon, closed the task list of "must-dos" and were done. Done. Nothing was keeping us here.

We quit the jobs that satisfied neither of us.

Quit. Resigned. No longer obligated to work in toxic corporate environments, with people or companies we didn't respect, for the paycheck to support debt  -- the debt was gone and so was the need. We broke the bonds of the Money Trap, the debt to others, the obligations, the control others had on our lives -- control we gave them. We gave it to them through our actions. But now? Done. Finished. Free.

Resigned.

Retired. 

I finished and self-published my fifth book -- the others were selling just fine. This would help. Kerry had played in the theater the last few years, building a foundation where we just might be performing in some foreign land someday. 

Ready.

And so we finalized our plans, readied ourselves, let go the dock lines to the marina that was our home for over five years.  We left. We raised two bridges, transited the locks, spent a last night at Shilshole and headed north. Four days later we entered the open Pacific, gained sea space and headed offshore, turning left and south to see the world together.

And they lived happily ever after.

and the Freedom Project isn't just about a boat

It's about the overall idea of downsizing, both in the amount of stuff we own and how much we owe.

So, to that end, we went from this:

to this...

Smarty (yes, that is what Kerry named her) has a screaming 70hp, ABS, traction control and, get this...paddle shifters.  I kid you not.  It has paddle shifters on the steering wheel.

At least they are both German.

So, why the change?

Well, the BMW Z4 is a stupendous car -- really.  Driving it around the potholed roads of Seattle - not so much.  When we get the boat, it will move from a secure, private garage to a parking spot near the marina.  I just can't do that to this car.

Also, we are saving *hundreds* of dollars a month doing this (combination of car payment, insurance and such), which means that money can go towards paying down other debt or going into savings. 

After driving it a couple days in Seattle traffic, I have decided that

1) this thing is a breeze to park,

2) is actually easier to drive on crowded Seattle roads than the Z4 thoroughbred and,

2) I am going to install two (2) of these:

http://www.aerostich.com/ear-cannon-air-horn.html

Yes, 139dB each.  The next ^%$#%^#@ that changes lanes into Smarty will be seeing his audiologist for permanent hearing loss and a hearing aid.