My Return to India (R2I) story > R2I Chapter 4
Planning for our move, Suja and I intentionally decided to simplify our relocation and put a plan to begin downsizing our household artifacts, which would take a couple of months. By early March, Suja and I had set the deadline of early May for our move, that would coincide with the start of new school year in India. Once this date was set, the clock began ticking down.
We had to set all financial affairs in order, dispose-off
all the furniture, decide on household belongings we really wanted shipped and discard,
give away or sell the rest. In addition, there was the logistics of managing
our actual trip, packing excess baggage and the other aspects that came with
it.
While planning, we began bucketing items into a few
categories like “must ship,” “to consider,” “use till the end and discard,”
“for charity,” and lastly “to sell.” The
last category was a bit tricky judgement call since one could donate almost all
items to charity too. There were a few items that were relatively new that we
decided to sell during an upcoming Yard Sale.
The yard sale
In April, as springtime approached, the HOA had organized
our neighborhood yard sale. We decided to make use of this opportunity and
signed up. While we had a month to go and we still needed some basic furniture,
pots and pans, till the end of our stay, other sundry stuff could go.
Yard and Garage Sales are extremely common across America,
especially in spring and fall when people clean their closets and garages. This
is an extremely convenient way to dispose one’s unwanted furniture and
household knick-knacks and generate some money. The thinking is based on “one
man’s thrash is another man’s utility.” After deliberations in our community’s
facebook page, the date for the sale was scheduled for the last Sunday in
March, in the large open parking lot. The deliberation in the facebook
primarily centered with ensuring our Yard sale did not to coincide with date of
sales in other neighboring communities and would ensure a steady footfall of
customers.
During our years in the US, Suja and I had occasionally been to yard sales looking for the odd curios or antiques, but had never been on the other side as sellers which was a novel experience. We woke up early on the day of the sale, gathered some shelves, almirahs, tools and equipment I had bought for my home garage along with Vijay’s sparingly used toys, bike and scooter that he had outgrown. We made a couple of trips in our car and got the stuff arranged in the area designated for the Yard Sale.
Prospective customers began arriving early in the morning in
their minivans and trucks. Our pricing was rather ad-hoc with room for
negotiation. For example, the shelf we bought at Ikea a year ago for $299 and
painstakingly assembled over a weekend was priced to-go at $25. And this was
the first item picked up by a young couple that didn’t even haggle over our
price. Other items in our list were picked up in a couple of hours and we
walked away smiling and a few dollars richer.
Disposing other household items
Like many Indian families in America, we had a few unique
Indian items and appliances that we had picked up during our trips back home.
For example, the re was a mini wet-grinder used to grind Idli and Dosa batter
and a set of Indian ‘mixie’ (mixer grinder) which Suja offered to her friends
who haggled over who got what.
The process of downsizing continued through the weeks
leading to our departure. While we had sold or given away most of the large
furniture and items, a few essentials remained till the last week. This
included our bed, Vijay’s kiddy bed, his favorite toys and bicycle, TV and
stereo system, couch on the living room etc. The weekend before our move, I
posted these items as “available first come” on our community’s facebook page
and they picked up by happy neighbors.
On seeing the FB post, Josey, our neighbor who lived down
the cul-de-sac asked if she could stop by with her dog before picking up the
couch. I was intrigued and said okay. She came by an hour later with her beagle
Sam, and explained it was a ‘working dog’ that she used in her business. She
said she offered a ‘bug sniffing’ service to hotels and motels in North
Carolina and neighboring states. Turns out bed-bugs and termites are a major
challenge for hotels and an infestation in a single room can spread fast
shutting down the business. While hotels use modern technologies, CCTV and
surveillance, they still depend on trained sniffer dogs to identify this scourge.
After working in IT for a number of years, Josey was looking for a change in
career and came across the opportunity to manage trained sniffer dogs.
Josey got Sam into our hall and commanded him to sniff the
couch. After walking around the couch a couple of times, Sam was apparently
satisfied not to find a smell and Josey gladly accepted the couch. She
apologized for bringing the dog but explained that she couldn’t be doubly sure
about potential bugs in her house since this impacted her business too.
Sell the car online
While I was willing to accept a nominal amount or giveaway
most of the household items, our cars were another matter. We owned two
Volkswagens – a Passat dating to 2012 and another relatively new VW Jetta-2015.
A friend had an eye on the Sliver Passat and made a decent offer at the
mid-range of Kelly Blue book and we sealed the deal with a handshake.
For the newer Black Jetta, I was expecting about $15 K,
slightly over the Blue-book value and I decided to post it on Craigslist about
a month before our departure. I figured I would keep the advertisement going for
a couple of weeks before turning over the keys to the dealer who had made an
offer for $14 K.
A day after the listing went live, I got a call from a lady
in Raleigh who introduced herself as Susan and said she was a nurse at Duke
Medical, a large hospital chain. I had posted a couple of pictures of the car
with the online listing. Susan asked if I could email additional pictures from
different angles along with the car’s VIN number. It is standard practice to do
a VIN check while buying a used car to verify the car’s sale history to check if
it had any accidents reported and I didn’t think much of the request.
The next day, Susan called back and said the car’s details
checked out and she would drive down to Greensboro that afternoon with a
cashier’s check and pick up the vehicle. Would I be okay with it?
I was floored and intrigued and told her I would call back
and confirm the time and venue where we could meet next day.
Although I had bought and sold stuff on Craigslist and eBay,
I was apprehensive at the buyer’s decisiveness and the speed of response. Not
only the decision was instant, but there was also no negotiation at all. Although I knew the car
was relatively new and the price I asked for was reasonable, it was customary
for buyers to haggle a bit.
I began wondering if there was a red-flag here; would the
lady (and her accomplice) hoodwink me and grab the keys to my car in the
pretext of making an instant offer? Almost all of us have heard of the infamous
“Nigerian Prince scam” and might also know of folks who may have been duped
online. It would be a shame if I got trapped; I was after all, a tech executive
who also advised businesses on digital strategies and risks.
I was not sure of the due-diligence I had to perform and I tried
to ask a couple of friends and colleagues who were equally intrigued. I called the
manager at my bank, the Digital Credit Union, my primary financial institution.
DCU did not have any branches in North Carolina but I wanted to check how I
could authenticate a cashier’s check. The manager I spoke to was understanding
of my apprehension and said I could take the buyer with the check to a local
Credit Union in Greensboro that was a member of unions and ask for help in validating
the funds and also have it deposited to my account. I messaged Susan my office
location and said we could meet at the parking lot by 12 pm the next day.
Susan arrived on time in the afternoon accompanied by a
female friend. After a brief introduction, the two young ladies looked at the
Jetta and said simply – okay. Deal done without even a test-drive.
I requested them to follow me to the local Credit Union
where I showed Susan’s casher’s check that seemed to be in order. The funds
were instantly credited to my account. I endorsed my signature on the back of
the car’s title document and handed it over to Susan, requesting them to follow
me back to my office in their car. Back at the parking lot, I handed the keys
over to Susan and bid adieu to my Jetta.
I went back to my desk and called Suja and we had a good laugh over this strange but fruitful sale. She stopped by later in the evening to pick me up and drive me to Hertz, where I had booked a rental car for the next month.
Relocation also requires you to think on your feet and sometimes sweat the small stuff. The story Suja and I fondly recollect is that of 'getting rid' of our old Sofa quickly and decisively.
What does this mean to you?
Most of us spend a lot of time reading reviews and researching
while acquiring household stuff. For some, it might be the thrill of seeking
bargains or looking for items to match one’s home décor. These lovingly
acquired household items depreciate in value, but the average mind is unable to
accept the ‘depreciation’ as a write off. For instance, we had jumped through
the hoops to buy the wet-grinder running on US power specifications, and had it
carefully packed and bubble-wrapped while shipping with us during a trip back from
India. Same for the solid-oak dining table that accentuated our dining room and
so on. The items bought for hundreds or thousands of dollars were now ‘worth’
less than a tenth, thanks to aging and depreciation.
This emotional yin-yang played out for many of the larger
items we had acquired over the years. Given such emotion, it is understandable
why some folks relocating from one place to another decide to ship their items
rather than dispose them and start afresh. The return to India decision can be
emotionally draining when one has to take a ‘ship or discard’ decision on
almost all the major household items. Not surprisingly, Suja and I had opted to
transfer and ship our belongings and car when we relocated from Phoenix to
Greensboro a decade ago.
Having been through other relocations in the past, things
were different this time. We were intentionally going to be minimalistic when
it came to household stuff and furniture.
No comments:
Post a Comment