I Sold Everything I Owned and Moved to India
By: David Ferrara
Tags: Minimalism, Personal Finance, Life Lessons, Travel, Life

I Sold Everything I Owned and Moved to India

Photo by Steven Lewis on Unsplash

Ok, ok, what I did wasn’t exactly as romantic as that title probably sounds.

So, forgive me the click-bait. Although, it’s really not complete click-bait. I did sell everything I owned, I did move to India, and all of my possessions were in two bags.

The picture,, though. Yeah, pure clickbait. Sorry. I’m not even a girl**

** Aside. Before I started writing on Medium, I used to see the pic on a Medium article and then see the author’s name and notice guy’s using gal’s pics, and gal’s using guy’s pics, and think, hmmm, interesting choice. Now that I’m writing on Medium, I just think, dang, Unsplash really needs to get some more pictures in the database.

Anyway, back to my story

So, here’s why I felt it was a little clickbaity because my massive firm of a company sent me there. In business class. Took care of my apartment, got me a driver, and basically took care of my every need.

The plane had this in it, for god’s sake.

Emirates A380 Bar Area ~ photo via traveller.com

So, yeah, not quite as romantic as you probably imagined. But at least I had some free eighteen-year-old Scotch on the ride over.

Why I sold everything

I was given a bonus to move to India. There were about two dozen other US ex-pats from my Company spread out among the two cities we were located during my time there. Almost all of them used the bonus to crate up and ship their possessions halfway around the world.

I just sold everything I owned and pocketed that money, and jumped on a plane. Well, I jumped on a plane after sitting for two weeks in my parent’s house because I moved out of my apartment already and India was impossible about my work visa.

Some of my coworkers had families, houses full of furniture, not just apartments full, and kids and their things to think about. So completely understandable, they shipped their stuff over.

But some of my single coworker’s shipped their things over as well. Looking back, I wonder how much of their belongings they still have with them currently. Most of us cycle through so many things in life that five or ten years later, you’ve gotten rid of most of that stuff anyway. So, why bother shipping stuff halfway around the world.

The most freeing feeling in the world

It’s a good thing the visa took the couple of months it did because I was posting stuff on craigslist every day and needed that time to sell it all.

I sold literally everything. Some stuff was easy to let go of. Some were really difficult.

Thankfully, I already lived a somewhat minimalist lifestyle—less minimalism at this time in my life and more frugality.

But still, I had a beautiful new sofa. The lady I sold that too, I remember I could tell was thinking, why is this idiot selling this brand new sofa. I had a Vitamix blender that I spent a lot of money on. I was able to get back 50 or 60% of the cost of these. Perhaps my camping gear was the hardest thing to let go of, especially the tent and nice semi-new backpack.

But I did it. Bed is gone, sofa gone, desk gone, camping gear gone, car gone, kitchen stuff gone. All the furniture was gone.

I remember the order of what I sold things off was a big deal at the time. Like, I should probably sell the bed last. And the blender towards the end because I liked having a smoothie for breakfast at the time.

As my pile of possession’s got smaller and smaller, I remember feeling lighter and lighter.

Although, in the end, I also remember sitting in my barren, empty apartment with my three bags and only enough stuff that fit in them, thinking to myself. Getting ready to sleep on the floor that night and thinking, ok, was this really such a good idea?

But let me tell you, when I took my three bags (three from Denver to DC where one got left with the parents and then two to India), I had never felt so free.

Imagine no possessions; I wonder if you can

Photo by Marie Rouilly on Unsplash

I basically have no possessions, but I also had no rent, no car payment, and no utilities. Absolutely no possessions and no responsibilities.

I was free, baby!

It was an exhilarating and scary feeling at the same time. But I still remember the feeling. This is great! This is how I want to live my life! this is how life is supposed to be lived! I was free to do anything, go anywhere, with a minute’s notice. Nothing to get rid of, nothing to sell off, almost nothing to pack. This is what freedom feels like!

Yes, I had job responsibilities. But that would last a year and a half; then I can either come back to Denver and get another apartment and fill it up again with stuff. Or I could move to another city, another country, get another job. Not only that, there’s no car to be taken care of, no furniture that needs to be moved, minimal clothes and possessions to pack up.

Just grab my two bags and move on to the next place. I was Jack Reacher! Ok, I needed to lose one of the bags to reach that level. But that’s doable, right?

How I live now

It’s been a few years since this experience.

I’ve since then moved further away from minimalism, then moved back towards it again.

I, of course, accumulated stuff in India while living there. But knowing that was temporary, I kept it pretty minimal. All of that got left behind when I finished that work assignment. The biggest thing I had to do there found someone to buy the motorcycle I picked up.

After India, I ended up moving back to Colorado, this time in the mountains, bought a car, bought a place, then rented that out and bought another place, and my possessions increased.

But recently, I ended up getting rid of a lot of those possessions. I am now renting both those places, and I have moved back towards a more minimalist life again. I am writing this from Mexico right now in a rental; I’m down to one suitcase and a backpack. But I do have a storage container in Colorado now. So, definitely not traveling as light as before. There are things back home to monitor, think about, worry about.

But one day, perhaps when I actually have a bit more financial resources, perhaps I’ll move more towards that two bag lifestyle again.

It seems a bit counterintuitive, I know, but I do feel the more I have in the bank, the lighter it’s possible to live one’s life. I can pick things up and then drop them after I’m done and not worry too much of the cost of those things when picking them up.

But it’s hard to say. It’s easy to pick up possession’s in this life; it’s hard to get rid of them. And the older we get, the more and more we seem to pick up. The more we seek comfort over freedom.