I know, I know, a little late. But, I swear I have (good) excuses, like not having internet the first week, and then being lazy… and then napping… a lot. BigDefeatingSigh. Enough with the blame game, let’s just say I took a tiny trans-America hiatus, K. And so here it is, in all it’s recap glory:

Pre-trip – Prep & Packing
This mostly went something like “Holy $h!t, we have how many days left to pack everything?!”
We had planned to do great things. I hoped to make a small fortune by selling our possessions. The potential was there. The time and organizational skills, not so much. We did have varying degrees of success funding the road trip.

Amazon Trade-In was by far our biggest success. We made over $600 submitting textbooks, novels, dvds, and used electronics. We sold probably 70% of our book collection. Amazon doesn’t pay cash, so we used gift credit for a tent, sleeping bag, and other camping supplies. We used the remaining credit for household items- french press, glasses, water kettle, cooking utensils, cutlery, dog supplies. And even more exciting, thanks to the 4-for-3 promotion, we got some items free.

We made $50.30 from Textbookrecycling.com. I chose this site because they donate a (very small) percentage of your sale to charity. Also, they will take some books that won’t resell and donate them as well. So basically, if you want to get rid of books that no one else will take, and feel good about it, this is the site. Textbookrecycling.com will send a check, or deposit to your paypal account. You can check your shipment status online too. I had my deposit in less than a week.

JD and I saved about $350 on smartypig.com. While we had to withdraw our savings before seeing any amazing interest results, it was nice to have this extra cash squirreled away. We plan on using this site  to save for our wedding/honeymoon too. One of the nicest things is the ability to create donation widgets for social media sites and wish lists. We put one on our registry so anyone who prefers to give cash can donate securely online to this interest bearing account. Pure awesomesauce.

Bottles, Cans & Spare Change Jar: $50+

Craigslist: $20

Gifts from family & friends: a lot. We cannot thank them enough!

We donated the remainder to our local Goodwill store. I hoped to donate to the New Haven Home Recovery Co-op, but scheduling was not on my side (limited hours of operation). Anyone in the Greater New Haven area with excess furniture/clothes/household items please check out this amazing organization!!!

We intended to use the whole week before the move to pack everything and get organized, but things like spending time with our friends and enjoying our last days in New Haven took priority. Oh yeah, and JD graduated Yale that weekend, so we were a little bit busy. Inevitably, the night before, and the night before the night before were filled with stress, scrambling, and sanity-saving help from our friends. Here are some embarrassing pics of the last min process.