Tuesday, October 10, 2017

Selling everything in order to go abroad

Path to destination
Media has written stories of people like Taneli Roininen and Ville Syväniemi who sold all of their belongings in order to go abroad. For example Syväniemi was able to sell stuff worth 10k Eur to finance his stint abroad. Funny coincidence is that Roininen was in Tblisi same time as me, during the tragedic floods where 19 lives were claimed and animals escaped from zoo.

These gentlemen are around same age as me, and had already rooted themselves in Finland before they got the idea to go abroad. Therefore they had accumulated good amount of stuff, what they got rid of, before leaving Finland. In comparasion to me, I have tried to live with as little stuff as possible, to be able to move easily and not to waste money on unnecesssary stuff, what I cannot bring with me when I move.

Though when I moved to Joensuu for my studies to live on my own, I bought a bed which cost 500 euros because I was expecting to sleep in it at least 5 years, which was the expected duration of my studies. As the the apartment was shared, I was able to avoid buying many other supplies and furniture for comfortable living. On the second year of my studies I got the idea to go for an exchange year in Spain, then I adopted the mentality to avoid accumulating too much stuff as I had to move out in one year. Since then I have been mentally prepared to change location and able to avoid wasting money on goods which cannot be taken easily inside a suitcase. During the past years I have chosen always to live in furnished flat, which means that I can avoid buying furniture, electrodomestics, dishes and other basic household supplies.

Thanks to minimalistic lifestyle, I never had to make drastic announcement that everything on sale. Owning less made the decision of going abroad or changhing the location easier. Though I can say that in my suitcase there are very few same items as I have replaced them or left out when I left Finland for the first time.