Sold, Stressed & Starting Fresh: Closing One Chapter, Building the Next

Welcome to We Should Probably Edit This, but we won't.

This is about our life's messy journey. It's unscripted, talks about growth, real laughs, sometimes real laughs, sometimes just the chaos.

And, and we think there's a little bit of comedy here.

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It's about our 37 years of marriage and our experience. I'm Matthew Greger.

And I'm Nancy Greger. And we're your hosts of We Should Probably Edit This.

But we won't. And we probably should have edited that. So here's our next episode.

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Okay.

Well, welcome to our first March episode, and we should probably edit this, but we won't.

So are you wondering where we've been? Oh boy, where— what have we been doing these last few weeks? I don't remember the last time we, we, we did this.

You know, it was right before we started really moving and things, so We listed our house and we—

the realtor did a coming soon type of deal. So we listed our house and then a week later we were going to start the showings. And we said, okay, starting Saturday from, I think it was 9 o'clock in the morning till about 7 o'clock.

Originally we had set up two, two shows Saturday and Sunday. However, there was a big snowstorm that was huge.

It was, it was a big snowstorm, so we had to cancel Sunday. We did all day Saturday. We got a Saturday in, uh, and then we rescheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday. It was a whirlwind of showings. It was like unbelievable.

Yeah, we had over 40— I would say 45, 45 showings.

Yeah, 46 showings. Um, so it was a lot of people.

So it was within one week span time, starting Saturday, and it ended Wednesday. And then Thursday, they had this highest and best on Thursday.

And by Thursday night, we had accepted an offer.

So yeah, there were over 12 offers that came in.

There were over 12 offers. There were a range. From what I would consider realistic to, I don't know what you're thinking. But that was good for us. Yeah, because we ended up selling the house, um, for a price that I would have never imagined that we would get. Um, and so because of that, uh, we're closing March 9th. We had a little bit of hiccup inspection.

Yeah, look, it's a lot. It's a lot of stress when you're moving and when you're— for sure, because you don't want the deal to fall apart, but yet you've got 11 other offers.

We were moving regardless of where the offers took us. We made that commitment that we were going to move. We were going to give the house one week fully furnished and by the following week we were moving.

And which we did.

Which we did.

So, so we've moved, we've sold the house, we've gone through inspections, we had to deal with open permit issues, we had to repaint, fix, clean the house, clean the house.

And, and by yesterday, yep, we finished it all.

Well, we finished the house. Yeah, it's ready to close next week.

Yeah, because we are going to be gone. We are going to San Diego for our Ultra event. Yeah, yes, we're going to be meeting up with some fellow, um, friends that we haven't seen for a while, right? And we're looking forward to it.

So our growth friends are looking forward to—

so it's going to give us, uh, an opportunity to, to get a little warmer because it is cold here where we live.

Get a little warmer and relax a little bit, get rid of the white snow for a little while. This, this winter has been, has been an interesting winter.

It's been brutal for sure. It's, it's been the winter that, you know, years are in the making. That before—

yeah, well, normally here where we live in, in Norwalk, Connecticut, um, if you get a— if you get snow, it doesn't last very long. Maybe a week, you know, it warms back up and it's gone. And usually the snow that does come Sometimes it's plowable or snow shovelable or snowblowerable, but this time we've had so much snow, um, and then it got so cold the first time around. Yeah, before this last blizzard that came through, froze, um, you know, everything was just frozen. You haven't seen green grass in a long time.

Mountains.

We were lucky, we were lucky there was that big snowstorm in December, um, that we got stuck in after taking Ben from the airport. Yeah, yeah, with that.

But that kind of came in.

No, but it lasted a while. But then we warmed up just, just enough to like get rid of it so we could have our photos made for the house, for the listing, for the outside.

It was beautiful by that point. The grass was— you could see the grass. There was no snow anywhere.

I'm not quite sure it was as green as what was in the listing photos, but no, I think it was.

I think it was. Because you can't change something without disclosing it. So I'm pretty sure that that was the color, but we ended up with one really fabulous day of beautiful and warmer weather that we were able to get the pictures done. So things always happen for a reason. And, um, while it's always a little traumatizing, I don't think— this is the third house we've bought and sold Um, I don't remember.

Why does this one seem more stressful than the others? Is it— is it—

no, I think you forgot. I think it's like—

is that what it is?

Yeah.

So next year at this time, if you ask me about it, I won't think it was as bad, it was as stressful.

I think we learned for each move and we learned from each house, right? Um, we lucked out for the previous— the first two houses. Actually, even this house, because the first house I wasn't a realtor, but the second house I was, and the third house I was. So we saved on some commission when we bought and sold.

Um, but this time when you bought this third house, but when we sold this third house, we were not.

Correct.

We were—

we were no longer— I was an agent for 17 West Pine, but— and an agent for 98.

Um, when we bought it, but when you— when you sold the house this time around, you were not.

We saved a little bit of money.

That was in the beginning, but This time we didn't. We hired someone, but I don't know if we would have gotten the price we got if we hired somebody else.

Well, let me put it to you this way. He was very confident.

Yep.

Very confident of what he felt we were going to get for the house compared to the other agents.

Right.

He had— he was like up here, and the other agents were kind of like, this is where I'm feeling.

Well, he proved his worth.

He did. And He did.

And, um, but yeah, so through the process, I think what it teaches you, or taught me, is just to have a little more faith and a little more, a little more patience, and knowing that the process is going to go through. I mean, when the, when the inspection report came through, when they, when they did that, it was just like, it seemed insignificant, the, the things that were in there. And look, even afterwards, when the he came to pick up the radon test. I talked to the inspector a little bit, and he said he had to like struggle to find anything wrong with our house.

Yeah, but he still managed to put some things down, so I'm not sure about that. But the good news is, is, um, we have been very much on a mission since we decided to put the house on the market. We were very much on a mission to get rid of a lot of things, and we got rid of a lot of things. And even to yesterday, at the very last day, we had 2 pieces of furniture left in the house, and we finally sold those 2 pieces of furniture. So, um, I would say to somebody, if this is what you're going to want to do, don't wait to the last minute to do any of it. Plan your, uh, plan what it is that you're going to do.

And this will be— since we started it, it'll be 6 months that we actually It's been a 6-month process.

Yeah.

You know, and that's still even a short, a short window of time. I mean, we didn't really start doing a lot till end of November, end of November.

It was cleaning up. It was cleaning up and it was kind of getting the house to—

I mean, it's like we went from a house to a condo.

Right.

And so we got rid of the garage, the storage shed, the basement. And you know, over the years, that's where a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff is.

It's the someday stuff.

Keep hitting that. Yep, I'm the one that's doing the—

so it was the someday stuff. Someday this is going to come, and I'm going to need this someday. Um, it turns out that that's probably the one word we've decided we're never going to use again. There is no someday. It's now or never. There's no someday, right? So once you take that in your, in your mind, um, that it's now or never, you make decisions a lot faster.

I mean, that's what we did with— when we— with this decision, we had to decide what are we keeping, what are we not, you know. Um, I really did my best to get rid of those someday things that are in there. I do still have my buoys for my boat because someday I will have a boat. But no, but I will have a boat again. And there are a few things, but most of all the tools and stuff are just, just stuff that I could use now with things that I do. Yeah, there's a few things that I probably don't really need, but, um, is that it had to fit.

The good thing about this particular condo that we moved into is it, it allowed— it gave us a pretty big storage unit that we were able to—

Yeah, 6x9, and we organized it in such a way, we brought in some of their metal shelves, and then we got uniformed containers, storage containers. Not the real big standard 27-gallon ones, but we got 17, and they fit really nice on those shelves. So as long as we can get everything in there, it's uniformed, you know, and it makes storing things that much easier. That much easier and simpler. You know, so if you're gonna do that, really consider about being consistent and, and putting things in unified, you know, containers. It just makes it much easier for stacking.

Yeah. And by this time around, um, we didn't really have anything to give to the kids because two of our kids live far away and the third one, he's, you know, he's local but not really ready for some of the things that we had. So it was a good decision just to sell it, uh, or, uh, donate it. And boy, we—

I just wish there was a better source for donation.

Yeah, the donation part wasn't— I mean, let me put it to you. We could have done free. We could have put on Facebook Marketplace free, but we would be dealing with so many people.

We already did some free stuff and it was—

and it was crazy.

It was crazy. But, but even like a donation way to donate things. Because I mean, we used Habitat for Humanity, and I really thought for sure that what we had put together were things that they would take, people could use. Yeah, it's like I had like all my garden tools, um, and none of them went. They wouldn't take any of them.

They wouldn't take any of the garden tools. And they were kind of like, what? Um, it was, it was interesting. Yes, it was a learning experience. Absolutely. Um, but I mean, let's face it, we still worked out. I think from selling all of our stuff, we made well over $6,000, right, in, in the things that we—

I mean, it's a fraction of the fraction of the amount of what we paid for it. But you have to realize you're lucky to get 25% of what you— of what— of what you bought it for.

Yeah, you want to get rid of it, so, uh, you had to make things enticing, uh, enough to get somebody out there. And some things we got rid of were very, very heavy pieces. I mean, it was kind of like, oh, who's gonna pick this up because it weighs 800 pounds or something. So, but we did it. High five, high five, we did it.

I mean, I think that— I think the thing that threw us for a loop last week was when we got the municipal records and, and they showed 3 open permits.

Here's the funny thing is that I had a feeling we were gonna hit— we were gonna have some open permits I had a feeling.

You had this feeling?

Yeah, because it was— certain things were done right around COVID. They were done during COVID And I, and I distinctly remember the electrician with the garage, and I remember, um—

but I thought they took care of it.

No, he took pictures, he kept sending pictures, they kept going back and forth. He would show up and the inspector wouldn't, and it was one thing after the other. And I think we just resolved ourselves to saying, okay, we'll just let it go.

But, but a lot of, a lot of the, um, contractors, they didn't follow up on getting the, the final inspections. So that's what really happened with it. And so there were 3 open permits. Fortunately, we only had to do 1 corrective measure.

We fixed things in 4 days because Monday was a snow day, the city was closed. We got notified via email and within 4 days we had it all done.

Yeah, we had, we had our certificates of compliance, but there was only one thing we had to fix. The others was getting health— yeah, getting zoning back out, just getting people to see that the one thing we had to fix was the garage, right? We had to put a cutoff. That was, that was, um, so, but it was nerve-wracking because it was one thing that could still be a clause that the buyers could get out of.

Correct.

If they found anything with the same records.

If they were open permits, it would be a reason for them to be able to back out of the deal. Now, from this point on, there is no reason, right? We made sure that our deal was no mortgage contingency and no appraisal contingency, which means if you were getting financing, I could care less whether you got approved or not. You had to show me that you had the money to buy my house cash outright if you needed to. And two, if you got financing, you were 100% the lender was going to get an appraisal. I didn't care what the house came in appraised at. So if the house came in at a lower point from what you purchased, that just means you're going to have to come to the table with more money. So we made sure that those two conditions were part of our contract and part of our deal. And so because of that, I'm like Okay, so we did our end. We made sure that the permits got resolved, and we sent that to our attorney. We already signed off on the documents because, like I said, we're going to be away. So now it's just a matter of, hey buyer, come to the table, uh, and bring a checkbook. So it'll be— it'll be freeing when we come back from San Diego because at that point in time We're 100% out of the other house.

We don't— we won't have that responsibility with all the snow. That's also the— it's the added burden of knowing that you're having to take care of that place, even though we're in a condo now and this is more or less taken care of by the management, um, for the snow. But that house we still had to be responsible for. So I mean, all my cameras are still— are still up and running so I can just see what's going on. Yeah, I mean, like, we had, um, I heard a noise the other day on the— on it. I didn't know what it was. I said, this isn't a normal noise. And so when I went in, the sump pump was continuously running because when they did the inspections and they looked at it, there's a hose that comes from the dehumidifier in there and it got stuck on the float, you know, because they didn't put it back in correctly.

Correctly. So little things like that.

So we just, I mean, it's like when you live in a house, you pay attention to what things are, the sounds that it makes, right? So if you're, if you're leaving a house open or vacant for a period of time, just make sure you have the appropriate monitor things in place.

In place, because you don't—

you definitely, especially during the wintertime like this when it was so cold for so long. Yeah, you know, you want to make sure you leave the heat running. Um, you know, and you don't want ice dams or any of those kind of things to happen.

So, so I, I think—

so that's the last you're gonna hear.

A baby sigh of relief now because We've made this a monumental change. So starting in 2026, we're already into March, uh, 2026 is really just push. We have done a tremendous amount and now we are going to begin the next process, which is get ready to retire.

Well, get ready to retire in 8 years.

Yes, but what I mean by getting ready to retire is getting our, our finances in order so that, right, in those few years when they come knock, we're here, we're prepared, and we're ready.

Yeah. Um, and that, that's what we'll go through in, in future shows, you know, what we're doing to invest, how we're investing.

Um, and it's not too late.

Right.

Just because, you know, coulda, woulda, shoulda. When I was 20 years old and I was working, should I have done certain things? Absolutely. But back then, it's like there was no cell phones back then, right?

What it was is we were using that word again, someday we're going to do this.

Yes. And then it catches up to you because life moves very, very quickly. And before you know it, it's here. So now is the time to, to plan, and now is the time to really just execute. A specific— but I think to some extent it helps us now because it's just the two of us. We don't have small children anymore. Um, what helps us? It's just you and me. And so we don't have the concern of raising children, okay, and the expense that they bring, right? Right.

I mean, at that time you're just all consumed by them and doing and taking care of— take care of them. And, and a lot of times you lose sight of what you should be doing to plan for the future during that time for yourself. Well, yeah, for yourselves and for them. Even when it comes to like college education, you know, we didn't save correctly, we didn't start—

we didn't do a lot of things. But I'm convinced of the fact that it doesn't matter. What matters is what we're doing now. What matters is, is that we've put ourselves in a position where we can really really truly focus on what it is that we want to do and also focus on, okay, what does the next phase, decade of our life— what is it going to look like? Where are we going to be? Yeah, what are we going to be doing?

Right. And that's why we're— we signed a 2-year lease in this apartment. We just chose not to buy right now because we don't know where we want to be. We don't know what we want really either. We just know it was the right time to sell. Yeah, so we took advantage of that, and we knew, and we knew that house was probably not going to be the house for us after certain things transpired through the, through the time period, that that house was not going to be the house for us. So why not take advantage of the market and then get yourself set up, give that extra boost that we needed, and we needed, that we needed to do that. Um, But so in future episodes, we'll go over a little bit about what we're doing to invest and how we're planning to grow our money and prepare for retirement. We'll go— you'll— we'll get into more of what we want to do next with this show, trying to bring some guest people on, maybe do some speaking with it, looking at really reaching out and trying to help help you guys out there. We're— look, look, if you guys have questions or you're not sure what to do, you're in the messy middle, you know, we may not be experiencing the exact same thing that you're going through, but we can contribute and we can help.

Oh, we can help you figure a few things out. But this is the year of the fiery horse, so we're gonna take the reins and we are— we're hitting like a rocket ship.

That's right, that's right. We're starting, and to me, to me, that's kind of starting now. Yeah, as we end this chapter, and then there's nothing better than starting in San Diego with our friends and, and with, with Growth Day and really getting re-energized, re-energized to come back and start those other projects that we're going to do to add additional income, you know, because, um, just get ready.

Like I said, what's going to happen is it's just preparation. It's really just like we're preparing. This is, this is the time we're preparing, you know. We're working at it. We're not spring chickens, by the way.

So speak for yourself.

So we're preparing.

In your mind, you still think you're young.

In your mind until you go to do something and then your body says, hey, hey, hey, hey.

That also brings back to, because here's, here's one thing I can tell you that we didn't do very well. Um, we used this process that we've been going through kind of as an excuse not to do different things between the move, preparing for the move, packing. Getting rid of stuff, the snow, the midwinter. So we stopped exercising the way that we should. We haven't eaten the best because we would take shortcuts. Either we were too exhausted to cook. You were.

I'm sorry, but there's two people that cook.

I know, I'm just saying.

So I might be tired, but somebody else could have cooked.

I was also tired too. I'm just stressing the point was, is that You do most of the cooking, which I appreciate. And so we just, you know, we use those excuses.

We went out to eat a lot. We just did not follow what we had been following for the last couple of years.

We kind of took the holidays as the opportunity to—

Go downhill.

To deflect what we were doing.

So listen, for me to listen to that other little person that says, yeah, go ahead and have the donut. You know you want the donut. Go have the donut. Don't worry about it, right? So that was, um, but listen, I'm not going to beat myself up. No. Um, I'm not going to sit there and, and, and, and say, oh, come on.

Um, part of it was, part of it was stress eating. Um, part of it was a very stressful time.

Yes, it was a very stressful time. This is, this was a big move for some reason.

For me, it was a condensed, very emotional time as well.

There were lots of things going on. I mean, in one day I was hit with so many epic things that had occurred. I just didn't— I didn't even know what to do.

You reached out to your friend?

I did. I reached out to a friend of mine. I said, I need— if you've ever heard of this, there was, uh, a long time ago there was a story about a, a guy who came up with what they called a 7-minute. And what you would do is if you were in stress where you needed to, to vent or talk to somebody, you would say to them or text to them, do you have 7 minutes? And that was a code for them to know that you were in distress. So that kind of like a 911 type of call, but do you have 7 minutes? And that was enough to whatever that other person was at the other end to realize I gotta, I gotta move a few things around, or I gotta go to— I gotta reach out to this person right now. And so I did that, and I said, I need, I need 7 minutes, right? And, and, um, well, I mean, you were, you were good about it.

You were hit with a lot of things, and it wasn't just about this house.

No, it was just one thing about the house, but then there were two other, uh, personal issues that occurred that I, I wasn't— I knew, but I wasn't— I didn't know kind of thing. And then you know for sure, and then you're kind of like, what the freak is going on? So it was, um, that one day really just pushed me over the edge. I was, I was just tired, really, really, really tired. But I also know that I'm a diabetic, so I know when I'm really tired is because I'm not eating right. I'm not doing certain things correctly. And being tired is a sign from a diabetic standpoint, right? If your numbers are really, really high, your body tends to want to shut down and go into like sleepy time. So I knew that, and I could sense it in myself that that's what was occurring. And it was, it was getting worse and worse and worse. And so that also plays on your emotions when You're going through a lot. Um, you know, some people— I don't, don't get me wrong, I cried, I yelled, I was mad.

Yeah, but I mean, that's, that's also where it's so important to have community and to have those friends.

Yep.

You know, that was— that we can support and also can support us.

Yes.

You know, it's, it's something that we're also learning in church as we take this leadership class. Yeah, that's there. Um, I think everything that's happened has now brought us to this time in our life, and, and I think we are going to be serving and giving back in ways that we're not even aware of yet.

Aware of yet. Yeah, yeah, you're right.

And, um, but just to, just to have a little faith and to believe that things are going to work out.

Um, I've always had faith that things work out. It's just that when you're in it and you're in the mix, you're just like Yeah, yeah.

And it's— you— I tend to anyways think of the things that are not going to work out right, or think that like even with the permit things, that they're going to go and discover something else when they come to do the inspection. But see, my mind always goes in different places than what it should. But I'm sure I'm not the only one that thinks like that at times, or that you run through a million different scenarios in your head, right?

Versus if they ask you a question, you give the answer to that question You don't elaborate. There's no reason to elaborate. Uh, stick to the question, but also respond accordingly.

Also believe that things are going to work out and that you have faith in what's going to happen. I mean, I mean, there are times last week that I prayed about what was going on. Yeah, you know, and that things would, things would work their way out, and they did.

They did, they did, and they are They are. They will as time goes by. And we're here, and you kind of get into a groove of where, of where you're at. Um, right. I think for me, there's still a transition. I'm waiting to see what this season's bringing.

Right, right. And it's just a— it's just until it closes next week, it's like it's still not done yet. So you still don't feel like it's, it's finished. It's finished. Um, we know we're at that end.

We are.

Um, so I mean, so this is our new setting. I'm not sure about this yet. We'll play around with it.

We might, we might be— our view is of the sound.

Let's see if I can actually rotate. I don't know if you can see.

Uh, you can see a little bit. There you go.

There you go. There you go.

That's a little bit.

So we have a nice view.

We have a great view. We're on the top floor. The north harbor.

Navigate at this back.

We're at the top floor. The building is, I think, a very secure building, right? But like I said, it's, it's a transition, so we're gonna, we're gonna play it out. We're gonna see where it takes us.

Yeah. And so, well, I may play around with the background and what we're doing.

We may move to another area until we settle, until we settle in here.

Like, I mean, like, the, the video that I'm seeing is down here and the camera's up here, so there's some glancing going on that I'm not sure about. But, um, well, next week we will be on the same diagonal. I don't know, we may do— we may do something on the road, we may not. Yeah, otherwise we'll get back into the groove of it when we get back.

When we get back.

Um, so on that note, we should probably edit this, but we won't. So until next time, you know, like us, Follow us. If you have questions or ideas, let us know.

Give us your ideas. Send them to us via the, the comments and everything else.

And until next time, bye guys.