Matthew and Nancy are back from “sunny Florida” to a not-so-sunny welcome home: snow glare, shovel workouts, and the reality of getting their house ready to list. After sharing their decision to sell, they’re met with reactions ranging from supportive to wildly dramatic—like selling your house means you’re broke, confused, or about to become a roaming circus act.

They unpack what’s really happening: a strategic lifestyle change, a path to becoming 100% debt-free, and a full-on purge of everything they’ve accumulated (including tools, wood scraps, mementos, and enough printed photos to wallpaper a small town). They also talk about how different it feels to declutter your own home versus doing it for estate sales—because emotions don’t come with price tags.

Along the way: holiday simplicity (no tree this year), giving back, the reality of adult kids living far away, and the “four day rule” when family visits—because love is real… and so is the need for your own space.

Takeaways:

• Matthew and Nancy's decision to sell their home is purely a strategic lifestyle change aimed at achieving complete financial freedom.
• The couple faces various reactions from their community, including misunderstandings about their reasons for selling their house.
• Decluttering for personal reasons is deeply emotional, differing significantly from the detached process of preparing items for estate sales.
• They emphasize the importance of giving back during the holiday season, highlighting their recent charitable contributions despite personal changes.
• Matthew and Nancy reflect on the reality of adult children living far away, acknowledging the challenges of family dynamics during the holidays.
• The couple discusses the necessity of establishing boundaries when hosting family, referencing their 'four day rule' for visits.

Hi, I'm Matthew Greger.

And I'm Nancy Greger.

We have this podcast called we should Probably Edit this.

But we won't.

Our podcast is about us, our relationship, our 37 years of being married, raising.

Three children, and hopefully we can share.

Something that would be inspiring, honest, truthful.

As our tagline says, unfiltered, unscripted, and unapologetically us.

There you go.

We should probably edit this.

But we won't.

Okay.

It's the.

The counter is going, so it seems like it's recording.

It seems like it's recording.

Hi.

Hi.

Nothing like technical difficulties getting the show off the ground today.

I know.

And it's been a while since we did a show.

Only one week.

We missed one week, that's all.

And why did we miss that week?

We went down to sunny Florida.

Yeah.

And watched our grandchildren.

Yeah.

80 degrees when we left and 16 when we returned.

I don't know if you can see out the window a little bit.

That's not sun glare.

That's snow glare that you see back behind us right now.

It snow.

We got our workout this morning before church.

Nothing like shoveling snow before you have to get your act together to.

To go out.

Y.

Good.

We should probably edit this.

But we won't.

I'm Matthew Kreger.

And I'm Nancy Greger.

All right, welcome to the special holiday edition of we should Edit this.

It's not the only edition.

We still got a couple weekends to go.

I know, but I mean, it's holiday season.

I should say holiday season.

It's one of the additions of the holiday season.

Yes, it's one.

Okay, I'll let you go with that.

All right.

So after, I think, the last episode, we made the announcement that we were selling our house.

Yeah.

It was an episode or two ago.

Yeah.

And boy, oh, boy, did we get a lot of feedback from people regarding that decision.

We made some good, some not so good.

And it was kind of like a little off putting, I think when people were telling you, you what are you doing?

Why are you doing?

Doesn't make any sense.

Having a home is the American dream and nobody should be selling their home.

And you don't want to live like a gypsy.

And are we going broke?

Are we in financial distress?

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

Like, are we going to lose our house?

And hence we want to sell the house.

And let's just say that it's no different than when we did a lifestyle change to help improve our physical bodies.

And the internal one, too.

Well, we did a lot of things.

But most people would say to us, oh, you guys are on a diet.

And we would say, no, we're not on a diet.

We're changing the way we.

It's a lifestyle change.

It's a lifestyle change.

And selling our house is kind of like in that same line.

It's a, it's definitely a lifestyle change.

But if you were around in the beginning, we rented in the beginning for the first few, what on almost seven years, eight years of our marriage.

We lived in Manhattan.

Yeah, yeah.

Of our marriage.

Yes, yes, yes.

We rented, we didn't own.

And in all honesty, I don't know if it ever came into our mind that we would purchase.

We just were living in the city in the New York tri state area and in Manhattan at one point.

And so really owning didn't come up until I think our oldest was born and, and he was still pretty young.

And we looked initially and staying in Manhattan, which would have been.

Yeah, real interesting now.

Well, it would have been nice to have bought some of the places that we saw.

Oh yeah, yeah.

But of course, even back then it was out of our price.

It was a lot of money.

It was a lot of money in that beginning stages for a one income family anyways.

So I don't look at this as it is definitely a money exchange that we're doing, but we're capitalizing on the market and where it is right now for us on the east coast.

And we made a wise investment when we purchased and it's giving us an opportunity to do something else.

It's also going to give us the opportunity to be 100 debt free.

And that's something that we never, we've come really close, but never 100 complete.

And this, this will make it 100.

Complete and give us cash and give.

Us some cash that we can then start banking on some.

It would be a fair amount to many people, so.

Correct, correct.

But for us it's, it's, it's just going to help set the tone to where we want to be.

And I will say that after shoveling today, there is something to be said about not having that type of responsibility of having to go outside and shovel.

I mean, I guess we could always hire the guy that does our lawn to do the snow plowing.

And once again, another expense.

Yeah, maintaining a home is great and I love the freedom that a home brings.

That a house brings.

A house and property.

A house and property.

House and property.

Because if you, even if you look at what people talk about as far as like what Your diversification should really be.

Having a home is one of those assets.

It's a long term asset, though.

It's not a short term thing.

It's a long term deal.

And you really have to be looking at it from that perspective.

But in any case, I was surprised in some cases and other cases not.

But be that as it may, we have our heads intact.

We haven't lost memory.

We are still capable human beings and we are working and we know what we want to do.

What'd you have for breakfast this morning?

I know what I have for breakfast.

Okay.

Try not to be funny when I'm trying to be serious.

All right, all right, all right.

So I think we're doing the right thing.

And I feel comfortable in.

In moving on to do the right thing.

Are there some hesitations?

There's always hesitation.

Yeah.

I mean, you.

Sometimes you.

You second guess yourself.

Are you making the right decision?

But then at the same time, as we go through and we purge things and we get ready to downsize and move into a smaller space that has less storage, that doesn't have.

I mean, it's like all my tools, all my gardening stuff, I won't need where we're going and.

And all the things.

Even though we wasn't that long ago that we moved here and we got rid of a lot of stuff when we moved here, it's still amazing.

Amazes me how much stuff you end up accumulating.

And it feels good to get rid of that Sometimes it really does feel good to, like, just release things, get rid of things.

Especially we move stuff.

And we haven't even opened some of those boxes since we moved here.

Let's.

Let's rail that back a little.

Oh, so you're blaming it on me.

Okay.

I know where it's coming from.

There's really only one person, but there.

Were a lot of.

There were a lot of boxes of.

Of memorabilia stuff, which for all intensive purposes, if you go back down there, you'll still see maybe two or three boxes that says we just consolidated.

We just consolidated that.

The amount of photos we have is astonishing.

Yes.

I did not understand how many photos we actually have.

And I think we have like eight sets of our wedding.

I have just as many digital photos now.

I have.

I have thousands times more because it's just one click and you don't have to get it developed.

So it's like my.

And you.

And you shoot three different shots, thinking you want to get the first one.

You want to make sure you get a good shot.

Now you don't ever delete them either.

So you just got.

So you have them.

So we did do that and going through all of those boxes to get through what we had because we literally have all the photos in the frames and we had stored them and taking apart the photos out of the frames and getting rid of the frames because we've decided we're gonna what, try doing legacy, one of those.

One of those services that will actually scan all your.

And digitize everything, all your photos and digitize it.

That's the way we can share it with the rest of the family.

Right.

And we'll have.

And then we'll be able to give.

But that's another project for a different time because you really have to go through the photos and kind of sort each child.

Well, we do have to go through them one more time to determine which ones we're going to send off to get archived.

Correct.

And then we're going to set aside ones that we're not going to.

But we're going to store.

We don't necessarily need to have around.

And so someday, maybe when our kids go through our stuff, we'll say, these have not been digitized and let them go through it.

The funny thing is that if my mother is watching, I know that my mother has photo albums of family, me, my brother, just all kinds of things.

So I know what I can look forward to.

But, you know, the best part about it is when we used to do estate sales and you had the people that were moving and were downsizing and they realized the magnitude of stuff that they had, which was something sometimes very overwhelming.

And I know that because going through it ourselves to get ready for a sale this Saturday coming, we'll see how that goes.

Because the weather right now is really.

We're just doing it.

We're doing it.

If you have to come in with snow boots, that's all.

It's more focused on a man sale anyway.

So they don't.

They don't.

Right.

And why is it primarily a man.

Well, Mr. Gregor, is it.

I've got.

I've got nuts and bolts and nails and screws and things for, you know, you never know when you have that project that you need.

The biggest problem is by that is that when you do need that thing, you know, good luck finding it in the, in your stash of stuff.

Just like the wood, like I've got.

It's amazing.

It's amazing.

Maybe, maybe I'll do some.

Some B rolls and put in some shots.

But I know we don't edit this, but it'd be interesting to see just the stack of wood that I have, just odds and ends and pieces and stuff, thinking that someday I'm going to need that.

But after I went through it, I think, you know, if I really needed something for a project, am I going to actually shuffle through all the pieces of wood to try to find the right one to go for the project, or am I just going to go out and buy the piece of wood that I need for the project?

You go out, you know, and it's like.

And I think that's the one thing that I really come to realize is that unless I'm like always using wood and working woodworking all the time, then what's the point of storing it?

Because you can never find it when you need it.

Yep.

And there's a lot of it.

So much so that we are renting a 12 yard dumpster that will be here on Friday.

Because there was a.

There's always been a rule when we used to do estate sales, we either sell it, we donated, or gets thrown away.

Right.

Because it does not go back in the house.

It cannot go back in the house.

So it fits.

Has to fit into those three categories.

Now, I have been systematically putting things on Facebook Marketplace and trying to unload some of the larger items, and we've been kind of successful.

We.

We got rid of the exercise.

Yeah.

The home gym, which is.

Thank goodness that we did, because I looked and it was like, oh, man, this is to be a pain.

But we got rid of it and that was a good thing.

And we got rid of a few.

A few.

Yeah, we got rid of.

We got rid of big items.

The teak outdoor table.

You know, we, we got rid of that pretty, pretty quickly.

But there is something to be said about going through that whole process.

Well, it's much different cleaning it down.

It is, it is much different.

When you, when we would process a home, you know, we don't have the emotional attachment, so we can create quickly, decide, does this have value or not?

And price it accordingly and move on.

Let's rephrase that.

I don't have the emotional attachment, but somebody else does.

Because when I decided to go through some portfolio cases.

Here we go.

You can't go through any of that stuff.

I have to do it myself.

It's all my stuff.

I said, you are 100, right, buddy?

This is your.

Okay, so here you go.

Just like I moved from Danbury to Norwalk.

What did we, what did we move, Matthew?

It's right on up there with all the wood that we needed to keep.

Are you going to.

You're going to.

You're going to get on my case about the windows?

Okay.

And what were the windows intended for?

The windows were intended for a greenhouse.

And if I was staying here, I would build a greenhouse.

I would be.

Unless we'd be hiring somebody to build it.

No, I would have done it.

I would have done it.

I've got slate, I've got brick, I've got windows, I've got.

I've got all the makings to make it really nice.

That's right.

We could actually.

What do they call it?

Like, they.

They.

It's like a tiny shack that we could have built out of all parts and pieces.

We're probably.

Every piece of wood you have would be a he man shed.

It would not have been.

Maybe it would have.

Yeah.

Yes, it would have been.

It would have been a nice greenhouse.

But that's okay.

That's okay.

Because who knows?

It might have been that someday situation.

Someday.

Someday never happens.

I don't like the word someday.

That's like, maybe.

Yeah.

If you.

It's either yes or no.

You're either going to do it or you're not.

Someday I was going to do it.

You know, you weren't.

You were never going to do it.

It's the same thing with the storing of the wood.

Some day I might need that.

Need it.

And every now and then.

Every now and then, I would use.

A piece I. I could probably count on one hand when that actually came in handy.

I don't.

I don't disagree with you.

Good.

You know, because going through this makes me realize that when I do have my own space again, as far as creating a shop or woodworking space or doing things like that, the real question is, what do I really need?

And.

And it will definitely be slimmed down.

I mean, like, right now, I'm slimming everything down into a small Craftsman toolbox that I have.

And whatever can fit in that is what I get to keep.

And everything else.

I mean, I don't need 10 different pliers.

I don't need 20 different screwdriver Phillips heads that are there.

You know, some different sizes are fine.

And that's, you know, it's.

Yes.

It takes me longer to process because I have to decide, okay, which one am I going to keep?

Which one am I going to sell?

But I've done.

I've done pretty good part.

It takes.

Takes way.

Just way too.

Yeah.

Well, it takes way too long for my head to Process you.

Right.

I don't understand that.

All those brain pills are just not functioning correctly.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

When I went through my artwork, part of it was like, wow, look at all the stuff that I used to do, you know, and.

And some of the things I did.

And it's picking out some key pieces that I want to keep.

And again, I'm digitizing those also, you know, so that I can.

That I don't need to keep that stuff, the hard copies.

But look, you.

I. I know I'm ragging on you, but you're not the only person.

There are lots of things, and I'm looking at them right now.

How many longer breaker baskets do you have now?

Come on, Come on.

I know you're selling them, but.

But how many more than I have?

More than 20, but I don't know what's upstairs.

Yeah, I know what's down here and what I'm selling.

And I'll get rid of them all.

Maybe, but.

And how many chickens do you have?

No, the chickens are off limits.

There's.

There's.

There's not a discussion.

Even though I don't use them, they're not meant really to be used.

They're more decorative than anything else.

So there's a lot of decoration.

Okay, I have a lot of decoration.

That's okay.

And moving into a new place.

The one main requirement out of everything is that there's one cabinet in the front that's a huge Ethan Allen, like, three piece.

It was.

It's a bookcase, but it's a display.

Display case.

And I wouldn't call it a bookcase.

No, that's.

That's how they called it.

It's a.

It's a library piece, and that is going with us wherever we go.

Okay, we'll see.

No, we.

We are taking.

It may not be all three pieces.

But all three pieces.

Okay.

Are coming.

Okay.

I know one place that it would fit in.

So far, all the places that we've been to it will fit in.

So.

But that's been.

That.

That's been probably one of the things that we noticed.

And there's still a lot of artwork on our walls, by the way, that we're still taking with us that we won't get rid of.

I don't think we'll ever get rid of it.

So it's Christmas time.

Yay.

Yay.

So it is Christmas time.

And I will tell you, I did not put up a Christmas tree this year, and that raised a lot of.

Well, we were planning to come On.

Let's, let's.

We were planning to.

Yeah, we were but they didn't have any meaning because we want to.

We want a live tree.

We.

We want an actual tree that we could then plant back outside.

I mean it won't matter too much this, this year.

But we have at least three of.

Of the green giants that are in our yard are previous Christmas trees and so.

But we couldn't find any.

No.

Well, we only went to one place really.

We went to two.

Two places and they, and they wouldn't call them places that I would have normally.

Well, we got.

We've gotten from them.

We've gotten the trees from there before and we've had good luck with it.

But this year.

But this year, I don't know why.

So.

So instead of keep looking, we just decided not to.

We did buy two new trees for the front.

Yeah, but that porch, that's just.

That's gonna stay there.

No, I know they'll stay with the.

House, but they're not really.

But they would have been there would have been.

They would have made a cool Christmas tree.

A different kind of Christmas tree for sure.

But in any case, we didn't do that.

We have to eat it a little bit.

A little bit throughout.

Not like what that says something behind you there too.

It says believe.

Yep.

So there, there have been a few things that we took out and I am going to put a couple of our stockings in the front five fireplace.

But.

But it's still.

It's still the season to really be grateful to be.

To do what you can for others, you know.

And, and we've been fortunate enough to be able to donate and do some things.

I mean the church this morning had a.

Had a large turn turnout for the donations.

Yeah.

I'm so glad because I was really worried it was such bad weather and not.

People don't like to drive when it's really, really bad.

But I was quite surprised.

Service was really good this morning too.

I hope that they got more than what they expected.

Right.

That's really what I hope because I.

Know they extended it till Tuesday because.

Well, they did.

Yeah.

I just got the email earlier so that's good.

So that was.

That was a.

A good thing.

So.

And then Christmas Day for us is probably going to be super quiet.

And the next day one of our son.

Our son come home.

He.

He'll be home with the grandchildren, but they won't be staying with us this time around.

They're going to be staying with her side.

Her side of the family.

Because that's where all the kids are.

That's where all the cousins are.

Yeah, I don't blame them.

Who wants to be around a bunch of old people that don't have much for them to do or play with?

Yeah.

Know, we used to have a nice big toy toy chest thing for them, but.

But it's.

It's been pretty much picked through and beat up.

But yeah, they're going to be upset when it's not here anymore.

When it's not here, but especially Theo.

When the race car track is.

I just.

We just have to tell him that we donated it to a little boy who won't get too much for Christmas.

And he's going to really love playing with that track, so maybe that will.

Smooth until you get them something else.

And.

Yeah, we're not gonna.

We're not gonna get them something else to take back home, but we'll definitely get them something at home.

So.

Yeah, well, they'll have plenty of stuff to play with.

We ship things down, so we.

We ship them down there already.

But when he comes up, I'll have the stocking stuffers.

So I'll have stocking stuffers for them.

To open up and to open up.

But in any case.

So we didn't.

It's going to be a light.

Yeah.

We'll go to Christmas Eve service, and then that Christmas Day, it'll just kind of just be chilled out, just between you and I.

And then what we'll end up doing is that weekend, maybe we might be.

Able to get all the family together.

Family together.

If we can just convince them all to come together.

You know, it's very few and far between these days, the planning, the.

The putting it all together.

Yeah.

So.

Yeah.

So hopefully that will happen and.

And we can all get together.

Because it is very true what they say.

When your children get older, you see after 18 years of age, you.

You see them less and less and less each year.

I don't think that's the case for everybody.

I think there are certain circumstances where some people either have older adult children that have moved back in or they live just a few miles from each other.

And unfortunately, we only have one that lives a few miles from us.

And the others have moved.

Moved on, settled in other.

Other parts.

Yeah.

Of the country.

So.

Yeah.

But if.

If we.

If we look back on what it was like when we were their age, we did the same thing.

Yeah.

Who wanted to be around mom and Dad?

I mean.

Well, I think it's a little bit different during our time you know, come 18 or 19, if you were, if you weren't going to, to college, you were, you had a job and you wanted to get out.

You.

I, I was fiercely independent.

I wanted to be on, I wanted to prove that I could do it on myself, do it myself.

That's true for me too.

I mean, the minute I turned 18, I moved out and I think I did come back for a little bit and then I moved right back out again and I moved to New York the, the second time I moved out.

But there is a different, a different feeling when you and I were, you know, in that period of time.

We were fiercely independent and I think we were raised to be fiercely independent.

Just.

I thought we did that with our children too.

I mean, we did.

Hence they're all gone.

Right.

I mean, nobody's living with us.

You know, the two boys came back after college for a little bit with their girlfriends.

Right.

But overall they pretty much wanted their.

Own, their own space in their own life.

I mean, who, who.

It's, it's like that four day rule when we, when, when we go visit, you know, it's like it's four days, you know, and I think it's true for, for whether you're visiting or whether you're, you're hosting because there's something about the disruption that happens.

The disruption is good, but there's only so much that you can handle.

Right, Right.

And.

And we all do different things.

We, we are different, you know, well.

We'Ve, we've evolved differently.

Right.

We're all at different stages.

But you and I, you know, we chose to be together and to make it together.

And so we, we either tolerate each other or we enjoy being around each other.

One of the two.

And you know, when you mix in the other parts of the, our kids and their family, they still enjoy being around us, but they have their own way of doing things, just like we have our own way of doing things.

I think everybody can suck up a couple of hours and, or four days.

Yeah.

You know, four days tops.

I think we can all manage to bring our better selves to, to those scenarios.

And I think if you went on a destination trip, that would be a little different because now you're not in anybody else's environment.

You're right, you're in, you're somewhere else.

Yeah.

Or you're in a vacation.

In a vacation mode.

Okay.

Yes, a vacation mode.

And so, so therefore it's not your house or their house.

We never did that.

Not as adults.

No.

No.

It would be I would like to.

Maybe.

Maybe.

We'll see.

Okay.

It's too difficult, I think, when your kids get older, to navigate the logistics of everybody's life.

Well, it might be.

It might be okay for one of the kids and their family, but not all three.

Not all three.

It's just too hard to coordinate the timing.

Very good.

There's.

There's really, theoretically only one time that you might be able to pull that all off.

Around Christmas time.

That's it.

Yeah.

That'd be the only time, because everybody focuses on getting some time off around that time.

Correct?

Right.

Correct.

So you can.

You.

If you were gonna make something happen, that would have been the.

The week, or you got to plan it years in advance and lock in a date, and everybody has to agree that's what they want to do because then they can adjust their schedules to do it accordingly.

Right?

Yeah.

But who knows?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Maybe not.

Who knows?

It's okay.

Either way.

It's okay.

Well, I'm looking forward to.

To this move.

I'm looking forward to downsizing, to getting rid of stuff, to making that next transition and seeing what's next for us.

Yeah.

So far, not 100% finding the right place to move into.

There's some.

Certain things are okay here, but not okay.

And that's probably been a bigger.

Well, you're.

You're more challenging than I am on that requirement.

So.

So why I'm not moving into a basement apartment of some old lady's house.

Well, neither am I. I mean, but we didn't look at any of those.

Those are not on our radar.

No, what I meant is our standards are completely different.

But I'm wondering, at what point, out of being married for 37 plus years, do you think my standards have changed so much so that it'd be more difficult?

You would think that at this stage in the game, you would understand.

I understand.

No, you don't.

Yes, I do.

But I'm.

I'm willing to.

I'm willing to give up some of those things, and you're not.

It's a standard.

That's okay.

It's a standard.

It's.

You have a standard of where you want.

Okay.

I would like to have both cars in a covered space.

That would be one of my requirements.

Like a garage.

I could deal with a carport, but I don't want to have to clean the car off after a big snowstorm.

Yep, exactly.

And I would like a gas stove, not electric.

That might be.

That might be really.

That might be really challenging.

No, I Think we found one.

Was that all gas?

Yeah, it was.

Yeah.

Okay.

And covered parking.

Just saying it was places, but it's.

Well, you can call her.

Let's go back and look again.

I'm not gonna call that.

I feel sorry for some people because I've been harassing so many times.

I think.

I think we should go back to there.

We'll see.

We'll see.

I'm not worried about it right now.

Right now the house goes on the market on January 15th.

We met with.

We saw our realtor Friday.

Yeah, we saw Joe on Friday.

He showed us an apartment.

And I said, hey, so, Joe, when are you going to come by to take pictures?

Oh, I'm thinking like January 6th or 7th.

And I'm like, oh, okay.

I was thinking the 10th.

I was thinking, oh, the 10th.

So I was like, okay, that's bumps up the timeline.

I only have one real major thing I have to get done before I can.

Before we have the photos.

What's the major thing?

The side of the.

The.

Oh, the box.

No, I'm looking at.

It's not like a.

The boxes have to get done.

The radiators have to get painted.

The closets upstairs have to get redone.

You mean cleaned out?

Cleaned out and redone to some extent.

And then.

And then after.

After this, after this Saturday, it's going to be.

Focusing on, well, depersonalizing and decluttering the rest of the house and packing.

Just packing a few of those things.

Yeah.

And then I have to actually reach out and call some movers.

Well, I mean, I don't.

I don't know if I need.

We need to schedule that yet, but, yeah, we'll have to.

We have to have it lined up, who it's going to be.

Correct.

So on that note, since we have.

We have to process the stuff for the.

For the sale next weekend, we should probably edit this, but we won't.

So until next time, make sure you guys like us, send us some suggestions on what you'd like us to talk about.

Or if you have questions, let us know.

Let us know.

Have a great holiday season and talk to you soon.

Bye.