What would you do if you decided to dramatically downsize your life, selling off most of your belongings to pay for medical and therapy expenses for your kids with special needs -- and somebody offered you the chance to pick up the funds without losing your stuff? That's what happened to the family I mentioned last week that put almost everything it owned up on eBay. Somebody met that $20,000 minimum bid, but the pay-off had strings attached: The winners refused to take delivery of the merchandise.


Keith and Donnia Blair of Forth Worth, Texas, don't mind if the Peters family considers its home to be a storage facility for furniture that now belongs to the Blairs. They're in a position to offer the family finances and furnishings both. And that should be a happy ending. But Brittiny and Gregg Peters were serious about wanting to simplify and focus on non-material matters. According to an AP report, they tried at first to get the Blairs to either take their furniture or their money back. Now they're considering ways to give some of that generosity back to others.

In a blog entry on the website that was set up for the family by volunteers, Brittiny Peters writes: "Obviously, it took a little while to 'set in' with us. We were taken aback by the outcome of the eBay auction. ... We are currently in the process of putting together a 'new' plan on how our family can take the blessings we have received from all over the world and especially from Keith & Donnia Blair and reciprocate those blessings to help others who are also in need."

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