Expenses | Wishes And Pixie Dust

June 18, 2011
by wishesandpixiedust 2 Comments

Relocating Your Furniture. Or Not.

As you contemplate a long-distance move (or perhaps you have already made the decision to move), one of the early questions that arises deals with the moving of furniture. If you are using professional movers, you will want to think about this prior to the appointment, as the contents of your house will be inventoried, and you will generally need to know if you plan to move an item to your new home.

There are a few questions you need to consider as you think about this. How old is my furniture? Is it worth moving hundreds of miles? For us, the answer is no, it’s not worth it. The majority of our furniture are older pieces, and realistically, the cost it would add to our invoice is more than its value. We are only keeping a select few pieces of furniture, and most of it is being discarded on Freecycle.

We will state, however, that it is kind of stressful to dispose of your furniture and not move it. We made the decision early on that we were not going to move our desk; it is solid oak and extremely heavy. It has been the thorn in our side for every move, and we’ve simply had enough with it. We made arrangements with a local person to come and pick up the desk. In order for this to happen, the desktop computer and work laptop needed to be disconnected, which is not a small feat given the massive piles of cords and modems involved! They were temporarily placed on the kitchen table, while we moved the desk out to the middle of the room. Unfortunately, this person never showed up, and we were faced with an enormous desk in the middle of the dining room, and computers disconnected and sitting on the table.

Thankfully we have a large foyer by the front door, and we were able to drag the desk out there and reassemble the dining room into some semblance of order. We used four smaller tables/bookcases to replace the desk, and while not an ideal situation, it should be okay for the next five weeks. We have someone new scheduled to come tomorrow, so if all goes well, the desk should be gone by tomorrow afternoon.

We have been slowly giving away our furniture; this week alone we have parted with 2 bookcases, a rocker & ottoman, three chairs, and (hopefully) a desk. We prefer Craigslist and Freecycle as means to dispose of our furniture because you can set the time frames when you want people to come buy to pick up your stuff. Another option you have available is to hold a rummage sale, but then you are responsible for hauling your furniture outside, sitting outside with it all day while hoping it sells, because if it doesn’t, you will have to bring it back inside (or place it in a garage if you have one available to you).

There are a few furniture stores that we are considering in Florida, recommendations given to us by friends:

Clermont Furniture on Hwy 50
Ashley Furniture
Rooms to Go Outlet in Altamonte Springs
American Freight
Sears (for mattresses)
Original Mattress Factory
IKEA

We’re putting them in our blog mainly so we have a reference point to go back to later. If any locals have some other great furniture or mattress stores to add to the list, we’d love to hear about them! Our plan is not to replace everything immediately, but only buy the essentials first and then add pieces as we can. One of the reasons we chose the apartment complex we did is that is comes furnished with a full size washer and dryer. This is a huge expense that we did not have to assume and are thankful for that!

Thanks for following along!

June 15, 2011
by wishesandpixiedust 3 Comments

It’s The Little Things

Summer in Wisconsin can be described as fickle. At any given point you can be sweltering in 105 degree temperatures, or needing to bring sweatshirts, jackets and fleece blankets to soccer games. Today was a sweatshirt day, though thankfully Catie plays soccer on Monday nights, so we were at least spared the indignity of hauling along gear to brave the elements.

One thing we’ve noticed about Wisconsin since we’ve made the decision to move, is that people who live here like to complain about the weather. And we’re no exception. It probably has to do with the fact that Wisconsin weather is less than desirable (was actually thinking of a different word to use here but we like to keep this blog family friendly). When asked why we are relocating to Florida, all we have to say is two words: “Wisconsin winters”, and immediately everyone understands. We realize some of our readers may not understand, and think, “well how bad can it be?” Until you’ve experienced four to five feet high snowdrifts (and those are just the ones at the end of your driveway courtesy of the snowplow), or driving in blizzard conditions, or having to leave the house when the wind chill is thirty below zero in the morning to take the kids to school, well, you get the picture.

But by surviving a Wisconsin winter, you have earned the right to call yourself a Wisconsinite, whether that is a title you want or not is irrelevant. 🙂 You may now laugh among yourselves when the southern cities on the news shut down over an inch of snow. (No offense meant to our southern readers; it’s a Wisconsin thing, we have to find some way to amuse ourselves in the dead of winter).

This blog post does have a point outside of rambling on about the weather. We’ve reached the point in our move where we like to have everything in its place, and no surprise phone calls letting us know the apartment we were told was ours is no longer ours because the people who live there have decided to renew their lease. Augh! Really?

The good news is that there currently are three other apartments available, but the building they wish to put us in is completely opposite where we were originally supposed to be. The thing is, we really liked the location of our first apartment. One of the available apartments is located across the street from this one, and is the one we’d like to move into, but they are hesitant on that because they don’t want to leave it vacant for a month until we arrive. We were asked if we could move up our move-in date. As much as we would absolutely love to do that, Mark has work commitments, we don’t know if we’d be able to alter the date for the moving company, and we’d still be responsible for July rent on our current home, and all these factors combined just make it an impossible occurrence.

We are waiting to hear back to see if they will give us the apartment we want. We believe that it shouldn’t matter, because either way whatever apartment we choose will be empty for a month until we arrive. We’re thankful that we have not yet set up utilities or cable, though we have given out our new address to friends and the school in Clermont, so that will be a minor inconvenience to have to deal with.

We want to thank all of you who showed an outpouring of love to us, either on FB or privately, when we made the post this afternoon on our Facebook account. We truly appreciate the support and friendship you showed us, and we apologize if we made it seem like we lost the apartment. We’re kind of stressed out at the moment–all the little details seem to be sneaking up on us and the last thing we needed was a change in living arrangements. As you know, The Princess and The Frog is one of our favorite Disney movies, and when Prince Naveen says, “If you are going to let every little thing bother you, it is going to be a very long night”, it’s kind of where we are right now. We’re down to 36 days, and we’re trying not to let the little things get to us.

Thanks for spreading the pixie dust and sunshine to us 🙂

June 14, 2011
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The Eye Before The Storm

There comes a point in every move where you are lulled into a false sense of security. You think there’s no need to alter your daily schedule too much, there’s still plenty of time to pack boxes and make arrangements. You go on with your routines, only to discover two weeks have passed, and you realize you really are behind schedule, and thus the “storm” begins. We feel right now that we are in that “eye before the storm”, the calm period when everything feels okay. Our goal, however, is to make sure the hurricane storms dissipate to sunny skies, and we never see the storm clouds on our horizon.

We wanted to share just what our daily life looks like lately. The kids are now out of school for the summer, and we’re just enjoying the laziness and schedule-free qualities of not needing to set alarm clocks or rushing dinner times. During the day we are packing boxes or sorting through items; today we made a run to get more paper rolls for packing, and we were graced with free shorter rolls today. Apparently an individual had come in about an hour ahead of us and bought all the large rolls, but we were given the shorter rolls, and to be honest, we probably received just as much paper and saved twelve dollars in the process!

As we reflect on first making the decision to move in January to it now being almost the middle of June, things have gone pretty much according to plan. We had anticipated saving a little more money than we have, but we’re still in the comfortable zone, and well, it is what it is. We made the decision to hire professional movers and we stand behind that decision one hundred percent. Yes, it may seem like an extravagant cost, but we have items that have sentimental value, and other things that just would prove to be too much of a hardship to replace. We have disposed of a lot of our possessions, which we know has probably halved our cost of the move, but we choose to keep the items that matter to us, to provide security to our family. Let’s face it, moving across several states is a huge life decision that will require many months of adjustment. By choosing to transport some of our items with us, we are helping to ease that transition, and our apartment will seem more like a home.

We are keeping our storm clouds at bay by making sure we accomplish a few things each day in regards to the move, whether it be packing boxes, taking care of items on Craigslist, or just simply making lists. By not procrastinating, and doing the move in little chunks here and there, it really has become not that painful. We are grateful that we do not have the worries of needing massive amounts of energy and strength to move boxes and furniture, nor the stress of driving a moving truck across several states. For more times than we care to remember, we have been there, done that, got the t-shirt, and are simply not doing it again.

We anticipate that our lives in Florida will basically be the same as our lives here in Wisconsin, only with much better weather and lots more to do in our free time. We know it’s not going to be an easy process, but with the promise of being able to visit Walt Disney World at a whim’s notice, and meeting our Floridian (and non-Floridian) Disney friends who have been cheering us on for several months, we know it will be well worth the effort.

June 11, 2011
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Preparing for the Road Trip

Our first experience with driving down to Walt Disney World was in August 2009, and because it was our first time, we were a little apprehensive, not sure how all five of us and our “stuff” was going to fit comfortably into a family car for a 21 hour trip! As it turns out, it was the event that memories are made of. With three drivers, we had great experiences, we were able to rotate out drivers and got a lot of great pictures. Of course no picture is better than this one:

As we approach the 40-day mark, we wanted to share what we are doing to get ready for the long drive. This time we will have two drivers and four people, which will give us a little more leg room in the car, which we will need to transport the two laptops, portable DVD player and netbook. We are fortunate in that we have sizable trunk space, which mainly will hold our clothes and the personal items that cannot be put in the moving truck. We do plan to use the space saving bags that can be vacuumed shut to hold our extra clothes. We will arrive in Clermont on July 25; however the moving truck may not arrive until August 1st, so we need to bring all our summer clothes with us.

AAA: We highly recommend signing up for AAA if you are considering long-distance travel. It provides peace of mind that your regular car insurance roadside assistance can’t offer. It also offers discounts for lodging and other businesses, as well as the free Trip Tik personalized itinerary and maps for all the states you are traveling through. We do have GPS on our phones, but we discovered the phones aren’t always accurate, so it’s nice to have a back-up written plan. With AAA, we find that the membership fees pays for itself yearly, even if we don’t plan on traveling long distances in a particular year.

The Next Exit: This is a book that provides a complete guide of what is available in terms of food/gas/lodging/camping/shopping amenities at every interstate highway exit. We found this invaluable for our 2009 trip, and have purchased the 2011 Edition. It runs for about ten dollars on Amazon. If you purchase the online version for $14.95 from www.thenextexit.com , you will be able to download a free iPhone app.

Snacks/Meals: In 2009, we planned a picnic lunch for our first meal. We decided to stop in Indiana, just after crossing the state line. We typically buy deli ham, swiss cheese and chips: things that are non-messy but convenient to eat. We plan to make this our Friday dinner meal, and we will also have a small soft cooler that we intend to fill with soda and snacks. We bought it at Big Lots for under $20, and it’s perfect because it’s more narrow than a typical cooler and will fit between the kids perfectly. This will help prevent paying gas station prices for drinks and snacks, at least for part of the trip.

Tune-Up: We will be bringing the car in on Thursday for an oil change and to make sure it’s in good condition for the trip. In particular we are having the air conditioning system, shocks and exhaust looked at. We just met with our insurance agent and he recommended dropping comprehensive and collision coverage on our car, but we plan on keeping it at least until we get settled in Florida.

Sun Pass: We were on the fence as to whether we needed Sun Pass, or if we would just pay the tolls as we pass through them. With living in Clermont, we don’t anticipate that we will need to pay tolls when we go to Disney (Clermont residents please correct us if we’re wrong), but we would need to pay tolls if we travel in to Orlando or make trips to the coasts. We decided the convenience of Sun Pass is worth the purchase of a transponder unit. (We preferred the transponder to the sticker for personal reasons).

We are really looking forward to the drive, not only because it brings us to our new home, but because we enjoy road trips, and plan to use Twitter/Facebook to document our travels. We’re thankful that we were able to sell our second car, and bring only one car to Florida, which saves hugely on expenses, and also allows us to experience the drive together as a family.

Thanks for following along~

May 22, 2011
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Setting Goals. Or Not.

[Artwork done by our lovely daughter, Princess Cate!]

One of the biggest challenges we have faced in our move thus far is finding the time to prepare for the move, while continuing to live our lives as normal. We have been fortunate as we have allotted ourselves six months for the move. Incredibly, four months have already passed us by, so we expect to step up the packing progress as our time here in Wisconsin comes to a close.

We originally set goals of packing areas by a certain date. That didn’t seem to work so well, so we moved to setting a goal of one packed box per day. This method seemed to flow until last week, when life got busy with prom, concerts, soccer, doctor appointments and rehearsals. The thing with setting goals, is that you need to allow for the unexpected to occur. One wouldn’t think this would apply with packing boxes. Unless one has a son who has to play with every toy for two minutes before it gets packed. 🙂 It’s all good, though.

We are stepping away from setting specific goals and just trying to concentrate on getting it either packed or moved out. The current area we are focusing on is the sunroom.

The desk area is unusable.

As this room seems to be the dumping ground for all miscellaneous paper piles, the challenge is to pack what is not needed.

Our oldest son Nick has already secured his apartment here, and will slowly be moving his belongings out in July. He was fortunate enough to be able to take advantage of an offer that gave him his first month’s rent free, so this saved on needing to rent a storage unit and stay in a hotel for a week, as his original plan was to find an apartment for August 1. He will be taking our couch, a chair and other pieces of furniture, which will allow us to use our furniture (and more importantly our beds) until the very end. He will also be on the receiving end of most of the kitchen appliances and supplies, as well as whatever food is left.

In other news, we have paid our security deposit on our apartment, and will be setting up an account with Progress Energy so that it is all set to go when we arrive in Florida. Our goal is to spend our first night in Florida in our new apartment 🙂 We may need to purchase air mattresses to accomplish this goal, as we won’t be able to shop for our beds until we arrive. We will be setting up an account with Bright House for our cable and internet, but will wait until we arrive to make this appointment.

We have found a wonderful Yahoo Group, Clermont Connection Cafe, which has already given us a wealth of information, from lovebugs to wholesale clubs to doctor referrals. Everyone we’ve had the opportunity to talk to who lives in Clermont is very friendly and welcoming to us, something we’ve appreciated immensely. We look forward to being a part of this wonderful community.