We’re from Wisconsin–we had to include a pic of a cow somehow! 😉
We have reached a point in our move where we need to examine what we will need for the next few days, and pack the rest away. It’s very refreshing not to be hassled at the last minute, as we have been on all our other moves. Instead of being in major packing mode, these past days have, for the most part, been pretty routine. Catie’s room is done, except for the last minute necessities that need to be packed up, and the kitchen is slowly getting packed away, as we decide on whether to keep certain items or give them to Nick.
On Monday we received 25 boxes from a fellow Freecycler, sturdy boxes from a moving company, and we were so grateful to get them! We are currently trying to dispose of the rest of our furniture, and will have to decide soon when the break point is when we pull everything off Craigslist and donate it to Goodwill. We also have a lawnmower, which is less than a year old, and a weed whacker, which is less than a month old; if these do not sell before next Friday, then we will give these items to Nick to try to sell for us.
We’ve finalized the payment for Mayflower, and are really excited to see that part of our journey unfold, as we’ve never used professional movers before. We’ve learned so much about the “right” way to pack, which is really a consideration if you are moving such a long distance. Please see our earlier post ‘Packing Those Boxes’, published in March, if you are looking for more detailed information.
A common theme in our blog posts have referred to how brutal Wisconsin winters can be; we won’t revisit that topic, but reference it in the fact many Wisconsinites dream of moving to Florida, especially in the months November through March. To us Florida is an exotic location, with sunny skies and palm trees, while we sit with piles of snow and sub-zero temperatures. As we finalize our move, a recurrent comment we hear from people is: “I’m jealous”, mainly made in reference to not having to survive another winter.
It’s easy enough to observe us and feel like we have it made; to feel jealousy over the fact our winters in Florida will be spring weather in Wisconsin, and that we’ll never have to shovel again. The truth is, we consciously made the decision to make this our reality, and we have worked hard to make it happen. It has not been an easy road for any of us, but we feel the effort is well worth any sacrifices we have to make in the meantime.
One thousand, two hundred and eighty seven days ago we first dreamed the dream, of relocating to Florida close to Walt Disney World. We write out that number in words because it really seems surreal right now that we are only ten days away from realizing our dream. There were many moments of doubt that we experienced. The first twelve to twenty months it was merely a dream that we talked about; something that would occur in the future but we had no idea when, and we did nothing towards making it a reality. It seemed so far away in the future that it seemed pointless to expend energy at that point in time. The basement boxes and just the accumulation of possessions that we owned really overwhelmed us as where to start, so we did nothing. After our Disney trip in 2009, we were more enthusiastic than ever about moving to Florida and this is when we let the kids in on our dream, that someday we would move to Florida.
The dream first became real to us last summer, in June 2010, when we first set a date of September 2012 and started the blog. Even though we now had a date, it still seemed like it would never happen; and we didn’t really believe it would happen. How much difference a year makes! Since that time we backed the date to September 2013, and then in January of this year, we decided to take the plunge and move this summer. “Do you really think we can do it this summer?” is the question that propelled us forward.
We can’t say how many times we doubted ourselves, but it was a lot. Over the past six months since we made the final decision, we haven’t doubted our choice, but there have been moments of fear: fear of the unknown, fear that what we are doing is not in the best interests of our children, and fear that we will fail.
We are now ten days away from leaving Wisconsin. We can honestly say that this is the best decision we could have made for our family; our kids are uber-excited about moving to Florida, and while we won’t be traveling with as much money as we’d like (thanks to car repairs); we are very thankful we were able to take care of the repairs now and not have them happen along the way. We won’t be able to purchase as much furniture right away as we had previously planned, but we’ll make it work. An empty, unfurnished apartment in Florida is way better than our current home in Wisconsin, and because it is an apartment our expenses will be less than if we rented a house: we won’t need to do lawn care, maintain a pool, or spray for bugs; and we will have access to a business lanai (with wireless internet and printers) and fitness center, should be choose to utilize these amenities.
Thanks for following along~ we appreciate your comments and feedback!
One interesting aspect of moving is the realization that your possessions are simply that: possessions. We made the decision early on not to move most of our furniture, simply due to the condition the items are in. If you can sell your couch for $50 but it costs $100 to move, it simply doesn’t make financial sense to do it. There are a few pieces that we are moving, mainly due to sentimental reasons: a hand-painted stool given as an anniversary present, the kitchen table that has been in the family for decades, and of course our computers that are too expensive to replace.
Today we had our Freecycle “garage cleaning out” event, and we were able to dispose of about 60% of what was out there. It’s not a bad result, and only required an hour of our time. Our goal is to get rid of all unwanted items, so that Nick doesn’t need to deal with it on his moving day. We have the items up under the “free” section of Craigslist, and we’ve already had a couple of bites on our TV armoire, so we’re hopeful that we will be able to give it away. Our city does not have a bulky pick-up, so any unwanted items needs to be brought to the drop-off site. Nick is renting a U-Haul truck for July 21st to clear out his bedroom and take our mattress set to his apartment, and the back-up plan is that he will remove any of our unwanted furniture for us, by bringing it to the disposal site.
We needed to buy more packing tape, so we went to Wal-Mart afterwards, where we made an interesting discovery: they sell boxes, and at about half the price U-Haul charges. We picked up a few, but I anticipate we’ll be needing to go back and get some more. We’re nearing the end of our packing, and we don’t mind paying for a few to get the job done. A word to the wise: you will need way more boxes than you anticipate; start collecting them early. We have needed to pack our boxes more securely than if we were just moving across town; which requires the use of more boxes, tape, and paper than we have utilized in the past. Currently we have 206 boxes packed; which seems like a lot but realize some of these boxes are smaller boxes that Nick was able to bring home from the restaurant: free is free after all! We don’t even want to consider how many boxes we would have needed if we had kept all our belongings: we estimate that we have disposed of approximately sixty percent of our possessions. Only pack what you truly treasure, as it will save you time and money in the long run. ♥
One of the biggest challenges we are facing right now is not packing up the boxes, but finding the best way to dispose of our unwanted furniture and other assorted items. As you know, we opted not to go the garage sale route, but are using Freecycle and Craigslist, which have their limitations.
Our furniture is not in the best shape, which is why are opting not to sell it (or move it). The difficulty we are encountering with Freecycle is that people initially show an interest, but then fail to respond to the email or fail to show up. This weekend we are opening our garage up and letting people come and just take what they want, and we’re hoping they will take it all!
Our Craigslist sales have been slow but steady, and we’re very curious as to how much we’ve been able to save using this method. We think we will break open the piggy on July 20th, as he (the piggy) will get packed. If you are choosing to sell your items in this way, we recommend starting at least three to four months in advance of your move. We’ve been able to sell pretty much everything we’ve put on there, but it involves having the right person see it at the right time, which means you’ll need to repost the ad regularly. Craigslist recently did an update, which allows you to renew your posting, instead of deleting it and relisting it; this is definitely a time saver.
Please follow us on Twitter @FondyMark and @jvitek, as we continue to tweet about our progress! Thanks for following us along; like Tiana sings: “We’re almost there!”
When we started our blog, it was mainly for our own purposes, to keep track of different aspects of our move. We feel honored that so many of our readers follow us regularly, and some readers aspire to follow in our footsteps and make their own journey to Florida to be closer to the Mouse. 🙂 In response to that, we attempt to post regularly, and to provide more informational blog posts that may help you with some of the major decision making that goes into a multi-state move. There are times that we share a blog post, and think “Really? No one is going to want to read that, it’s boring!”, and then we receive a few comments that encourage us that yes, you really want to hear about it! Today we wanted to share with you what our day looks like three weeks before our move, to give you a feel of perhaps what to expect when you experience your relocation.
Saturday is typically a very routine day in the Vitek household. We always begin with a trip to the library to return and check out different materials. We are very heavy users of the public library, it’s not very often we miss a visit, and we intend to keep up the routine once we make the move. We have two libraries in which to choose from in Clermont: Cooper Memorial and Cagan Crossings: we will most likely select Cooper Memorial as the library we most often frequent as it is closer to us than Cagan Crossings. Library cards must be applied for online, so we will do that the week of our move, so that they will be ready for us the following Saturday.
After the library we came home for lunch, and waited for a Craigslist exchange, twenty more dollars earned for our piggy! We then went to our oldest son’s apartment again, then off to Festival Foods to do some grocery shopping. We’ve been researching grocery stores in the Clermont area, and we do believe Publix will probably end up being our store of choice, although we’ve heard some good things about Sweetbay, so we may check that out as well. We pulled up the advertisement on the internet and the prices are quite comparable with what we are currently paying in Wisconsin.
We came home and unloaded our groceries, and went through the kitchen cabinets to see what else we could offer to Nick, and it ended up being quite a nice pile. He will get more once we are down to our last couple of days, but it felt good to be able to clean out items and not have to pack them! Saturday is also pizza night, and the big decision of where to order ensued. We want to make sure that we have our favorites one last time, and tonight we chose Rocky Rococo, a large sausage pizza with breadsticks. We waited to order until after 5:00, because we drive to pick it up, and we had another Craigslist transaction that netted an additional ten dollars. We always watch a movie with our pizza, and tonight’s selection was Cars. We still have yet to see Cars 2 in the theatre, but we plan to do that soon.
We did have a couple of minor *bad* things happen today. One, the check engine light came on in the car. We are hoping it’s just a glitch, as we just had the car undergo a 30 point inspection for the trip, including an oil change, and really can’t afford to put more money into the car at this point. The second thing involved an accident with a glass of soda and our external hard drive. At this point we’re not certain if any data is lost or if the device works. The cord did get severely bent, however. This is also another item that is not in the budget to replace.
Tomorrow we hope to finish up Ben’s room and make some progress in Catie’s. The kids are a little nervous that their belongings will not be packed in time, but we keep reassuring them, that yes they will. No toy gets left behind. LOL Nick is coming over on Monday to get some more of his things, and we plan to move the unwanted furniture into the garage, so we can Freecycle them. We have a lot of odds and ends in the garage, and are going to be letting people come and take what they want. Kind of like a free yard sale. 🙂
So that’s our day. We didn’t get a huge amount accomplished today in terms of packing, but some days are like that. We really like the fact that we’ve had plenty of time to sort through our belongings, so that we are not feeling hurried and rushed right now. Six months notice was perfect for us; it was far enough away to not feel pressured to do everything at once, but close enough that we weren’t discouraged that it was so far away We do better with short term goals, but that’s just us. You may find that a longer time period works best for you.
We wish all our American readers a very Happy Independence Day Weekend and please stay safe! We’re planning a new blog post for Monday which highlights our local haunts, so please watch for that. Mark is also working on a post that highlights a favorite Walt Disney World resort hotel, hoping to put that out later this week.
Wishes And Pixie Dust 