Moving Progress

I was recently called out for not updating my blog regularly. Yeah well. I have very little of interest to say. So :P

We found out yesterday that the Mister will be checking out of his current command 15 days earlier than we thought. Our move date has moved up. Again. He checks out on March 10th now, not March 15th. In actuality, we have 26 days from March 10th until he has to check into his new command out in San Diego. We won’t be leaving NC exactly on the 10th because we’ll have movers and then the cleaning of this house.

::Side note::

I had to stop typing to take the oldest to school. On the way there, I got behind a school bus. After picking up a bunch of kids at a stop, it took off down the road going 45 in a 35 and in a school zone. What’s up with that?!?!

Anyway, essentially, we have 1 month and 27 days or so before we move. Yikes! I have so much to do and with our move date constantly being adjusted closer, I have less and less time to do it in, lol. We’ve opted to have the military pay for movers rather than moving ourselves so that takes a big load off but I still have organizing, cleaning, arranging to have my car shipped (we decided not to drive two cars cross country), getting the dogs to the vet for one last check up, finding somewhere to live in San Diego, taxes, and every day life in the midst of all that.

Did you know…

When you’re making a military move, you have two options. 1.) You can choose to have them pay to have a moving company come in, pack your stuff, and ship it to your destination. You get travel pay for mileage to drive your POV and for food and hotels depending on how many days they estimate it takes to drive to your new duty station. In our case, 8 days times 4 people. They always pay you way more than you need. We also get paid for the weight of our luggage that we have in our car. What that means is that we have to have our car weighed empty, pack it up, then have it weighed full. We get paid for that weight. 2.) You can choose to pack your own stuff and arrange to have it moved to your destination and have the military reimburse you for your expenses. This 2nd option is called a DITY move or Do It Yourself Move, pronounced, ditty. In all of our moves, we have done one DITY move and that was from Ohio to California. I packed up our very meager belongings which were at my dad’s house. We really had nothing. A bed with a plain metal frame, baby stuff (crib, changing table, etc.) a dinette set, sofa, 19 in. TV, a couple dressers and a few other odds and ends. I flew out to California with the girls and our families loaded a moving truck and drove it out to California for us. We reimbursed them with the money we got from the military and had some left over that we pocketed. I’m not sure if they have increased the money you get for doing a DITY move or if it’s just inflation, but nowadays, people get A LOT more than we did in 1999 for doing a DITY move.

A Marine that the Mister works with is moving out to Cali with his wife and some household belongings. They don’t have kids. They are getting $20,000 to move themselves!!! You may be asking yourselves why we don’t take advantage of such a deal. Well, I’m telling you that IMO, the money isn’t worth it. I would rather NOT have to pack up a 4 bedroom  house, all of our furniture and appliances, and the rest of our crap, and move it across the country. I’m not even sure they make a rental truck big enough to fit all of our stuff in. Professional movers come with a semi-truck. Plus, if stuff gets broken, you get reimbursed for the damages whereas if you break your own stuff, you’re out of luck. We moved ourselves across town a year and a half ago and that was such a major PITA that I think the peace of mind is worth $20,000. Maybe I’m just lazy. Yep. Movers are a wonderful thing.

Did you know::

This is how professional movers work:

1. They come in one day to visually assess how much stuff you have and what kind of boxes and moving supplies they will need to pack your crap.
2. On another day shortly thereafter, they come in and pack up your crap. Yes. It only takes them ONE day to pack EVERYTHING.
3. On the next day, they come  in and load your crap up on a truck. It only takes a few hours to load.
4. They make arrangements with you to have your crap delivered; a date and a destination address.
5. At your destination, they arrive on the prearranged date and unload your crap, putting together furniture and placing boxes where you tell them to. They will even unpack your boxes if you tell them to. We don’t because at this point, we just want them gone.
6. That’s it. You unpack your crap and settle in to your new home.

There. Now I’ve updated my blog. :P