moving

My Retirement

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I left my career exactly two years ago (on the 8th). My son was 8 months old. Honestly, I could have left my job years prior thanks to what my husband set up for us, but without kids, there was nothing to fill my time. I enjoyed my work a lot, so every day worked was another day of money ‘saved.’ I now have two kids and haven’t looked back. I’ve ‘retired,’ but I haven’t stopped producing some income in addition to managing our finances (although I managed the finances while employed full time also).

First, some background of my career.

When I first started working, I was very driven. My goal was CFO by my early 30s. That seemed crazy, until our CFO stepped in shortly after I started working there, and she was 32. Goal marked. I was on the General Schedule pay for the Federal government. I started as an intern in 2007 (GS-4) and joined the training program (GS-7) that gave you a salary increase every year (with acceptable performance) until your position’s max (GS-12 by 2011). I needed to devise a plan that got me to a GS-15 as fast as possible because in 2011 I was 25 years old, which meant I had 5-7 years to climb 3 grades (which takes at least one year in each grade). Not a lot of wiggle room. Well, I soon realized that there was more to life than climbing the ladder as quickly as possible.

I met my husband at work, and we ended up moving to DC for personal reasons and took a GS-12/13 (this means that I started the position as a GS-12, and after 52 weeks ‘in grade’ with acceptable performance, I was promoted to the GS-13 – in theory, not practice). I was warned that it would be an uphill battle to go from the 12 to the 13, and it wouldn’t be as easy and automatic as it had been to get to the GS-12. Commence years of frustration and extremely poor communication from my leadership on expectations. Without getting the promotion within my position, I applied for another position within the same office, and I got it. This was a GS-13/14. I never got the 14.

My experience within the CFO’s office was so hard on my psyche, and I felt that being a young female, rather than my excellent experience, production, and reputation, were playing into the decision making by my leadership to not promote me. I left and went “back into the field” instead. That position was a GS-13 with no promotion potential within that role. By that time, it didn’t matter to me. I didn’t want any more responsibility than what I had; I enjoyed the work I was doing.

My experience in the CFO’s office taught me that I preferred to be at home with my family and experiencing those things. Before my relationship with my husband, I didn’t realize how much I wanted to spend time outside of work traveling, playing sports, and being with my family.

MY LAST DAYS

When my son was born, I took 14 weeks off work (using my own built up leave since at the time the government didn’t provide maternity leave). The typical 12 weeks got me to just before Thanksgiving, and then I worked one or two days per week until after Thanksgiving. The goal was to work and burn my leave to zero before quitting instead of being paid out on it. If you’re paid out on it, then the tax bill hits hard and all at once. Plus, by burning the leave while still employed, I gained even more time off to burn during those pay periods, more 401k (TSP) matches, and added a few months to my back end pension calculation.

Based on my leave balance, being responsive at work, and managing child care, we first set a goal of January. Then, my husband pointed out that January and February had holidays, and I should try to work through those holidays to get those ‘free’ days off. The goal became March because March is long and without any holiday time off! Well, the Federal government shut down that winter for several weeks. My husband’s job was affected by the furlough, but my type of position was funded through a different mechanism that meant my agency still worked (and if you want a lot of detail on that, I’m always happy to talk about it, but I won’t bore the majority here 🙂 ). So I worked full-time while he stayed home with our son. This meant I wasn’t using my leave, so I could work the part-time schedule longer once he went back to work. We then set my goal for May. I probably could have made it longer, but I was afraid that if I got near Memorial Day, he’d say “work through that holiday,” and then 4th of July wasn’t too far away, so I forced my last day to fit.

I had a such a good reputation for the work that I did, that I still get asked questions by friends I made in the position. Plus, I help my husband get through some work things here and there since his position is similar to one I used to hold. I miss the work, but I don’t miss the office politics and red tape, so I’ll take these random questions from friends!

WHAT AM I DOING IN RETIREMENT

There are days that I miss the work I did. I certainly appreciate the flexibility we have now.

FLEXIBILITIES & MOBILITY

We had the opportunity for my husband to work in KY for the summer after I quit. We were able to capitalize on the per diem given for living away from your duty station, and my son was able to spend time with his cousins. I also learned to be extra grateful for our normal-sized house and that I wasn’t trying to live in a one-bedroom apartment for very long.

Since my husband’s job required fairly frequent travel, my son and I were able to join him for those work trips. We went to Orlando and Glacier National Park together! We also took several trips just for fun, like to the Braves Spring Training games.

Pandemic life made us realize that we wanted to be closer to family earlier than we had intended. We loved our neighborhood, and the schools were going to be great, but having to isolate from people for so long was hard. It was also a logistical nightmare to get things done sometimes without family to help watch the kid(s) in a pinch. Since I’m not working, we decided to move to KY to be near Mr. ODA’s family – a lot earlier in life than we had intended. We discussed the possibility in May, discussed it more seriously in June, had our house listed in August, and closed on it in September. Nothing like a hasty decision with a newborn and no house lined up to move into on the other end of this decision! But had we both been working and both needing to be employed once we moved, we wouldn’t have been able to make such a move as quickly as we did. You can read more about these decisions in my ‘Moving States’ series posted recently.

It’s been nice to be able to do activities with the kids during the week when things are less crowded. Sure, a pandemic limited our options for the last year, but we still have more freedom. I enjoy seeing all the things they learn in a day. There are hard days where I crave more adult conversation or the ability to sit quietly and get something done without being asked for the 90th snack of the day, but I still wouldn’t go back to work.

WORKING

I’m the type of person that wishes I knew the inner workings of so many things and have a strong desire for efficiency. When I took my first job in DC, I kept pushing that I wanted to bridge the ‘headquarters’ and ‘field’ communication gap. For instance, there was a process that the field would submit to headquarters for action. Headquarters had their own internal process of tracking and executing it, but the field didn’t know that process. Therefore, headquarters spent a lot of time answering “what’s the status of my request” type emails. I explained the process to the field, and then we were left to spend more time processing the actions than managing questions.

All this to say: I’m quick to jump at new opportunities where I’ll learn something. I like knowing the process for things and find these details help me better connect with other people. While not being employed full time, I’ve kept my eye open for short term and part time opportunities to do something different.

ENUMERATOR

In February 2020, before the pandemic started, I applied to work for the US Census. We don’t “need” the money, but it gave me something to do that’s different. The application said Census field work was expected to be conducted in April and May. This was going to be hard since my daughter was due at the beginning of April, but I figured I wanted to be in the mix for information instead of assuming I wouldn’t be physically able to do work. Well, the pandemic delayed everything. I didn’t get any information until June, went to training, and then started work in July.

I was able to set my schedule in advance, which was nice. I learned at the beginning that it was hard for me to manage pumping and for my husband getting our daughter down for naps. So I changed my future schedules to be in 2-3 hour segments so that I could go home to feed her and put her down for her next nap. I was given a cell phone that had my work assignments (addresses to collect census data) and my day’s hours. I went door to door trying to gather census data from addresses that hadn’t responded. Most people didn’t answer their door, which meant that I probably had to knock on neighbors’ doors until I could identify at least the number of people who lived at the address in question. That was probably the hardest part because I would introduce myself and immediately be met with “I filled mine out!”

The work was in my geographic area. The furthest I had to travel for my assignments was 25 minutes. We ended up moving out of the area in September, so I missed several opportunities to work more, but most of the work was dwindling by then (the work started to send us further and further from our ‘home base’… even an ability to go to other states).

Honestly, I wanted to be the number crunchers in the office, but that position wasn’t available. I thought if I started with the field work, I could get my foot in the door. Our move hindered that a bit, but I’m glad I did it. I learned how the Census gets tracked. I made some money. I have some good stories (encountered several types of animals, including being surrounded by two large dogs that got my adrenaline running; left a few houses because my gut said it wasn’t safe). The application used to track information needed help, as it assumed we were all working in cities, whereas I was usually out in the country (e.g., no close neighbors). I boosted my confidence with glowing remarks from my supervisor since I put more than bare minimum effort in and was efficient in getting the work done.

the giant dogs that circled me, but eventually let me back in my car

SEASONAL CHANGE RUNNER

A local race track had thought that a limited number of patrons would require less staff. Unfortunately, once the race meet started, they were surprised at where their deficiencies were. Less patrons doesn’t necessarily mean less activity at concessions and bars, for example. Mr. ODA and I were approached about an opportunity to fill this gap. We’d have to be ok being on our feet for 6-8 hours, pass a background check, and pass a COVID test (interest fact: this is my only COVID test I’ve taken).

The race meet is only 15 days. We were approached after the races had started. We needed a COVID test, but didn’t want to pay out of pocket for it, so we had to wait until the next Wednesday to get that. Between all these factors, we were left with only a few days that they needed help. One of those days, we already had plans to attend the meet as patrons, so we didn’t want to lose that ticket. Mr. ODA worked one day of the meet, while I worked 3. I then also picked up a shift for their Derby celebration (although it’s not where the Derby was held).

We had a security guard escort and walked between all the bars and concession stands making change. Patrons tend to start their day with large bills, so the cashiers need smaller bills changed out. That’s where we came in. On the first day, I walked over 26k steps – while wearing ballet flats. My feet and calves weren’t happy about it.

It was an interesting experience. I enjoyed watching the transactions that took place, and the time passed quickly. We didn’t even know what our hourly rate was until our first pay checks, but we thought it was something new and different, so we jumped at the opportunity.

BREASTMILK DONATION

I’ve breastfed both my children. For my first, I worked while he was 3-8 months old, so I needed to pump to leave him with someone else. I learned that I produced a healthy amount of milk and looked into donation methods. A friend of mine had donated milk to a milk bank that works with NICU babies, so I explored that option. I went through their rigorous approval process and took their oath on health standards. I donated over 1200 ounces to the bank that first time. They weigh the milk upon arrival, and I was paid $1 per ounce weighed.

It was a lot of work, don’t get me wrong. I agreed up front to provide 350 ounces per month for 4 months. I didn’t hit that mark. It was mostly to my lack of knowledge on how to freeze the milk so that it took up the least amount of space when packing a cooler. They also had a requirement that not more than 6 ounces gets put in a single milk bag, so that added up. I struggled with their packing mechanism; no matter how many of their videos and attempts I made, I couldn’t seem to get 350 ounces in one cooler. It’s nerve wracking when you’re trying to get frozen milk from a freezer to a cooler while it’s 80 degrees outside (garage freezer), and you feel like you only have one shot to do it right or you jeopardize your entire stash from arriving frozen and being worth all that time and effort. I digress.

My second child didn’t latch for the first 4 weeks of her life, so I was exclusively pumping. That meant that she wasn’t regulating how much I made, and so I was making a whole lot more milk than she needed. I knew the rules associated with this milk bank from last time, so I was on my A-game from the start. Lesson learned – double check their rules before any future donation attempts because they changed a couple of their rules. They now wanted 400 ounces per month for 4 months, and they allowed (and encouraged) as much milk in one bag as possible. I wish I had known that on the days where I was trying to figure out how to get 7 ounces into two bags and whether I wanted to hold off on mixing later pumping sessions. I did better with the packing this time around, but it still wasn’t great. I nailed it on my last cooler, but it was too little too late. After my last cooler went off, I only had about 150 ounces left over. We were about to be ‘homeless’ (remember when we sold our house but didn’t have a new one to go to yet!) for 7 weeks, and I couldn’t keep up with pumping and moving around to all different places, so again I didn’t meet their quota. They’re always so gracious for whatever they receive though. I ended up donating just over 1,100 ounces this time around at $1 per ounce.

Mr. ODA could retire today. But again: what would we do with all that free time, what would he do about his leave balances that we don’t want to cash out, what do we do about health care? Our monthly expenses are more than covered by our rental property cash flow, but we don’t want to be stuck at home not being able to spend any extra money because we don’t want to raise our expenses. Since Mr. ODA is going to keep his job for now, we’re planning a more extensive summer travel calendar and trying to shift the mindset away from super frugality since we’ve already met many of our financial independence goals. Our savings now will create lifestyle in the future once we’ve both taken the “retire early” plunge.

The biggest change since I was working is that the Federal government now pays paternity/maternity leave. As I shared, I had to use my own leave balance. The Family Medical Leave Act just holds your job – it allows you to use your own time off, but it doesn’t guarantee payment. So I was granted 12 weeks of unpaid leave that I was then “allowed” to substitute my own leave for. I had planned for babies, so I had a great leave balance to get me through my maternity leave. Now, my husband will get paid for 12 weeks without having to touch his leave balance! Since we’re talking about having another kid, he’s going to stick around to utilize that benefit.

I’ve done things here and there to keep me sane because talking to other adults is a big need for me. But I wouldn’t trade all the time I’ve had with my two kids thanks to Mr. ODA’s extensive research and aggressive saving/investing to get us set up for success and early retirement. I’ll continue to keep my eye out for these part time opportunities where I get to learn something new.

Moving States: Part III

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There are a lot of factors that go into a home purchase. There are the simple ones, like the number of bedrooms and bathrooms your family desires. Then there are more complicated ones, like what compromises are you willing to make on your wish list to get to the price and location you want.

HOME CRITERIA

I started looking at real estate options in central KY just out of curiosity in June. I knew we wanted 4 bedrooms and at least 2 bathrooms, but it would probably be more like 2.5 bathrooms (master bathroom, kids’ bedroom bathroom, and a powder room on the first floor for guests). We knew we wanted a 2 car garage, which worked out well for us in our RVA house.

Then there’s more trivial things that I learned from experience. I preferred the master bedroom to be on the second floor with the kids bedrooms. When we built our RVA house, we didn’t think it would be too much to have the kids on a separate floor. Well, we made that decision before we had kids, and it turns out that having infants doesn’t make it easy to sleep on a separate floor. Yes, I had monitors. But kids are noisy. So once I ‘kicked’ them out of my bedroom, I didn’t want to have a monitor right next to my head to still be kept up by all their little squeaky noises through the night.

Our RVA house had a loft upstairs. It had a ‘wow’ factor to it, but it wasn’t practical. We used it as a den before we had kids, and then it was hard to keep it organized and clean once kids came around. Therefore, we put a basement on our must have list, and we weren’t going to compromise on that. We knew from our living style that a basement was going to be something we’d enjoy for a long time and didn’t want to take that off our list just yet.

We had a lot of criteria associated with the lot. We wanted about 0.25 acres. We felt that 0.5 an acre was more land than we really wanted, but anything less than 0.25 acres wasn’t going to leave enough room for multiple kids and a large dog to enjoy. We want to be in a neighborhood with several neighbors close, but we want more room than a garbage can width between the houses.

One of the sad parts of the house we were leaving behind was the backyard. We had a really nice natural area in the back half of our yard. We had put a firepit in and had a beautiful tree-scape back there, but still had a decent size grassy area for the kids and dog to play. Another downside for leaving was that the playground and pavilion (hang out space) for the HOA were two lots away.

FINANCIAL CRITERIA

When Mr. ODA and I got pre-approved for our first home back in 2012, we were approved for $750,000. Sure, we could afford that monthly payment, but then we couldn’t afford food or furniture or electricity. We had set our spending limit based on our down payment available at the time because we didn’t want to pay PMI. For this purchase, we could have afforded a monthly payment associated with a $500k house (or more), but that size house isn’t necessary for our life right now and we didn’t want to be saddled with that down payment.

I’ve already quit my job. Mr. ODA expects to quit his job in the near future. We don’t want to have him quit his job to hang out in an expensive house and never be able to do anything else because we need to pay $2,500 per month for a mortgage.

When looking at houses, we’re fluid in the cost. We preferred to stay below $400k, unless there was something we could get for more than that making it worth it (e.g., more land, more amenities). We found out that we could get everything we wanted for $350-400k, so it would have been hard for us to go higher than that.

When you’re pre-approved by a bank, they’re looking at your debt to income ratio. Your debt is categorized by your routine monthly payments (e.g., car loan). We don’t have any loans or debt payments in that sense, so they’ve set our pre-approval almost solely based on our income. This is a faulty expectation in a homeowner’s reality, since we all have fairly fixed monthly costs: cable, internet, cell phone, electricity, gas, water, etc. Then you have the cost of groceries and entertainment that may or may not be on a credit card and able to be tracked against your credit. Essentially, we don’t need a bank to tell us what we can afford, and we set our own expectations.

We know what we have for a down payment and closing costs, and we know that we’d prefer to pay $1200-1500 per month for our mortgage, which includes our escrowed real estate taxes and insurance.

OUR HOME

We got a 5 bedroom, 3 bathroom (with another bathroom roughed in for the basement), 2,750 square foot house with an unfinished basement, on about a 8,500 square foot lot. The basement is not a walk-out, which we were bummed about, but at least we have the space we wanted. The lot is slightly smaller than we set out looking for, but because our house is really wide and not deep, we actually ended up with a nice size back yard, which was really the intention of our lot size desire. Our house cost about $346k.

FINDING THE HOUSE

We looked in Lexington, KY first, and we explored resales and new construction. The neighborhood I was really interested in was sold out in one section or over $500k for a new-build in another section, so I started over. For resales in Lexington, we were looking at houses that were about 30 years old and needed updating. I really wish I had an eye for the potential in some homes. When I started investigating the new construction market, I realized that we could have a new build house for the same price as the resales that needed work. Most of the neighborhoods in Lexington have the houses on top of each other too, which we really didn’t want. We like neighbors, but we also want to be able to walk between the houses.

Through July, I tried to figure out the new construction market in the area. I thought I had a head start since we had built our house in Virginia a few years ago, but the process for these Central KY builders was much different. It was hard to stomach the fact that their build time was 11-12 months, and growing. We had built our house in Virginia in less than 4.5 months from contract signature to move in.

I looked up the different floor plans for as many builders as I could find. One builder had very large, but partitioned off, floor plans. Another builder had options available in Richmond, KY, and another builder had those options available for a year from now. I found a deal being offered by one of the builders in Richmond, KY that said “last basement lot of this section – free finished basement.”

I reached out to the listing agent. She took me on a virtual tour of the floor plan I liked, and it was by far my #1 contender. I asked her what “free finished basement” meant, and she said they’d cover the basement and finishing it. I verified several times – a $50k value??? Well, Richmond, KY wasn’t my preferred location, but hard to beat this deal. Plus, that neighborhood was just starting to be built, and we really liked being at the beginning of our last neighborhood’s build out. The listing agent put together a contract, but didn’t mention this deal. I said I wasn’t signing anything that didn’t have that in there. She added it, and then said she had to wait for her boss (the company owner) to come back to town in a couple of days to go over the details. Well, the deal was too good to be true. The deal was that we paid for the basement pour, but they paid to finish it. This deal was going on because the lot was less than favorable, so between the poor lot and less of an incentive, we walked away. That floor plan is still my favorite though, and if we ever move again, it’ll be hard not to go back to that builder. Also, they have the laundry room connected to the master closet or bathroom in their floor plans, and this is the most logical, amazing thing that I had even pointed out in our last house as something that should have been done.

Well, now I was getting desperate. How are we going to find something that we can move into? Maybe we’ll have to wait to list our house in Spring of 2021 because we’ll only find something to build that’s several months out. I’m very grateful that we found something when we did and didn’t have to wait until Spring of 2021 when housing prices have risen so much!

I had tried to get more information for a house that was under construction. We couldn’t change anything, but it was mostly ok. I didn’t love the tile in the bathrooms. The house layout was manageable, but it had a lot of wasted space (we don’t need a sitting room in the master bedroom or a formal living room). The house had a walk-out basement and was part of a neighborhood that had golf and a pool. It was also $393k. Affordable, but not what we were looking for. The lot was over 10k square feet, which is something we wanted. We asked Mr. ODA’s parents to go check it out. They went to see it and were quick to say no. I’m glad they did, and that I didn’t settle. We want our kids to ride their bikes in the driveway and street, and this house is on a greatly sloped hill (like recently rode our bikes down it, and I was scared).

I kept looking. We mostly were looking around Lexington, KY, but not within Lexington because of the lot spacing. We considered several re-sales in Winchester, Georgetown, and Richmond. They all were about $400k and not perfect, so it was hard to jump in.

At the end of July, a house popped up on my search. It was new construction and had been under contract, designed by someone that had to go with a different house because this one was significantly delayed. It was being built by the builder that had 11-12 month lead time on newly constructed homes, a builder without a good reputation, even to me, someone who didn’t grow up in the area. I requested the ‘spec list’ so I could see if there were any deal breakers in the design and selections.

I had hoped for white kitchen cabinets, and these were dark. I loved that there was a covered deck and that the already-selected upgrades to the floor plan were exactly what I would have selected (e.g., mudroom, guest suite, laundry room location, master bathroom layout). It had a pit basement. It was in the area we wanted; it was on a flat part of the road; and it could be ready before next year. The light fixtures were more eclectic than we would have chosen, but those weren’t a deal breaker.

We were told that it was probably going to be ready at the beginning of November. We figured a mid-August list on our home may take a week or 2 to get under contract, and then usually you see a 45 day close (versus our push for 25-30 days usually on rental purchases). We thought we may have a couple of weeks to bridge between selling our home and getting into the new house. Nope.

This was just as the bidding wars were really ramping up and people were losing out on 20-bid type offers on listings. Our house was under contract at the end of the first weekend. They wanted a 3 week close, and we pushed it to 4 weeks. That left 7 weeks of us being ‘homeless,’ which I covered in Part I.

SUMMARY

This is very specific to our needs and desires, but I hope that the thought process and ‘give and take’ in the decision making can be helpful to some. This information is also geared towards the Central KY market, and what you get for the price of a house in different areas of the country varies.

While we’ve had several issues with our home in the first six months, we’re happy to be in KY with family, the location of our house, and the general feel and functionality that it’s given us.

Moving States: Part II

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I shared the background of our decision to move to KY in my last post. Here, I am going to break down the details of our moving decisions, mostly focused on the financials. My next post will be how we made housing decisions.

MOVING LOGISTICS

I was spoiled. Every single move I did between college and this past year was orchestrated and paid for by the government. NY to PA; PA to DC; DC to Richmond, VA. I didn’t touch a thing. Movers came and packed up all my things for one day. Then they came the next day and loaded a truck. Then they delivered my goods and put the boxes and furniture in the right rooms.

On our way to Richmond, VA, we decided to build our house, so we needed temporary housing. That also meant that we needed storage. The movers packed up our things and brought them to storage until I called to schedule the delivery to our house. I asked for one step extra that time – unpack all the boxes and take away the boxes and packing material. I never thought it was necessary because I liked having things clean and organized in boxes that could be pushed to a corner. Well, having them lay everything out on a flat surface (they didn’t put things away in cabinets and such) made me have my entire house unpacked and put away in a weekend. Yup. S P O I L E D!

Fast forward back to our move to KY. I no longer work for the agency that paid for relocation; I wasn’t taking a new job that would have made me eligible anyway; and Mr. ODA’s agency doesn’t pay for relocation, nor was he taking a new position.

So where do I begin?

  • We’re moving from one state to another, 500 miles.
  • We need storage for an indefinite amount of time, but something like 7-8 weeks.
  • How am I to pack up a house, while still needing things to live and managing an infant and toddler?
  • What’s the financial threshold for this adventure? Am I looking at 10k or 30k? What’s the itemized cost of each step for me to determine if it’s worth the money? Can I parse out each step?
  • How big of a storage unit do we need?
  • How much do I need to pack for our ‘homeless’ time? Oh, and it’s covering summer (with beach time) and fall temperatures.

It cost us $5,500. We did a lot ourselves.

I started by trying to find a quote at all the “pod” type places. Several of them required me to make a phone call. You know what’s really not easy to do with an infant and toddler? That’s right, spending time on the phone. My absolute most favorite is when there’s an automated message that I need to verbally respond to, while kids are screaming (whether positively or negatively) in the background, and the robot just keeps saying “I’m sorry, I didn’t get that. Let’s try again.” Eh, digressing like usual…

I went with UHaul. Their website wasn’t able to create my order, so I had to call. It kept claiming my goods would be stored only for the 500 mile trek, and kept trying to pick a delivery date one week after pick up. But once I called them, they were able to get it all squared away.

UHaul’s boxes are smaller, about half the size of the big ‘pod’ type things you’re used to seeing in driveways. We liked that if we ordered 8 boxes, based on their recommendation for our house size, but didn’t use all of them, they wouldn’t charge us for the unused boxes. Unfortunately for that plan, we ended up needing a 9th box. They were super accommodating; since their truck carries 5 boxes at a time and our order required two trips anyway, they just loaded the extra box on the second truck without charging us for the drop.

I had called the ‘all inclusive’ type movers before making this decision. Their quotes were anywhere from 12k to 35k. Well, once we heard that we were looking at about $4k for UHaul, it wasn’t worth the luxury option. The $4k included the boxes being dropped off and pickup in VA, shipping to KY, and storage for 2 months in KY. It didn’t include delivery from storage to our house in KY, but more on that shortly.

Mr. ODA had faith that I could pack up the house while raising children. 🙂 I did it! Also, with the help of many neighbors, I didn’t pay for a single box. One neighbor works for CVS and was able to bring home their boxes from deliveries, and several others dropped their Amazon or old moving boxes off for me. We purchased packing paper, bubble wrap (I actually liked the packing paper better), and packaging tape from Walmart.

Closing was the 18th, so I hired movers for the 16th. There were several questionable reviews about movers not showing, and I wanted the buffer to pivot if that came to fruition for us. It was $415 for 2 movers for 4 hours. They ended up coming with a trainee, so they had more help, but didn’t get everything packed. Our house was 2,850 square feet across two floors, with 4 bedrooms. The part that wasn’t factored in well was all the storage that was kept in our walk-in attic and all the things in the garage. They were able to get the house emptied, but didn’t do most of the garage. We had a friend come help with the odds and ends, but it was worth it to pay for the movers. They could get things out of the house a lot faster than if we had done it ourselves. Our movers weren’t great about not hitting the walls and being nice to our furniture (I walked in to one guy trying to move part of our sectional down the stairs by himself, and just let it slide down the first set of stairs – beautiful). Perhaps if we paid a bit more, we could have gotten a better team, but nothing broke and the worst was just paint scuffs.

UHaul came and picked up 5 of the finished boxes on the 16th, so that was nice to have them off the street in under 24 hours.

The plan was to deep clean the house on the 17th and close on the 18th. I hung out with friends on a nice day and didn’t get nearly enough done. We had to figure out where to sleep for that last night without most of our things, so we kept the kids’ cribs and an air mattress available. So on the morning of the 18th, we threw the rest of our things in the last UHaul box right before the lady came to pick up the last of the boxes around 8 am. I was so worried about boxes being there on closing day, but it worked out well that the truck driver said she could come first thing that morning to clear the rest of the boxes.

Then it was time to gather the things we deemed necessary (or unpackable in storage) for our two months before our new home was ready. We packed up the van with all these things, which took significantly longer than I expected it to. We had to be out of the house for the final walk through by 11 am, and by some miracle, our 5 month old daughter slept until we had to wake her up to take down her crib at 10:50! We were literally throwing things in the van while the buyers waited for us to get out of their way. I was disappointed in myself.

UHaul would store our things near the pick up or drop off location. I chose the drop off location for storage because we didn’t have a definitive date for closing on the new house. I wanted to be able to give a few days notice for taking our things out of storage versus waiting two weeks from notice to get to us, and having the possibility of delays (which were quite common during the pandemic).

There was a hiccup on the back end of this transaction though. We paid about $200 for the ‘box drop and pick up’ at our packing location. We couldn’t figure out why we only had a $1300 option on the unpacking end. When we arrived in Kentucky, we went over to talk to someone about it and see if we had more options in person. It turns out that their reason for not having the $200 option is because they don’t have the flat bed truck! Crazy. They had trailers to rent, but most carried one box at a time. They had one trailer that could carry 2 at at time, but then we also needed to rent their truck that could tow that weight. We had a couple of weeks to figure out the logistics of moving day and how long it would take to have to make so many trips back and forth to UHaul, which was 25 minutes away.

We rented the truck and 2-box trailer, and we hired a guy who used to work for that UHaul location to be our box runner. We had him pick up two boxes and drive them to our house. We had a team of friends and family here to unload the boxes into the driveway (luckily it was a beautiful 60 degree November day). Then while the guy drove back for two more boxes, our friends here took things from the driveway/garage and brought them to the right rooms inside. The plan seemed perfect, but it turns out that the process of bringing things inside was about 1/10th of the time it took for that guy to go back and get two more boxes, so there was a lot of down time. But hey, none of our friends were upset about down time! We paid the box runner for 6 hours of his time and gave him a tip. We had some issues because he didn’t fill the gas tank when he brought it back, so we got charged for that (which we were pretty unhappy about after giving him a substantial tip), but UHaul took the charges off our card for that.

For dropping 9 boxes, moving the boxes 500+ miles, and storing them for 2 months, we paid $4,420. Then add in the $420 for the movers on the packing end and $500 for the driver on the unpacking end. That was significantly lower than our 10k expectation!

Moving States: Part I

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In March 2020, as we all know, a pandemic hit. Well, our second child came into the world at the end of March, just a week after lock down. My family lives in NY, and Mr. ODA’s family lives in KY. So living in VA left us without family, with limited visits, and only seeing some neighbors while hanging out in yards and the street, but no child care or help.

We had talked about officially moving to KY while we spent the summer of 2019 there for Mr. ODA’s work assignment, but we decided it wasn’t the right time. We loved our neighborhood and town back home, and we just weren’t ready to leave. Mr. ODA was offered a promotion in DC at the same time, and that sealed the deal for us to stay in VA. The cost of living in NY near my family (Long Island), along with the crowded lifestyle, was not something we wished to pursue after experienced a ‘taste’ of the traffic and crowds when we lived by DC, which is why ‘moving near family’ meant KY.

On a walk one night in June 2020, Mr. ODA mentioned moving to KY again. He was working from home indefinitely, so there wasn’t anything holding us to VA (except my Ob and the kids’ pediatrician…. gosh it was hard for me to leave them!). At this point, isolated from most people because of the pandemic, the logic was there to make the move. Additionally, our mortgage was a 5/1 ARM that was coming due in January, so selling our house a few months before that was great timing.

LISTING OUR HOUSE

We built our house and moved in at the beginning of January 2016. For a new house, we had a lot of little projects that had to be completed before we could have people walk through it. When we sold our first house, we put a lot of our things into our neighbor’s basement as storage. This time around, we had to do the same, but without a neighbor’s basement as help.

There were the typical paint touchups, wiping baseboards, and moving of furniture. There were just several small projects that needed attended to (like replacing burnt out light bulbs and buying a comforter that fit our new bed), which took me about two weeks before we could get the pictures done for the listing.

We had one room that was the catch-all for mismatched furniture. We were told to give the room a purpose. I was able to get the exercise bike, desk, bed, and bookshelf to live harmoniously.

For pictures, we chose to keep a full-size bed in one of the bedrooms, but I quickly changed it to our daughter’s crib. We were afraid that if people saw a crib, they’d think the room was too small for a bed. So while, functionally, I needed that crib, I didn’t mind if they saw it during the walk through because they could refer back to the listing photos to see the bed there instead.

SOLD QUICKER THAN PLANNED

It’s hard to manage the expectation of how long the house will be on the market against how long to wait for listing it. We knew our new house wasn’t going to be ready until November. I was too afraid to wait until everyone went back to school, especially with all the uncertainty of what school would look like. I pushed to list mid-August (central VA goes back to school after Labor Day).

We were under contract at the end of the first weekend listed. They asked for a 3 week close, and we denied that. There was no incentive for us to move that quickly. We asked how long they’d be willing to push it, and they agreed to 30 days because they’d be living in a hotel with their family of 5. That was exactly 7 weeks between leaving our house and our new house being ready.

We decided to seize the opportunity and travel with that time. Since Mr. ODA was working remotely anyway, we could explore new places where he could work during the week from our hotel or AirBnB. I had one rule – there had to be two separate sleep areas because our 6 month old required her room to be pitch black for sleep, and messing with a baby’s sleep hurts mama! Our options are also limited because we have a dog.

Here’s how we had to unpack and repack the car each time!

Week 1 – We went to the beach! We grabbed a beautiful little AirBnB in Norfolk, two blocks from a little beach and boardwalk. I took the kids to the zoo one day, and we played at the school playground across the street a bunch.

Week 2 – We went back to our old neighborhood and imposed on some friends. Our daughter had her 6 month pediatrician appointment, and I wasn’t about to give up an opportunity to see our wonderful doctor again. Their family has kids the same age as ours, but their youngest was still sleeping in the parents’ room, which left his crib available to our youngest. As a bonus, they went on vacation for the week! As a form of payment for our time there, I painted their first floor. I love to paint, so I enjoyed having an activity. Our oldest got sick at the beginning of the week and his fever wasn’t breaking, so we ended up at the doctor 3 times with an eventual ear infection diagnosis. Him being sick delayed my progress, but I got it all done.

Week 3 – Bristol VA and TN. Mr. ODA took more time off during this week so that we could go hiking and explore the area more. It’s beautiful down there.

Week 4 to 7 – We went to KY to stay with Mr. ODA’s parents. By the time I got there, I wasn’t leaving until we moved into our new house. It was a lot to pack up the car, unload it all, keep it organized, live with the minimum for the two kids, and then pack it all back up again. I ended up cancelling two of our trips that we had planned. I kept one where we went back to our old neighborhood for Halloween. I wanted our oldest to play with his friend for the holiday, but then we didn’t even really see them. Our youngest had her flu vaccine booster that weekend too.

In hindsight, our quick decision to move was great timing. We knew there were bidding wars happening over real estate (our Realtor fielded 16 offers on a home in Richmond, VA the same weekend we listed!), but we didn’t know it was going to get as bad as it has where inventory is so low and house prices climbed. While we may have been able to get more for our house a month or so later, we wouldn’t have found many options for what we wanted in KY.

House prices in KY are about 8% higher than this time last year, and our area’s housing prices are 11% higher, according to Zillow. Example: Our neighbor was under contract to purchase his house in July. They had a new job offer come in, and they sold their house earlier this month for $55k more than they purchased it. That’s a 14% increase in less than a year.