Purging the Refridgerator

We purged the refrigerator yesterday. Not because we wanted to... a car hit a telephone pole, which sent an electrical surge and damaged the refrigerator. We threw away old stuff from the freezer and moved the rest to a snow bank outside to keep it cold.

Not exactly the kind of purging we were planning!

Purging paperwork

We are taking advantage of the three day weekend to purge the many boxes of papers we have. We have all the information for when we were shopping for a house and ultimately built one. I have all my old files from all my old jobs, as does my wife. And we have collected a lot of documents over the years.

We went through the boxes and looked at every piece of paper and put each in one of four piles: throw away, shred, scan, keep. We decided to shred anything that had confidential information on it. Anything that held a memory or important information got scanned and stored digitally into our family drive. Other things like certificates or special cards went into the keep pile.

We managed to discard almost everything! I can’t believe we held onto all this stuff for so long just so we could throw it away at a later time. 

Update

Here is an update: we finished purging the kitchen and it feels great that the cupboards aren’t stuffed full anymore. We plan to do at least one more purging before the end of the year.

We have started making plans for saving money for the move. I think the move is going to be very expensive:

A friend told me to plan $8-12,000 just in moving expenses

We will need a home down payment because I don’t know when our existing home will sell

The new home mortgage will likely be more expensive than our old. 

We may have to pay two mortgages for a while until the old home sells

My wife doesn’t want to work the first year

I don’t know what I will be doing for work (continue working from home or will I need a new job?)

We will loose our rental income

We may have to facilitate any other family members that want to move down with us

Buying whatever furniture we don’t take with us

Just registering our three cars will be $1200. It costs $500 to drive each one down and then the cost to fly back for the next car

I am looking at all these expenses and thinking I had better have $40,000 cash in my hand to make this move successful. Wow. 

I have a plan to raise the cash... but the best laid plans often fall to God’s humor. 

That’s our update for now!

Purging the Kitchen

The number one rule we have heard over and over: when moving to Florida? Purge your belongings.

And when you think you are done? Purge again. And again. And again. Until you get the number of items down to just the bare essentials.

Moving a long distance is very expensive and the more items you take? The more money it will cost, the less likely you'll use it when you get there, and the more likely you'll just end up purging it once you get to Florida. So... purge it before you go.

We found a few things to donate, but donating just means more work. Therefore, many items went straight into garbage. We filled four trash bags in one day. The items we threw away were really old, really used, and available for a dollar at most bargain stores, so, we didn't throw away any treasures. We are just thrilled to get rid of it and now our kitchen is much lighter!

Move Countdown

The move countdown is quickly coming to an end! We have 24-36 months left, according to our plan. The move is starting to feel real now!

In preparation, we set two goals for 2019: purge and save as much money as we can!

You can see our attempts at saving money by reading TheAdventuresOfTheFrugalFamily.blogspot.com

To help save money for the move, we have decided to take no trips to Florida in 2019. This will be very difficult for us, but, we are going to give it a try. Instead of taking a vacation in Florida, we want to set to money aside for Florida trips for job interviews and to look at homes.

I joined a Facebook group called Taking the Florida Plunge. It is filled with people who are either planning to move to Florida, or, people who already have. It is a supportive group with people providing tons of suggestions. If you are thinking about moving to Florida? Check it out!

Another good resource: TheDis is a Disney parks fan group. They have done very professional video podcasts for many years. They have started a “moving to Orlando” series https://youtu.be/GYQa-Uf4vvg

The first podcast discusses some of the best towns in the Orlando area to move to, and the hosts describe some of their move experiences.

I hope this information is useful!

Moving To Orlando Video

I love The Dis Unplugged and have watched it for decades. I am thrilled that they are starting a series intended to help people who are interested in moving to the Orlando area. They have released their first video entitled "Moving to Orlando":

Summer 2018 Florida Trip

The Summer 2018 trip to Florida was incredible. We stayed in Florida for four weeks and split the time between staying in the Orlando area and staying on the beach in a condo just south of Cocoa beach.

We stayed on the beach in 2017 and loved it. We really looked forward to returning to the beach in 2018 and had a wonderful time. We left a little torn: we have always dreamed of moving to Central Florida, but we loved the beach so much that we thought the coast might be a better option. In conclusion, we decided to stick with our plans to move to central Florida and use the beach as a vacation destination.

When I have told people I wanted to move near Disney World, the response has been “what will happen when you get tired of Disney?” My answer has been “wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing to go to Disney so much that you got tired of it?”

Getting tired of Disney started to sink in this summer. We had purchased ten day passes and after Day 8, our kids were begging us to not drag them back to the parks. We compromised. We gave them Day 10 off, left them at the condo, and my wife and I went.

Overall, it was a good trip and reaffirmed our love for Florida!