T minus 486 days: Making the plan

Everything I have read has told me that in order to have a successful move to Florida, you need a plan. I'm a certified project planner... so... that sounds like a great idea!

My wife and I went to a coffee shop and spent several hours brainstorming all the things we needed to get done before moving to Florida (see below). There are some trips in the North East we want to make, some sales we want to have, and more.

After brainstorming, I aligned each item to a season: Spring 2020, Summer 2020, Fall 2020, Winter 2021, Spring 2021, and finally Summer 2021. I then went through each season and aligned every item up to a month. And finally, I entered everything into a free project tracking web site named Trello.com.

There are several downsides to Trello:
1. The free version only tracks due dates, not start dates. That can get confusing.
2. You can add check lists to the tasks (called cards). However, the free version doesn't let you assign due dates to each check list item, nor assign each check list item to a person

There are several good things about Trello:
1. It is free
2. Everyone in my family can access it
3. It integrates with my family's Google Calendar, so, everything on the plan shows up on the calendar
4. Can access it on a computer or on a phone
5. Did I mention that it is free?

Our  tentative plan is to have 1 or 2 PODS that we pack several weeks before the move, and then a moving truck for everything we'll need right away. Here is our plan:

15 months
Youngest gets his permit
Prepare goals for summer trip to Florida
Sell an old vehicle
Reserve tables for the May rummage sale
More training for our dog so he'll be good for the move

14 months
Meet with financial advisor
Clean out the garage for the rummage sale
Arrange for a truck to get the tables for the rummage sale
Request days off from work for the rummage sale
Practice driving with my sons so they can get their licenses before we move
Find a house painter
Start selling on Facebook Market Place
Explore using EBAY to sell stuff

13 months
Wash and clean items for the rummage sale
Register the rummage sake with the town
Price everything for the rummage sale
Hold the first rummage sake
Find a Florida Real Estate agent for our summer Florida trip

12 months
Oldest son graduates from college and gets a job
Youngest son gets a summer job
Wife and I get our enhanced licenses so we can fly to Florida
Request days off for the Florida trip to look at real estate

11 months
Trips in the North East to see things before we move

10 months
Go to Florida to look at real estate
Have six rooms inside the house painted

9 months
Boys get their licenses

8 months
Create a moving budget

7 months
Decide how we are moving (PODS, Trucks, etc)

6 Months
Final quotes for moving
Consultant tells us what to fix on the house so it will sell

5 Months
Continue to purge

4 months
Reserve tables for the second rummage sale
Finish fixing up the house for sale
Research if our home insurance will cover the move
Find someone to drive our moving truck to Florida (if we go that option)

3 months
Book the PODS and/or moving truck
Buy moving supplies
Reserve hall for our graduation/anniversary/moving party
Arrange a truck to move the tables for the second rummage sale
Request days off from work for the second rummage sale

2 months
Dispose of any paints and chemicals
Final planning for the graduation/anniversary/moving party
Notify the town about our second rummage sales
Have the second rummage sale
Find movers to load and unload the moving trucks and pods
Create a receipt and bills folder
Arrange dog sitting for the moving days
Get the pets a pre-move check up
Get real estate agent to list the house

1 month
Plan the drive to Florida
Wife submits two week notice
Talk to doctors (dentist, eye, hair dresser, specialists, etc) toget records, referrals, and recommendations
Transfer all prescriptions to Florida
Plan how the PODS will be dropped off in Flordia
Purchase decorations and arrange food for the graduation/anniversary/moving party
Have the graduation/anniversary/moving party
Schedule utility disconnects
Dissasemble book shelves
Final moving sale
Gather important papers
Have the PODS arrive 2 weeks before the move
Final computer backups

0 Month
Change of address
leave the house clean


Planning is the easy part. Now we have to execute on these plans. Hopefully, in 486 days we'll be on our way to Florida!

T-Minus 491: Purging Baby Clothes

One of the hardest things to do has been to purge the baby clothes and the kids clothes. Every piece of clothing comes with so many memories. I can remember my daughter running down Main Street of Magic Kingdom in one outfit. The time we went to Niagara Falls in another outfit. The family Christmas pictures. Playing in the back yard. There wasn't a single shirt or outfit that didn't have some memory attached to it!

We decided to take pictures of our favorites and to put everything into three piles: Keep it, Donate it, and Sell it.

We took  A LOT of pictures! We had a nice assembly line going. My wife would set the clothes down and make it look nice. I would snap the picture and then move the item out of the way for the next item. In rapid fire we took many hundreds of pictures.

The clothes were packed away carefully and they are like new! If anything doesn't sell, we will either keep it for the May 2021 yard sale, or, donate it and get rid of it.

You aren't interested in reading about my tote stats, but, it helps to keep me motivated: Out of 270 totes, we have gone through 41. 27% of our totes are now empty! 6% of the totes are my adult daughter's belongings and she has been stopping by on the weekends to go through those.

t-mins 492 days: To Build Or Buy?

In one of the facebook groups, I recently asked "If time wasn't an issue, would you build or buy?" The answers were interesting. The most compelling answers explained that pools have a horrible resale value. You'll pay a lot of money for a pool, but only get a little bit of money for the pool when you sell the house. Therefore, it is cheaper to buy a used pool instead of install a new pool. Also, if you want a pool in a new house, some contractors will require you to pay for the pool upfront (either the entire thing, or half) in cash.

Other interesting answers were:

PRO FOR HOME BUILDING

• Newer houses are built better to protect from hurricanes (not sure if that is true, but, that is what someone wrote)
• Same price as buying a used house
• You get to pick out everything from door knobs to lighting fixtures
• New neighborhoods do not have large trees that might fall on your house in a storm
• It might be OK if you can customize it
• New home pools are tiny
• It can be more expensive to fix a pool than to build a new pool

CONS FOR HOME BUILDING

• New houses are built ontop of each other with no land. The houses are almost touching each other
• You or a hired home inspector must regularly check on a new house build
• New developments might have to pay a CDD Fee to offset the cost of infrastructure to pay for that development
• New homes settle, which crack titles and requires rugs to be stretched
• New builds often get delayed, which complicate time frames
• Taxes after construction is completed is a lot more than before it starts. People don't always plan for that

PRO FOR HOME BUYING

• You know what you are getting. You know what the neighborhood looks like.
• You don't have to buy landscaping. The landscaping is matured.
• Older homes might be better built because they are throwing up new houses as fast as they can
• Older neighborhoods have character, new neighborhoods are all cookie cutter
• Problems with the home construction have already been worked out
• Established neighborhoods have larger trees which provide shade
• Having neighbors who have lived there for a long time
• They often come with window coverings and appliances

T-Minus 493: Florida Car License

I have heard many people talk about registering your cars and getting licenses in Florida. They say the cost is somewhere between $400 to $600 per car! But no one has done a better job at explaining what to expect than Florida with Five. Please consider the following video to be essential viewing.

T-Minus 494 days: Visiting Tub City

We have 270 totes. Most of these totes are in a 600 sqft storage area named Tub City.

All of the totes are numbered and inventoried. If we are going camping, we would grab the camping tote. If we are going to the beach, we grab the beach tote. If we are decorating for Easter, we grab the Easter totes. There are many other totes used to store old toys, old clothes, paperwork, and many other items.

We have Totes in other locations as well. The majority are in Tub City, but, we have a 120 sqft storage room with some totes, there are totes in everyone closet for storage, I use some totes in my wood shop for painting supplies, plumbing, etc, and the toy room/game room has some totes to help with organization.

A major purging effort has been to address all the totes. Freeing up totes will allow us to use the totes for packing. It will also free up space for staging rummage sales and other move activities.

T-Minus 496 days: One story or two story house?

I have always lived in a two story house. In fact... count the basement... three story house. Stacking floors on top of each other is the cheapest way to get square footage. It is also nice to have that separation between activities happening upstairs versus downstairs. Having a house with stairs helps to keep you healthy because going up and down stairs is great exercise.

But who hasn't fallen down the stairs? Whether it is a full top to bottom fall, or you just miss the bottom step? Falling on stairs is dangerous and painful. I know - I just went to go up the stairs, my toes didn't have a firm grip and slipped off the step mid stride. My foot hurts, my knee is skinned, the hip I landed on hurts. What a pain!

I am fifty years old. I'm not a young guy anymore. I have decided that I don't want to use stairs in my Florida home. Many of the houses we have rented in Florida during the summers do not have a second floor, and those that did - I never went up stairs. We would get a two story house and put the kids upstairs. The upstairs was their domain.

When we go to Florida, I will likely get a two story house to minimize the cost per square foot. When I do, my adult children and guests can have that second floor. I'm getting a suite on the first floor and plan to rarely, if ever, see that second floor. If my adult children are on the second floor, I'll make them maintain the second floor as part of their rent.

What are your thoughts? I'd love to hear them.

T-Minus 497 days: Florida with Five, SunRail, PODS, and more

A three day weekend meant three days of purging! We finished the kid art, then moved to kid books, some baby items, old notebooks from work, and my wife went through several totes containing her desk items from previous jobs.

We have now sorted 33% of our 270 totes! And 15% of our totes are now empty. 15% doesn't sound like much - but that is 41 empty totes!

We continue to watch YouTube videos as we purge. This weekend we binge watched Florida With Five, a family with five kids who moved to Florida one year ago. The area they live in sounded so familiar, so, we decided to figure out where their house was. I know, that seems super creepy. But we have lived in that area for 8 or 9 summers and know it really well. What got us interested was when they talked about the Sun Rail, a commuter train that goes to Orlando. In all the research I had done and all the time spent in the area, I had never heard of the Sun Rail before. How was that possible?

It took some work during lunch time, but, we narrowed it down to what street they lived on. I had drove by that area five years ago and was amazed at how developed it had become! I had never considered that area because when we drove through it, it was just fields and golf courses.

And that is where the creepy part ends. I found the street, but I probably couldn't find it again without a ton of work. I would never tell anyone or care to go there. I just wanted to better understand the SunRail and now I see how developed that area has become, which I didn't previously know.

The SunRail extension to the south completed in July 2018. You can now take the rail from Poinciana all the way into Orlando and beyond. I plan to learn more about this because it could be a way to beat the I4 traffic!

We watched many videos that showed how people packed a pod. From what we saw: people don't move to Florida with furniture! I don't know how anyone can afford to move to Florida and buy all new furniture - furniture is expensive! We decided we needed to take a trip to Florida to do a final search for houses, and during that trip, visit some of the furniture stores in the area to see what the trick is.

A few other things we noticed was the use of different sized boxes to maximize every inch of the pod. A final thing we noticed was how much packing material often gets used: they'll wrap something in a blanket, then wrap that in plastic. Then they'll line boards and cardboard around that. The trick, from what I learned, is to pack the POD in sections - building walls of belongings. After each section (or wall) you use rope to hold it in place. This continues, section by section and wall by wall until the entire POD is filled.

I also learned that a POD can hold 10,000 pounds, however, the pod itself is 2500 pounds, so, really it only holds 7500 pounds (the same as a 22 foot moving truck). That may actually be a problem because I have a home gym filled with weight machines, dumbbells, and free wights.... how the heck am I going to move all of that? Perhaps I'll just sell everything and use a health club membership in Florida.

The weekend ended with three days of purging. We filled eight garbage bags with trash, and two garbage bags for the yard sale/donation. It was a lot of work and we are exhausted!