Well it has officially been one year since our big move from California to Washington and it has been an adventure! We love it here in Washington and have adjusted pretty well these past 365 days. Thankfully it has been a pretty mild winter (minus the snowpocalypse last week) so we haven’t been stuck in a torrential down pour of PNW rain for months. Of course we have times where we miss family, the beach, and of course In N Out, but boy, it has been really hard being away from our friends. Alec and I tell each other that it’s a great thing we get along so well because we have had a LOT of quality time this past year 😂 It is really really hard not having my group of girlfriends to get together with to watch The Bachelor or play with my friend’s babies or just knowing that if I need a girls night or want to get together I can’t. I don’t think either of us spent much time thinking about the value of our friendships until going months without them in your backyard. Granted, I talk to some of my girlfriends literally every day and I have a really amazing friend here in WA, but still, you know what I mean. Just this past month though, we have found an awesome church we are plugged in at and joined a life group with 6 other couples our age and I made a facebook group for young adults in our area so hopefully we can make some more WA friends finally! Until then, we can look forward to our handful of trips down to California this year (shout out to all our friends getting married that give us an excuse to fly down👍🏼)!
Ok time for my top 5 moving tips!!
- Have someone pack your kitchen. We used United Moving to move our truck load of stuff up to Washington and having a professional moving company deal with all that is 100% worth it in my opinion. I did not want to deal with driving a moving truck and we had too much stuff in our two-bedroom place for a trailer. We boxed up everything ourselves except the kitchen and that was literally a life saver. For one thing, it takes sooo much time and two, there are sooo many breakables. Our movers wrapped everything up so well you could’ve dropped it from our balcony, unwrapped it, and served lunch to the queen on your china. Not a single thing was chipped or broken when we unpacked it all.
- Purge your stuff as you pack up. We managed to box up 7 extra large moving boxes full of stuff that we didn’t need/ want anymore while packing our stuff up. Wild. We actually did bring it with us because we are going to sell it (we were gone during the giant town sale last summer though lol) but there is absolutely no way I would have purged through that much stuff when we unpacked in our new place because all you want to do is get stuff put away which brings me to….
- Unpack EVERYTHING as fast as you can. This is the first place I’ve lived where I don’t have “that box” that is filled with stuff that just doesn’t have a place or you have yet to sort through. Marie Kondo your life and get rid of it if it doesn’t have a place. But also, really push yourself to unpack absolutely everything as fast as you can. I think all of ours was put away in three days which is astonishing to me. Having some helpers (thanks mom and dad) is a good bonus tip, too.
- Drive one car. Okay this isn’t a total necessity like I consider the other tips but Alec and I chose to have his car put on a truck on shipped up to Washington so that the two of us could make the 20 hour drive together. It cost a bit but this was such a big change and literally a big move and we wanted to go through it together so it was something that was worth the cost for us.
- Moving ain’t cheap!! I think all in, this move cost us just under $5000. Which is just, insane. Between a three day moving truck fee, kitchen packing (which honestly was hardly anything for the time and energy and broken plates it saved, maybe like $300), shipping the car (just under $1000), storage fees, and packing supplies, it adds up. Try to get as many boxes as you can from stores like Costco or from your work even! You can also post on FB groups in your area to see if anyone has boxes. Otherwise, hit up Home Depot and stock up. I think we had around 30 boxes for our 2 bedroom place. Also, don’t overstuff your boxes or make them too heavy because that is just a major pain. And label every box really really well! (But don’t write the valuable specifics on the box like “xbox and ps4” like I did….I mean, nothing happened, but that’s just not a good move…)
Heather Fern 