So as exciting as a big move is... we definitely had our fair share of struggles too. Here's our list of ten things we learned by moving.
1. Multiply by at least 4.
How much stuff do you think you have? How many trips do you think it'll take (given that you are moving yourself) to get your possessions from point A to point B? Whatever that answer is, quadruple it. For as organized of a person as I am, even I found that my lists of "to-do's", the amount of stuff, and the number of boxes we would need just kept multiplying. I would get on a roll, feel all accomplished, and then quickly feel as though I hadn't even made a dent.
2. Dogs (and I'm going to assume here, small children) are not good "help".
Our pups definitely knew something was going on as we began the packing process. While I love them dearly, and sometimes they offered comedic relief from the pile of mush my brain seemed to be turning into, they were not helpful. They were so curious and wanted to have their fair share of time to investigate everything I put into a box. Barley thought chewing on boxes would magically help fill them, that unless she climbed into the boxes she might get left behind, and that all the stacks of boxes made for a great challenge to climb on and hide her bone behind. Ranger simply wanted to sleep right in the middle of whatever area we were trying to work in. Oy.
3. There can only be one director.
This mainly refers to the packing process and the orchestrating of what order and priority certain belongings were needing to be dealt with, but those who know us personally are probably not at all shocked to find out that I was this person in our household. It's exhausting. My brain ran circles at all hours of the day and night, trying to prioritize what was urgent versus what could wait, what I could delegate versus what I would inevitably have to do myself, and wondering why I talked myself out of hiring movers. If you are this person in your home's move, my advice is to brace yourself, but also realize that this too will pass. If you are not this person, my advice to you is to say, "Honey, what can I do to help you?" as often as humanly possible, then actually do it.
4. Start Early, but don't get ahead of yourself.
This goes for online house hunting, applying for your mortgage loan, purging, and packing. Know what you're looking for in your next home, and what your money can get you. You may have to compromise on your wish list, adjust your ideal area, or put in some sweat equity to get something you can afford. Do your homework. Did you know that you can actually hurt your credit score by inquiring with too many lenders? It's true. First, know your credit score (and the score of anyone else who will be listed on the loan.) When talking with your bank or lender, they should be able to give you an estimated pre-approval, including the maximum you qualify for and at what interest rate, BEFORE they run your credit. Be sure to ask them when they will actually run your scores, and to notify you before doing so. We chose to gather estimates from three different lenders, but only had the two we were seriously considering going with run our credit. If your score doesn't match what you originally stated, there is a potential it could change what your loan looks like. But by having multiple hard credit inquiries, which is what banks and lenders use, it can actually lower your credit score because it leads the credit reporting agencies to believe that you are trying to borrow or apply for multiple loans. Adulting is hard. Credit scores are annoying, yet important. Spend some time early on (even if you aren't looking to buy a house!) to educate yourself on managing responsible credit.
And last but not least for this lesson learned, don't get ahead of yourself. When your ready to put in an offer, be sure you don't do so based on emotion. Make sure you know what the house is worth, what things should work in your favor (seasonality, market trends, number of days of the market, area comparables, etc.) and also know what your absolute top dollar is you are willing to spend. Don't speed through signing paperwork for your offer or your loan without reading and understanding the fine print. Ask questions if you have them. It's your money and your future, spend it wisely. When you dive into the process of packing, think about things critically. Donate items you no longer need or use. Pitch things that are broken or have seen better days. If you don't bake and you own 3 bundt pans, you could probably part with two of them in favor of less wasted cabinet space. When you've determined what's worth keeping and moving and you're ready to pack, don't forget to take into account what you'll need between now and the time you unpack at the new house. Don't pack your winter boots and assume it won't snow again this season. Don't pack your electric razor and think your wife won't make you find it to shave. You get the picture.
5. You can actually save money.
This won't necessarily apply to every move or every family, but we are actually saving money on our car insurance, home insurance, annual car registrations, utilities, and much more simply based on the fact that we moved from the city to the suburbs. I'm not saying this should be a driving factor in choosing where to live, but if you're already planning to live in a certain area, you may find unexpected savings. For us, we will no longer have to register our car for a Chicago city sticker, which saves us $95 a year. We also don't have to pay Chicago city taxes on top of state and federal sales tax for our purchases, and our utility rates are lower. The ability to have a clothes line and larger garden saves us money on electricity from not needing to run the dryer as often, and on groceries by growing a lot of our own produce. Although it's minimal, we also won't be spending even a fraction of what we had been on puppy poop bags since the dogs have a yard now. We will still use those out on walks, but a pooper scooper and waste pail means way less plastic bags to buy. Those small savings add up.
6. It costs more than you originally think.
There are a lot of factors that go into the cost of homeownership. There are terms like down payment, earnest money, private mortgage insurance, escrow, closing credits and many more to become familiar with and take into consideration. Depending on the terms of your loan, you may need to be prepared to pay for things like insurance and property taxes up to 1 year in advance. When considering your loan offers, pay attention to these things, as well as the fees of actually closing on your home. Just because one lender offers you 4.5% and the other offers 4.75% doesn't mean there is a clear winner here. There are certain services you can shop for, and others that are fixed. Weigh all these options and make the decision that best fits your needs. And once the keys are in your hands, don't forget things like paint, smoke detectors, fire extinguishers, new locks and the like that may be needed. Make sure that after all the dotted lines are signed, you have a cushion for the unexpected still in place. Don't go house poor. See below for more details on that.
7. Just because the bank says you can afford a $400,000 house, doesn't mean you can.
The banks take a multitude of factors into consideration when deciding what you can qualify for. One thing they don't consider... the cost of actually living. They calculate your debt to income ratio, including everything from student loans to auto loans, and from your monthly credit card payments to that beloved Victoria's Secret charge card. What they don't consider is the cost of running your household. Necessities like groceries, gas, toiletries, dining out, and everything else you spend money on each month are NOT taken into consideration.
Now, this example is purely estimated, without any reflection of any one person's credit and/or debt. But say the bank approves you for that $400,000 loan. First of all, you're going to have to fork over a minimum of 5% as a down payment, which would be $20,000 in this case. You have that? Great. What about the approximate $18,000-$25,000 for closing costs? Got that too? Perfect. (These are all in the form of cashier's checks, by the way. No charging it to your credit card.) Now, let's say that your monthly mortgage was going to be $2,800, including your property taxes and homeowner's insurance rolled into escrow. Say your combined total household income is $5,000 per month, so your income is larger than your mortgage, which is a good starting place. But subtract the cost of cable/internet, water, trash/recycling, electricity, and natural gas, which we will say totals to $300 per month. What about your groceries... maybe $300 monthly? Gas for your car... $250. $75 for eating out, $150 for cell phones, $300 for health insurance, $60 in car insurance, $75 for things like movies and entertainment, $100 for toiletries and paper supplies, $50 for gifting or tithing, $50 for clothing, $50 for miscellaneous needs, $100 for pets (if you have them), $50 for automotive repairs or maintenance such as oil changes... that's $1,910 in monthly expenses that your bank didn't take into consideration. So that means after paying your mortgage and all monthly expenses, you're left with $290 each month to put towards savings, investing or an emergency fund. And remember, we didn't even factor in if you have an auto loan or student loan to pay. Maybe that's enough for your family, maybe it's not. No one can answer that question but you. Budgets are one of life's most necessary survival tools in my opinion, and using one has provided us that knowledge and peace of mind to know where our money is best spent.
8. Ecofriendly isn't always attainable.
I LOVE (if there were more ways to emphasize that I would) how Norwex has enabled us to cut out harmful chemicals from our home. We don't use tons of sprays that burn your lungs and nostrils or leave behind toxic residues to clean our house, instead we use water and a cloth. We made that switch nearly 3 years ago, and the savings to both our health and our budget has been so worthwhile. With all that said, we understand that reducing chemicals and waste is the mission of Norwex, and that sometimes the beloved microfiber I adore isn't the right fit. We went through way more paper towels, shop rags, paper plates, plastic utensils, bags of trash and magic erasers than I would've wished for in an ideal world. Yes, I recycled as much of our waste as possible (all the cardboard boxes and tissue paper used for packing, old shelving and other items removed from rooms, etc.) but it was still less than stellar. The truth in this matter is that some jobs we tackled, such as removing wallpaper, creates a lot of unrecyclable trash. But the perk on this one, is we only used steam, not chemicals to get it off the walls. The magic erasers mentioned above were something I had stashed in the back of a closet from my days pre-Norwex, and rather than throw something away, I decided to use them up and replace with the safer alternative after they are gone to attack the inevitable mucks and smudges on the walls. Now, on the contrary, we did find that Norwex was a life saver when it came to things such as cleaning the new fridge, wiping out empty cabinets, cleaning carpets, dusting ceiling fans, and scrubbing down bathrooms. And when you lay your own tile, you learn a few tricks. Trust me when I say that the directions on the box for grout that read "after dry, wipe with cheesecloth to remove haze prior to sealing" is not the best advice. Just go ahead and grab for that Enviro Cloth, because their recommendation doesn't do squat. **Disclaimer: I was pretty certain this would ruin my Enviro, but decided it was worth the cost of replacing. To my surprise, it rinsed right out :)
9. Factor in a "Unforeseen Expenses" line on your budget.
When we decided to purchase this home, we knew there were projects we would want to tackle. Both long term, and immediate. We made a list of projects and ordered them by priority level, delegating a budget to each. For instance, we knew the living room was one of the first rooms we were going to want to design to fit our style. Things like a new sectional, paint, window treatments, rug, entertainment center, and so on were listed, with a budget of what we wanted to spend on each item. Also make sure that for each room or project you allot at least $50-$100 of miscellaneous expense. You may not need to buy $20 worth of tape and paint rollers for each room, but you will need them throughout, and they need to be budgeted for. Other expenses that can easily be overlooked are things like shop towels, fittings to replace a leaky water valve, or the need for drywall patches and new baseboards because the old ones were in worse shape than you thought. And a wallpaper steamer you hope to NEVER need to use again, but decided it was $50 well spent to tackle the wallpaper removal in 8 hours with two people working on it than 20 hours with one person.
For us, this new home came with lots of needs we previously didn't have at the condo. We needed a lawn mower, because we now have a yard to maintain. The same goes with the weed-eater. We needed a washer and dryer, because our stackable one in our condo wasn't coming with us. We needed a shop vac to help tackle the debris from all these projects and keep the garage tidy long term. We will now be doing most of our own vehicle maintenance, so the shop vac will be helpful for vacuuming out the car. An investment now in items like ramps, oil pans, etc. will save us lots of money down the road rather than paying $35 for every oil change, and I already earned free Norwex items (you can too!) for washing the car, so we won't be paying for those every 1-2 weeks either. Depending on your service provider for things like trash and recycling, you may need to purchase garbage cans. Our servicer allows you to purchase your own as long as they meet their size specifications, or we can rent them from them at $5 per can per month. We would need three cans total per week, so that would be a cost of $780 per year to rent trash cans. No thanks. We bought ours at Home Depot for a one time investment of $47.94 plus tax, and they are on wheels with locking lids. No brainer. Come fall, we will need to buy a rake, and I will most definitely be considering some cute porch decorations and rockers as a need, not a want, come spring. This list will be different for everyone and will evolve over time, but there will for sure be things you hadn't originally planned for.
Lucky for us, we were able to get a lot of the bigger expenses given to us as hand-me-downs. My parents had upgraded their washer and dryer about 4 years ago to HE models, and put their 1999 H.H. Gregg editions in my dad's warehouse until we needed them. A good scrubbing, new hoses, and a couple fittings were all we needed to purchase. And the capacity on these babies is huge, and they work perfectly. Score for not needing to buy a new set right out of the starting gates. Same goes for a push mower; we actually had two of these offered to us that family was no longer using since upgrading to riding mowers. We had offers for I believe 3 mattress and box spring sets, plus numerous tables, lamps, bedding sets and more. We were so grateful that we were able to have these options versus having all these extra expenses right away. Just remember, they are offers, not requirements. Don't feel guilty telling a friend or family member no thank you to something you truly don't need or have a place for. That only adds to the potential clutter and stress in an already cluttered and stressful environment. We were also able to borrow lots of tools and equipment to tackle some of our projects. Long term we will be adding to our collection of tools and such, but those trips to Home Depot add up fast enough, so if you have the option to borrow and space out your purchases, I highly recommend it.
10. Command Hooks, Command Hooks, Command Hooks
But really, these things are one of my favorite ways to organize. And you know how much I love organizing. I wish I had been the genius to invent these puppies. I use them to hang everything - the wreath on our front door, the Norwex cloths all over the house (body cloths in the bathroom, kitchen cloths and napkins under the sink, bottle brushes in the kitchen, mop pads in the utility room...) baskets and file holders in the office, tools and other miscellaneous items in the garage... you name it. Seriously. Your new best friend right here.
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