How I Survived a Cross-Country Move
- Dose-of-Ray
- Apr 6, 2019
- 7 min read
Updated: Apr 10, 2019
All the things I'm glad I did and some I wish I had.
It's been two months since we arrived in sunny southern California, and I think we are finally all settled in! I mean, about as "settled in" as we are going to get. Because we will only be here for a short time, we decided not to hang up most of our pictures or put out a ton of our home decorations out. It's just extra work that isn't worth it for us with another big move looming over our heads later this year. With that being said, we learned so much from our recent move from Florida to San Diego that we are going put to use for our upcoming move to Hawaii. I thought some of these might help any first time PCS'ing military spouses or someone you know with an upcoming move!
When it comes to moving, I feel like most of the work is in the preparation so that's where most of my recommendations are. The packing/move out/move in days happen soooo fast and seem to just fall into place when the prep work is done.
1) Use your resources!
Go to a smooth move class if you can. It's provided by Fleet and Family Services (that's what is called for Navy and Marine Corps) on base and totally worth the two hours! We got a ton of super helpful information and access to a variety of resources that I had no idea about. You can see my post on my favorite resources here: https://doseofray.wixsite.com/doseofray/post/my-favorite-obscure-pcs-resources
2) Pack for at least 2 weeks of life without your stuff.
Picture yourself in an empty house. What could you absolutely not live without? Our list included things like the keurig, sheets/pillows/blankets, a pan, and some of Luke's favorite toys. We packed these things in Jon's truck so we knew it would be there if our stuff took forever to arrive. You never know how long the turn around is going to be. It took over two weeks for our stuff to get from Louisiana to Florida (about a 2 and 1/2 hour drive) and only 3 days to get from Florida to California. I know, it makes no sense.
3) Research the weather.
We moved during January so I packed a suitcase full of sweaters, leggings, jeans, and boots. In Florida and Louisiana (where I was staying while Jon drove), it was cold! Arrive in San Diego a few weeks later, and it's 70 degrees during the day and sunny. Wish I would have packed some shorts and tees!
4) Don't Forget About Your Fur-Babies.
Make sure you have all updated vaccinations and health records for your pets. I got all of these records for us humans but forgot about my poor pup. This resulted in a lot of back and forth with my vet in Florida trying to get copies of everything sent to us so she could be registered on base and so we could start the quarantine process for Hawaii.
5) Make a budget.
Moving is expensive. Period. End of Story. Yes, the military covers a lot of it, and you think that all the money they give you is going to be enough, but things add up quickly. Think, shipping a car thousands of miles, airplane tickets, gas, restaurants, hotels. Not to mention, all the "extra" expenses. The living room needs a rug now that it's all hard floors instead of carpet. Your old curtains don't fit on the new windows. Oh, not to mention, our washing machine showed up broken so we had to get a new one. It is literally so much. To make things even more difficult, the Marine Corps doesn't pay you until AFTER, and you don't get reimbursed for items damaged for a while so make sure you have enough in savings to make this move happen.
6) Plan your route.
We sat down about a week before the move and planned out the drive for my husband and dog. This way, we were able to plan where he wanted to stop, book hotels ahead of time (making sure they accept dogs), plan driving times through major cities around traffic, notify family what nights he'd be stopping by, etc. Definitely makes the drive smoother.
Luke and I, we spent time with family and then flew when we knew we had a house lined up. Here of some pics of my sweet Luke on the plane. Please excuse the haircut...we had an accident lol.
7) Put your hanging clothes in trash bags.
So I didn't do this on our first move from Louisiana and Florida, and all my nice clothes were thrown in wardrobe boxes and tossed around during the move. All my Lilly Pulitzer dresses were a tangled mess *GASP*!! This time, I saw a tip on Pinterest that suggested wrapping up your hanging clothes in trash bags and tying the hangers together with the drawstrings. Best. Hack. Ever. I was able to simply take the clothes out of the box and hang them straight in the closet. So much time saved!
8) Ziplock bags are your friend.
Put all the little pieces to the crib in a ziplock bag and label it. Wrap up the cords to the TV and put them in a labeled ziplock. Repeat this for all cords and furniture pieces, put them in a parts box, and keep this box with you! This way, you're not having to figure out what all the random electronic cords go to, and the movers didn't lose all the pieces to put your furniture back together with.
9) "Hide" items that you want packed that aren't supposed to be packed.
Okay so I'm not suggesting that you go crazy breaking all the rules, but I have a nice collection of cooking spices and oils that were on the list of things our movers wouldn't take. So instead of getting rid of them, I hid them in my instant pot and closed the lid...The movers packed it up, no questions asked. Saved me a ton of money not having to restock my pantry in the new house. Also, might have hid some candles in clothes...
10) Do not pack anything else yourself.
Seriously, outside of putting my undies and lingerie in suitcases (don't want these guys seeing that), do NOT try and pack anything else yourself! I had put lots of baby gear that Luke didn't use anymore, like his baby swing and bouncer, in black trash bags in the garage. This was just to protect them so they would still be good for future Sivils babies. This got put down as "black garbage bag" on the inventory so if anything would've happened to them, I literally would have no proof that I no longer had my $200 baby swing. Not cool.
11) Do your own inventory and take pictures.
The best way for me to do this was with an app called Sortly. It allowed me to organize items by room into folders and then take pictures and notes of each item. Definitely recommend!
12) Be kind, yet assertive with your movers.
I personally don't think these guys get paid enough for the hard work they do. One guy was telling us he had to drive 4 hours to get there, 4 hours home, and then had to turn around and do the same thing the next day. And I thought my days as a pharmacist were long!
I'll try not to cry while writing about this, but while I was unpacking all of our books at the new house, one of them was wrapped with a ton of paper. As I was unwrapping, I realized this book was our family bible, and the packer had left a note on it asking us to keep him in our prayers. I now pray for Roger every day. This is why I try to be extra kind to our movers. From my personal experience, they typically haven't had the easiest life and work hard trying to provide for their families.
We had Gatorade, bottled water, and donuts waiting for them when they arrived. We also bought them lunch. People say not to buy pizza because they get that all the time, but that was much more of a success than all the gourmet tacos we got them for lunch one day. Our movers looked at these tacos like they'd never seen one before in their lives and started picking off everything. We stick with pizza now.
We've also had great moving crews that work extremely hard without us saying a word and other not so great crews. On the day of packing, Jon had to go outside and get two of the guys to come back in and finish up. They were just sitting in the truck because they had finished packing up their rooms and were just waiting for the other guy to finish his, which was taking forever because he was really slow. Sometimes, they just need a little nudge.
13) Tell the movers about any unpacking you want done ahead of time.
The military pays for a full pack and UNPACK of your home. I was warned that the movers would try to get out of any unpacking, and yet, I still let them do it. They made some excuse about how they weren't supposed to unpack any boxes but only put together the major pieces of furniture. I went along with it, signed all the papers, and the movers went on their merry way. They lied! When my husband returned home to all the boxes, he was not happy. Sure enough, I re-read some of the papers I signed, and one of them was agreeing that they did indeed unpack and take all the cardboard boxes. Oopsies! We still have cardboard boxes in the back of my husband's truck that need to be taken to the recycle site.
14) Tell the moving company as soon as you have an address
This was a big OOPS on our part. We were on the waiting list for base housing and didn't have an address when our HHG (household goods) shipment arrived in California. Therefore, all of our stuff went into storage (which I highly recommend to avoid if at all possible). We got an address on base a few days later, and the housing office gave us a move-in date for about a week out. I don't know why, but we thought it would be a great idea to not translate this move-in date to our movers until a few days later, who were booked up by the time we called. We could've had all of our stuff on move-in day but instead, had to live in an empty house for about a week (see recommendation #2).
15) Speaking of base housing...
I'm going to have to do a whole post dedicated to dealing with the base housing office. This was our first time, and it was definitely an experience!
Do you have any other good PCS/moving tips and tricks? Any crazy PCS/moving stories? Comment below and let me know please! I'll need them for Hawaii :)
Sincerely,
Ray
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