123. Moving Series: Episode 4 of 5: 2 Weeks Out

As we get closer to our hypothetical moving day (and real one for some), we're getting very HONEST with ourselves in terms of what we want. Though it's getting close to the point of no return, there IS still time. And after this episode, you will definitely have a clear path of HOW to spend these next 2 weeks, depending on how you answer THE big question that I ask as we go. So, whether you're actually moving in 2 weeks, or you just want to be super prepared when you do go to move, this episode will give you lots of tips, as well as clarity.

Transcript

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Okay, subscribers. We are two weeks out from your moving date. If you are moving this summer, if you are joining us now and you're starting with this episode because you actually move in two weeks, that's okay. What I would encourage you to try to do is to go back and listen to episode one at least and kind of get a feel for a lot of the things that you should do before you get to this point. Obviously, episodes two and three are important, but I understand if you are busting your butt, trying to get things done at the last minute, and you just found my podcast and you've got two weeks, then I encourage you to try to at least listen to episode one first, and then you can come back to this one because now we're in episode four. Trust me, you will not get behind if you listen to the other one and then come back to this one. Because in two days from now, if you start this episode, you're still going to be on track. Because what we're doing today is we're working from the two weeks out point to the one week out point. So if you sacrifice the next two days and work on episode one action items, and then once you're done with that, you jump to this episode, you still have four or five days where you can squeeze all of this stuff in. And really, by the time you get to this point, it's kind of like a choose your own adventure. There's a lot of things you can do between this episode and the next episode. It is the first two episodes that you are really, really hurrying and getting things done. So your timeline doesn't have to match up perfectly. It's the action items. Okay, so with that said, if you've already listened to episodes one through three of the moving series, and now you're here and you're like, okay, we've been waiting. I had some technical difficulties the first time I recorded this episode. And so I apologize. I am definitely behind if you are working in this series in real time. The majority of you, I feel, are going to find this later on, and you're going to be able to just roll right on from four weeks out to two weeks out. Now, if you've got two weeks, I know some of you are thinking, yeah, on the last two weeks, that's when you actually start packing. You've learned from the first episodes that that's not the case. You should already have about 75 to 80% of your packing done by the time you are two weeks out from your moving date. Because I promise you, even the best planner, the best organizer, the biggest budget will still run into a last-minute surprise that will probably not be a good one. Either you're going to have to pay a little bit more money to get stuff moved, whether you run over on time, whether you have to go grab more boxes and that's going to cost you money, whether you're going to rent a truck and you needed an extra day. You may have to stay in a hotel room. If you are moving out of state and you are either following the moving truck or they're going ahead of time and you're packing up last minute because you have to hand over the keys to someone, but then you're also trying to clean so you can get your security deposit back, or you just want to make sure that you go through and look and find everything on the tops of shelves in the back of cabinets. Something is going to happen over the next two weeks and you're going to say, I'm so glad that we got most of the house packed up before now. The reason a lot of us wait until the last minute is not just financial. Certainly a lot of us break down our rent payment or mortgage payment by days. And so we're sitting there thinking, okay, if we don't stay in our house that day, we are losing $30, $50, $100, $200, whatever it is that your mortgage or rent breaks down to, you're sitting there thinking, well, we're going to stay in this house as long as we can. But the majority of it has to do with the transitional period being a hard one. A lot of people, even though they're happy to move because they are either downsizing to go into a different phase of life where they don't have as much maintenance and they don't need as much space. Maybe they're going to save money. Or they're upsizing because maybe they need more space and they've saved up for a house. Or maybe they've started out with a starter home and now they're at a point where they're selling that and they're getting something bigger. Maybe they're going to have a child. Maybe they're going to add a dog. Maybe they are transitioning to a phase of life where there's more work, there's more money, there's a bigger home, there's more people, there's more activities and entertainment. So a lot of people are excited when they move, but there's that fear of we are going to wait to the last minute because we know that no matter what, that day is probably going to be hard. Most people say, even though I'm excited to do this next thing, I am not looking forward to the actual move because it's stressful. We've got to organize and plan a lot for that day. But we also don't know what's next. We don't know the quirks of the new house. We don't know the neighborhood just yet. We don't know where everything is going to be once we get to the new place. And so there is a lot of fear around moving. And I think that just like with anything else in life that you are working towards, a lot of us procrastinate when we're not really 100% on board with something. We start to doubt ourselves. We start to wonder are we making the right decision? Did we did we do the right thing? Because now we realize that we're not going to drive down the street anymore. Because most people are going to move away from the street that they live on. Some people may move within the neighborhood. Some people are moving within an apartment complex. Maybe they're getting in a bigger apartment. But for the most part, when people move, they're actually moving to a different area of town, a different school system, a different neighborhood. And then, of course, if you're moving to a different city or even a different state, there's just a lot that is happening. And once you've started the process and you know it's going to happen, then you actually start to doubt yourself more because you're like, wait a minute, this is already in motion. What if, what if I change my mind? And I think some people wait until the last minute in case something out of their control happens and they're like, oh, okay, good. I'm glad we didn't pack anything up. I'm glad we didn't sell our furniture. I'm glad we didn't get rid of that extra ladle, you know, to make room for all of our kitchen stuff. And, you know, we're trying to follow this plan of getting rid of stuff and selling stuff and packing stuff up early. And good. Now we don't have to do it. Now, if you fall into that category, you still have two weeks. What do I mean by that? You have two weeks to back out unless there is a home purchase involved. That still doesn't mean that you can't back out. Sometimes you just lose an earnest payment. Um, you know, sometimes you may have to, you know, financially take the hit if you decide not to move. I'm gonna tell you a quick story about when I was younger. It was my early to mid-20s. I had already been out of college for a couple of years. I had gone back to my hometown. I had some freelance work that I was excited about that was, you know, based off of my college experience. And there was an internship I had taken and I decided to go work for them, but it was going to be freelance. And then I ended up picking up another little job. And so I was kind of feeling for the first time of okay, now I'm out on my own, like for real. And I was living in an apartment. I had gotten engaged to someone. Long story short, that didn't work out. I'm not even gonna begin to talk about all the drama that went along with that. Um, it was not my fault. But I am proud that I said, yeah, I'm not putting up with this. And so I moved to a little duplex that wasn't a bad, it wasn't a bad decision, it wasn't a bad little place. It just wasn't really where I wanted to be. And luckily, when I found the landlord, she was super sweet, she was an older lady, and the person on the other side of the duplex was also a single female. And so I just kind of felt like, okay, this is the next half step. And so I moved from the apartment to the duplex. I had about the same amount of space. I would say I probably had a little bit less space. So that wasn't too bad as far as getting rid of some of the stuff I had because I was also sharing stuff with another person. And then our engagement didn't work out, and we kind of went 50-50. And so I ended up in this little duplex. And then, long story short, again, there was this house that was up for rent, and it wasn't much more than what I was paying for my duplex. And without telling you all the other details, because you know I'll get long-winded, I decided to go ahead and apply for it. And they gave me the keys and said, you know, we're giving it to you. And I remember the night that I went over, because I think I got the keys like mid-afternoon, and I said, I think I'm gonna go ahead and take a load of stuff over there because I was really excited. I was excited to rent a full house, but it was on the other side of town. It was in a really good area, and the house itself was older, but the neighborhood was really established. And so I just had this feeling of I'm gonna be in a really good neighborhood. I'm gonna be down the street from the hospital in case anything happens. You know, it's not an area I'm familiar with, but again, I feel like the neighborhood is safe. I'm gonna have a better chance of actually going out and walking in the evening. And I just kind of had this fantasy built up in my mind of how it was gonna be at the new place. And my duplex, even though it wasn't perfect, at least it was in a neighborhood that I was comfortable with, that I was already familiar with, even if it wasn't quote unquote as good as the new neighborhood, it was right off of a really busy street that had everything. Um, I was in the neighborhood off of a busy street. And so all I had to do was just go through the neighborhood, out to the main street. I could get to the exit and hop on the interstate within like four or five minutes. There was everything to eat, everything to do. Everything that I had done in my adult life post-college was in this quadrant of the town. And I say town, it's a city of 60,000 people. So it's not like a small town where it's like, oh, I'm on this side of town. And now I drive two minutes and I'm on this side of town. Like it was a big, it was a big change. And the area that I was going to be moving to is not really convenient if you're trying to get to the interstate. And that was one of my big things. I was like, I like living really close to the interstate because I go down to Indianapolis so much. So, with that said, I got the keys, I grabbed a few totes and maybe like packed a quick bag, went to the new place, opened up the front door, turned on the light, and I immediately like freaked out. I was like, oh, because it just looked different at night, right? I had only been there during the day a couple of times. The door had been shut all day. So when I opened it, there was kind of like a smell. It wasn't like a bad smell, but older homes, that older wood has kind of like a smell to it. And my little duplex, even though it wasn't the prettiest thing in the world, it had been slightly renovated. And so it did feel a little bit newer. And so I walked into this home and I put down my bag and I kind of looked around and I instantly felt like so small. Like I almost, like even thinking about it right now, I'm kind of like pulling my shoulders down like I'm gonna crunch into a ball. I was just like, ooh, like I this doesn't feel right to me. And I had already, you know, signed the lease. I had already gotten the keys. And I just knew deep down that I had made a mistake. And probably for the next half an hour, I just went ahead and sat on the floor against the wall and I just cried. I was like, I can't believe I'm giving up my little duplex for this place. Because in my mind, I just thought that everything was gonna be a certain way. And then when I physically got there, it just didn't feel the way that I wanted it to feel. Now, I have always said, home is where your stuff is, okay? And I think a lot of people can agree with me. Sometimes you go into a space and it's not yours, but then all of a sudden you move your stuff in and then it's yours. And it's just an adjustment, it's a transition. For me, the next day, I ended up calling the landlord and I said, I am so sorry. I think I've made a huge mistake. Do you have anyone else that's interested? Because I'm not sure if I want to move after all. And he was actually very, very nice about it. He said, I actually have people knocking down my door to get into that house. And it's no problem. He said, What I'll do is I'll reach out to a couple people, but I'll still give you another day or two just in case you change your mind again. And I was like, Thank you so much. And I remember I had gone back to my place that night, to my duplex, and I walked in and I turned on the light and I plopped in on the couch and I turned on the TV and I was like, oh, like this just feels like home. And I think what I thought was gonna happen was okay, I only took like a half step. When I got out of my relationship and I moved, I felt like I made so much of a lateral move that wanting to rent a house where I had more bedrooms, another bathroom, a little bit more space felt like the next thing that I just had to do. So, with that said, for those of you who have listened this far, I just want you to consider something because I feel like this really is like a God moment for some of you. And I'm not tooting my own horn when I say this. I'm just saying that back then in 2003, we didn't have podcasts. We barely had the internet. I mean, I used the internet a little bit in college, but it was still that time where people weren't like walking around with their head down in a phone. Like, you know, we still had house phones and maybe we had cell phones, but like we weren't really like we were maybe texting. I think I still had a pager. I think I still had a pager in 2003. So all that to say, if you decided to move and you've already packed up a lot of your stuff, and you have followed all of my instructions from episode uh one through three, and something just hasn't been sitting right with you, and you're really, really having a hard time, and you don't have to move. Maybe this was just a decision of yours that you're like, hey, you know what? I have never ever made an impulse decision. I think I'm gonna start now. And you decide just because a friend of yours came back from a trip and said, Oh, yeah, I packed up all my stuff and put it in a storage unit, and I went backpacking for six weeks internationally. Like some people who haven't done a lot of traveling, or maybe you've lived in one house for a number of years, all of a sudden you're like, I probably should do that. I probably should, you know, throw caution to the wind and I should do something new. And I encourage that if that's your personality and if that really is what you feel like you should do next. If right now you're sitting here at two weeks out and you're like, okay, all I have to do is do what she says, all I have to do is get through the move and then I won't feel this way. If you are really, really struggling, or like me, if you've actually gone to your new place and you're having second thoughts, now is the time to say, I don't want to do this. And if for some reason you are in some kind of contract that someone won't let you out of, like if you can't get out of a contract, like it's gonna cost you thousands and thousands of dollars, and you're like, well, we're in this now, then forget what I just said. But if it's gonna cost you $500, $1,000, and to you that's nothing compared to what you would give up, then I'm telling you right now, now is the time to speak up and say something. And the next two weeks can be more about you just trying to do damage control. You're paying whatever fees it's gonna cost you, you're making all the phone calls as far as canceling the movers, or you're talking to your family, or maybe you and your spouse made this decision, and both of you are like, uh, I'm not sure if I want to, you know, maybe it was for a job, and maybe now you're not even sure if you want to take the job. And so now's the time to speak up. Because it's one thing to go down the wrong path for a little while, but then you turn back around and you get on the right path. When you keep going down a path that you know is wrong and you're also pulling along other people with you, then that's when you say, okay, um, maybe I should have said something two years ago when this was really starting to nag at me. And it's not like you can't go all the way around and get back where you need to go. It's kind of like a GPS. You know, when the GPS says, take a U-turn and you'll be back at that stoplight in like 40 seconds and you keep going. And then it says, okay, now take a U-turn and you'll be back at that stoplight in a minute. And then you keep going. And it's like, okay, now if you take the U-turn, you'll be back at that stoplight in two minutes. But if you don't take this U-turn, you're gonna have to go out and around to the main road and go back around, and that's gonna take you five minutes. You can get to a place where you can do a quick U-turn and it's not really gonna affect you like you think it will. Then there's a place where you're like the point of no return. And I just know, I just have a gut feeling that there's someone listening to this episode, and they're like, wow, this has been me. This has been me. And so I'm giving you permission. I don't care if you're 20 years old and you've never done this before, and no one's ever told you that it's okay to change your mind. I don't care if you're 60 years old and you're like, you know, I've been cautious my whole life, and I thought that all of a sudden I needed to do something risky and now I'm regretting it. It doesn't matter how old you are, you can change your mind. It's okay. It's better to go home and flip on a light in a place that you feel safe and secure in, and plop down on the couch and kick up your feet, and turn on something on the TV, and take a deep breath. Figure it out in the morning. It's so much better to do that than to keep pushing yourself down a path that really puts you in a state of panic every single day. And I speak as somebody who has lived in five different states. I can't even tell you how many total places I've lived in. I don't even keep count anymore. Um, I know that I've lived in five places, I think, since I've had my child, because we talked about it recently. My child and I were like, how many places have you lived in? And I think he's lived in five. I think that was our number. But that's okay because he's 12. And this fall, when he goes back to school, as long as he loves it, um, I'm gonna keep, you know, coming up with tuition for him to go. Because for the next seven years, he, I'm sorry, the next six years, gosh, yeah, he's going into sixth grade. The next six years, he's gonna start meeting people. He's gonna get on sports teams, and he's gonna have, you know, friends that are gonna go through this phase of life with him. They're making really big kid decisions and teenage decisions and pre-adult decisions. And so for me, I'm fine staying in one place, allowing him to get through this next phase of life as long as he wants to be there. If he doesn't want to be there, then we have some other options that we've already talked about. But anyway, I'm sorry for those of you who are like, we are definitely moving. Get on with the show. I apologize for that. But again, I I just have like this strong wave come over me where it's like, oh, I feel like at least one or two people are gonna fall in that category. And so you still have time. You have two weeks. And again, if you've got the money to fix it and make it go away and you're fine with that, that's actually, you know, a better solution for you than you now have permission. Um, just don't have anybody come at me if you have affected somebody else's wallet or timeline or ability to work or play or get into their dream home. Okay. So, with all that said, now for those of you who are going to move forward with moving in two weeks, here's what I want you to do between this episode and the next episode. So from two weeks to one week. If you have not already secured your storage unit, you're gonna go do that tomorrow if you are moving locally. Because what I tell people is if you can get a storage unit two weeks before you move, you can spend the next two weeks moving a lot of stuff to that storage unit near where you're going to be. Okay. So if you cannot get into your new house or your new apartment for two weeks, but you can go ahead and move a lot of stuff to a storage unit that's a block away. For us, it was actually across the street. And whether you make intentional trips where you just take off, you just load up your car and you take off and you put stuff in storage and you come back home and you load up again, whether you do that or you say, Oh, I've got to be in that part of town on Wednesday and it's Monday or whatever, I'm gonna take a load while I go. This is the time over the next week to try to make that happen. If you have a garage or if you already have like a rack, like a metal rack, it doesn't have to be the heavy-duty metal rack, but most racks that are like a three-tier or five-tier are pretty sturdy. You can take that with you. I actually encourage that. If you get a bigger storage unit because you have a bigger house and you have, you know, even two of those metal racks in your garage, I encourage you, if you're taking them with you, to just go ahead and move those first. Go to your storage unit tomorrow or later today. I don't know what time you're listening to this. Go to your new storage unit. You disassemble your current racks unless you have a truck. If you have a truck and a couple of you can just pick it up and slide it into the back of the truck, you all you have to do is get out of the storage unit, put those in your unit, and you're good to go. Um, what's better is if you have a truck carrying the racks and then you fill the car or SUV with boxes or totes, you don't want to take anything soft to your storage unit, meaning you don't want to take any kind of duffel bag. You don't want to take a soft hamper, you don't want to take anything soft because even though most storage units, if they're climate controlled, even though you don't have the chance of soft stuff getting moldy in two weeks, most storage units have just a bare minimum pest control policy, meaning you're probably not gonna have anything large. Like you're probably not gonna have to deal with like a mouse or something. If you are in a well-known storage unit, big name brand, climate controlled, multiple levels, and there's plenty of them, right? There's cube smart, public storage, U-Haul, places like that. And I'm not trying to come down on other storage unit places. I'm just saying if it is one of those storage units where it's climate controlled and it looks nice, and that's what attracted you to it, you're probably fine. But a lot of small bugs and a lot of dust get into storage units, even if they keep them relatively clean, okay? Between stink bugs and dust. And a lot of people, a lot of people kick up weird stuff at storage units. There are times I'll walk in and there's just glitter. And it's either from like a Christmas wreath or somebody's art supply kit busted open. You know, people are running and out of there. It could even be makeup. Um, and so a lot of stuff just kind of gets kicked up. So I encourage you, either moving boxes or totes with lids. And what you're gonna do, all that stuff that you packed up that's in like small to medium boxes, you're gonna take that stuff first and you're gonna put it on the racks. And then you're gonna have it to where, even if you haven't written on the side that's gonna be facing out, what you can do is you can put the boxes on the racks, and then once they're on the racks, you can kind of look to the side and see what it is, and then you can write on the front. So if you've got a box that says kitchen on the side and you get it up on a rack, and the best way to place it just happens to have the word kitchen on the side and not on the front. You take your Sharpie with you and you write kitchen on the front, and you fill your racks first because the racks are automatically going to give you the height that you need. All you're doing is just plugging in your boxes and totes. That's how you're gonna organize the first trip. Okay. Then from there, you can take bigger totes. What I'm telling you, do not stack those big totes more than two or three high. Because once you get to tote three or four, if they're not already packed heavy, if they're packed heavy, that that tote goes on the bottom. And it can even go on the rack if it's a heavy-duty rack, or it can slide under a desk. That's something you can do too. If you already have all of your work stuff, if you've been working off of the kitchen island or maybe the dining room table, and you're like, I'm gonna go ahead and pack up my office. I don't need my office because I can work from other areas of the house. I don't need the physical desk. I just need some kind of countertop to put my computer on, my laptop on. I would encourage you to fill the racks, maybe take a desk, and then you can put totes under the desk and on top of the desk. This is a time where if you have more than one bed, like let's say there's just two of you that live in the house and you've got your main bedroom and you have a guest bedroom. This is when I encourage you to go ahead and pack up one of the beds. Like actually take everything off of everything, get mattress covers. I really like the thin mattress covers. If you're moving locally, all you have to do is get the super cheap. It's basically just a big thing of plastic that your mattress slides into. And then you can take packing tape and you can tape it up. You can pack it that way. Um, if you're doing a longer move, um, and I'm talking more about movers coming, or if you're gonna be moving an hour or two away, even, and you're not sure if you're gonna run into rain, I really like the mattress covers that zip up. And you get them by size, so it's super easy. So if you've got a guest bed and you're like, okay, we're definitely gonna take the guest bed, but we don't need it right now because no one's gonna be staying with us. I want you to go ahead and pack all of that up. And then that way, you know that your mattress is already in its protector, you've pulled out your tools, and you can disassemble the bed frame. Um, what I also encourage you to do, so this was my situation. I use those metal platform bed frames because, like, I don't have a um box spring. Sorry, it took me a second. Trust me, I lugged around a box spring all of my 20s. I know what they are. Um, but when we moved to our last place, we moved out of state, and that's a whole other story. I think I've even told that story where we got a storage unit halfway. We were moving from Indy back to Nashville, got a storage unit in Louisville. And so every time I would meet my son's father in Louisville, because we traded off for a while, um, whenever it was his weekend or, you know, his holiday, I would take stuff to Louisville. So I would take my son and his suitcase, and then I would take a few totes and I would hand them off to his dad, I would drive to the storage unit, put some stuff in there, and then I would go back to Indiana and then pack the car up again. And then when I had to drive back to Louisville, you know, three or four days later, I would take another load. That's how I was able to do an out-of-state move without hiring a mover. I also had to give up a lot of furniture. So one thing that I have done is I get those folding metal platform bases. It used to be I could only get them at big lots, and I would move it with me because let's say I needed a queen size, and I would get on the big lots um website and they would say, Oh, we have a queen size available, but it's clear over here in Evansville. And I'm like, who wants to drive to Evansville when you're driving from like straight up 65? And I know a lot of you are like, What? What, Bill? I'm just telling you, there'd be times where it would say, Okay, we have that in stock, but you have to drive a while to get it. And so it finally I ended up finding that platform base on Amazon. Now Amazon carries it. So what I'm saying is that if I decide to move here from here tomorrow, I am definitely taking my mattress. I have the best mattress ever, and Wafer no longer makes my specific one. I know this because my son really, really wants the same mattress, and they no longer make that exact one. So the next time I move, I'm definitely taking the mattress, and I'm definitely taking my headboard because the headboard is everything that I've ever wanted. Target had it on sale for like half off. I think it's like a $500 headboard. It was on sale for $250. And then I think someone had given me a gift card for like $50 or $60 or something, probably $50. That makes the most sense. So I just remember the joy of I love this headboard. And every night when I get into bed, I prop my pillows up, I put my heating pad behind my back, and I back up to the headboard, and I literally clunk my head back because I'm so exhausted. And that's my little nighttime ritual. And I love my mattress, I love my sheets. I won't get into everything that I love that's mine, but I'm just telling you, when I look at all my stuff, I'm not attached to the platform bed base. I like it, and that's what I would do again at the next place. But do I need to wrap it up with bubble wraps so that it doesn't scrape the inside of my car or scrape the inside of a truck or hurt someone when we're trying to lug it back and forth? No. I will sell it on marketplace or I will donate it if nobody buys it, and then I will turn around and buy it again. Now, I know some of you are like, well, I can't afford to not take it with me. This is when, again, you're two weeks out. If you have not looked at your moving sheet, and I say this: if you hire professional movers, a lot of times they're like, hey, what all do you have? How many bedrooms? What type of items? This is your quote. A lot of times it's helpful to go through and say, what all are we gonna have the movers put on the truck? Because every little thing takes time. So, like a mattress base, even though it folds up in half and it doesn't take up that much space, they're not gonna want to load it next to something that it could rip. Like, especially if you haven't taken and wrapped it and it has like those really sharp corners, like it's it's metal, you know. So it could, if it's not wrapped up properly, it could lean against your mattress um bag if it's just like a thin plastic and it could rip it open. And so anyway, that's beside the point. But I'm just trying to give you guys some ideas. So I know for me, mattress is coming with me, headboard is coming with me. I love my desk. It's like an L-shaped desk. It probably will come with me, but I'm not sure. Now I'm not moving in two weeks, so it doesn't matter. But these are things that I will think about as I get closer to time because it's a pain in the butt to put up this desk. But I've only had to put it together in smaller spaces. So I've had to put it on the floor, assemble it, lift it up into the corner, and then I can bring in my bed and assemble it because my desk has always been in the same room as my bed. Anyway, I digress. Okay, so what you're gonna do is you're gonna decide what bed are we sleeping on. If you only have one bed and you have air mattresses or an air mattress and a couch, or you've got a big old L-shaped couch, I strongly encourage you. You and your spouse can do some indoor glamping for two weeks. If you in your back can handle it, at two weeks out, I would start breaking down your main bed. Now, again, if you have a kid's bed, if you have a guest bed, I would probably break down one of those first. And what you may end up doing is breaking down the guest bed and letting your child sleep in their own bed longer. Because for them, trying to keep their life, you know, somewhat consistent is gonna be a lot easier for them to transition. I'm sorry, but if you are 30, 40, 50 years old, you've all had to rough it at some point, maybe, probably. Um I always use an air mattress when I'm moving. I pack up my bed, I push everything to the side, I've got everything lined up on the wall, pull out the air mattress, and I keep the rug down. Like I have a rug that goes under my bed. So I disassemble the bed and try to do this early in the morning, not early in the morning, but wake up, have coffee, have breakfast, and then if you are spending the whole day packing stuff, do the bed first because then that way, as it gets further into the evening, you're not exhausted trying to figure out where you're gonna sleep. So you break down the bed, you put the headboard, footboard, whatever against the wall, you wrap them. You know, you can go ahead and get that stuff wrapped with bubble wrap or plastic to protect it. You can get those little foam pieces if you want to protect, like the corners, if you've got like a metal headboard and footboard. You get your mattress in a bag, you get the bed frame disassembled or folded up. If you are selling your bed, now's the perfect time to do it. Like now's the perfect time to go ahead and take a picture while it's assembled and then take everything off, disassemble it, put it up against the wall, take a picture of that because you want both pictures online. You want them to see what it looks like assembled, and then you say, Listen, this picture right here is how it's gonna look when you get here. It's gonna be in pieces. So this is how it looks when it's put together. This is how it looks now. Don't freak out on us when you get here. But then that way you can put your air mattress down on the rug. And then you still feel like, okay, it still feels like a bedroom. Okay, it still feels like when we get out of bed in the morning, we can put our feet down on a rug. Okay. I will tell you, if you don't sleep on air mattresses often, get a foam piece. Um, if you don't already have one, if you're like, oh, we don't sleep on air mattresses, what do we need to know? Get a foam topper. Um, because air mattresses can get cold. Even in summer, that air in the air mattress can make you cold. So I tell people, get an air mattress, get a foam topper, and then put like a mattress protector over it. You know how they you have like the fitted mattress protector, because sometimes that adds a little bit more cushion and padding. And then that also holds down the foam topper and then put your regular sheets on your regular bedding. I would actually encourage you if you have like a thick comforter, um, a duvet cover, if you have lots of decorative pillows, I would go ahead and pack those up if you have like a nice big blanket. And I would just do that for the next two weeks because if all of your bed is packed up and everything is sold from it, like I said, if you're just taking like your mattress headboard, but you're gonna sell the actual base, or if you're like, hey, we're getting a new mattress at the new place, that's even better. That is actually what I did at the last place. And it just turned out that this is now my forever mattress, at least for the next like five years until I, you know, get something else, because you definitely don't want to keep a mattress longer than, you know, seven or eight years. But again, that's another episode. Anyway, you want to sleep on an air mattress or a couch or in a sleeping bag or on the floor. The last two weeks, if you can go ahead and just pretend that you're camping, or hey, this is a temporary situation, it is so much easier. When you are a couple days out from moving, to deflate the air mattress, take all of that bedding, throw it in the washing machine, throw it in the dryer, pack it up into like a duffel bag, your sheets and your little blanket, and then put the air mattress into like its carrying case. It's so much easier to do that the last couple of days than to try to break down your bed when you know the movers are coming, when you know that, you know, boxes are everywhere. I'm telling you right now, the sooner you can do it, the better. Um when it comes to kids, like I said before, some of them actually like this phase. And you may want to do it like one week out, because I think one week is gonna be the max that they're gonna play along. My child used to have like a play tent, and we had a sleeping bag in there. And for a while, he went through a phase where he actually wanted to sleep in his tent. And so that worked out for us for a little while. And if they are open to doing that and they're not gonna freak out if you go ahead and pack up their regular bed, like if they're used to going camping or they're used to staying in a tent or like a little cot whenever they go to grandma's or whatever, I would encourage you to have them do that. But maybe you guys start doing it this week and then the kids start doing it next week. That's what I would suggest you do. But getting furniture prepared. Um, and and again, and you may even have like a trickle-down effect where today, tomorrow, you pick up your bed, you decide, you know what, I don't mind sleeping on the couch. It's really not that bad. I'm gonna go do that first. So you pack up your bed, you put your sheets on the couch, you've got your little blanket and your pillow, and you sleep there for a week. And then you're like, okay, well, now we've got to get the couch ready. So if you have like a slip cover, you can go ahead and wash that. If your cushions have like a zip cover, you can wash those and put them back on and then put them into like compression bags or, you know, kind of wrap them up. Um if you do trash bags, do unscented. I don't like trash bags with fragrance. Um, they just the fragrance never really makes a difference as far as trash goes. But I will tell you, don't store anything that has cloth in those bags because I've had clients that have said, yeah, that's probably not a good idea. We probably shouldn't have used our fragrant trash bags because now everything smells, you know, floral when we go to watch TV. But you can use like big contractor bags, like the big black ones or like leaf bags. Um, because you get so many in a box. And so I would say that's probably one of the cheapest ways. Do not store, again, do not store stuff like that in your storage unit. Take your boxes, take all your seasonal stuff to the storage unit. If you don't already have seasonal stuff in a storage unit, take totes of like if it's summer, take all of your totes that have your big winter coats and your boots and your hats and your gloves. Fill those racks, take your office desk, take all of your big um, you know, paintings and artwork that was hanging up, that now when on the, you know, I told you it goes on the floor, you patch up the holes, you wrap it up. Now's the time to go ahead and take that stuff to the storage unit. Um, if you already have a storage unit and now you're moving, instead of getting a bigger one and trying to condense into that one, keep the one that you have and get a second one just for a month, just while you're doing this. I say that because if you're planning on keeping the storage unit, it doesn't make sense for all of your seasonal stuff to be mixed in with your moving stuff. And then all of a sudden, the people that are helping you move stuff later from the storage unit to the new house end up taking your seasonal stuff that really is supposed to stay in storage. And really, if you're getting a storage unit now, chances are you're getting it just for the move. So without even disturbing your other storage unit, get a second one. And a lot of times there's going to be a special. So, you know, they'll say, Oh, you can get your first month for free. Um, if you make like a 90-day commitment, sometimes you have to do that, which is fine. I think it still may be beneficial so that you have time, you know, after your move to still unpack. If they don't give you any kind of time limit and they're like, hey, your first month is $30, no commitment. Then for $30, you get that peace of mind that you get to move a lot of stuff to that storage unit that's by your new place ahead of time. So you're not going to be paying the movers to carry it. You're not going to have to worry about it at the last minute. And so I really think that that's a good idea. Anything else that has to be disassembled or you want to disassemble, like a bookshelf, um, I would say side tables, nightstands, um, like buffets, stuff like that. If all of that stuff is going to go to the new house, I wouldn't necessarily worry about taking it to storage first unless you have the room. The biggest thing about storage is getting some of those smaller boxes, like all of that kitchen stuff that you really don't use until Thanksgiving, if it's the summer. Okay. That's the kind of stuff that you like having at the house in case you do cook, but you don't need it right now. You don't need it over the next two weeks. And then even when you move in, you don't need it for the next two weeks following your move. And so these are the kind of things you want to go ahead and take to storage. Because if you absolutely do need it in the next two weeks, you drive to storage, you cut open the box, you pull it out, you're fine. Okay. So it's not like you can't get to it. Um, okay, moving on to clothing, you want to go ahead and get packed. Two weeks out, you're packing. Okay. All that you are leaving for yourself is five or six outfits, okay? And maybe three pairs of pajamas. You can leave yourself, you know, lots of underwear, lots of socks if you get worried about that. It's hot, it's summer. Some people change their underwear and socks and bras a lot during the day. Um, but when it comes to outfits, unless you work in an industry where they're like, you can't wear the same thing every day, then I want you to consider swapping out five or six outfits over the next two weeks. Most people are gonna be able to do this just fine. Really, everybody should be able to do this just fine, unless you work in a hospital and you know, with as far as scrubs go, you're like, well, we have to keep X amount of scrubs. And I know some people get scrubs from vending machines, and I'm just telling you, if you can pick out five or six outfits, so maybe you have, you know, a couple of workout outfits, maybe you have a couple of work outfits if you go into an office, and then maybe you have a couple of nicer outfits if you go to dinner or go to church. I will tell you if you can do this and pack up all your other clothes. And again, if you're moving locally, pack them up in a tote. Don't worry about suitcases, okay? The only time you really want to pack suitcases is if the day of the move you're gonna have room for a wheelie bag, you know, a tote, like a carry-on tote, your laptop bag, whatever bags you have room for in your car the day of the move. I would just put everything else in a weatherproof tote. Okay, not just a tote with a lid. I would actually get a weatherproof tote and pack up everything that's not three pairs of pajamas, six outfits, and like two or three pairs of shoes. Get a pair of flip-flops, pair of running shoes, pair of work shoes, like comfortable slip-on, like boat shoes. That's what I do in the summer. I'm either in flip-flops or boat shoes. And then I do have my running shoes, but I wear them more either when I go out to a client or I'm working out. So, anyway, um, I would do that. Pack everything in the totes. You should already have all of the organizers packed. Remember, we did that in another episode where all the organizers are packed and in boxes. And so a lot of your off-season clothes should already be packed. Now you're packing clothes that you actually wear over the summer. And if you're not going on a trip, remember we talked about how you go ahead and pack for your honeymoon or you go like if you're moving because you're getting married and you're having to pack for the wedding and you have to pack for the honeymoon, that stuff should already be packed up and decided. Now you're actually packing for your real life from for when you return. Okay. So if you're like, yeah, I'm I can live, you know, the next two weeks with five or six, and you can wash these items, by the way. Um, this is where you want to pick stuff that you can mix and match. So maybe for work, you pick a black pair of pants and a pair of khaki pants or like a skirt, and you're alternating those bottoms. Um, I will give you a pair of jeans. If if like Friday is like, okay, they let you wear a pair of jeans, something casual, I'll let you do that. That's why I say six or seven outfits. Okay. The seventh outfit can be like a casual, you know, Friday type outfit that can also be an outfit that you use while you're packing and moving and all that stuff. Okay. You want to play minimalist for two weeks the best that you can, okay? And every time you come home, I want you to like look at your house and say, okay, I didn't listen to Sarah. I kept 12 outfits, which that's fine. Maybe you have 30 outfits, maybe you have 50 outfits, I don't know. But if you at least get one weatherproof toe and you pack it and you take it to storage, that is going to dramatically improve your life a week from now. Okay. The more that you can pare down, the more that you can pack up, the better. When it comes to beauty supplies, I want you to do the same thing. If you listen to the episode titled Your Makeup Bag is Keeping You Unorganized, and you've already condensed down to a small bag, whatever your big bag is, if you kept it, if you separated it to where you have another bag of makeup, but it's like makeup for, you know, like if you're an actor, like I used to keep extra makeup because I used to have to go audition or I would go on set. So I had like some different makeup. All of that you can put in a weatherproof tote. Um, if you've got extra hair supplies, now is the time to start pulling out the bigger size travel bottles, not the small ones that only give you like two or three days, but like the bigger ones, like kind of an in-between size, where you know, maybe you've emptied out some of your big shampoo and conditioner bottles down to these bigger travel sizes that will last you like a week or two. Those, that's what you need now is to operate out of those and toss, if you can, your big shampoo, conditioner, body wash, hairspray. Now you're living travel size. That's what you want to do. Because at one week out, you're gonna be full-on travel mode. You're gonna be living out of a suitcase, you're gonna be living out of your little travel containers, travel toothpaste, okay, at one week out. Right now, you can still use your big toothpaste. Um, if you watched or listened to the episode where I reviewed the matador toothpaste containers, if you can like get something like that and actually open them and fill them, then do something like that or find something similar, maybe not matador. Sorry, matador. Um, but now's the time to try to get stuff into big travel containers and work out of those in your shower. Um, or if you have products that you're like, yeah, I bought these, I like them, I want to keep them, but they're not like my main products. You need to get those packed up into a box. Some of the stuff I would recommend putting in like Ziploc bags first, like individually. Not every single thing individually, but like if you have like three smaller shampoos that can fit into a gallon bag, I would do that so that if something explodes or bust open, it is only messing up a couple of other bottles and not like all of your stuff, or it's not leaking out into a box or a tote. Um, especially if you're putting all that stuff together and then putting it in the weatherproof tote with your clothes, try to keep all that separate. Purchasing contractor bags, um, cheap unsended trash bags, Ziploc bags. I use the Target Up and Up brand bags. Um, I use a lot of the slider bags, but they also have storage bags that aren't as expensive and they're a higher quantity. And so if you're just packing stuff in bags to keep it separated from other stuff, you you're probably fine with just storage slider bags. Um, bubble wrap, um, you can get bubble wrap from Target, from Amazon. Um, Amazon is good at packing supplies, but if you need to go get something right away, um, my local post office I noticed the other day has a little thing of bubble wrap that would probably wrap like I had to wrap a tennis racket. And so it wrapped the tennis racket, and then there was still enough. You can probably wrap like two tennis rackets with that size. But if you just need a little bit of bubble wrap, I think I paid like between three and five dollars for a small roll of bubble wrap. And if that's all you need, don't go buy like the really big rolls on Amazon if you're not sure that you're gonna use it all. Um, unless you just don't care. If you're like, hey, we can't afford, like we can afford to buy it, we can't afford not to have it if we need it. So that's where you can weigh out those things. Two weeks out, you need to start eating out more. If you're somebody that cooks all the time, runs the dishwasher all the time, pack up half your pods. Half, pack up half of the dishwasher pods. Pack up if you've got like a backup of dish soap, hand soap, all those need to be packed up because you're not gonna go through a whole thing of hand soap in two weeks. You're not gonna go through a whole thing of dish soap. You probably have like 50 pods that you can like keep five or six out and then pack up the rest, stuff like that. So you're just constantly paring down. You never want to feel like at two weeks out you have the entire house packed up, and now you're just twiddling your thumbs, like, okay, we can't use anything. You know, if you've got plastic silverware, I would, you know, keep out half of whatever's in the box. Um, paper plates, all of your actual dishes, glasses, and real silverware should already have been packed up. I think we talked about that in the last episode. Two weeks out, you're working off of paper plates, plastic wear, you're eating out more. Um, I love drinking out of my coffee mug in the morning. So for me, that was the hill that I died on, which was my coffee mug will get packed up the morning that I move. Everything else. If I got a second cup of coffee, I, you know, had like those paper cups, um, the coffee cups with the lids and stuff. Um, so you want to try to operate out of those if you can. It's just two weeks. And then when you move, you may have a day or two where you're still working off of some of that stuff because you haven't opened the box that has all of your real stuff in it yet. But again, it's really quick to go buy paper plates and work off of those, then to stress on trying to pack your plates at the last minute. Okay, so for those of you moving out of state, this is your last chance. If you're making any changes, now you need to do it. If you need to make a change with your mover, with your organizer, if you don't have at least half of your house packed for an out-of-state move, you are way behind. So go back and listen to episodes one, two, and three of the moving series. If you are confused at all, it is much better to pack something up. Chargers are another thing. I have like different kinds of chargers. I have a charger that I can walk in and just place my phone on it, and it's like a magnetic charger. When you go to move, some of those types of chargers need to be packed up at two weeks out. Deal with your tiny little cord that plugs into your computer or plugs into an outlet. Um, there are some really great extension cords that I think I am going to do the Amazon thing, the um the Amazon affiliate thing again, because I have a lot of great products that I need to recommend. And I do need to recommend some of these extension cords, but big power strips, get those packed. Um, leave yourself with the smaller, cuter um extension cords that also have like the USB, USB-C plugins as well. Um, they make some really cute ones. And um cords, go through all your cords. A lot of the stuff that you have in your home, if it's if it's plugged in and it's working and you have a whole bag of cords, you need to go through it and be honest with yourself. Now, HDMI cables, I think at one point I had three. So there was an HDMI cable for my son's video game console and like all three of the TVs, and we still had like three. And I was like, okay, everything that needs an HDMI cable currently has one. We're gonna find the best one out of these three, and we're gonna donate the other two. Okay, so stuff like that. You just need to pare down, you need to pack up everything that you're not using on a day-to-day basis, and you need to go ahead and start shifting furniture. If you're selling your dining room table, sell it now. Work off your kitchen island, work off of a folding table. If you don't have a folding table, let me tell you this. If you do not own a folding table, go to Target right now and pay $20, $30 and get a folding table. If nothing else, in the very, very last hours of moving, you're gonna be able to put your purse, your laptop, um, your lunch on that table because you may be cleaning your countertops. You may have everything moved, and you're like, hey, no one put anything on the countertops because I've got to clean it. If you have this folding table, you're gonna be able to put stuff on that folding table, and then whenever Everything in the house is completely clean and done. You take the stuff off the folding table, put it in your car, fold up the folding table. And if the folding table is dirty, who cares? Because it's coming with you. And at least one folding chair. Um, there have been times where we've gone to move, and the only things left in the house are me, my purse, my keys, my phone, my child is sitting in a folding chair, and his backpack is sitting on a folding table. And there we go. We're ready to load up the car, we're ready to go. So this is your last chance to make any big decisions, okay? Good or bad. Just know that whatever you decide to do from here forward, you are committed to. A court of law is gonna say that if you signed a contract that someone won't voluntarily let you out of. Your family's come to help you, and you're having a nervous breakdown saying, I don't want to do this, and I'm serious, I don't want to do it. So, whatever you've been feeling in the last two weeks, four weeks, six weeks, eight weeks, if it hasn't gone away, I want you to sit tonight and I want you to think about it, and then I want you to sleep on it. Okay. All major decisions you need to sleep on. But I have a feeling if you've already been dealing with this for a while, then it's not gonna go away. And you may need to back out of something. But sometimes it's just excitement of starting something new. And so, since we are two weeks out from your move, just know that if you've been really, really excited about this and you've got everything packed up and everything has gone smoothly, and you've got two weeks to go and now you're starting to stress, that is what everyone goes through when they're moving. Okay. The difference is that the people who have been sad and questioning and worried this whole process may need to do some thinking. Okay. But if you've been excited, energized, ready to go, and now you're two weeks out and things are getting hard because you're paying deposits, you're you're putting, you know, your money into different things that you don't feel like, like boxes and tape and packing material. It sucks. It sucks to have to pay for stuff like that because it's not like you're gonna, you know, turn around and use bubble wrap in your everyday life. You know, it's like, man, I spent $20 to $30 on bubble wrap, and we're not gonna sit there at night and pop it while we're watching TV. Like, you know, you either pass it along to someone else who needs it or you throw it away. So, yes, there are some things when you get to this point that are gonna suck. But if you're excited about doing it, you're you've just got to figure out the logistics and you've got to follow the timeline, you will be fine on the other side. Trust me. So I hope this episode was helpful, you guys. Please, please, please don't freak out. The next episode, the one week out episode, I'm actually gonna have out in the next few days because I am behind with this one. So do not worry. If you're listening to this one and you're at the end and you're like, okay, we're definitely moving in two weeks, but we're not sure if she's gonna put out the one week episode in time. I am gonna have it out in the next few days because for those of you coming into the series now, I want you to know that all of the episodes are gonna be there. So it's gonna be fine. Anyway, in the meantime, make sure you're listening to the regular podcast. I'm gonna have some other episodes that are similar that um may help you as far as like reviewing the travel items, you know, talking about organizing different things. And so even if I talk about organizing daily stuff, it can still help you as you're packing and deciding what to keep and all of that. So until the next moving episode, just listen to the regular pod, and I will see you back here for our very last episode of the moving series. All right, thank you guys.