Moving is a lot of work, people. Clearly, this is something I already knew, but it’s definitely a bear. As I have discussed, I hired movers to only do the big furniture (lots of glass things, easier to have the pros do it) and so I’m packing up and moving everything else. I have until next Friday to get everything done, and I’m not sure it’s gonna happen. Part of the problem is that this is an incredibly busy time for me, so that doesn’t help, but part of it is just not realizing how much stuff I have. I’ve been culling through things as I pack and I’m sure I’ll do more as I unpack.
My next big expense for the house is going to be window coverings of some sort. Because the house was a flip, it didn’t come with any sort of shades or blinds installed, and well, I don’t need the neighbors looking in all the time. Because of the cost of the custom blinds and shades, I decided to have someone come and measure and do the install. That way, if something isn’t right, I can have them replaced. But it’s just one more thing that needs to be done. And they won’t be in by the time we move, so I think we’re going to be tacking sheets over windows. Classy.
I’ve already started driving to work rather than take the metro, because I’m running so many errands. Let me tell you, I thought I loved public transportation, but I get to work so much faster now that I drive. It’s amazing.
We’ve hit the final countdown in terms of days til the move, and I have a lot of work to do. I’m confident that it can all be done. So what if we’re living out of boxes for weeks afterwards?
Megan is a 40-something government employee in the Washington, DC area. She got interested in Personal Finance when she got out of college and realized that her paycheck wasn’t going to go as far as she had hoped. Since starting this blog, she has managed to buy a house and make a solid start on her retirement goals, and hopes to help others do the same. Here is her story:
In 2007, I was a gainfully employed 20-something with no debt but not a lot of knowledge about personal finance. It was a co-worker’s comment about Roth IRAs that sent me to the internet, searching for information. It was then that I realized that I really didn’t know a whole lot about personal finance and that my current financial situation was due a lot to inherent frugal tendencies, generous family members, a fear of debt, and good luck. While that was working for me, clearly I needed a better plan.
While I had no debt, I was also pretty much living paycheck to paycheck and not worrying about going over budget (I say this as if I had a real budget) because I had an emergency fund set aside to cover any overages.
Except that’s not what an emergency fund is for.
So I did a lot of research, read a lot of blogs, and decided that I needed a plan. I needed to budget. I needed to know what I was spending my money on. I needed to prepare for the future.
I decided to create a blog not only to make myself accountable to others but also to share the knowledge that I gained along the way. I’ve learned so much from my fellow bloggers, and I hope that my readers can find something useful in what I have to share as well.
