Moving Your Pets

For me, the most stressful part of my move was how I was going to move the two cats.  While I knew that the boxes would all make it to the house, and I trusted the movers to take care of the furniture, but the cats were a different story.  Some cats do fine going from place to place, others have a tougher time.  I was a bit worried with how mine would function (plus one is a bit dumb and tended to get lost in the 2 bedroom apartment – how ever would he deal with the house?).

I decided that while the movers were at the house, I would lock the cats in the bathroom.  Once the furniture was done, I let the cats out, and they were decidedly freaked about the lack of furniture in the apartment.  I then went over the house to supervise the movers, and returned a few hours later to bring the cats over.  I decided to start them out in my bedroom, knowing how much they love sleeping on the bed.  As expected, both immediately hid inside the box spring.  No surprise there.

Within a few hours, they started to creep out, so rather than keep them confined, I let them roam.  The opinions on that differ.  Some people say to keep the cats locked up for a day or so to give them time to acclimate.  I decided not to.  My cats hate being locked up, and I figured giving them the chance to leave if they wanted would be the better option.  I was right.

By the end of the day, they were both wandering around the house, checking out their new home.  They were both a little skittish for almost the first two weeks, and weird things still startle them, but for the most part, they seem acclimated.  They love having stairs to race up and down, and they definitely enjoy watching the birds and squirrels right outside the kitchen window.  And it’s fun to watch them watching the outside.

All in all, the stressful part of the move didn’t go too badly.  I’m glad they acclimated so quickly.

Megan Smith

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.