by Hope
Hello BAD Community and Happy 2017! I hope your holiday season was fantastic and you were able to spend some down time with friends or family. The kids and I have enjoyed a sabbatical (for lack of a better word) here in Georgia with a quick 10 day trip to Texas. It was the first time we’d seen most of my siblings (there are 5 of us) in over two years.
We had a very frugal Christmas and loved every minute of it! I didn’t decorate, I didn’t cook and I felt no stress to meet anyone’s expectations. It was very freeing! The kids were ecstatic with their “gift card’s for lunch with mom” and a variety of other small things like the $0.46 shorts.
Now for the bad news…we are still in Georgia, well beyond our expected return date. And the reason is that we have no where to return too. While we were in Texas, I received a text from our hosts of our Glamping Adventure and where we have lived since April, 2016. It read and I quote: “Bad news…a line broke on the camper. We had to totally winterize it to protect the rest of the plumbing.” Yea, just a few days before Christmas we became officially homeless.
They did assure me it wasn’t something we had done (we left on Dec. 7th and this text was received Dec. 19th.) So instead of returning to VA right after the New Year as anticipated, I have been frantically, FRANTICALLY trying to find us housing. My original plan was to remain in VA at our free housing until April and then move everything to GA and make my Grandmother’s our home base if I still hadn’t secure enough work or a full time job to get housing for us.
That has now been modified. I have been able to secure temporary housing beginning Thursday at a home that will go on the market in March. They have offered us housing through March 1st at no charge. It is fully furnished and recently remodeled.
The plan now is to:
- Return to VA on Tuesday (delayed from Monday due to snow storm.) We will stay in a hotel for two nights.
- Move into temporary housing on Thursday with absolute minimum necessary.
- Spend the next two weeks packing our stuff at the camper.
Now I have to decided whether to:
- Leave our stuff where it is (at the camper) until mid-February when we must return to GA for a gymnastics meet. We would then load a moving truck and put everything in storage here in GA; or
- Get a POD or U-pack or something similar and load everything in to put into storage until we know where we will land next.
A quick pricing check puts these two options within a $100 of each other. I am leaning to the POD type storage because I am not certain when we will have housing and I am not certain, although I hope, that we will end up in GA. Any words of wisdom from the BAD Community?
In additional to frantically seeking housing, I have SPAMMED everyone in my network with a plea to share my LinkedIn profile with their network. I had a first interview on Friday afternoon and made it to the next round, but I’m not confident.
Hope is a creative, solutions-focused business manager helping clients grow their business and work more efficiently by leveraging expertise in project management, digital marketing, & tech solutions. She’s recently become an empty nester as her 5 foster/adoptive kids have spread their wings. She lives with her 5 dogs in a small town in NE Georgia and prefers the mountains to the beaches any day. She struggles with the travel bug and is doing her best to help each of her kids as their finish schooling and become independent (but it’s hard!) She has run her own consulting company for almost twenty years! Hope began sharing her journey with the BAD community in the Spring of 2015 and feels like she has finally in a place to really focus on making wise financial decisions.
Hope, I admire your determination. I will pass your profile to as many as I can. How do you feel about North Carolina?
Thank you. I am open to pretty much anywhere at this point.
Sending good vibes and prayers your way…
Having done both, I would recommend the PODS route. The value of time and effort is worth it. They are professional and insured, for transport. If you DIY a long distance move, too much can happen: vehicle breaks down or worse; any manner of delay; and, as you pointed out, uncertain destination. But why not just leave your things packed in the camper as long as you can, without hauling part of your belongings? That would surely save money and make things easier. Or why not leave them packed and transport at your convenience to where you will be temporarily? Sounds like you need to keep what you can control as simple and easy as possible. ((hugs))
Without knowing where we will land permanently but feeling pretty sure it will not be here in VA, just hoping to get things to GA where I plan to make my grandmother’s our “homebase” for lack of a better word while I continue my job search. How to do that…well, you are right, there are lots of options. Just trying to find the most economical and logical not knowing when we will have housing ago. Lots of variables to consider. Thanks for your input!
Another option for moving your stuff cross country us UPack with ABF. You pack your things into one of their freight trucks and you only pay per foot for what you use. They put up a wall and then fill the rest of the truck with regular freight. I recommended it to my coworker who just moved from Iowa to Georgia and it went very smoothly and he was excited he could drive with the rest of the family in their car rather than having to drive a moving van (and it was cheaper!)
I hadn’t heard of this one, but since I’m not sure where we will land with my job hunt, I’m not sure it will work for us. But thank you for the suggestion.
Wow Hope – you are so resilient! I’m hoping for wonderful things for you and your family in 2017!
Thank you, Den. As scary as this time is, I can only believe that things will get better.
I’m a bit confused. Is the house in Georgia that you can live in rent-free until March 1st? Is your plan then to relocate to Georgia? Are you planning to buy that house?
No, the temporary living arrangement allows us to stay in VA, just long enough to finish out Gymnast regular season meets. Whether he will get to go to States or Regionals is up in the air. (He has already qualified for states, but I’m not sure about training and the trip back for it since we will no longer have housing here.)
We are relocating to GA to make my grandmother’s our homebase. No plans to buy anything or even rent anything until I get more stable income. While my grandmother’s will be our homebase, we will be a bit nomadic for the time being.
We used a POD from CA to MN and were very happy with the service.
I wish you the best Hope.
Thank you, Theresa!
I hope some employment will come through. That will relieve so much stress. I’m glad to see that the tone of your posts has changed and you seem ready to face the challenges ahead of you. Best wishes to you as you make these changes.
Absolutely, it would! I am definitely struggling but trying to keep my head up. The uncertainty is hard enough on the kids without them having to deal with my concerns.