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Last episode was all about making that decision to move abroad, and now we’re getting practical. Moving expert and co-author of the book, A Happy Move, Devra Jacobs is going to share just how it’s possible to make the moving process an enjoyable one.
Devra, it’s so great to have you on the Expat Focus podcast.
Devra: I’m really excited to be here. This is great.
Carlie: It’s the start of a new year. We just had a life coach on speaking about the making the decision to pack up your life and move to a new country. I think this is a really natural progression that now we’re speaking really practically about what that takes.
Devra: Actually, in the book, I talk about when I did that going to Korea. I understand.
Carlie: And Korea’s not the only place. Excuse me, I did read in your book that you have moved 29 times. Devra, my first question is, what have you been doing in life that has seen you move 29 times?
Devra: If you ask my daughter, she’ll say I’m part gypsy. I get this three or four year itch. It’s time to go. But some of the moves were for jobs, some of the moves were due to being wiped out by hurricanes on the east coast. One of the moves was because I was married at the time. I’m about to move again, but hopefully this is going to be the final.
Carlie: You mentioned Korea, where else have has life taken you?
Devra: That’s the only place out of the country I’ve gone. I had thought about moving to different places out of the country when I was younger. But once you have a child it makes it a little harder to do things like that. I’ve been all over this country.
Carlie: What’s your favourite area of the United States?
Devra: The South. That’s where I’m heading again, somewhere in the South. I love the Southern attitude and the slowness; it’s a much quieter way of life. I loved living in the Carolinas. I’ve lived in Alabama, Florida and Texas. All over the place.
I like the Northeast. I was raised in Northern California, but it’s like moving to a foreign country now. So, I think I’m probably going to head back to the South.
Carlie: Devra, your book is called A Happy Move, but let’s be real. Is a happy move achievable? I would categorise a move as something that’s more like a stressful move, a tolerable move, an anxious move.
Devra: A move should be happy. A move should be full of the excitement for where you’re going and the whole purpose of this book when I was asked to write it was to take that anxiety level down, to have somebody be so prepared that it ends up being a happy experience or a stress free experience.
You have all of the tools that you need for before, during, and after. I think happy is just the way I feel when I get to this new place and I get to go explore a new place. The whole point of it is to make it stress free and it can be. I think a lot of the anxiety that people get is because they aren’t prepared.
Carlie: How many relocations did it take for you personally before you hit that Nirvana of a happy move?
Devra: At least 25. I learned so much on each move and that’s why there’s so much in this book. I’ve been told by people who got the book before a move and they’re telling me, wow, I couldn’t believe how different this was and how different it is after.
I think people have this concept that it’s the before that they freak out about or, the during while they’re waiting for their stuff to go cross country and trying to figure out where they’re going to live. It really doesn’t end there. It’s the after with the forms and stuff that you fill out in the book, after the move can be stressful as well.
Carlie: What really struck me about your book is how practical it is. Not just in those beginning stages, making to do lists as you pack up where you are currently, but it really does follow you all the way through. In your experience, where’s the most common place that people go wrong? Is it at that starting point?
Devra: I think it’s absolutely at the starting point. If you don’t clean out everything. People have a tendency to just pack everything and they get to the new location and either the furniture doesn’t fit or they’ve hauled along all their kids toys from when they were 3 years old and they’re now teenagers. You spend a lot of money doing that.
I always tell people at least 2 months prior to a move, start purging. If you already know where you’re going to be, if you’re renting or buying and you already know where you’re going to be and that couch isn’t going to fit, sell it. Don’t pay to move stuff you don’t need.
Carlie: See, that’s a hard one in my mind ever, because I’m really in love with my couch and I couldn’t imagine a change of home, meaning a change of couch. What you’re saying makes sense. It was not going to fit, don’t bring it with you.
Devra: I actually did this moving from Alabama to Arizona. I had this gorgeous black lacquer living room furniture. It was like a whole wall set, glass doors, gorgeous and I moved it. I had to put a piece in every single room.
Carlie: It just doesn’t work anymore.
Devra: No, and I ended up having to sell it. But it cost me probably close to a thousand dollars to move that living room set and I ended up selling it for two hundred dollars.
Carlie: In that sense, it makes so much sense to really think ahead.
Devra: If you know where you’re going and maybe you’re going to rent with the intention to buy. You can always move the furniture and put it in storage. If you really want that couch, and it’s not going to fit in your temporary home, just put it in storage.
If you’re going to another country, however, I will tell you when I moved to Korea, I bought the most gorgeous furniture. Then I found out how much it was going to cost for me to get that hand carved wooden furniture back to the U.S. and I ended up leaving it there.
Carlie: Something I see all the time in Expat Focus Facebook groups are especially people from the USA moving to Europe and wanting to bring all their appliances. Then they don’t work and the electrical conversion doesn’t work. Everyone’s saying don’t do it, you’ll regret it.
Devra: We talk about that in the book in the section for moving out of the country. There’s resources in the back of the book where you can go check what kind of electrical. Do they offer gas. There’s some countries like when I moved to Korea, they took away my coffee pot that I had shipped there because it was considered a black market item.
Carlie: So, it didn’t even pass through customs?
Devra: Didn’t even pass through customs.
Carlie: Wow.
Devra: That’s why I said it’s the pre-move. It’s the preventative planning that really helps you. What kind of plants you can take someplace, what kind of pets you can take someplace.
I know one woman who had written to me and she, thank goodness, didn’t move to the state she was planning on moving to because she owned two ferrets and they would have taken her away from her. There are countries where if you take a cat or a dog, they may have to be in quarantine for a year. That would be terrible. I couldn’t imagine my dog being in quarantine without me.
Carlie: I have friends who have rabbits. In the UK. I think you can get domestic bunnies in Australia to keep as a pet, but in terms of importing them, absolutely not. That’s one of the reasons why my Australian friend in the UK won’t move back. She’s saying as long as this rabbit is alive, we can’t take it with us, we’re staying here.
Devra: Totally understand that. There are so many restrictions just moving to California from any state. In the country.
Carlie: Now that I didn’t think about. Within the same country.
Devra: Yeah. That’s why you want to go through the resources in the back of the book and check that state, check that country, find out what the do’s and don’ts are.
Carlie: When it comes to a move Devra, are you a bit of a DIY person or do you advocate for using professional movers?
Devra: Both. It depends on how far I’m going. I’ve done quite a few DIY moves, rental truck or pod moves. If I’m going cross country, like when I’ve gone from North Carolina to California, I always use professional movers but I always pack myself.
Carlie: This is going to be my other question because I love the idea of people coming in and just packing for you, but then you’re not really keeping track of where things are going.
Devra: I’ve learned some great packing techniques. I’ve watched professional packers move my parents, let’s say and they don’t use these techniques, and you get to the other end and stuff is broken or stuff is missing.
I have learned that if I pack myself, one, I save so much in room because they want to use paper and bubble wrap only. Then you have extra weight from extra boxes with clothing and stuff. I use clothing to pack a lot of my breakables.
Carlie: Makes a lot of sense.
Devra: Or Towels, sheets. With the professional packers, during one of my mother’s moves, she wanted all of her fancy pots for her plants. They packed them with the dirt in them and you pay for a move by weight.
Carlie: Wait, how would you move a plant if not with the dirt in it?
Devra: You can’t. She couldn’t take the plants, so they took the plants out and left the dirt in the pots.
Carlie: They move the pots with dirt and no plant in them?
Devra: Yes. There are certain states you can’t take certain plants to. I had these gorgeous houseplants that were thrown in the trash by customs in California. So, it’s the planning, being prepared. I always pack myself and there’s really good YouTube videos that I’ve started putting up on my YouTube page that gives ideas on how to wrap your furniture, so that it doesn’t get scratched or dented.
How to pack sharp things. People don’t think about that. I watched a professional mover throw all of these knives in a box. All I could think of is this poor person is going to be unpacking at the other end. How cut are they going to get from these knives that were just thrown into a box.
Carlie: That seems like a really poor choice. You’ve actually brought back memories of us trying to get our brand new L shaped couch down four flights of stairs of an apartment building within a few months of buying it to move into our new place.
The only thing I could think to do was shrink wrap the couch so that the movers hopefully didn’t damage the fabric so much around all these tight corners and underneath the couch didn’t do so well. I know it’s against the wall now, but underneath did not survive that move very well.
Devra: That was actually a brilliant choice on your part and I learned from professional movers you just buy handy wrap, plastic wrap. You wrap up, down, around and back. There’s a YouTube video on that. That’s what they use to protect furniture.
Carlie: I didn’t do a very good job. There’s some fabric peeking out in places. It felt like when you’re wrapping a mummy with toilet paper, in one of those Halloween games or something.
Devra: That’s pretty much what you do. When you do that on a Chester drawer, it keeps the drawers in.
Carlie: Oh, yes, I was using the duct tape.
Devra: You can leave your clothes in the drawer.
Carlie: Oh, I didn’t think of that.
Devra: Yeah, and then just wrap it all with saran wrap and the drawers stay closed and it doesn’t get dinged up.
Carlie: I do have a question about itemising packing boxes. Especially when it comes to insurance. I was laughed at my workplace about 20 years ago as a young professional moving between states because I sat there for hours painstakingly writing out the title of every single DVD and CD, I owned that I was putting in these packing boxes. My colleagues were like, wow, you didn’t need to go to that much detail.
Was that a bit too much information?
Devra: I’m laughing at you too. Were you writing it on the boxes?
Carlie: No, I had a spreadsheet and I was sitting there writing down what was in every box. Box number five contains my complete set of Buffy, Dexter, Angel, 80s movies. I’d write every single title just because I figured then when I got to the other side, if something was missing, I’d know exactly what was missing.
Devra: That actually is not a bad idea. Now, don’t write on boxes what’s in the box.
If you end up with a mover that maybe isn’t quite as ethical and you put big flat screen TV or computer that box could end up missing. But, if you keep a list and trust me, you can’t really number boxes that professional movers will put sticky numbers on it.
You could keep a sheet of your CD collection, take a picture of it before you put it in there.
Carlie: I think it was the days when not all phones had cameras. That would be more efficient for sure.
Devra: Keeping a separate list like that is great because you could have written on the box, A3.
Then put on your paper, A3, and known if that whole box goes missing what was in it so you can claim it on insurance. Absolutely. Not a bad idea. I disagree with them thinking you were neurotic.
Carlie: They were my pride and it’s probably the most expensive things I earned at the time. Let’s be real.
Devra: But that’s important to somebody. I lost a whole box of crystal on one of my moves. It was things that were from my grandmother. You couldn’t replace it. I knew what was in it and on the box, all I put was fragile. Then I put a number. So, on my sheet, it said grandma’s crystal.
Now, I didn’t name every single thing that was in that box, but I knew exactly what it was. When you do professional moves, unless you have a lot of stuff, you’re in a truck with other people’s furniture or other people’s boxes. It’s very easy for them to accidentally, give one of your boxes.
One of the things that I learned was the most important thing on a professional move like that is they will mark off as the boxes come off. They don’t tend to keep track of that very well when they’re offloading. They keep track of it really when they’re onloading. So, make them stop. If they’re just popping tons of boxes off of there and they’re not keeping track, make them stop.
You’re paying them, so make them stop and say, no you missed those four boxes. Go back and check them off.
Carlie: I guess that’s also why it’s so important to be there on the other end when they do unload, if you can.
Devra: You have to be, you absolutely have to be. I’ve had people have a neighbour or something in their new place be there. You have no protection because if you actually are not there yourself and sign the paperwork accepting it, then you can’t claim anything.
I know I lost a vacuum on one move, but I gained a really nice step stool. That was somebody else’s.
Carlie: Somebody else ended up with your grandmother’s crystal. Did you ever find it?
Devra: Nobody ever found it. Generally, when they’re missing you don’t tend to ever see things again, and that’s another good reason for you to pack. If they don’t know what’s in your stuff, more than likely, you’re going to get your stuff.
Carlie: Devra, you touched on pets a little bit earlier, but what is, in your experience, the most optimal way to manage, one, pets during a move and I don’t mean to put them in the same category, but also kids?
Devra: Well, they can act the same in a car. Are we there yet?
People don’t think much about their pets until they toss them in the car and they start driving and then they’re like, oh, my God, this animal’s acting like this.
If you’re going to take any pet and every move I’ve ever made, I’ve had pets. Everything from a chameleon, a rabbit, dogs, cats, I’ve travelled with it all. Start taking them out to drive with you before you drive. You’ll find out a few things.
There’s a story in the book about one of the cats that my daughter had. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the Garfield stickers on the windows of a car. That cat was in that position screaming from the moment we pulled out.
With some animals you may need to go to a vet prior if they’re going to be too anxious, get them some sort of a medication to keep them calm. Some pets, like our dogs, did much better in a kennel in the car than they did free riding.
Also, get them out of the car every couple of hours. This goes for pets and children. If you’ve got an eight hour drive in front of you or a 16 hour air flight someplace. Get up, walk them around, do things.
When I went to Korea, my daughter was two. It was her second birthday and I had to literally get up and walk her around the entire airplane every two hours. Otherwise, she was climbing over the seats, crying and having a fit.
With your pets, especially with dogs, you want to take them out. Stop. You need a break anyway. You don’t want to drive too many hours. You’ll get too tired. That’s not good for anybody in the car.
Make sure you’re keeping them on their same feeding schedule. A lot of people, when they travel with pets, will say when we get to a hotel, I’ll feed them. I don’t want them to have to go to the bathroom. It throws their schedule completely off. If you’re used to feeding them at lunchtime, pull off the road, feed them, walk them, play with them, get them calmed back down, then get back in the car.
With children, the most blessed invention I have ever had on a move are the movie screens. The little video screens. Many moves I have made with popping a movie into one of those and for at least two hours your kid is completely content or games, Gameboys and things like that.
Carlie: Kids have so many more options for car rides now.
When my sisters and I were young and doing five hour drives to see my grandparents for the holidays, it was books and games out the car window and yelling at each other because she’s touching me in the backseat.
I think if we’d had iPads or Gameboys or whatever the switches are these days my parents would have had a much easier time.
Devra: It’s amazing the difference. Now I still, maybe because I’m old, like to play the car games and looking out the window. Most of the time, the younger generation, you could be driving through gorgeous country and they never look out the window. But if you’re playing some of these car games, it’s wonderful because they say I didn’t know Texas looked like that, or wow, there’s mountains with snow on them. It’s good to have that interaction.
Carlie: Definitely. Especially when you’re going on a long relocation drive and you get to see so many beautiful landscapes, it would be a shame to miss it.
Devra: When you have kids and if you’re going to move cross country, make it a vacation. Take your time. Go to the national parks. One of the moves that I made cross country, we went to the Grand Canyon. We went to all these different national parks and we’d spend the night or spend two days in a place. It really gave my daughter the appreciation of what’s in this country.
Carlie: Devra, what have you learned over the years about the timing of a move? I know just from living in Strasbourg now for a number of years that I would never move in September, for example, when everyone’s returning from vacation, starting new jobs, starting school, no one can find accommodation, no one can find movers that are free. That would be the worst time of year.
Where you do have control over the timing, what are your recommendations?
Devra: There’s a few things that are related to timing. I’ve done some major mistakes with moving to an island off of North Carolina on 4th of July weekend, where everything is rented for the weekend and we were basically living in our car for 3 days until everybody left.
You want to pay attention to holidays. You want to pay attention to traffic. There are certain times where in certain cities, for example, you don’t want to move to New Orleans during Mardi Gras. It would be insane.
More importantly, weather. You don’t want to move to an area that could be in a blizzard. So maybe if you’ve got a few weeks that you can play with. I know the move I have coming up. I have a couple months that I can play with. Maybe I don’t want to go across Oklahoma in the dead of winter and hit snow. So, maybe I’ll push it out a little bit.
I arrived in North Carolina during a hurricane. Unloading a U-Haul in the middle of a hurricane is not fun. Trust me. Really paying attention to that.
Also, as soon as school gets out and you’re moving. Where I live now in Flagstaff, which is the gate to the Grand Canyon, you don’t want to be moving here the first week school gets out because everybody from all over the world is going to the Grand Canyon. Just trying to get a hotel reservation could be your biggest problem on a move.
Carlie: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. I don’t know how easy it is to time a move for a weekday, depending on your commitments, but I could imagine that Saturdays for a pack up or an unpack are the worst days to choose if you have a choice.
Devra: It really depends on your mover. If you’re doing a professional move, they give you a three day window. So, they could be there Friday, Saturday or Sunday.
Carlie: As long as it’s not like a long weekend, I’m guessing that would be terrible.
Devra: Usually, they will never try to schedule anything. I have this weird thing. On holidays I tend to move and I don’t know why that happens. It’s never been a planned thing, but I’ve moved on Christmas the week of Christmas, Easter, New Year’s and the 4th of July. Not a good idea to plan to do that. Mine’s just happened by accident where I had to be within a certain date.
If you do a professional move, remember you’re in charge, you set the boundaries. A lot of people will be like, whatever they want. No. If they say it’s going to be Friday the 30th of the month, and that’s not good for you, tell them no. You’re paying them.
Now doing DIY moves, I will tell you a lot of time’s that it’s way cheaper to do them on a weekday than it is a weekend because a lot of people want to rent trucks and move Friday, Saturday, Sunday. You can actually get discounts and specials if you’re doing Monday through to Friday. Or really Monday through to Thursday.
Same with air flights, if you’re going to do an expat move, and your move is going to wherever, you’re probably going to get cheaper flights. I know when I went to Scotland, it was way cheaper for me to go Monday through Wednesday.
Carlie: On a Tuesday or Monday. Yeah, definitely. Where do you stand, Devra, on having friends help out with a move? I know that we had a lot of friends volunteer our first time and a couple of years later, when we moved again, no one was available.
Is it really because you’re not available or do you just not want to help?
Devra: I’ve done local moves with friends. If you’re just going cross town or something, offer to buy pizza and beer and get your friends to help you move. Rent a truck. That’s great but you cannot complain if anything gets broken. It’s friends.
Carlie: This is true.
Devra: That does happen. Also, the other fear that I have and why I don’t ask friends now, is if somebody gets hurt, you’re liable. If they drop that couch down that flight of stairs, and it lands on somebody, and they end up in the hospital, you’re paying the hospital bill. If you hire people, it’s on that company.
Carlie: In our case we found two flooring guys with a van who were willing to help us for cash. I’m really glad now that we didn’t drop a couch on anybody because I don’t think we had insurance for that scenario.
Devra: It’s interesting now in the United States, I don’t know if you have U-Haul where you are they’re international. They’ve started a thing where you can hire people to help you load those rental trucks now through their company and they’re insured.
Carlie: That’s a really good situation and next time we move, I should think about that for sure.
Devra, in your book you talk about the before, during and after. Why is it that the process of moving in your mind is not complete once those boxes are in your new home?
Devra: There are so many things that come up after a move that you don’t think about. It’s not just making sure that the boxes end up in the right room so you don’t break your back trying to shift things around. Mark them kitchen, bedroom one, living room. After you’re unpacked is when you now have to find a new dentist, a new doctor, get your kids in school.
If you’ve filled out the forms in the book and you can go to your doctor you can give them your last doctor’s name, address, and phone number, so you can get those records.
If you have all of your kids, school records and birth certificates and stuff right there with you, you can simply take them to the school and get them registered. People don’t think about that.
A lot of times you get to a new location and you want to turn the utilities on in the new rental and they say you don’t have to pay a deposit if you had service with another company. If you can open your book and say, yes, it’s such and such company, maybe it saves you three or four hundred dollar deposit someplace.
Again, if you plan, what am I going to need once I’m there? It may be finding out ahead of time that a certain area is very prone to a certain kind of insects. Maybe you want to have your bug sprayed before you actually move in. There’s so many little things and in the tips in the book, I talk about a lot of these little things that I never thought about, and that’s how I learned.
Carlie: No, that’s what I really like about your book is just how comprehensive and granular you get about all these elements that when you’re taking a really broad view of what you do need to do for your move you can just so easily overlook. Devra, if people are really interested in your book, where can they find it?
Devra: I would go to ahappymove.com. All the information is on the website, even places that they can buy it. It is available internationally. They can just ask for it at any bookstore and just go to the website. You can find out more about it.
Carlie: Devra, it’s been a pleasure having you on the Expat Focus podcast to talk about that holy grail of a happy move and how to achieve it. Thank you so much for your time.
Devra: Thank you so much for having me.
Carlie: That’s it for today. Be the first to know when a new episode drops by signing up to our monthly newsletter – just head to expatfocus.com/newsletter to subscribe.
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I’ll catch you in the next one.