Cost of moving

The most common question we are asked, aside from "How did you guys decide to do this?", is "How expensive is it to move?" I figured I would detail here our moving costs and how we reached them.

The single largest moving expense was shipping the car, which cost just over $1,000 (1075 to be exact). While this figure might be jarring to some, I felt it was rather reasonable. Considering that our car is only 6 months old and worth far more than the cost to ship, it was a no brainer to send it over. It was a bit tougher to decide what to do with our Buick. Would we even need 2 cars over there? How close would we be to our jobs? Is it worth paying a grand to ship a car that's worth about three? After some debate we decided to sell the car. We were originally going to offer it to my brother, but when we first told my parents we were moving they immediately bought the car from us for $2500 because one of their cars is about to die. So the new plan is for me to get a scooter/moped on the island. Obviously the weather is always awesome, and they get excellent gas mileage. Poking around on the interwebs it looks like I could get one for about $800-$1000. So selling the Buick covered the cost of shipping the Kia, buying a moped, and left about $500 extra.

The next largest expense was the plane tickets. Ticket prices fluctuate wildly, especially right around the holidays. The cheapest tickets we found were for Tuesday Jan. 3rd since its the middle of the week and after the holidays have concluded. The tickets were $650 for the both of us (320 a piece). We will be flying to Portland first, then straight to Maui. We chose Alaska Airlines because the bag fees were much cheaper than Hawaiian. The first 3 checked bags are $20 a piece; so for $120 Kayleen and I each get 3 bags that can be up to 50 lbs (plus our carry-ons), that's 300+ lbs worth of stuff! Any large/heavy items that we won't be bringing with us such as furniture will be cheaper to replace than to ship. It's also important to remember that there are people on Maui moving to the Mainland that also don't want to ship their stuff so it can be found cheaply.

We will also be sending a few items through the mail/UPS either because we don't want the airlines handling them, such as my xbox, or because it's cheaper to do so, such as Kayleen's children's books which can be sent via Media mail. Perhaps another 150 bucks for that. We will also be renting a car for the first week since our car will be there 2 days after we arrive and it will be useful to have 2 vehicles while we are looking for jobs/apartments, so another $250 for that. I'm also budgeting about $500 in order to replace the things we won't be bringing with us as well as $250 for misc expenses such as registering the car. I'm not adding in our security deposit/rent since we'd be paying that no matter where we moved and the point of this is to show the costs associated with moving to Maui specifically.

Believe it or not we will actually be saving money in a couple areas with our move. First off we are currently season ticket holders for the Sounders. Obviously we won't be using those so we sold the tickets to my brother for $950. The other thing that will be cheaper is car insurance. Since we will only be insuring one vehicle at first and will be living in a less crowded area our rates will be going down. It also helps that I recently turned 25.

So the final tally looks something like:
$1075 (car shipment)
+ $900 (moped)
+ $650 (plane tickets)
+ $150 (bag fees)
+ $150 (other shipping)
+ $250 (car rental)
+ $500 (replacements)
+ $250 (misc)
- $2500 (selling Buick)
- $950 (Sounders tickets)
- $100 (insurance)
------------------------
Grand total: $375

Not bad for moving to Paradise.

We're getting so close!

Justin drove the Kia to Tacoma today, and its now on a boat waiting to be shipped to Maui!

In two weeks I will be in Maui.  HOLY. WOW.  It still doesn't seem real.

My last day of school was yesterday :(, so now its time to figure out what to pack, and to start applying for jobs.  I talked to the manager of the Old Navy in Maui, and he said he didn't know how many hours he would be able to give me initially...  :/  soooo, I'm going to apply other places as well.  I can't really do anything about subbing until we get there, because before I can even take the subbing certification class, I have to have a signed note from an area principal.  Weird, right?  Yesterday a post for a head start teacher popped up on craigslist!  I need to get my resume to them asap.  There is also a nannying job called Happy Kids that sounds right up my alley--you get to nanny for folks on vacation!  :)

We need to get in touch with the owner of the studio were initially staying with so I can find out if we can ship our stuff to her house, or if she lives too far into upcountry for that to work.  I think we can also just ship it to the local post office and pick it up when we get there.  I'm stoked that I can ship all my children's books via media mail!  That way I can bring a lot of them and not have it cost a ton.  :)

So far I've bagged up one garbage bag full of heavy winter stuff that we won't be taking with us, and I have a little folded pile of my shorts and dresses.  And that's as far as I've gotten...lol.

How did this happen?!

Justin and I have been talking about "getting out," about going somewhere, or doing something for awhile now.  We tossed the peace corps back and forth all summer; we considered moving back to Pullman.

We just needed to make that next step together as a couple...we're all grown up, I'm officially a college grad next week, and we wanted to do something big.    What's bigger and crazier than picking up and moving to a tropical paradise?!  :)

I don't think there is a better time than now for us to do this.  We don't have kids, we don't have big important jobs, and we still don't have huge responsibilities.

I don't hate Seattle.  I love visiting the city and walking the streets and seeing all the people.  But I hate the cold, the gray, and the sadness that comes along with the weather we have here.  I hate the traffic here.  Though, I'm pretty sure Justin hates it a million times more than I do, as he has to sit in it 2 hours a day.  I want sunshine, and small towns, and THE BEACH.  The ocean...awwwwwww...

Now, I know Maui is expensive.  That seems to be the first thing that people like to point out to me when I tell them, like somehow they're revealing this crazy unknown information that is going to thwart us from moving.  We've done our research.  We know dairy products are expensive.  But I can't remember that last time I ate real cheese.  And we can buy our milk at Costco!  Or Walmart!  :)

As for living arrangements, we're subletting a studio apartment on the ground floor of a house.  Words cannot describe how gorgeous the house is.  I think if we could live there long term, we would.  But the gal who owns the place is trying to sell it, so its only temporary.  Check out THIS for pictures of our first place.  We're staying in the bottom half of the house.

When we get there, we plan to start apartment hunting right away.  And Justin will start looking for a job, doing whatever makes him happy.  :)  I'll be transferring to Old Navy (haha) so that I have a job as soon as we get there.  Then, I hope to eventually start subbing and/or find a teaching job.  The schools over there are in pretty sad shape, but they do start their first year teachers off at 45 thousand a year (WAYYY better than here in Washington!)

We're shipping our Kia over there, selling the Buick.  At this point, we're only taking what we can each fit into 3 suitcases, and shipping over the computer and xbox.  (priorities!)  Justin is going to buy a scooter when we're on island.  :)

Its going to be amazing.  And when we get settled down, book your flight to Maui and crash with us!

I'm going to be tan, my blond highlights are going to come back, and project fat blog will be back up and running.  There's no way these last 35-40 pounds can hang on with all the hiking and swimming we're going to be doing.  I'm so stoked.  :)

NEWS!

soooo....
We're moving to Maui.  :)

Our plane leaves Portland at 10 AM on Tuesday, January 3rd.

More to come!