Overseas Planning

The Facilitator Of Deliciousness

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I’m pretty sure that replacing this kitchenAid mixer is in my employee contract for moving.  If not it’s a stipulation in the unwritten marriage agreement that we get a new mixer when we get to London. It will be an expensive item however this mixer is the bringer of deliciousness, the facilitator of cake making so we will, no must have one. Unfortunately just not this one.

I do reserve the right to have sticker shock and at least think about alternatives when i see the price including VAT.

My sister graciously said she would give our mixer a home. I told her I I reserve the right to be an Indian giver her and take back the mixer if/when we come back to the states. She said she’ll take that chance and put the mixer next to another appliance with the same restrictions she got from her friend Amy 11 years ago before they went to Hong Kong. Well played Carrie.

Drinking Americano

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I started drinking more Americano’s in the morning on the weekends. I usually drink French press since it’s significantly cheaper and tastes pretty good. With our upcoming move I’m not sure (almost positive it can’t) if the Nespresso machine will work so it is on the list of what has to go.

The delicious challenge I have is that I have a bunch of pods remaining I need to drink before we move in December.  I will either drink a single Lungo shot on its own or make an Americano using the single shot pods.  I am running low on the Lungo shots so it will be Americano’s for a while. The delicious challenge was accepted.

The less delicious challenge to finish the decaf will happen later.

Wait, The Money is Different Sizes in England?

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One of things that turns out to be way more complicated than you would think when planning to move to another country is banking. Before agreeing to go to England we did a lot of research on what it would take. One of the big challenges everyone flagged was getting a bank account. Apparently the Catch-22 is you need to be there to get a bank account in most circumstances. To be there you need money to live. That’s hard without a bank account. Most banks want a local address before you can open an account however most places you want to rent from want a bank account. See the challenge here?

Other things that I’m trying to be smart about is keeping our US presence while were gone.

Then of course there’s the whole thing of English money might not fit in my wallet since it’s different sizes. It’s never a good sign when the company that makes the wall that I own “Bellroy” has a specific line of wallet they market to the UK. That makes me feel like what I own now isn’t going to really work. I might get lucky and maybe everything will be NFC payment. It might be better than the US but that’s wishful thinking.

What of Our Stuff Gets to See England?

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For a few months we were not sure if this move was can actually happen. The waiting turned into now let’s hurry up and getting stuff done. One of the big things is figuring out how we are getting all of our stuff across the Atlantic. MC’s been doing a lot of purging as we are decluttering the apartment. That obviously will only go so far. Once we decide what we do want to take with us we need to find movers in the US and the UK as well as shipping container options.

This is one of the areas that still unknown to us. I need to find a company that I want to work with that is reasonably priced. I know it takes several weeks for stuff to move so we need to get a better understanding of our timeline before we sign any firm commitments. I foresee some more research in my near future on this topic.

The purging of stuff has been easy and difficult both at the same time. There are some things that were just not sure if we want to part with. Or one of us is not sure. Then there’s stuff that we both looked at go yeah that’s being donated somewhere. Then there’s things that we probably shouldn’t move but we kind of want to.

The kids beds for example a really nice and my mom got them for us. On the other hand it’s the perfect opportunity to upgrade the girls to bunkbeds that they want. Other furniture in the girls room is in decent condition and it probably will last so working to take it with us. Our dressers on the other hand are from IKEA. They are in great shape however I believe they were the ones that were recalled for safety hazards so I don’t think they’re going to make the cut on what we take with us. Our Tempur-Pedic bed, yes it’s coming with us. Man I like that bed.

Items like our coffee table I have waffled a lot about. It’s a fantastic table that I got when I was single. It’s got a hydraulic under it that lifts it to turn it into a dining room table. The challenge with it is its glass so the kids and scratched it a little. It also has sharp glass edges at the corners that I’ve cut myself on. Since T was born we have wrapped it in childproof patting. For that reason I thought we should probably not take it with us. After some back-and-forth we agreed that we will see us we can use it as a dining room table at least initially. It’s always good as a backup in case we have company as well. We do not plan on taking our dining room table even know it’s been an MC’s family while. The problem is since it’s been in her family while it’s pretty old. It barely made the move into our current apartment so shipping it halfway across the world isn’t going to really happen.

Our bar, yes it’s coming with us. I don’t know why I need to even talk about it. I did read somewhere that you can’t ship alcohol so at some point I will need to have a bunch of friends over and drink everything that we have. Refilling that with liquor in England feels like it’s going to be expensive.

My computer table. I awesome, awesome computer table. I wanted to go with us. MC made it clear in the past she just wanted to go. Final ruling is still unknown.

I thought a lot of the electronics could just get an adapter and work however one of my friends at the office said I need to be careful and check. My TV that is in perfect condition even though it’s four years old is TBD on if he can come with us. My computers should be fine with an adapter. Apparently our vacuum cannot come and likely our appliances too. I probably have about $300 in power strips that will also need to be given away since no be useless when we get there.

Now that I’m thinking about what stays and what goes not really sure about our couch. MC and I have actually had a conversation about it however I can’t remember what we said we were going to do. On one hand the couch a nemesis of mine. When it’s hot out and I sit on it some of the leather top layer has been known to come off on my clothing when I stand up. You would think I would have learned by now. You would think, but I haven’t. I personally do not want that couch to ruin clothing on two continents so I have the check if were taking it. The big easy chair that goes along with it is in better condition so we might take it however I don’t want the color of the chair to dictate what color the new couch is.

As I’m writing this I realize I need to make a list of big-ticket items that stay versus go.

Next Up Selling Our Apartment / Finding a New Place

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From starting the discussion to signing employment contracts with my company took about one half months. For now we have about 3 1/2 months until I am tentatively scheduled to start in London. For the past few weeks my wife and I have been working to clean up our apartment and de-clutter. We finally did that enough that we posted it with a realtor so we can begin the process of selling it. A few people have mentioned that I should just rent it out while were gone. Even if I thought that was a good idea ( I’m not sure that I do) my building does not allow that. The co-op we live in requires owner occupancy. From what we’ve gathered there is pretty low inventory and a generally high demand in our neighborhood for a two bedroom apartment of our size. Fingers crossed things go smoothly.

If selling an apartment in New York wasn’t enough at the same time we are trying to find a house to live in for when we get to London. Well not yet at that finding a house part of the journey. Were trying to find a few neighborhoods that meet our criteria to start looking for a house. Thankfully I work with a lot of really awesome folks in London already. Several have provided advice about where to live. Much of that advice has been in sync with each other. Funny enough some of that advice has been in contradiction with other advice. It’s funny trying to weed out my families priorities versus what others find important. All the information has been extremely helpful though because we’re learning where we don’t want to look and where we do want to look.

As of writing this post the realtor has just put up the links to our apartment. They look pretty fantastic if you ask me even though I am biased. The next step is to have people view the apartment and hopefully get some offers.

While the selling goes on in New York my wife and I need to plan a scouting trip to London to figure out what neighborhood we want to live in. Online research will only get us so far.