WE MOVED TO PUERTO RICO!
And I know that's old news to most people, but we still can't believe how blessed we are
to have had the opportunity to come to such a beautiful place!
It, however, didn't come without its hardships! So, in honor of hoping that someone else that is moving across the country can learn from our mistakes, here are the top 5 things that we wish we had known before making such a big move!
1. Give yourself more time than you think you need!
This was our plan:
Day 1: Fly to Puerto Rico
1st week: stay in a hotel. Find
a place to live & a car.
2nd week: settle into the new
place.
3rd week: Mitch starts
orientation and we live happily ever after.
And, truth be told, it all did basically happen just the way we planned. BUT looking back, we both agree that it
would have been better if we had given ourselves more time, atleast a week!
If
(when…lol) we do it again, and if we don't have a prearranged place to live like we didn't with this move, we will give ourselves at least 2 weeks in a hotel to find
a place, instead of one! The
emotional and stress relief it will give will be well worth the extra hotel
fee!
2. It will cost more than you think!
Budget MORE, like a lot more, then what you
think it will cost to make the move. Little things add up, and it is better to
be prepared!
We’ve decided that if we were to do it
again, we would probably keep a cushion of $1,500-$2,000 JUST IN CASE.
Obviously, it depends on where you/ how you are living, but we found that we
went over our originally estimated budget by about that much!
3. Get a PO BOX your first day!
This only applies if you risked it
like we did and came down without knowing where you were going to live! We got
a hotel for a week and decided to tour around to find a place we loved.
Honestly, I wouldn’t have changed that aspect for anything BUT we learned quickly
that in order to buy a car, get a sam’s club membership, and do basically any
other adult thing, we needed a local address.
We realized this a couple of days in, ran over to the Postal Office, and it seriously saved us for the first month or so of living here.
4. Selling everything makes it a lot easier at the
beginning (even though it's more expensive in the end)
Mitch and I decided to sell basically
everything and start over here in Puerto Rico. We have some boxes in my
parent’s shed (thanks again, mom & dad!), but other than that we turned to
places like Poskmark and ebay and KSL to sell a lot of our stuff.
This worked out SUPER well for us! Would I
do it again when we move from here in 4 years? Eh, probably not. But it brought
down the initial expense of moving here, which we liked.
We bought the necessities our first couple
days here, and now we are slowly buying stuff that we love. My parents have
been sweet enough to ship out 2 suitcases worth of items from our house and
that helped a lot as well.
For us, we loved getting settled with the
necessities and then figuring out what we “really” need, and either buying that
or bribing my parents to look for it in our stuff and send it to us!
5. ENJOY EVERY SECOND OF THE PROCESS
I will do another blog post that focuses more on the emotional side of the move for us, but I wanted to include this because it is such a HUGE thing and I wish I had done better at remembering this!
For every 3 things that go right in your plan, 1 goes wrong. It is so unbelievably
important to not lose your sense of humor! We tried our best to enjoy the
nights on the Costco air mattress with no AC, the fast food runs at midnight because
we forgot to eat dinner at a decent hour and had no food or cooking supplies, and
every uncomfortable moment in between!
To finish up, I asked my Instagram followers to share any advice that they may have on making a major move & I was so happy to see all of the replies! I honestly wish I had asked BEFORE we moved, but oh well! Here are a couple of my favorites:
- Live in the moment & be present (this one went right along with my number 5, but i'm writing it again because so many people sent it in and I couldn't agree more!)
- Donate as much as possible, it will be a win-win!
- Be involved in your new neighborhood and community
- Hold to old traditions while creating new routines (i loved this one!)
- Fall in love with the culture around you! Eat the food, learn the language, make new friends, etc!
- Walk, don't drive, around your city for the first couple of days. It will help you learn the area quickly.
- Make physical to-do lists or else you WILL forget something
- Work to make your home your safe place. You'll need it now more than ever with your new area being so foreign to you.
- Remember that it is okay to feel the negative emotions! Try to stay positive & remember how excited you were to be there!
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