213: Moving Smarter: Managing Costs and Adjusting to a New Life

Welcome to The Wealthy Mom MD Podcast, a podcast for women physicians who want to learn how to live a wealthy life. In this podcast you will learn how to make money work for you, how you can have more of it, and learn the tools to empower you to live a life on purpose. Get ready to up-level your money and your life. I’m your host, Dr. Bonnie Koo.

Hey everyone, it’s been a while. If you’re a regular listener, first, thank you, and then you may have noticed that it’s been a few weeks. It’s been a minute. Well, a lot has been going on, and if you’ve been following me, you may know that we moved from New Jersey to Tampa. And pretty much right after the movers, the truck came, four days later, I went to Greece for a month. In fact, I think it was five weeks. 

So there’s been a lot of change. There’s been a lot going on, and I was thinking about recording an episode about all the financial aspects of moving and any tips I could share with you, but really, all I can say is that moving is really freaking expensive, and there’s really no way around it. 

Well, obviously, there is, but what I have learned is, number one, I’m no longer in college. I cannot move by myself like I used to. And Matt’s job gave us a pretty generous relocation allowance, and let me tell you, I used it all up, most of it anyway. We probably have a few thousand dollars left. 

But what I did was I hired full service movers, and so what that means is they packed, they moved, but I didn’t have them unpack because I hired organizers that came that fully unpacked, put all the boxes away, put everything away, and then I think they were here for like three days because they had to unpack, and then they had to organize by room. 

And let me tell you, that was the best money I’ve ever spent. I could not imagine having to put all of it away by myself because, let’s just face it, Matt probably wouldn’t have helped that much and he doesn’t really know where things go, and this is not a skill I’m very good at, right? I totally could have DIY this, but again, I’m so, so glad that I spent the money on it, plus it got reimbursed, so that was amazing. 

Now this move was prompted by a pretty sudden job offer for Matt in Florida. As you know, I work remote and so I really could move or live anywhere, I guess. I will say I do not enjoy or have not enjoyed all the logistical challenges of moving states, you know, like getting a new license, having to register the cars, and moving my LLC from New Jersey to Florida, all that kind of stuff. However, we are definitely excited about no state income taxes, and we moved into a much bigger place that is cheaper than what we were paying in New Jersey. 

But here are a few things that I’ve learned, and keep in mind that I have literally slept in this new house for maybe two weeks total when I’m recording this, okay? So there’s way too much space, which to me means a few things. One is there’s way more opportunities for Jack to leave a mess. There are more toilets to clean, and there are just more ways for things to get disorganized and for dust to collect. 

And we didn’t have, at least in my opinion, I don’t think we had a lot of stuff to begin with. And we pared down even more after the organizers came, because I just noticed I really don’t need this, I really don’t need this. And it’s something that I think all of us strive for, is to become a bit more, I don’t think minimalistic is really what I’m striving for, but like not having things that I don’t need, right? I definitely don’t want stuff that I don’t really need. And so moving has been a great opportunity to pare down and get rid of a lot of things. 

And so here are a few things I’ve noticed about living in Tampa, Florida so far. It’s very different from New Jersey and here are the things that I specifically have noticed. The water here is very different. And having lived mostly in Northern New Jersey and New York City for pretty much my whole adult life, the water isn’t soft in New Jersey or New York, but it’s nowhere near as hard as in Florida. 

A lot of stuff was covered with limescale, the dishwasher. And the water just smelled funny. I think it smelled like sulfur and I could tell right away that there’s something weird about the water. And maybe you know, hard water, very hard water is not good for your skin. It’s not good for your hair. It’s not good for appliances or pipes. It just clogs everything. 

And so I have had to do a few things. I had to get a water conditioner/softener installed. We also got reverse osmosis installed for drinking water. I had to do a deep cleaning of the dishwasher twice with citric acid. I love citric acid as a cleaning agent, it does wonders and dissolves limescale. 

And so I did it twice and now the dishwasher works again and it actually cleans because Matt was like, oh, this dishwasher isn’t very good. It’s not really cleaning the dishes. And it wasn’t, which is annoying. It’s like, why have a dishwasher if it doesn’t actually wash your dishes? 

Okay, so the water is different. I’m recording this in early August and it is very hot down here. It’s very humid, although I haven’t spent a ton of actual time outside. It’s mostly going from home to the car, to drop off points for Jack or something and then back into the car. But what I have noticed when I go outside, it’s so damp. I feel like my feet are wet as soon as I go outside. 

And that’s another thing, the humidity. For the first time, I have had to buy things called damp rid, and maybe most of you know what that is. But it’s like this thing you hang up in the closet that absorbs extra humidity. I had to get like a tiny dehumidifier for our bathroom because it just wasn’t really drying up. 

And the last thing I will say about Florida is that because of the move, I’ve had to call a lot of places to help me with things like make sure I have everything in order to apply for a new driver’s license, which is actually tomorrow. What do I need to register the car? Make sure I don’t forget any documents. 

Let me tell you, everyone I’ve talked to has been amazing. So nice and so helpful and genuinely want to be helpful. I will tell you, that is not the case in New Jersey. In fact, I do recall a specific conversation I had with the New Jersey business department about LLCs, and this lady was so rude and downright mean to me. And basically said she was not going to help me and that it was my fault. And I forget what was the deal, but I ended up having to hire a lawyer to deal with it because I was like, I’m not dealing with this. 

But so far in Florida, everything has been actually really easy. And that is something I have found very pleasantly surprising. Now, with the move there has been a change of income in terms of Matt, change of benefits. And then also I am making slightly more because of the no state income taxes. And so this was a really great opportunity to kind of reevaluate our spending plan and our goals and to just make some new goals. 

And so what that means is I sat down, I have a spending plan template and I kind of just listed all the things that we would need to pay for. Kids are really expensive. It’s on me that I chose a private school for Jack, but he does get a lot of extra support like speech and OT. And he needs to get some catch-up tutoring because he’s transitioning from a Waldorf school to a mainstream school. 

And so I put all that in, right? And I already have, you know, pre-selected categories that aren’t really changing, but maybe the amounts are changing and all that kind of stuff. And this is something that I think it’s so easy to not do. And a few episodes ago I had Nick True, I think it actually was maybe in June. 

And if you skipped that episode, it’s episode 211, I really encourage you to listen to it. Nick, I just love that guy. He is so good when it comes to cash flow and spending plans, AKA budgeting. And we talk about it in a way that maybe you haven’t heard before. And so I really encourage you to listen to that episode. 

I always love connecting with Nick. I’ve known him for quite a few years right now. And it’s so easy as higher income women to kind of think that looking at our budget or how we spend our money is really not that important because we don’t run out of money. Assuming that your checking account doesn’t go negative and you’re not able to pay your credit card bills in full, then you’re “fine,” right? 

And you totally might be. But there’s so much wisdom and power in knowing actually where your money is going. And it’s not just to know where your money is going. It’s like stepping back, how do we want to live? What do we want our lives to look like? And what is the spending plan that’s going to support that? That’s why I love spending plans and I love looking at how I spend my money every week. 

I use this budgeting program called YNAB. I'm sure you guys have heard me talk about it a lot. And so I was doing a lot of YNABing, looking at the spending and honestly delighted that we’re going to have disposable income. But I also had to keep in mind that that didn’t mean that we were just going to spend the difference, okay? 

Like we are saving money on renting right now, but we probably want to buy a home in a few years. Although I will say right now in Florida, we just went through, it wasn’t a hurricane, it was a tropical storm, but it was almost going to be, I think, category one, I may have gotten the categories mixed up. 

But basically, apparently it’s a no big deal rainstorm, but Matt and I thought it was going to be a big deal. But I guess, you know, for Florida, it’s like, oh, this is just a rainstorm. But there was a lot of rain and there’s all these ponds and lakes in Florida, and I have no idea why. And some of them got really full around me. So I’m just guessing that flooding can definitely happen when it rains a lot more. 

Anyway, I digress. Any opportunity I think that sort of forces you to reflect and think about how you want your life to go or keep going is always a good idea. It’s so easy to kind of go on autopilot and be like, just not think about it, right? And did I mention how expensive it is to move? 

I talked about all the moving expenses, but then you got to buy all this stuff for the new place, right? Like I had to buy bath mats. I had to buy, every day I noticed there’s something else I have to buy. Our old place had these shades that went up and down and they were pretty nice. We lived in a luxury high rise building and now we live in a townhome. And so there are blinds installed, but I bought curtains for all the windows. The landlord left the curtain rods, thank God. And so, but I needed curtains. I guess I didn’t need to, but otherwise it just looks kind of weird without curtains, right? 

Now, a bunch of people have asked me why I didn’t buy a place. Although if you’ve known me for a while, you know that I’ve pretty much, yeah, I’ve always rented. I’ve never actually owned a home. Isn’t that crazy? And this is something I’ve been thinking about a lot because it’s one of those things that’s kind of accepted culturally, socially, I don’t know what you’d call it, that one should own a home as an adult and that’s like a thing that you do. 

And I’ve personally, it’s not that I’ve always questioned it. I think it’s honestly how I personally grew up. We only lived in a house that my parents owned once, otherwise we’ve always lived in pretty small apartments and we moved a lot. And that was because of the shifting financial landscape of how my parents were doing. And so I’m sure it would have been different if I sort of lived in the same home that my parents owned for most of my childhood. 

And of course I’ve heard all the things about why you shouldn’t rent and why you should own, et cetera. And I personally love renting. I love the freedom it affords me. I love that if something breaks, it’s generally not my responsibility. And moving to a completely new place where I don’t know anything, like truly don’t know where anything is, people talk about these things, I have no idea what they’re talking about. You know, it gives us time to figure out where we want to live. 

Now, moving sucks and moving to our new townhome, and now I’m like, okay, if we move again in like two years, we figure out where we want to live, we know we’re going to stay here, that feels daunting. But it’s very different from a long distance move and I’ll deal with that later, right? 

But I’ve already noticed a few things like, oh, this might not be the best area for us long-term. And I don’t really know. I think we have to see how things are when Jack starts school. But if we decided to buy right away, obviously we would have taken our time to really figure that out. But I feel like, how do you really know if it’s the neighborhood you want to live in without actually having spent time there? 

I don’t know, but we would definitely love the option to buy if we felt we were ready to do so. And so that has to go in the spending plan too for like a down payment, or we’d have to pull from investments. It’ll probably be a combination of all of the above. 

The last thing I wanted to say about Florida is the sun. Y’all know I’m a dermatologist, right? Because I have had to rethink some of my habits. Living in New Jersey, it’s not that it doesn’t get sunny, but it’s not something I have to think about year round, really just for the summer. And so here are a few things that I’ve had to institute and change. 

Okay, number one is I have bought these stick-on sunshades for the windows. I guess I could get like a UV coating, but honestly right now I just can’t deal with any big projects at this point, nor do I want to spend thousands of dollars doing that for the two cars that we have. And so I bought these little stick-on window shades that you can easily stick on and remove so when I’m driving, you know, I’m not getting all this sun to the left side of my face. 

And obviously I always wear sunscreen every day, and here I am double layering. And what that means is first I apply a layer of chemical sunscreen followed by physical sunscreen. And the products that I currently use, although it changes from time to time, I'm currently using La Roche-Posay. I think it’s called Mela-C, M-E-L-A dash C. And it’s specifically for if you have melasma or pigmentation, et cetera. Right now I’m using EltaMD UV Elements, and then I also mix it with a little bit of the IT Cosmetics CC Cream to give a bit more coverage. 

And I wear a hat. And in fact, I put hats everywhere. I bought all these visor hats. I have one in my car. I have one in the little hallway by the garage/front door because you need to wear a hat here because it’s just sunny all the time. And I’m always having to put on sunscreen on my neck and my chest because the neck and the chest are the areas that women tend to not put sunscreen on. And those are constantly, constantly exposed. 

In fact, I even ordered this sun shrug with sleeves to leave in the car. It hasn’t arrived yet, but I’m just noticing that these are the things I’m going to have to really pay attention to because I will be doing, well, I don’t know. I’ll probably be doing some more driving here with commuting to Jack’s school and whatnot, and so I’ve had to really up my sun protection game. 

And I have my brush on sunscreen that I carry in my purse for touch-ups. I don’t think they’re a good idea to use as your primary source of sunscreen, but they’re great for reapplying. When I’m at the beach, I honestly just reapply the cream. And specifically, right now I use Isdin I-S-D-I-N. I don’t know exactly the type, but it’s their shakable tinted sunscreen. That’s what I wear at the beach and I reapply. 

And I do actually really enjoy being at the beach. In fact, I went to the beach a lot in Greece. I think I’m gonna have to do a whole separate episode about my experience in Greece, being there with other families, being there with mostly entrepreneurs and just sort of like what I’ve learned there and all that stuff and how it was a month of rest in terms of my business. 

I spent very little time working in or on my business, although that wasn’t exactly planned. I was going to do some work, but it just ended up not really happening. So that will be another episode for sure. 

But these are my thoughts so far about the move from New Jersey to Tampa, I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you for sticking around and I will see you soon.

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