I’ve been thinking about our upcoming cross country move alot…so I’m going to blog about it so I’ll quit stressing about it so much. 

So we’ll be moving to California by the end of the summer. I prefer to move after August 31st when our lease ends (we won’t be getting a temporary lease because I just asked my landlord to extend it by a few months because I need to finish up a few things), but we might move before that if one of us gets a job between June and the end of August. Ideally we’d like to move to Los Angeles. My top pick is Santa Monica. Second pick is Pasadena next to the Dervaes family. The pessimist inside me says that we’ll probably wind up in Compton because we’re ghetto and we always live in the ghetto. I also want to work in an industry that has values I agree with. I plan on being an employee for a few more years while I’m transitioning into a self-employed person…so for now I’m making goals based on staying an employee. If we don’t get a job by August, we’re moving and going to start temping. I’ve written to a few people I "know" online and their responses on temping was very encouraging.

According to my calculations we’ll have about $11,000 saved up for our move which will be just for living expenses when we get to CA. I will also have more than $9,000 in open credit if I really need it in some sort of dire emergency. I’m saving up for the actual move plus interview flights (and thus, subsequent polar bear deaths) separately.  We’ll actually be moving without taking any of our stuff. Our furniture is either second hand, too cheap to move or picked from the trash. Our clothes fall into the same category. We don’t own anything of value that’s worth moving, so all of our stuff (composter, beer making supplies, computers) will be given away or sold come August. I’m taking Chile’s Cut the Clutter challenge to the max.

I am just really worried about getting a job (or my husband getting a job). I keep thinking back to the days when I just got my work permit and how incredibly stressful it was to look for jobs and not make any headway for months. By job I mean something stable, and full time. While I’ve been a waitress and worked at all sorts of food establishments and cleaned toilets, and babysat babies….I really don’t want to do that right now after taking this gamble and going into debt for a college degree.

True, everything turned out well, but the possible lack of cash flow makes me panic. And I’ve been chopping away at my student loans for a while now, and I don’t want to stop. But I’m willing to put it into deferral temporarily.  

Once we do get to CA, we’ll need to get a bed/futon pronto. Everything else can wait. We’ll probably need an apartment too, so if we don’t have jobs lined up, we’ll be living in the cheapest (and probably crappiest) place we can get a hold of.  At least freezing to death will not be likely.

I do want to move. I am really tired of this city and want a change from the east coast living. I would really like repeated days of glorious weather. I think it will be fun to live in a place so close to the ocean not be cold for much of the year. I’d like a new city to explore. And we’ve waited for this move long enough. Its high time we just did it.