5 Pearls For A Cross Country Move.
People think moving cross country is easy.
As simple as renting a U-Haul and putting on a Willie Nelson record.
People are wrong.
Moving sucks. What you don’t know can cost you thousands.
5 Pearls For A Cross Country Move.
#1 What’s my margin of safety?
When most people move, they look at the raw dollar amount, it will cost them to:
Rent the truck
Stop at hotels along the way
Fill the gas tank with fuel for two cars
If you’re feeling bold, you might even look at the cost of shipping a vehicle.
But there is more at play here.
Let’s say you move in late June. Your resident salary is $6K per month and your expenses are $3.5 K per month. You now have $2.5K out of which you need to save a buffer in case your new institutions paycheck is delayed.
You may also have unexpected furniture or electronic expenses in July as you are getting settled into your Fellowship.
Since your free time is going to be limited at your next job, you will be prone to make impulse purchases for fear of not having time later on.
Here’s some more unexpected issues that will give you heart burn:
You could find yourself in a car accident.
Your toddler could get sick along the way.
Your toddler might fall down the stairs while your back is turned.
Did you consider the cost of hiring a babysitter to watch your child while you are unpacking at your destination? Give yourself a three-month financial cushion for the uncertainties of the move.
If you run out of cash before your fellowship (or your next paycheck), will you use credit card debt?
If that is your plan, then expect to pay an insane 35 to 60% interest rate while you catch up on payments. Planning ahead could save you far more in potential credit card interest.
When people carry credit card debt, what are they paying for? They are paying a tax on themselves for poor financial planning.
Don’t be that guy.
#2 How will I keep my family safe?
In Summer 2020 I finished my residency prepared to move my family south cross-country to Houston, Texas.
This happened to be the peak of the first wave of lockdowns in the United States and overlapped with civil unrest following the murder of George Floyd. You could feel tension in the air. We were driving through the rural South.
We were scared.
In a cross country move, you need to do a logistics assessment at least six months in advance. You should forecast the route and make a dry run. Use this time to trim your belongings as much as possible.
Do a quick scouting trip the January before you move. Study the lay of the land. Look at apartments and daycare. Get an idea of where the commuting bottlenecks are. Locate the nice grocery stores are and plan your living situation around them.
Put these details on a list before you head down to your destination.
Divide your list into personal and professional items and errands. Everything you get down on paper will be less anxiety to deal with in mid June when you have time constraints.
In a new city we can expect to feel anxious. And when we are anxious about our surroundings, we are more likely to make mistakes. This could be:
Leaving the car door unlocked
Forgetting your keys in the car
Forgetting to charge your phone on the first night you get there
In my past life, I was a medical officer for a logistics battalion in the US Marine Corps.
Logistics officers are the most compulsive planners I have ever met. With field exercises and large movements of personnel, every detail was prepared months in advance through a series of briefs.
And briefs about briefs.
And briefs of pre-briefs about future briefs.
Some days I wanted to jump out of a window. It grew tedious to recite the same slides about medical readiness and casualty evacuation plans, day after day, for my chain of command. Years later as a civilian I now see the benefits of compulsive preparation.
It afford you the ability to relax and think creatively.
Proper planning lets you go on offense.
#3 What is the worst case scenario?
Along your scouting trips and map-reading sessions you would have a better understanding of the neighborhoods at your destinations as well as the locations of hotels or Airbnb sites along the way. In Houston for example, we were coming before hurricane season, which was great.
It was also the peak of summer.
Would we be prepared if the vehicle air conditioning broke down midway through the drive? What about flat tires?
Was the AAA membership up-to-date?
Did we have an emergency canteen of water in both cars?
What about funds in a health savings account in case the baby gets sick during the drive?
You decided to ship one of the cars, but what happens if the shipper does not show up on time? What if your car doesn’t show up on time?
It’s good to talk through the situation with your spouse months in advance. She will appreciate the insight and will provide additional research. For example, I hadn’t thought through the potential construction zones along the way. My wife raised the concern one evening over dinner. So we got maps of cities along the way.
If you have a AAA membership, you can ask one of the agents to prepare a TripTik. This is included in your services. The agent will give you a packet with maps and turn by turn driving instructions.
I remember using AAA TripTik as a kid taking road trips with my family across the United States. Good times.
Keep paper maps in your vehicle in the event your cell phone battery dies or the GPS goes out of range. Having thought through these situations in advance, you can sit back and enjoy the drive.
#4 What’s the dumbest thing we could do here?
I’m not asking you to demean yourself in the spirit of tactical logistics.
But take a look around and see what pinch-points other residents and junior attendings have had as they settled into new cities.
A common one, during the post 2008 bonanza of cheap credit, was home ownership. Many physicians-in-training buy homes when they move to a new city under the false belief that it is a good investment. It is only a good investment if you buy low and sell high, and don’t have any major mishaps in between.
Leave the home-flipping to the professional investors.
You are barely cutting your teeth as a working doctor and you don’t want the added stress of trying to sell a house under pressure.
The next major factor is your job and location satisfaction. You may end up not adjusting well to your city. You may dislike you new department.
Be patient.
I have seen this time and again with residents and fellows. Buy a house or a condo, but then their lives change. Humans consistently underestimate the degree to which we will change over time (Gilbert, Harvard University). And that’s without the transformative years of medical training.
But if you know yourself, you can use this fundamental human trait to your advantage.
Keep your living situation flexible so you can pivot on a moments notice.
There’s a line in the movie Heat, where De Niro’s character talks about the code he lives by.
“Don’t have anything in your life that you can’t walk away from in 30 minutes flat in case the heat comes down.”
That line gets me amped.
You might not need to take it to that extreme. You are a doctor, not a bank robber. But the mindset is appealing during those training years.
Live lean.
#5 Who is on standby?
We live in a hyper-connected yet hyper-individualistic society. My residency class was pretty tight. We all helped each other pack. But if you were moving to a new city, you won’t know anyone. So what will you do?
You can ask a close friend or family member to fly down as a standby.
You may not need them for anything. But what happens if the movers don’t show up? Most movers are small businesses still run by fax machines. Since the summer is the busiest time to move, date and time coordination can easily fall apart in the shuffle.
This exact scenario happened to us during our move to Houston.
We arrived in the city after two solid days driving. We showed up at our apartment near the Texas Medical Center. Let me tell you.
We were exhausted.
Houston was hot and sweaty. Even the lizards on the sidewalk were sweating. Moisture trickled down the window glass as the air conditioner heaved in full effort.
We crashed for the night on some air mattresses at our new place. The next day we woke up in preparation for the movers who should have been there to unload our 6 x 12 foot trailer by 9:00 AM.
Would you believe it.
I had a bad feeling about the whole thing so I started unloading the trailer myself. I figured they were running late and after an hour or so they would roll up and finish the job. I came inside for a water break and called them. The dispatcher had no idea what happened.
I could hear his hot breath of stupidity on the other line.
In 4-hours of steady work with a lunch break where I slammed a green smoothie and collapsed in the glorious air conditioning.
The dispatcher called somewhere in between.
Dispatcher: I’m real sorry Sir. Can we come tomorrow first thing?
Me: That won’t be necessary Pablo.
Dispatcher: You unloaded the entire 6x12 by yourself?
Me: Yes, have a pleasant evening.
Dispatcher: And you’re not mad?
Me: Of course I’m mad. Just refund my money and we can forget the whole thing.
Fortunately I had been jogging and lifting all spring and had built up some decent aerobic capacity. Fitness is a helpful wild card for these type of life events.
You can never be too prepared.
3DEEPERCUTS