Preparing for the Move

Well, one of the first things to do when preparing to move is dealing with utilities.  We set up utilities before we went out for April except for internet and phone because we mainly needed electric, gas and water/sewer only set up so far.  We also had to set up a post office box because when I called the city to set up the water and sewer she said, "what's the box number?" I said, "box number?" "oh, yes, well you do know there's no mail delivery to that address, right? You have to set up a box at the post office."  No we didn't know, and my mother-in-law was able to get us a box number so we could submit a mailing address and we just had to fill out some paperwork (no charge) and get the keys when we were back there in April.  In case you didn't know, Canada also has no Saturday mail delivery, which the US post has thought about doing, I guess Canada's ahead of it's time.

We now have internet and phone set up.  We have a one year commitment and they will let us change services up or down, but not cancel either for the year and there's a one year intro price. You have to change services for 6 months in order to re-qualify to have the first year prices again. We did not sign up for TV at this time because A) we aren't there (we got the phone so we can give people the phone number, we are on limited time to be able to keep giving out our WA number) and B) my father-in-law has been kind enough to wait around for various service people for us, the least we can do is get the guy some internet.  We're going to see how it goes on the same plan we are on now (no TV, just internet TV) and see how it goes. Considering it took a month or so to detox from TV, I think I want to see how it goes first to avoid another detox.  Also, the boys play way more video games than watch TV and Valerie's currently happy with DVDs.  The phone is local only with a very low, flat rate per minute for long distance.  The pricing between plans and all our other ways of communicating with family back in WA (Skype, etc.) means we'd have to burn through a lot of minutes before we needed to get the Us/Canada plan.  Most of our family in Canada is local, so it seemed like a good place to start (plus, we can change it later!)

As far as cell phones, we investigated US/Canada plans here in the U.S.  Canada has lots of regulation and not a lot of options as far as cell phone plans, also since Paul will be traveling back and forth for awhile, it made sense to get a plan that he could take with him that would treat Canada and the US as one big happy country for awhile. He was able to find an AT&T plan (Verizon also had one, but it was quite a bit more expensive. I've been a Verizon customer for about 12 years and they have GREAT coverage and I truly believe you get better coverage and service which is worth the cost, but AT&T's plan just better fit what we need right now).  We got two phones, one with keypad one without (I text more and like to keep my calendar on my phone) for $15 and $30 and they are prepaid.  This means, we use our credit card to prepay the bill for the month rather than after the month is up.  Because of this we were able to get out of having a contract which is great since we aren't yet sure this is the best option possible.  $45 in phones that we can take to another network is way better than early termination fees.  We dropped data, which I wasn't really using anyways, and texting is expensive... texts in Canada are .50 to send .25 to receive.  So my husband reminded me, "well, instead of texting, you could just call people, you know!"  We'll get 700 anytime minutes, 1000 nights and weekends (handy since nights for us are when our family in WA will be getting home from work) and free between AT&T subscribers (my parents and grandparents are on AT&T) AND the unused minutes roll over. I think we'll have plenty of minutes. 

So, the cool thing we sprung for on our home phone is one calling feature.... call forwarding... if we are out and about, my family in WA can call my US cell phone and it's just like calling like they used to.  We can have the home phone (Canadian number) forward to our US cell so our Canadian family can call our home phone number (Canadian) and it will forward to our U.S. Cell, but be treated like they called in Canada.  Pretty, sneaky, right?  Hopefully it works as well as we think it will. Plus, then family can reach us whenever we like. Only family, because we also sprung for an unlisted number.  I consider this the best moving present ever and hope it keeps telemarketers at bay for awhile!

Let's see, I also got all our utilities cancelled for the day after we move out (no dealing with annoying "what can we do to keep you?" conversations when they hear you are moving to Canada!)  I just have to call the homeowner's insurance once we close.

We've set up the movers as well, we're going UPack, which means we pack the truck  and they drive it.  You have the trailer (semi, not just a regular uhaul type) 3 days on either end and pay by space usage rather than weight like everyone else. it's about 1/3 of the cost of traditional movers, so we're springing for moving blankets ($8.75 each to Uhaul's $15 on UPack's site for a 12pack) and UHaul boxes . So far I've heard good things and a friend recently used them Indiana to Louisiana and suggested the blankets, but had good things to say.

Other than that, I'm just packing and procrastinating packing!