Epic Move: 55 Days

So, how goes the Hawaii move? Let's have a look:

• Vehicles: I've managed, through sale and theft, to rid myself of all but two vehicles by now. One Vespa is coming with me, and another will be sold shortly before we go. For now, it's my main mode of transport. Further, I've purchased a scooter in Hawaii that's already at a friend's house. If I can pull my shit together and get insurance on it, then he'll take care of getting it all registered and everything so it should be ready to go by the time we get there. I think we're going to look for a cheap-ish car when we get there too.
  
• Moving stuff: We're using PODS, which I've heard good and bad things about. I like that they bring the POD out to our house and leave it for a couple of days while we fill it, and then it magically appears on the other side after, in our case, a month. In case you're wondering, it currently costs about $3000 to ship a seven foot by eight foot POD from San Francisco to Honolulu. That's not a ton of space, but we don't have a ton of stuff. We've decided to get rid of all of our furniture, and start fresh. We'll be buying a couple of new items at IKEA before we go. There's no IKEA in Hawaii, and I like the idea of the furniture we do have being in flat, easily shippable containers. We'll get the rest of what we need there.
  
• Jobs: My job is going pretty well, I think. People seem to like the work I've been doing, and I've been working from home most days and have gotten pretty used to it, and I'm very productive while working from home. I think this will be an easy transition. The time zone change will be a little odd, but probably not too bad. Scotch is leaving her job. It's time for her to say goodbye to the corporate sector again and return to woodworking. There are apparently quite a few avenues for her to get in to it on Oahu, so we're optimistic that she'll find something that suits her before long.
  
• Home: This was a big win. Over the weekend, I found a short-term rental which is available from May 15th to August 15th. The owner is a teacher at UH and is renting out her house while she vacations on the mainland. It's a fully furnished two-bedroom house in town. She's cool with Rudy being there and the house has everything we need. When our POD arrives, it can go straight to storage, where we can visit our stuff whenever we want, until we find our permanent place. At that point, they'll bring it out to us. Neato. While in the temporary pad, we're going to make a good effort to find a place to purchase. A lot of factors are lined up right now: Low prices in Hawaii, super-low interest rates, a fat stimulus incentive, and lots of open places. Some rough math tells me that without much hit to our savings, we can probably own a modest condo in Honolulu for about $500 less than we pay in rent in San Francisco. I am really in to this idea. As the wise bard sings, "Buy some land... fuck spinning rims."
• Rudy: He's been cleared to land! All of his requirements were completed and we sent his paperwork to Hawaii a few weeks ago. I called them to verify that he can be released at the airport, so there will be no quarantine for him. Little man can go directly to the beach! He still has to go for one last vet appointment within two weeks of his arrival, so he can get a health certificate to bring with him.
  

So, we're looking good, I think. My main concern at the moment is switching banks. I don't know how to do this elegantly. For reasons I won't get in to here, I maintain two checking accounts and one savings account. They are all linked and they are all necessary.

I think the first step is to move all my auto-deducted bills over to my credit card so that nothing comes out of those accounts without me saying it should. Then I need to figure out a new bank. There are no banks in Hawaii that are also in California, so this is a little tricky. For the banks in Hawaii, you have to go in to the branch to open your accounts. Also, there's apparently a delay between when you make your first deposit and when your money is available to you... something like three weeks to a month, I'm told.

I'm thinking about using ETrade as my bank. They seem like the easiest way to go. They refund any ATM fees that you encounter, so I wouldn't have to worry about which bank I'm taking money out of. The only tricky part is deposits, which have to be mailed in. But, I'm pretty sure you can hook up an outside bank account and transfer money back and forth from there. So, I'll just get Scotch to add me to her Bank of Hawaii account and make all my deposits through them, then transfer to them out to ETrade. I'm sure there's a flaw in this plan somewhere, but I don't know what it is yet.

Stress level is reasonable right now. I feel like we're in the home stretch!