As my husband so lovingly reminded me this morning, we have 25 days until the moving truck leaves our home headed to our new home. Yikes! That doesn't sound like a lot of time, I think it will be just enough.
My husband also reminded me that I need to finish up all my projects and save the big projects for after our move. I know he is right but part of me just wants to focus on my decorating projects and forget about the move. I know I can't do this, but a girl can dream. Since there is a lot involved with moving I thought that I would start a series dedicated to our move called Getting Ready for the Big Move Across Country.
I hope that you all will love this series. Today is part one, dedicated to gathering up all paper work needed from our current vendors.
When moving we all think of ordering our medical records from our doctors but did you know there are more vendors that you need to contact other than your doctor? Think of all the services you use monthly to even yearly. What about the eye doctor, vet, hair salon, or even your dentist?
I started out making a list of all vendors that we use and that I wanted my files from and to change our address with. Here is my list:
Doctor
Laura's Dentist
Chad's Dentist
Eye Doctor
Vet for Maggie
Vet for Stewie
Dog Microchip Company
Hair Salon
CPA/Tax Preparer
Insurance Agent
Next to each vendor I included their phone number and address, for my use now and future reference later. Some vendors will need up to 2 weeks to copy your file, so it is best to start early.
I contact each of our doctor offices to get a copy of our medical records. Note that they usually charge you per page copied, so if there are things that you don't want copied let them know. While contacting them I also had them give us prescriptions for all of our medications. I also made sure that I get all of our prescriptions filled prior to our trip, our doctor ordered 90 day supplies for us.
We also contacted our dentist to get copies of our records, especially our x-rays. I had just had my annual x-rays taken and knew that my insurance would not authorize another set this year, so I wanted to make sure we got them.
For some reason we started Maggie at one vet then when we got our second Cocker Spaniel Stewie we found a low cost vet for all of our needs. I never transferred over Maggie's medical record, so I had to call both vets to get their records. I also double checked to make sure that everyone was up to date on all their shots. It turned out that Maggie would be due for a shot just after we move, knowing that things would be crazy I had her shots done just before we left.
We had both of our dogs micro chipped with the local SPCA. I contacted them and got copies of our chip records and up dated our address and phone numbers. This way if the dogs get lost during our trip and are found we could be located.
Some of you may be thinking why would I want my file from my hair salon. I really love the colors that are used in my hair and wanted to make sure that my new stylist could use the same colors. My stylist currently uses Redken and recommended that I go to their web-site and look up stylist in VA that also use these products. She gave me the colors that she uses, the mixing formula, and how she cuts my hair when it short. I have really thick hair and wavy hair, it took us two cuts to figure out how to cut it so it would lay nicely. She included tricks to cutting my hair to help out the new stylist.
I contacted our CPA and got a copy of our last tax return, because I couldn't find it for some reason. I also let them know that we were moving out of the area so they won't spend money next year sending us the large tax preparation booklet.
Lastly I contacted our insurance agent. I wanted to see if we could continue our coverage to our new state and if they could recommend a new insurance agent. They gladly recommended a new agent. We were able to keep the same company and our rates went down a little bit. Our insurance company even sent us a moving packet with some useful tips and tricks.
The next part will be organizing and decluttering our home prior to the big move.
