I Made a Moving AND a Car Decision!

So, if you've been reading you know that I've been wrestling with the decision on how to (or whether to) move my crap from here in California to Dallas. I was weighing a couple of different options, but after a lot of number crunching I've decided that it makes the most sense to rent a PODS-like storage cube, pack it up, and ship it to Dallas.

I decided to go with ABF's U-Pack ReloCube because of their competitive pricing. Ultimately, it's going to cost me about $920 to get a cube that will fit a studio's worth of furniture and stuff from here to Dallas. I picked the door-to-door method, which is a little more expensive (but significantly more convenient and less stressful) than the terminal-to-terminal option. They will drop off a ReloCube (which is about 6' x 7' x 8') in front of my house, give me 5 days to fill it up, and then pick it up. 4 days later it will be in Dallas waiting for me when I get off of the plane!

Originally it seemed a little bit of a waste to me to pick to storage pod option, just because I didn't have enough furniture to fill my apartment anyway, and I would have ended up shopping for the big things (bed, couch, table, etc.) in Dallas anyway. However, my mother and my aunt both decided to redecorate rooms in their respective houses over the summer, so I now have pretty much everything I'll need at my disposal, so it ends up costing me less in a long run (and it's nicer furniture than I could afford on my own!).

ALSO, I've decided to wait until I get to Texas to get a new car. I think I've pretty much decided to go for a lease instead of a purchase, in an effort to keep my payments down and because I really don't know where I'll be in 3 years. I'm going to try to sell my car as a "Mechanic's Special" locally, and if I get $1,000 that's great. I'm thinking that my plan will be to arrange for the lease over the phone over the next month, and then when I land in Dallas go to the car lot and pick up my new ride. I'll just have to drive one of our family cars around until then.

I decided not to buy or lease here at home because if I went with a lease then 15% of my annual mileage allowance is used in the first month just driving out to Dallas, and that just didn't make sense to me. PLUS Texas has a lower sales tax rate than California, and they tax you on the cost of the car out the door (after rebates), rather than the sticker price (pre-rebate) like California does.

So, those are two huge weights lifted off of my shoulders. While I still have to get all of the details ironed out, it does make me feel so much better to at least have a direction in which I'm moving already worked out!