The Blog Post to Read if You're Planning on Moving with Kids
Planning on moving with kids?
Here’s how we made the choice to move. The decisions we made to ease the transition and provide stability and support to our family, our #1 goal.
After living in Baltimore for 8 years, our family is moving to Miami this summer! We could not be more thrilled, and are happy to share what worked for us, and the way we ultimately came to this decision.
We really took our time:
We fell in love with Miami right away on vacations, and many times said to ourselves “Wouldn’t it be amazing if we actually lived here?" We slowly took our time, analyzed the decision from all angles, and visited often for a while before finally deciding to make the move.
We spoke to professionals:
Leaving friends and family behind can be hard for anyone, as parents we strongly felt it was our responsibility to have the tools to help our kids navigate those feelings. Questions such as, "when to give in and how much", the amount of input our kids should have to ensure they felt comfortable and more were constantly on our mind . Speaking to therapists, expert parenting coaches, and people that have handled this before made us feel equipped to handle the hurdles along the way. It also ensured that our kids had a safe space within the family to share.
Being prepared also equipped us to not freak out anytime one of our children expressed fear or anxiety about the move, which is totally normal.
We talked to a LOT of people who had moved:
From friends who had moved, people in the different communities we were looking to settle in, and following social media and blogs of people that had made the decision, we really just GATHERED INFO. This was over a long period of time, but allowed us to have the information about schools, real estate trends, and more.
We established ourselves early on way before we moved:
Attending networking events, getting licensed for our businesses in Florida, making friends, work connections, and finding synagogues we liked was a major key in providing stability for our family. Getting our drivers licenses switched enabled us to vote, having an address here to apply for Florida residency benefits etc…
We made the big decision to get a place in Miami as a long term rental:
We decided any school vacation, or chance we got we wanted to be here, get familiar, and explore. We celebrated holidays, made friends etc... Having a home base allowed us to be part of the area, never have to pack much when catching a flight, and really made it feel like home. It went from “finding a hotel for our vacation… to “Hi Weingots, so good to see you again” as we entered our building.
We both work for ourselves which made a HUGE difference:
This is just sharing some info, obviously not a tip. But the fact that we both worked for ourselves and can do most of our work remotely, allowed this to be much more of a possibility than say, if we had to report to an office or find a new job. It can still totally be done and so many people find jobs and move, but this was definitely just a reality in our life that made it easier. And of course traveling back to Baltimore will become somewhat normal as well, nothing is fully remote.
We didn’t rush to buy:
As I’m writing this right now, we are currently still renting in our area. Mortgages are great and obviously we do plan on buying. However, there’s a time and place where renting is a smart move. What if we decide on a different community? What are the dynamics on each block, building, and area within the city we’re moving to? Time can be a beautiful thing and not being forced to rush a decision was something we felt made a lot sense for us.
We’re moving in the summer and our younger kids are going to day camp:
This way, they can make friends in a fun and easy setting, without the stress of homework, book reports, and teachers. It also gives us some time to be able to settle in before school begins and eliminates a lot of logistics of daily life while we transition.
We’re not moving a lot of stuff with us:
Spending time and effort moving possessions, packing it up, and unpacking it in your place is a lot to do. It’s costly, time consuming and therefore, you better make sure you’re only moving what you actually need and want. And lets face it, the dishes I bought 15 years ago were on their way out anyway :)
We are being honest that there WILL BE HARD MOMENTS:
There will be times where you or your family are homesick, misses out on something big in your old community, or the right house is just NOT showing up to buy on Zillow. Knowing that’s par for the course, having a positive attitude, and allowing your family to feel those emotions is something as I’m writing this I’m hoping we will be able to do.
Have you done something crazy in our life? A major decision or move? Let us know