petitefrancaise

If you're getting a decent removals service (ie they're packing everything for you) and relocation service once here, I'd say that October is perfectly feasible. Took us 7 weeks from job offer and that included putting the house on the market, taking a week to visit relatives and getting the pets ready to go. Hubby and I had a 3 day visit to choose a rental house and get the kids registered in school so that when we landed they would be straight into school It was a tad stressful but that's to be expected and I reckon that giving yourself a tight deadline stops you dragging everything out. Get all the help you can and delegate everything you can.

kins

Um...

Started green card application process Jan 2007. Husband accepted job in US around Feb 2007. Husband moved out to the US to start his job April 2007 leaving me home with children age 5, 3 and 1, no childcare, a house to sell, and still no green card. Moved June 30th 2007. 'Sold' house before we left, but it then fell through three or four times so we actually finally exchanged contracts end of Aug 2007.

However I did not have a job which definitely helped, and once husband left the country the tax credit people decided I was now a single mother and gave me enough extra in tax credits to pay for two days a week of childcare. I used those days to do paperwork, make calls, arrange stuff.

My mother-in-law came to stay for my final week, and basically took over looking after children and ensuring we were all fed during that time, while I concentrated on getting the house packed and cleaned, hiring and filling the skip, giving away or selling a lot of our possessions, etc.

fozzyb

For us (Husband/wife/3yr old son)

Late June 2004 my boss asked if I would be interested in a secondment to the US.
Told my wife that evening. We carefully considered the decision for almost a whole second before deciding yes.
We got our visas mid September.
Arrived in US the week before thanksgiving (Late November)


Up until the last couple of days everything seemed to move at a snails pace (especially anything involving the HR department at work) but the the last week was absolutely manic.
We really should have planned the move better to give us more time at the end.
There were so many friends kept calling round to say goodbye (and giving us things...) that made everything take longer than I had mentally pictured.

My last day in the UK.
Woken up at 6AM by the removal men (they had packed everything the day before, then come the next day with the container to load).
Trips to the tip to get rid of some of the c**p that we didn't want to take and hadn't managed to give away.
Took the fridge round to a freind's house (his daughter was leaving home soon so needed things)
Another trip to the tip to get rid of the mattress.
Take car to dealer we were selling it to. Get paid in cash.
Jog to bank. Change cash to USD.
Jog to Avis to pick up hire car.
Back home, real struggle to pack all our carry on luggage into car.
Realise we still haven't taken washing machine and freezer round to friends - but no time to do so now - So drive round to his place and give him spare key to house to go collect.
Drop off other set of keys at the estate agents who was selling the house.
Dinner at Newport Pagnell service station. It has now started snowing. M1 is a crawl.
M25 is stop-start the whole way.
Arrive in hotel at Heathrow 11PM.
Still too buzzing to sleep properly.
Up at 6AM next day. Take 2 sacks of baby clothes round to a friend in London.
Drop off hirecar - shuttle to T3.
Time for a much needed beer at the airport before boarding flight to SFO.


Crazy thing is now 10 years later we are thinking of doing it all over again...

kodokan

Here's the 'final week' post I did on our family blog at the time (we were moving from Switzerland to the US):

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The clock is ticking…

Here’s our schedule for the next week:

Wednesday 5 – walk around the house putting things in the right rooms ready for packing. Create a ‘staging post’ of EVERYTHING we think we might need in the US for the first 2 months and therefore don’t want the movers to pack. Attempt to arrange this into vaguely suitcase-shaped piles. Stare in despair at the unfeasibly large amount of stuff, and ruthlessly go through it again, on the basis that there are lots of shops in the US and buying more stuff is probably cheaper than checking extra bags.

Thursday 6 – keep out of the way of the movers while they locust pack their way through the house. Regularly make them the Swiss equivalent of tea and biccies, which I’m assuming is cafetiere coffee and elegant pastries from our village shop. Attempt to keep the kids corralled in the living room on the promise of a 12-hour TV fest.

Friday 7 – see Thursday 6.

Saturday 8/Sunday 9 – spend as much time as we can in other people’s houses or out, as we’ll have next to no stuff, just mattresses, sofa, camping kitchen box and TV. Pack our ‘2-month’ suitcases, attempting to get some breakdown between stuff we need for the rest of the week/stuff we don’t need until we’re there, copy of server hard-drive in the hand luggage/copy of server hard-drive in the checked baggage, heavy stuff in hubby’s ‘I’m in your Frequent Flyer Club’ permitted overweight bags/light stuff in our ‘we never go anywhere’ bags. Try to persuade the kids to go sharesies on a big suitcase for their promised toy allowance space rather than have their own bags, as the cuddlies will muffle the rattling sound of the Lego.

Monday 10 – watch the movers load all our stuff into a large container. Apologise to the neighbours a lot for blocking the road. Stay in a hotel in Lausanne.

Tuesday 11 – spend the day lounging about the hotel or doing tourist stuff (hubby & kids); spend the day alternating between friends in the village for coffee, and nipping in the house to see how the cleaners are coming along (me – note, this is not idleness on my part; this is serious industrial cleaning, down to the ‘dismantle all the taps and clean all the washers inside’ level. Paying for Swiss cleaners is the only way we’ll ever see any of our deposit back again).

Wednesday 12 – check out of hotel in Lausanne and drive to hotel next to airport in Geneva to dump our 2-month suitcases. Drop the company-leased car back at the office (hubby & kids). Oversee the cleaners again in the morning if they didn’t get it all done on Tuesday. Meet the landlord at the house in the afternoon for the checking-out inspection. Take the meter reading, and enough cash, and get the bus to the electric company to pay the ‘can’t leave the country otherwise’ final bill. Get back on the bus, go to station, take train to the airport and the hotel (me). Have celebratory, very relieved slap-up meal (all of us).

Thursday 13 – fly to the US!

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That should give you a flavour of what lies ahead Of course, there was other stuff going on too - getting the vaccinations topped up to comply with the US schedule, cancelling health insurances and utilities, doing a final tax return, deregistering from our commune (local authority), getting the necessary paperwork notarised to cash out the Swiss pension, giving away all our 240v electrical stuff to other expats (there's whole 'cycle of karma' gifting that goes on there), etc etc etc. My kids were older than yours (11 and 7), but hey, I was doing it all in French - it's probably a wash, stress-wise!

BunnyGirl

Ha! These two bits had me in hysterics, this is exactly what I'm doing!

MsElui

we had a similar dilemma with air freight. the company gave us a container by sea for the normal stuff and a 6*6 box that could go air for immediate needs and would arrive within the week to use in our empty rental.

WhyteBoar

I think we had the offer confirmed in April; my husband moved at the end of June and I arrived in early August. We don't have children so I am sure that made things a lot simpler, but the short time frame, us not being able to secure a house before the move, and having two cats which were coming too, meant we moved in two stages.

It was a company move and hubby had to be in situ by 1st July, so he went in advance, at the end of June, found a house and set it all up and I stayed behind and closed everything at the UK end. We supposedly had help from a relocation company, but we found it easier a lot of the time to just do things ourselves.

We arranged for the sea freight to be packed in mid-June, so it could go as soon as possible. We were also given an air fright quota, and that went two days before I flew out.

I had a notebook which I used to make lots of lists of everything that had to be done/packed/paid/closed. I don't know what I would have done without that book.

JinxyCat

Hi again, thanks so much for sharing all of your experiences - I'm left with the impression that October is do-able - and that no matter when we went it will be stress inducing.

It's really good to get a flavour of everyone's experiences and @kokodan, I found your post very amusing, I think I too will be promising a TV fest and have already started making lists of 'things to keep out' and lists of lists to be made. *sigh*

SarahG

I moved with 2 kids (ages 4 and 6 at the time). From getting the visas in our passports (late August) to atually getting on the plane and leaving the UK (late October), it was around 2 months. I was working part time and gave notice the month before we left. We sold some stuff, my car, some furniture for example. Stored other stuff in my in-lawa attic and the attic of the house we own and rent out. Packed 6 cases of stuff and left. We did not ship anything and basically started from scratch when we arrived in the US. Husband was in US for 3 weeks before I arrived with kids so he could set up the apartment with stuff like beds etc.

FinnDiego

First one (UK->Canada) either two weeks or three months depending on how you look at things.

I flew out two weeks from getting my work permit through, but I had started sorting things out over the last couple of months once I had my job offer and gave notice at the old one. This meant I knew what movers I was using, where I was going, etc, but couldn't really book anything definite until the paperwork came through.

I learned my lesson and took three-four weeks when moving from Canada to the US!