I guess that time in my life, packing up everything into the car and moving to Mexico, is on my mind because I’m selling that house and my same trusty handyman Jay is there right now doing some repairs just like he was last year. Hi Jay (if you’re watching)! I moved from Oregon to Mexico one year ago, disassembled my house there, packed up my car and drove my two dogs and I into Mexico. With no set destination really. 

There is a lot to do when you’ve made the decision to move to Mexico, or any foreign country. For me it took about 2 months from when I decided to go, to the day I set off.  There are so many details, from visas to your banking and cell phone. But in this video I’m mainly talking about what I think is the hardest part: the physical part of dissolving one household and moving what you’ve decided to take with you to the new place.

It’s an exciting time! And all of you who are in the middle of it right now: it is worth it! And it’s not easy but you’re doing it and you are going to be so glad you did!  Like I said, I think it’s one of the hardest parts of transplanting yourself, at least in the top 3, but if you’re excited about what you’re doing, you know the big picture of moving and starting a new life somewhere else, that excitement can sustain you and keep you going.

When I left Oregon one year ago, I had many doubts and many fears, but I would have done almost anything to make this big change so I was very motivated!

Maybe I’ll make a timeline, because there is so much to take care of and it’s complicated! But for now let me just tell you my story and how I did it.

I was never anything like a hoarder in Oregon but I had a three bedroom house with most of the normal things people have in their houses. And that’s a lot of stuff! 

And enough had happened in the world that, I wasn’t paranoid, but at the time I was thinking I should be prepared for whatever could happen.  I wouldn’t have called myself a real prepper, I didn’t have a ham radio or the latest go bag, but I was aware and cautious enough about everything from an economic collapse, another pandemic, societal upheaval, natural disaster, or whatever to try to be prepared to stay in the house and take care of myself and the dogs if something like that should happen.  So I had a lot of non perishable food, dogfood, things like soap and toothpaste and shampoo, that I could use for a while if anything came up.

So when I decided to drive to Mexico, obviously I stopped buying food and those things, and I tried to use as much as I could. In the end I gave a lot of canned food and things away, and the smaller things that I knew I could use like soap, toothpaste etc.. I packed in the car with me because they are smallish and I knew they wouldn’t go to waste.

I still have some of that stuff and I haven’t had to buy anything like that in Mexico just because I was sort of a prepper in Oregon.

With 2 big dogs and I there was only so much I could take in the car.  I had taken off and left home   before, like to go sailing for 6 months, but on those kinds of trips I had always planned to come back, set up a home again and go back to work. I certainly didn’t want to have to buy everything all over again if (god forbid) I had to come back to the States and start working again. So the question was: keep essentials in storage? Or really get rid of everything. The only other choice is to have a moving company take your household things all the way across the border and to your new home when you get settled.  I think the prevailing wisdom on the internet is to just get rid of everything if you’re planning to move permanently, and just buy new stuff in your new home. 

I didn’t even know where my new home would be yet, I didn’t know if my plan to move to Mexico would really work out. Maybe I’d run out of money and I’d have to move back. Maybe I would hate it and have to move back. I was trying to be honest with myself about the possibilities! There were many variables that could include the possibility of moving back, though that was the last thing that I wanted! I’ve kept my RN license active too, as a precautionary measure,  though that costs money as well.

I calculated how much a small storage locker would cost for 2 years and see if that was more or less than the cost of the things I wanted to keep. It was less. Maybe I was overvaluing my possessions but I thought if I kept these things for 3 years or less in storage, it would be worth it to me to keep them. If it went beyond that then it was a foolish mistake. It kind of changed things when 2 months after I got the storage unit they raised the price by a significant amount! But what’s done is done.

So I have a storage room in Oregon with my favorite things in it. Whether I get it down here to Mexico… I don’t know yet, but I’m hoping so.

So once I made that decision everything else in the house had to go. It’s a great upheaval of a life, as anyone who’s ever moved long distance will tell you. I had moved many times in my life, but moving to a different country was different. From all your papers, financial, insurance, taxes, whatever, to furniture and appliances, you have to go through everything and part with it, one way or another.

I put a few pieces of furniture on Craigslist and FB to try to sell. That went pretty well and gave me a few bucks. But there were plenty of things that wouldn’t sell that I ended up giving away. No one wants your stuff!  The things you’ve spent money on, the things you’ve shopped for, they are probably junk to most people!

So the goodwill and salvation army got a lot of it. Or, I’d post it for free online and tons of people were into that.  My house was visited by strangers everyday to pick things up and take them away. Slowly the house got more and more empty, and that was weird but gratifying in a way. My plan was coming to fruition and the difference in my space was a visual reminder that I was doing it!

Depending on how motivated you are, this process could take weeks or months. And for some people it’s a very emotional thing, to let go of loved possessions. But I had lost my job, and every week I stayed in that house, paying the mortgage and the bills, without working, was an expense that I didn’t want! I wanted to be on the road to Mexico! So I was pretty motivated. 

If you are thinking about a move overseas, maybe down the line, even 5 years from now or whatever, it’s not too early to consider that possible move when you’re living your life now. Do you really want to buy that new living room chair? Do you really need a new set of pots and pans? It feels good to be light, but what doesn’t necessarily feel good is the work and effort it takes to get that way. Many of us are bogged down by so many possessions and when it comes time to move, it’s not that fun to get rid of them.

If you are someone who went through a marriage and got a lot of household stuff as gifts like good china and silverware, or you inherited art or furniture from your family or parents, this could be a significant move in your life. Consider what these things really mean to you, and don’t add new things as you go!

However, there are some things that you can’t necessarily rush. I was lucky to get an appointment with the Mexican consulate in Portland within a few weeks. Some people are not so lucky, and if you’ve decided to get temporary residency you NEED to get the first part done in the United States, or whatever country you’re leaving. I was lucky that it all went so smoothly because Portland was a 4 hour drive away! The lady at the consulate made it very simple. By email, after I had asked for an appointment, she said send her all my documents proving I could qualify for temporary residency by email, then once she got that and could see that I was prepared, we set an appointment time for me to go there.  I had looked into flying to Vegas or Salt Lake or anywhere on the west side of the country to make it faster or easier but Portland turned out to be the consulate for me.

So once I got that done it was about a month or 5 weeks after I had gotten laid off. The only other thing that I absolutely NEEDED to do before leaving (besides getting rid of everything and packing) was to rent out that house. The mortgage payment alone was more than all my expenses every month in Mexico put together. There is no way that I could pay that without a tenant in the house.

I’m lucky that that too went very well. As I was getting rid of all my things, I researched and came up with an application and a rental agreement for an Oregon tenant. I put the house up for rent and got several qualified tenants that wanted it right away. I chose one and we set the date for their move in. That would be the day I was leaving!

Meanwhile, getting rid of stuff, getting my car serviced and checked out with a new battery, making sure I had all the dogs’ vaccination records, investigating how I could use a phone in Mexico, telling my banks I’d be going, setting up a mail service etc.. I also had the house painted and some other little repairs done for the new tenants. Which by the way were two 7 foot tall Russians who were the first to apply for the house. Ok maybe I’m exaggerating and they were 6 and a half feet tall, but they made an impression at the time and they were great tenants! I found out later that one was Russian and the other Ukrainian running a business together. Anyway, they proved to be very reliable.

So now, I had an actual leave date! And it was only a couple of weeks away! Anxiety crept in to overpower my excitement. Fear would bug me when it was late and I was tired. I made myself a deal: I could think about risks and contingency plans during the daylight, but once the sun went down fear was not invited into my thoughts anymore. Anyway, I was investigating driving routes and border crossings!

I spent some time making sure that my most important papers and documents were on a hard drive I have for that purpose. Good to have at least one copy of that sort of thing digitally. If you only have a few documents you can scan (most phones now can scan papers so you don’t even need a scanner!) and send them to yourself on email, that way, even if something happens to your hard drive or your physical document, you could access your email anywhere and have those copies.

Photos are another thing you can make digital. I guess most people do this anyway, but if you’re carrying around a bunch of photo albums it’s time to simplify!

If you have an actual physical movie or music collection, or books, or a collection of really anything at all, you have the option of having a digital collection to streamline your life.

To go, one day working and living a normal life, not knowing anything’s about to change, to making a decision to leave the country and be on the road 2 months later was… stressful? Amazing? Exciting? All of those things!  I felt a little guilty for taking my two dogs on a long journey and facing all that driving, but for me this change was absolutely necessary and to stay in the same life I had been living, would have been the end of me. So we were going. It never entered my mind to not take them with me.

My biggest regret about how I did all this and moving day was that I crammed too much into the last day. Way too much. It sounds so foolish now, and it was. I was cleaning the house, packing the car, taking my bed to the storage facility, signing the rental contract with new tenants, AND driving 6 hours to see my son in California. Crazy. And I only stayed one stressed out night in Santa Rosa to see my son. At a creepy hotel. I really regret that. But money was on my mind and also momentum. I couldn’t afford to be wasting any money on nice California hotels and I thought the sooner I get to Mexico the sooner I’ll be saving money. But it wasn’t a nice long visit with my son. By the time I got to the creepy hotel, late, I was exhausted and frazzled. My son was a good sport about it, but if I had to do it over I’d stay another day or two and not at the creepy hotel!

In my car I had packed everything I wanted to take of course. The two dogs had the back seat, and I had the passenger seat and the trunk to use for our stuff. I made use of every inch. I wanted to set up a new home in Mexico of course, so I wanted to take things like kitchen stuff, a couple of towels, and one set of sheets (which turned out to be super useful!). What I didn’t think through was that I was going to be exploring in my car for months, who knows how long? So most of those things never left the car in the first 6 months as we moved from place to place. In the first 6 months in Mexico we moved every 1-4 weeks, looking around,  so I didn’t unload pots and pans and all that stuff into our short term rentals. I didn’t unpack all that until Six months later when I decided we should rest for a while here near Patzcuaro for a few months. Anyway, in most cases I was glad I brought what I could.

Then we were on the road! That first night in Santa Rosa, the second night near Palm Springs, then a night near the border at Nogales, and then we crossed. Crossing the border is a whole nother story! I don’t regret bringing the things I did. I’ve made use of all of them. I might regret having that storage facility in Oregon, time will tell. Most of all, I’m so happy we made the jump to Mexico! It’s been an amazing year and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. If you have your own story of packing up and moving to a different country I’d love to hear about it. Thanks for watching my video, and I’ll see you next time!