[PUP] Preparing to cast off, well kind of

[scottebulger@comcast.net]

Few things provide a sense of adventure approaching like emptying a walk-in closet of 20+ years of belongings.  There is something very freeing, yet unnerving about having piles of cloths that are limited by the size of lockers on your boat.  This morning I said to Marian, you know, between the two of us we need to share less than 40 inches of hanging closet space.  I offered to only hang one formal dinner jacket and move everything else into drawers or cabinets.  She smiled and said, who needs hanging locker space when your living in shorts and t-shirts!  What a gal!
 
In all seriousness we are right in the middle of it all.  The house goes on the market in a few weeks.  New carpet and paint in the next few days, and a moving truck comes on Saturday to take most of what we own to friends and family for safe keeping for 3 years.  The original storage estimate from United was 8,000 lbs at about $240/month.  Essentially its $3.00 per 100lbs per month for stuff placed in bonded storage.  Since our plan is to be gone at least two years, and build a house when we return, I evaluate an items value based on 3 years of storage.  What this means is its about a dollar per pound to store something for three years.  So, the dining room table, 100 pounds is 100 dollars.  When you think of selling things and buying them again upon your return, it makes the storage cost very palatable.  By going to friends and family and asking them if they want to use our stuff for 3 years we have reduced the 8,000 pound of stuff to about 2 or 3 thousand pounds.  This sh
 ould c
ost us three to four grand over 3 years, very manageable.  We are going to sell the cars, as the insurance complications were too much to deal with.  
 
Finally I devised a scheme with credit cards, electronic banking and auto bill pay so all our finances should be on cruise control.  This system is based on accounts that are never exposed to vendors, only used electronically between banks.  We have credit cards that will be used for ATM machines, purchases or online orders.  We have automated deposits to a working account which the credit card auto bills/pays monthly.  There is a limit and notification system if a certain amount is ever exceeded and we can view everything online.  Our financial planner has view access to these accounts and will notify us if anything seems awry.  We will designate a relative as durable power-of-attorney so anything needing our written approval can be implemented in our absence.  Each of these people has our direct boat email account and sat phone numbers.  We plan to turn the sat phone on daily at noon (just not sure I should leave it on all the time?).  
 
This was all done several months prior to putting the house on the market so we could go through several billing cycles to make sure everything worked.  Oh, a few good lessons learned:
 
Since I was selling the house, we needed a street address to maintain residency and have bills and statements sent.   A sister-in-law accepted this responsibility, and we are grateful to her for doing this.  That street address is critical, because a credit card company will challenge your identity by asking for your mailing address.  I had to tell my wife to be sure to use her sisters address, otherwise she would be denied assistance.  
All online orders will validate against this address, but you can usually enter an overriding ship to address, which was your bill to address just a few days ago, it can get confusing.  
If you use Comcast or another service provider linked to your email address, you need to ask what happens when you terminate your business relationship.  In the case of Comcast you loose your email address.  This means you need to create a new address, and guess what, think of how many systems you access online that use your email address as a way to identify you?  In my case it was dozens of systems, most banking and financial.  There are email services you can buy where you own your domain or address, these are a good choice if you understand the pluses and minuses of going that route.  I went with Google Mail and was lucky enough to get my same name.  It took about two days to get all my various accounts and systems to authenticate me with these new addresses. 
Since I was creating a new identity in many systems I implemented a new password scheme.  Approaching 50 I find my memory just isnt what it was, so I have a small number of passwords that I use for various functions.  By combining letters and numbers with common words you can improve the security of a password significantly.  Simply substitute a 3 for an E, a 1 for an I, a ZERO for an o and so forth.  Adding CAPS can also help, but for God sake dont mix some with upper and some with  lower using the same password, it will make you crazy.  Finally, dont put these passwords on a computer hard drive.  Store them on a thumb drive and take it home with you if/when you travel.  Have a backup, maybe print it out and give it to someone you trust.  
 
Some may think this isnt a PUP discussion, but I assure you it is.  Cutting loose the lines and disconnecting from the mainland is something not many people do.  For me it was a first, but Ive moved a dozen times in my life, so I had a good idea about some of the issues.  Perhaps there are some of you out there that can share some tips or tricks you have learned to help those of us that are preparing to leave?  Thanks,
 
Scott Bulger, Alanui, Nordhavn 40II, Seattle WA