One of the most common questions people are asking right now is “when?!”, so, without further ado I present our estimated timeline for the rest of the year. All events are subject to change based on fate, whimsy, and the cascading effects of other changes.
5/5: We finally chose an international shipping company, signed our contract, and paid the deposit. This was one of the hardest choices and involved countless hours of emailing, calling different companies, completing virtual house tours, and reading the extra fine print contained in six different quotes.
5/8: Andrew’s last day of work. Michelle and I are celebrating at MÄS (this will also be a late celebration of 21 years since we started dating on 5/4/2001!!). How stressed and busy have we been? We BOTH failed to remember this anniversary which is a first for us, since it was mutual nobody is in the doghouse at least.
May/June: We hope to have a bunch of visits with our Jackson County friends. Our schedule is very flexible so get ahold of us to set up a visit!! In between visits we will be packing up our house and selling items which won’t be moving to Portugal. Speaking of our house, we have an offer, have already had our inspection, and should be getting an appraisal soon.
~May 23: A local moving company is going to pack up our kitchen and some other fragile items for us. We want to have as little broken glass as possible once our property joins us in Portugal.
~Memorial Day: We are driving up to Portland to visit our great friends Leah & Chris and their family.
6/1: Uplift Movers will be picking up all the stuff we are taking to Portugal (other then what we will take on the plane).
6/?: We’ll be having a farewell party at an undisclosed location in June! We also have to sell our Rav4 to Carvana at some point.
6/17: Assuming all goes well the sale on our house closes today. We are putting all the pets in their respective crates and driving to Portland for an overnight stay.
6/18: We fly to Jersey. We have two seats apiece for both flights (so all the pets can fit underneath). It’s the first flights for all the animals so we REALLY hope they behave.
6/19: We’ll be holed up cleaning and calming pets in Newark until we head back to the airport and fly overnight to Lisbon!
6/20: We should be in Portugal! After an airport vet check and gathering our bags we will be going by pre-arranged transport directly to our new home in Olhao!
June/July: From here on out there is definitely some guesswork involved. The pets, Michelle, and I all have to start the acclimation process. We need to set up our new home, make sure the utilities are turned on, and learn where the best markets and cafes are. There are some required administrative appointments and who knows what else that we have to do (don’t worry, we’ll be blogging about all of it!).
August – December: We have lots of big decisions and purchases to make. Do we get a car and if so what make/model? Decide if we want to stay in our small rental for another year (the lease expires in March of ’23) and if not start hunting for a new rental. Possibly most importantly we have to get a handle on our monthly budget once things settle down towards the end of the year. Since we are retiring quite a few years early, we want to make sure we stay on track for our long term financial goals. We need to find a house/pet sitter so that we can really start exploring Portugal!
We are still waiting to get our passports back and visas approved from the consulate. A delay in that approval process is the most likely reason the above timeline would have to be adjusted. Of course, our game plan right now is titled “FLEXIBILITY”, we are prepared for unexpected changes since this is a grand adventure. We can’t wait to share each step of the journey with you right here on FinazzoFun, be sure to ask any questions in the comments and we’ll do our best to answer them!
16 responses to “2022: An Approximate Timeline”
So exciting! I was hoping I’d be in Portland for graduation and could swing by the airport to see you two off. Unfortunately, graduation is the weekend before on the 11th so I’ll miss being in Portland by a week
Just make it a weeklong trip Tommy – you deserve a celebration for graduating!!
I am so awed by you two! Packing up and starting anew in a different country is just amazing, and I have no doubt you will be very successful in all future endeavors. Congratulations to the both of you, early retirements and an exciting next leg of your life journey!
Thanks so much Shell Lee, and so great to hear from you! I hope all is going well in YOUR retirement.
The enthusiasm for life you both exude, motivates me everytime I read this blog and correspond with Michelle. This blog is one of my favorite happy places to go. Scott and I hope to visit you in Europe. Love, Aunt Peggy
I am so glad you find joy in our blog. Your kind words and encouragement are such a morale boost for us during the bumpier parts of this wild ride. I can’t even imagine how much fun we would have together in Europe!
Yeahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!! Andrew finished today! Congrats!!!
Thanks Rob!!!
Actually, you both finished today! Congrats!
Rob, how right you are. I wasn’t aware of how much tension I was holding on to until Andrew was actually done with his very last shift. No more 2 am alarm clocks!
How are you making the tough decision on what to keep and what to discard or sell. Also, what method do you use to sell, have you ever used online sites such as Craigslist, eBbay, Etsy, and what do you think of them? Aunt Peggy
Since we decided we aren’t leaving our board game collection or piano behind some other decisions fell into place pretty easily. We are paying for a full 20 foot shipping container which means we could probably bring everything we own! Since they use a different type of power grid in the E.U. anything with a motor won’t really work so we are selling most electronic items. Our king side bed and dresser won’t fit in our rental and our dining room set is nice but not worth bringing. We’ve been sorting through books, paperwork, clothing, video games, and other assorted stuff for months and trimming down where we easily can.
Most of our big ticket items (like our reclining couch, espresso machine, washer & dryer, etc) were nabbed by coworkers. I’ll use Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace for some other things. We also have a friend who does lots of reselling and will assist us for a moderate fee if we have mid-size things we don’t want to futz with. I’ve had good luck with Craigslist in the past for both buying and selling, knock on wood!
We have both purchased items from Etsy and eBay and have also had luck there, but don’t plan on selling anything using those services since we don’t have established store fronts. They can also attract a lot of scammers and I prefer not to have to weed them out if I can avoid it.
Great questions, keep ’em coming!!
Have fun this coming Memorial Day weekend in Portland. Time to relax! Love, Aunt Peggy
Thanks Aunt Peggy – we just need to get to there from where we are! The local movers come tomorrow to pack up all our kitchen things and anything else we aren’t handling personally. We have to finish the prep for that today (including estimating how many boxes to buy which I’m horrible at). Then we really need to finalize most of the other packing before we leave for the weekend since the international movers could be here as soon as the 31st (or as late as the 6th) and we probably won’t know the exact day til early next week.
We’ll make it though, and then we’ll have some FUN!
Best wishes to you and yours for your holiday weekend too!
Michelle, I only worked with you a short time but I had heard you two were retiring to Portugal…and it was true. This is so inspiring and just plain awesome. Do you have a current blog? I’ll have to poke around and look. Be well.
Allyson, so great to hear from you. We DID it, we are here in Portugal (unfortunately recently neglecting our blog), but still loving it.