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[silivren]

I am about to accept a position at an R1 in a city 1000 miles away (thankfully with airports). My spouse, who is in the second year of his doctoral program, will be staying behind for a year in our current location. We have an apartment full of stuff. How do we decide what goes with me and what stays with him? Desiderata: our current place is about 1500 sq.ft. I'll be renting and trying to spend as little as possible since the two-household thing will be eating up much of my salary increase, so I expect to find a place that's 600-900 sq.ft. We're in related fields, so many of the books are important to both of us. And while we don't have that much furniture, we do have some. Oh, and my relocation allowance is HUGE, so anything we don't move now, we have to pay to move in a year or so.

Eventually, we'll probably buy a place in my new location, but that's at least a year and maybe two years away. I'll still be coming back here regularly for the next year, and it would be nice to have some semblance of our old lives here, but given the cost/hassle of moving, part of me says spend that relocation allowance now and get it over with.

I'd be interested in input from anyone who's made these decisions or thought about them - especially what you wish you hadn't done...

[polly_mer]

How big is your office? 

How much does storage space cost at the new place?

At a minimum, take all the stuff you will need to teach and do research.

Decide who is the kitchenista.  The complete kitchen is with the person who will feel most inconvenienced by not having the melonballer right at hand.  The other person gets enough equipment to be able to make a complete meal and go several days without doing dishes.

What is necessary to make home feel like home?  Make sure both people have that minimum stuff, even if you have to buy extra so that you each have one.  For example, if you need furniture (not everyone does, I can be pretty happy with a futon on the floor for sleeping, eating, and reading), then make sure you have furniture.  Make sure you both have adequate heating, cooling, and lighting.  Make sure you both have a comfortable workspot, even if that means moving the good desk to your new place and your spouse uses the current kitchen table.

As to how to best use the relocation budget, make a cost comparison to what you will pay between moving nearly everything now and putting it in storage versus moving everything later on your own dime.

We're a year and a half into a relocation where we paid out of pocket when broke and moved into a tiny place so that much of our stuff is still in storage halfway across the country.  Whatever you do, don't be so separated from your stuff.  Have it where someone can go get it and either ship it or put it into immediate use.  I packed poorly for such a separation; I figured on a six-month storage and was packing madly with two-weeks notice for a cross-country move.  On the minus side, I still have a nearly weekly dang-I-want-this-book-and-I'm-sure-it's-still-on-the-other-side-of-the-country.  On the plus side, we've learned what we really need to have a comfortable life, which is far less than the stuff we accumulated.  I miss my books, but I couldn't tell you much else that's in storage.

 

[compdoc]

I am grateful, polly_mer, for your response. I, like the OP, am heading to a one-year separation. Half my relocation is being paid, but I don't know whether to bring stuff now or later.

I can tell you that I have had significant angst over losing/not having my furniture. I wouldn't have said before this that it was a big deal, but now I think it is an issue.

I say losing because the SO is lobbying for a smaller house. In that case, even if I bought a place, I wouldn't be able to bring the most expensive furniture which is large and was given to us by relatives. I have an emotional attachment that is probably unwarranted, but my mom's dead now and she's not going to give me any more furniture. Of course, not all of the furniture was from her, so maybe I do have some fixation issues.

[snakechaser]

I took all the miscellaneous kitchen items because I knew my husband would not want to be separated from the normal set of dishes/silverware. Left behind some things I wish I had (like the big food processor) but also realized I don't need most of that stuff (what Polly_mer said). Every time I go back home I discard a few more items. And, in fact, I was just oogling tiny houses (<500 sq ft) on the web a little while ago...

[polly_mer]

I am grateful, polly_mer, for your response. I, like the OP, am heading to a one-year separation. Half my relocation is being paid, but I don't know whether to bring stuff now or later.

I can tell you that I have had significant angst over losing/not having my furniture. I wouldn't have said before this that it was a big deal, but now I think it is an issue.

I say losing because the SO is lobbying for a smaller house. In that case, even if I bought a place, I wouldn't be able to bring the most expensive furniture which is large and was given to us by relatives. I have an emotional attachment that is probably unwarranted, but my mom's dead now and she's not going to give me any more furniture. Of course, not all of the furniture was from her, so maybe I do have some fixation issues.

Ask yourself what you would do if you experienced a fire/flood/tornado and only N pieces of furniture could survive.  What pieces would you wave your magic wand and save?  Don't say all of them.  Walk through the scenario of saving two pieces, three pieces, or four pieces to establish priorities.  What do you love, but could do without so you can sell, donate, or give away, mourn, and be better in a few months?  What do you love and would mourn until your dying day if you lost it so that you must make an effort to save it?

If you could save M more pieces but they have to go to friends and relatives, then what are those pieces and where would they go?  Give away the pieces that fall into the second category to the people who will appreciate them and where you can still visit occasionally.

Now that you've narrowed your list, is the important part to you the function of the furniture as it stands with its original use or can you use the creative things that some of the home-makeover people do and save the sentiment, but lose the largeness?  For example, do you need the huge sofa or can you use some of the fabric to cover a foot stool to keep the memories, but recover half a living room's worth of space?  Can you use the dresser in the dining room to hold various items and free up floor space in the bedroom?  Can you furnish your university office with some of this furniture and have the university store their standard issue stuff somewhere else?

If all else fails, put the huge stuff in storage for a year and reevaluate at the end of the year.  Have you been counting the days until you can get back your cherished headboard or are you now ok with what you have been using so that the headboard can be passed along to someone else to cherish?

[silivren]

Great advice, thanks so much! Am leaning toward leaving quite a bit and starting more or less over ... with a futon, if necessary.

Now, solving the two-body problem sometime in the future? Probably not as easy...

[westcoastgirl]

My husband found a furnished place. Would this work for you until your SO arrives?

Next year, he'll be looking for more long-term housing. It is unlikely that I will be joining him anytime soon, but will probably rented an unfurnished place and buy a couple of things from IKEA. He has very simple taste. Now, if I were the one leaving, I'd probably have a problem just throwing together odds and ends as I would want something very homey.

[molli_sols]

We took all the "good" stuff to the new house because eventually it will be the only house.   This means the old house has sort of regressed back to the way it was when we first moved in our first year of grad school.  All our mismatched stolen cafeteria dishes and tag sale items are left.  Also, the former guest room furniture became house #1's master furniture.  We used Ikea and the Pottery Barn outlet to fill in the gaps at each place.  However we made a family rule that anything bought for the old place has to have a future home in the new place. 

[august_leo]

We took all the "good" stuff to the new house because eventually it will be the only house.   This means the old house has sort of regressed back to the way it was when we first moved in our first year of grad school.  All our mismatched stolen cafeteria dishes and tag sale items are left.  Also, the former guest room furniture became house #1's master furniture.  

That's what we did. He got to keep a few special items to make it a little homey, but it took up to 2.5 years for them to make it over to the new place (England). He didn't get moving expenses (I did and was the first to move). This worked really well for us.

[mystictechgal]

Given that you know that this will eventually be home, could you move most of the bigger, more costly, items and put them in storage closer to you? It would mean that you would both be living more minimally, but once he joins you, the moving costs would mostly have been taken care of, already.

Alternatively, if you know that this will be home to you, is it possible, or would you consider, switching things around? In other words, you find a smaller apartment for him to live in where you currently are, and find a larger place where you are going? A place that the two of you will ultimately call home. You move the bulk using the allowance, and set up the new home (rather than putting in storage or waiting to move it on your own dime), and he keeps what, of your current stuff, is needed to keep it a shared home (as Polly suggested, if he's the gourmet cook, he keeps most of the kitchen stuff, for instance), but, the rest of it is part of the furnished package, or the stuff you'd buy as a temporary measure on your end if you didn't use the allowance.

If I knew I was moving to a new place, and I had money to help me move, it would seem rather counter-intuitive  not to make that new place "home" and move stuff, instead leaving it in situ, only to be moved later, after the money evaporated. If you are expecting that this will be your new home base, why would you, logically, be the one taking temporary digs? Shouldn't you be setting up the new homesite?

[august_leo]

I agree with MTG.

[octoprof]

MTG speaks sense!

If your new position comes with moving expenses, move everything you can or at least everything you really desire to have at the new location eventually except what SO needs to survive on.

Your spouse is a doctoral student. Spouse only needs survival gear and books related to the dissertation or any remaining coursework. Spouse doesn't need other books because spouse doesn't need to be distracted from spouse's goal of getting finished and moving post haste.

You, on the other hand, need to take responsibility for setting up the home, since spouse is still in graduate school and needs no distractions.

So, leave with spouse only what spouse needs to survive and, if possible, things you won't have to move next time (in case spouse's moving expenses are not covered) but can leave or give away or sell or whatever.

Simplify.

[silivren]

If we were renting in the current location, the "new base" suggestion would make a LOT of sense. But we live in a place owned by my parents. Moving to a smaller place wouldn't save any money, because what we currently pay for a large place is what he'd pay for a smaller place regardless. There's also the emotional issue. He's trailing. He's just settled into a new university - you know what it's like finding your feet in a doctoral program, especially one where many students are internal admits from a master's - and feels some frustration around the need to recalibrate a life that he's just settled into because now I have to move again. It seems reasonable to leave him something of a sense of home. I really like the suggestion to leave anything we think we might not want in the long run with him, though.

I'm also moving to a city where we don't know the market or neighborhoods at all. It's not the sort of place where I feel comfortable committing to a neighborhood for the long run until I know the area better.

I'm interested that several of you think he needs fewer distractions than I do - is this because it's easier to get tenure in a TT job than to get a TT job from a PhD program? I haven't really thought about it that way, but it makes sense.

[octoprof]

If we were renting in the current location, the "new base" suggestion would make a LOT of sense. But we live in a place owned by my parents. Moving to a smaller place wouldn't save any money, because what we currently pay for a large place is what he'd pay for a smaller place regardless. There's also the emotional issue. He's trailing. He's just settled into a new university - you know what it's like finding your feet in a doctoral program, especially one where many students are internal admits from a master's - and feels some frustration around the need to recalibrate a life that he's just settled into because now I have to move again. It seems reasonable to leave him something of a sense of home. I really like the suggestion to leave anything we think we might not want in the long run with him, though.

I'm also moving to a city where we don't know the market or neighborhoods at all. It's not the sort of place where I feel comfortable committing to a neighborhood for the long run until I know the area better.

I'm interested that several of you think he needs fewer distractions than I do - is this because it's easier to get tenure in a TT job than to get a TT job from a PhD program? I haven't really thought about it that way, but it makes sense.

Think of it this way, finishing a doctoral program and dissertation are HUGE hurdles. And, you have no guarantee that he'll get a TT job immediately. He needs less distractions. You, however, need to set up housekeeping in a cost-saving way in a place that you and he may end up living together some day. You need normalcy, really, and you'll have a bit of control over your time to create that. He needs NO DISTRACTIONS.  You have moving funds to move  your stuff, so move most of it and set up a household. You don't need to BUY (and I wouldn't if I were you, yet) but you can rent something that you can put up with for some years, if necessary, and make it a (semi-) permanent home. And, when he comes to visit, it'll be a nice change for him to be there in the nice homey place you've created.