//Worst Thing About Moving//
The process of moving is awful. Packing takes a ton of time and effort. If you hired movers, then you’re paying an obscene amount of money for a few labourers to play Tetris with your belongings. If you haven’t hired movers, you’re going to have a sore back. I moved this week. (In anticipation, I completed all this week’s articles on the weekend so I’m actually just predicting that I moved this week. I’m also going to predict that I did it for a low cost per kilometer.) But I still haven’t discussed my least favourite activity associated with moving: changing my address.
Every time I move (and, thankfully, this is going to be my last real move until I have to deliver my trademark sass to nurses in an old folk’s home) I change all of my addresses. I realize that everybody has to do it, I’m just saying that it sucks. I try to do it all online, but there are lots of archaic organizations that require a phone call during business hours (because that’s how everybody wants to spend their time off — changing addresses). Worse, I actually had to attend a place of business to change my address with one important organization.
Canada Post offers a service that redirects your mail. It sucks and I don’t use it. First off, the service is simply a stop-gap — you still need to change your address anyway, it just gives you a six month grace period. Second, they can’t forward your most important mail if it’s marked “Do Not Follow”, e.g. letters from tax authorities. Third, you need to pay a fee. Fourth, I’ve heard horrible reviews of this service from friends that alleged spotty coverage. If I don’t trust the government monopolies that I am forced to use, why would I voluntarily rely on the competence of one such organization to complete a task as sensitive as changing my address? Yes, that’s a rhetorical question.
Here’s where my post turns from a rant into actionable advice. After graduating university, I started a list of address changes I need to make whenever I move. Every time I opened an account with a new organization, I added it to the list. It turned into a quick, 10-second habit that has made “moving time” less stressful. Despite the indignities of contract work requiring me to move from place to place, I’ve successfully minimized the inconvenience of changing addresses without giving money to Canuckistan Post.
I simply copy-and-paste the address change document to create a fresh checklist for my new address and then, some day around the move date, I go at it for a few hours. I invariably miss a service because I forgot to list it (my habits are imperfect — sorry Canadian Blood Services, you’re on the list now), but the process alleviates some of my neurotic “move anxiety”. I backup my “master list” by putting an encrypted copy on an external hard drive in a fire-proof safe and, more recently, in the cloud. That might seem excessive, but I simultaneously backup other important documents, e.g. my “lost wallet list”. Such systems are successful for me because — unlike most bureaucratic machinations — they are simple and require a minimum amount of effort to maintain (so long as I remember to update them). On a day-to-day basis they only provide peace of mind. During certain outlier events, such systems offer an exceptional amount of irreplaceable value.
//YouTube//
Robb Engen of Boomer & Echo mentioned this video last Friday. It’s Preet Banerjee‘s TEDx Talk about money, specifically the paradigm through which we think about it. Seriously, watch it.
//Cat//
I hate Canada Post too, but they’re a necessary evil for when you don’t expect to move and change addresses (happens more often to me than you think)
I keep the same list, and for places that I can just email or go online for, I ask them to stop sending me mail.
This is how I keep my list of addresses down to a minimum.
I have actually been an obstinate fool in keeping more paper bills than I should. I realize it’d save me time and I wouldn’t need to shred things, but my inner rebel just refuses to go with the ebill flow because the big TelCos — i.e. Rogers, Bell, and Telus — have bullied me into accepting ebills. Worse, they use the worst logical fallacy to support their oppressive system: “It’s good for the environment.”
Rant time:
Every enviro-moron who parrots that lie should have this fact nailed to their door: “PAPER IS SEQUESTERED CARBON.” If people think a surplus carbon output is bad for the environment then WE SHOULD BE GROWING MORE TREES AND CREATING MORE PAPER. And if I shred it, well, it’s recyclable, right? Oh, it takes energy to recycle the paper — well, carbon neutral energy is simple, just invest money in renewable energy. Governments don’t want to? Tough! Renewable energy is a massive, challenging collective action problem (much like the Moon landing) that is the rare, exclusive domain of federal governments. Not the decision-making or regulation, I mean the massive investments in fundamental research that haven’t happened.
The notion that paper is sequestered carbon is akin to the level of idiocy that Trent Hamm eschews with his micro-penny pinching. What is better than sequestered carbon. … Trees that can continually sequester carbon and intact ecosystems.
Replanting new trees — because younger growing trees sequester more carbon — in place of old trees that have been cut down would in fact sequester far more carbon than keeping the same trees forever. My statement remains true and on a macro-scale; also I don’t think you understand the meaning of the word “eschew”.
Turns out you are right about my understanding of eschew. However, carbon sequestration ability is only one element of the case against large scale deforestation. Recycled paper, may reduce that, but of course, as has been pointed out, the pulp, and paper side of the equation is hardly a benign industry.
I actually know a couple Registered Professional Foresters. My understanding is that with new polyculture and forest management techniques, the harvesting end of paper production can protect biodiversity and minimize harm. And, again, with replanting the result can be pretty massive carbon sequestration. Forest density and land area have both increased significantly in the US over the last 100 years — if that’s not proof that technology works I’m not sure what is.
The way most paper is manufactured post-harvest is very harmful to the environment. But there are technologies that make the entire process very eco-friendly from end to end. Cost is naturally the prohibiting factor, but when the technology exists and the only impeding factor is human stupidity, I think it’s best to press ahead because the problems that become pressing will get attention / resolution.
And I am a Professional Agrologist, so I can tell you that if the ultimate goal is carbon sequestration, the mow down the trees in favour of grassland, far more productive. US forest cover and density had practically no where to go but up. I have worked in the forest products industry and so I am familiar with advances that are improving logging and reforestation practices. Paper manufacturing is also improving. However, “print a bill, save the planet” remains a flawed argument.
However, given that the point of your article is a pain and Canada Post’s ineptitude (hear, hear!), perhaps enough said?
Fair enough. But, in all seriousness, wouldn’t it be effective in terms of carbon sequestration for the gov to fund selective harvesting/replanting of trees, and then to seal those trees in abandoned mine shafts? No production process to worry about lol.
I am working on the Canada “Economic Action Plan” application as we speak.
lol the signs declaring “PART OF CANADA’S ECONOMIC ACTION PLAN” will be a lot of sequestered carbon alone.
If you think that’s a pain, try changing your last name (post marriage). Patriarchy is expensive, man!
Yeah, but society keeps running unlike matriarchy lolll jokes!
I hear ya! Been married three times (this one is forever, I swear…but then I swore that the other times as well!) I faithfully changed my name after the first two but then after the second ended, I went back to my “real” name and did not change it for the third marriage. It got to the point that I questioned who I was. Was I the first married name? Was I the second married name? Nope, I was born who I am and I will now die who I am. I feel much better!
What I really don’t get though is the gender equality invention of hyphenating last names. Like imagine a kid with a hyphenated name like Wood-Smith. Then imagine she met a gentleman whose last name was hyphenated, and they were both hippies who wanted to hyphenate their kids’ last names lol. Wood-Smith-Jones-Anderson.
I’m not sure how much paper actually contributes to environmental issues. Lots of talk, but really, I’m not so sure. It used to be because they were cutting down old growth trees, but these days it’s either recycled or they’re using tree crops that aren’t much different from growing corn. But then OTOH there’s the bleach…I dunno.
I took our office paperless this year (where possible) and for me, the environmental benefit is less the paper and more the issue with trucks carrying it all over the place. I suspect that the courier and mail trucks environmental impact of carting paper everywhere is a bigger deal than anyone talks about. (or maybe not, it was just something I supposed).
As for moving, we moved our office 2 years ago, and the single best thing was being on Voip phones. I unplugged the voip computer from the office, drove it to the new location, plugged it in, and our phones were ringing. Total downtime, 10 minutes commute time. And no cost. Compare that to 2 day downtime and huge cost for a traditional phone line. I tell ya’, moving to voip for my business was one of the happiest things I’ve done from an infrastructure perspective.
That’s awesome. Yes, Bell tries to scare the **** out of everybody about switching to VOIP “OMG did you know Bell doesn’t go down in a power outage!?” Realistically, the premium for such “reliability” is so massive (and outages mean a loss of productivity anyway) that most smart folks are dumping their traditional landlines. I’ve never had a Bell landline, always just relied on my cell (and, for a period before getting a cellphone, VOIP) and I’m no worse for the wear. I think for people whose phones are truly mission critical, i.e. no outages, they should get Bell internet, then hook up their router and VOIP to a $100 battery backup lol. (Disclaimer: I don’t know if this actually works)
For a small office, you don’t need that level of redundancy. The voip service we use allows us to set our cell phone number as a backup. That’s about as much backup as a small business needs anyway – worst case we’re down to one line in and a couple lines out. I’ve been using voip now for about 4-5 years and don’t regret it for a minute. I’ve saved thousands every year, have better service, and waaaay more features. 10 lines (no additional cost), offsite extensions (a rep that’s 500 miles away has an internal extension, conference calling, complete tracking of all calls, on and on – if you can imagine it in a high end system, my voip system probably does it for free.
I have a buddy in the U.S. who’s a voip geek and his office system is beyond absurd – he’s got all his staff’s iphones hooked in as extensions. We’re in NYC (his office is in PA) with some of his staff and he shows me how he just dials ‘extension 3′ on his iphone….and the person sitting beside him (his employee, at extension 3) had his iphone ring. All over data, all over voip. Way cool.
There’s other games you can get into where you can route long distance calls from your cell phone through your voip system (so that you never pay long distance for cell phone calls) but I don’t get that far into it.
Sounds like you’re passionate and knowledgeable about the topic — any chance of a guest post?
I’m working on the ability to setup remote offices (so our staff and agents can work from home, no central location) and the voip is part of that. When I get the technology working smoothly (soon) I’d be happy to do an article.
Welcome to the Hammer!
Great article as always, and thank you for the video, it is very good. It should be required viewing for everyone before they borrow or run up a credit card. I enjoy watching different ones from TEDx.
By the way, does Cat have her own cell phone now?
Thanks! Happy to be here and getting settled in.
lol we contemplated giving her my old deactivated BlackBerry Curve to play with. Then we realized she actually presses buttons on our phones and that even a deactivated cell can still call 911.
We used the 6 month Canada post service when we moved and you are right it just bought us time to get what we needed done. In reality we could have done it all before we moved as we had a couple of months to do it all. I guess we relied on that system and the convenience of it. I bet you’re glad the move is over though.. Cheers!
Very relieved thanks! TBH, it’s not the physical labour that gets me; it’s the risks inherent to having all my stuff loaded in a truck that is at significant risk for damage, theft etc. that is worrying. Living in two locations at once presents inherent security risks but, of course, there are major conveniences having an “overlap” for changing addresses and what not.
I agree that changing your address is the worse thing about a move. The last time I moved was in 2004. I thought I had covered every possible notification possible but there’s always (for me) one or two that slip through the cracks. That usually means that a year or two later an expected shipment or letter doesn’t get to me and i start tracking it down only to find it went to the old address. So off i go hoping the new owners didn’t throw it away. Funny though, I’ve been in my house for eight years now and I still get mail for the old owners. After taking his mail to him for a few years I finally got fed up and just throw them away now.
Yeah that must be incredibly frustrating. I told the person who moved out I would hold onto their mail and they could pick it up, they just haven’t come by yet. After that, so long as the amount of mail slowed down significantly (because goodness knows I, too, ALWAYS miss a service — sorry Canadian Blood Services lol) I would keep doing it as a courtesy for probably about a year. 8 years is absolutely nuts and I too would have lost my patience years ago.
By the way, the official process according to Canada Post is:
“Cross out the address, write ‘Moved’ or ‘Unknown’ and deposit the item in a Street Letter Box.” On another page they advise people write “Not at this address” on the envelope. No idea about USPS. I would probably write “HE MOVED EIGHT ****ING YEARS AGO”.
I made one exception after two years, He was a small real estate investor and I received some papers advising he was being sued, so I did take that over to his new home and made the point about getting his address correct with whoever might be corresponding with him.
I have used the one year mail forwarding from Canada Post and was pleased with the service. I try and be organized but it seems that I always forget something or someone important.
As for basic mail delivery Canada Post finds my street perplexing. A lot of the 4 digit house numbers include a high number of combinations of 1s and 2s (2211, 1212, 2221, 1112 etc). This numbers are a bit of a blur to the parade of posties that fill our superboxes and there is a daily resident redistribution of mail to the correct address.
Thanks for the review but I still think Canada Post is garbage. In Hamilton, I’ve been really happy with the mail service; the mail person comes every day, so we get a letter or two every morning and both my partner and I have met him randomly and he’s a really nice guy.
When I lived in Peterborough proper the service was awful — they literally didn’t come for days and, at least once, two weeks at a time. We’d call the mail depot and complain and the next day there’d be a massive stack of our mail in the box, then another week-long dry spell of mail. I won’t trust a government monopoly that also treats its employees like garbage; I mean they locked them out and then BLAMED THEM for not working, and there was back-to-work legislation imposed. I found it really disgusting.
I love the Globe and Mail series Me And My Money and was just catching up on a few I have missed. I was pleasantly surprised to see you there. Penny stocks in university? Great article.
There is a very long waiting list for the dividend paying shares in my local credit union. I would have to have keep cash in a ready to go position in case they called my. Not sure how I want to proceed but I guess I will get on the list and I can always decline if I don’t have cash when they call.
Thanks
I would suggest that your decision should depend on how good the shares in question are. Also, I wouldn’t be investing much if I were in debt. Although now I have a mortgage :O maybe I shouldn’t be investing any more.
The USPS service for forwarding your mail works for a year, which is pretty sweet. I changed my addresses pretty quickly. Like you, I kept a list though I only started it once I realized I was moving. I’m not maintaining it anymore, so it’ll be fun the next time I move, whenever that may be.
Are you going to talk about your mortgage pay down on here?
Hope moving went well! Omg I’m so glad I don’t have to do that again this year. Moving sucks. I paid movers and it was expensive, but so totally worth it and it still took forever.
Yeah I doubt I’ll have the motivation to keep it now that I’m done moving for a long time. When I was on contract and moving often it made a lot more sense.
And thanks. It went well overall. No big expense shocks. A few furniture scratches (despite best efforts) I’ll need to repair. Still, not bad all things considered.