"My Mobile Life"
I’ve been moving around quite a bit lately. After spending a year as a student in the Dominican Republic, I moved to New York. That’s a story in itself- I didn’t have a place to stay (or rather the place I was supposed to stay fell through) when I got off the plane at JFK… so I ended up at the YMCA!
Craigslist helped me find a temporary place for the summer in Spanish Harlem (a great place to live, by the way), and a broker who I now loathe “helped” me find an apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
That lasted a few months… until I decided to move to the beach! I was helped immensely by a member of the UNIF USA board and his wife, Michael Haerting and Aileen Brousseau, who set me up with a studio on Miami Beach.
That lasted a few months… until I decided to move to Brazil! My time with UNIF was over, and I had started working as a freelance copywriter.
All that moving takes a lot out of you though… every time you have to change your address, your bank gets angry with you, credit card statements go to the wrong place, you have leases right and left, your phone number’s no good, all that stuff to drag around… what a mess!
So I decided to do something about it.
I now have an almost completely mobile life… I can pick up and go anywhere, and my life isn’t too disrupted.
Here’s what I did…
For the love of Craigslist
I found a great couple to sublet my apartment in New York, so that lease wasn’t hanging over my head. I wrote the most enticing ad you’ve ever read and booked 8 appointments to view the apartment in one day… and of course the first people took it. I love Craigslist.
Virtually Perfect
I had an office in Miami (on a month-to-month basis, no lease!), but obviously I don’t need that anymore. They happen to offer a “virtual office” solution, where I can keep my business address there, and have them forward all of my mail wherever I like. It costs next to nothing, but is a Godsend… I now have that address for all of my statements, notifications, etc. etc. etc., so important things will no longer go to the apartment I had three cities ago.
Downsizing
I’ve never had that much stuff to begin with… but when you move around, every bit of stuff is that much more cumbersome. When I left Miami, I either gave away or threw out most of my stuff. Everything left over went into the trunk of my Honda, with room to spare, and I just brought one big suitcase to Brazil. As long as I have my laptop (and maybe some clothes), I’m good to go!
Skype Me
I have quite a collection of cell phones right now… at least two from the States, one from Haiti, one from the Dominican Republic, one from Brazil… and I may have one from Denmark laying around.
And they all have different numbers!
So I gave myself a little gift: a Skype in number. It’s a number with a US area code that forwards to any number I want, anywhere in the world. So if you call my Skype number (or call me on Skype when I’m away from my computer), it will forward to my cell phone here.
Unless I’m in the States… in which case it will forward to my cell phone there! Brilliant.
Fax by email
Some businesses are still in the stone age, and require faxes rather than the infinitely more convenient scanned documents and email attachments. I now have a fax number where I can send and receive faxes via email for next to nothing. When it can take hours just to find a place to send a fax (let alone receive one), this is priceless!
Gmail
Someday I will write an entire ode to gmail. I must have 10 or more email addresses (one of the hazards of running multiple websites), but they all forward to my Gmail account. Makes keeping communications organized a snap- especially because of the great search function.
Ok, I admit it… I Facebook
Even if I’m no chatty Kathy, I do like to keep up with the friends I make around the world. Now that the whole world is on Facebook, it’s really not that tough.
Freelance = Freedom
It does help to be able to feed myself… which freelance writing accomplishes for me. My clients really don’t care where I am… as long as I deliver the goods!
So there you have it… my mobile life!