PCS Series: How to streamline your next PCS, military or DITY, with the labeling system from Box Ops

[00:00:00] Alison: we are in 

[00:00:01] Shea: the middle 

[00:00:02] Alison: of our PC S series and today we're talking to Shay. And Shay is the owner of Box Ops. Okay. This is like, if you don't, are not familiar with this moving system, they're essentially moving stickers that you put on your boxes. They're color coded, they're huge writing, so you can very clearly look at a sea of boxes and see what is supposed to go where.

[00:00:24] Alison: And I have moved eight times. We were just talking about this. I've moved eight times. This last move we did was a Diddy move and I cannot freaking wait. To move with these box, it's gonna be a game changer. It's gonna be a game changer. So if you are, if a, a move is in your future, and again, this podcast is for military spouses, but I know that there are lots of other people that listen to the show that are not military spouses.

[00:00:46] Alison: This system works for anybody. If you're moving, you need to have this system. So anyways, okay. So Shea Army wife, founder of Box Ops, and welcome to the show. I'm so happy to have you here. We're gonna get into all the things, but welcome. I always like to start off with , what is your military affiliation and what is your, what has your 

[00:01:04] Shea: military life look like so far?

[00:01:07] Shea: Hey, well thanks for, thanks for inviting me on. , I'm stoked to share the word about Fox Ops and all that, so, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, , I am an Army spouse. We live at Fort Campbell right now. , we started out at, my husband's a pilot, so we started out at Fort Rucker, , actually got married there back in 2014.

[00:01:25] Shea: And yeah, since then we've moved about. Six, seven times we've pcsd four times and, and moved a bunch in between. Mm-hmm. We've lived at Rucker, we've lived at Fort Riley, Kansas. We've lived at Fort Bliss in El Paso and now we're at Fort Campbell. And yeah, we're excited to finally be we're actually staying here for the long haul, so this is kind of our final stop on the trip and we're hoping to stay here for a long time, so.

[00:01:52] Shea: Yeah. Oh, we were talking about that 

[00:01:54] Alison: beforehand and I'm like, Ugh, that's the best thing. Cause I was saying like, we are slated Right. Quote unquote slated to move summer of 24. And I was again, I was telling you, I was looking at flights and and the dates that they were out to 2024 

[00:02:09] Shea: and I'm like, 

[00:02:10] Alison: I, I don't know 

[00:02:11] Shea: where I'm living.

[00:02:12] Shea: Can't make plan 20. You dunno where you're gonna 

[00:02:14] Alison: be. I dunno where we're gonna be so that I am. Yeah. So there's something to be 

[00:02:18] Shea: said. Right. It's a huge relief to, for every military family to be like, wow. I'm gonna be here for a couple years so I can actually plan things. I can Yeah. Like plan out Thanksgiving with someone or Christmas or whatever.

[00:02:29] Shea: Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's a different vibe to have to, to feel like stability for a little while. So. Yeah. A hundred percent. 

[00:02:37] Alison: Cuz we were talking about that a little bit again before we started recording. And it's like, I feel like you, you are, we start, it's like, it's like a deployment almost. Yep. Right. You know, you start that withdrawal, you know they're going, so you start to create that distance and the, and you do the same thing in your community.

[00:02:55] Alison: Like if, you know, you're only gonna be somewhere for two years, like I, in my head, I don't know if how anybody else feels, but I'm like, what's the point? , why am I gonna go try and That's hard. Establish, engage, right? Yeah. Yeah. It really is. Oh my word. Okay. All right. So so then tell us a little bit about where, how your career, what that has looked like for you.

[00:03:14] Alison: And you said you had small kids and, mm-hmm. Just kind of how, what, what does that evolution looked like 

[00:03:19] Shea: through your military career? Yeah. So selling moving supplies was definitely not on my, in my thoughts originally. I actually, I have a bachelor's and master's degree in sports management, so Oh, cool.

[00:03:32] Shea: I actually wanted to work in sports originally. I've worked in nascar, I've worked at, in the American LA Mall racing series. I've worked for the University, university of Alabama. I went to grad school at Alabama, worked for their communications department. So I've worked a number of different sports and that was kind of my dream for a long time.

[00:03:49] Shea: You know, I wanted to either be a communications director, athletic director. I thought maybe coaching something related and but it, it, , then I married a military guy. Mm-hmm. And, , moving around a lot, you're either not really close to anything that works for you or, , people kind of hear.

[00:04:08] Shea: Or, or have this idea, oh, this is a military spouse, so she's gonna be leaving soon. Mm-hmm. So there's kind of also that discrimination factor, I think, for me. Mm-hmm. A lot of times , I was trying to get jobs at K State or other schools and it's never worked out. Mm-hmm. I would be taking, you know, smaller jobs, , a lot of military spouses rely on the local economy.

[00:04:25] Shea: So I'm, I'm working, serving jobs, bartending jobs. Oh, yeah. To, to make it work for a while, but there just comes a point where you're like, where am I going with this? What, mm-hmm. What's the end goal here? I'm tired of filling out applications. Mm-hmm. It's, it's draining. It's exhausting to Yeah. A hundred percent.

[00:04:41] Shea: Feel like you're applying to things and you're just, you're putting yourself out there, but you're getting nothing. Just crickets. Mm-hmm. And even with, with interviews, you, you put so much energy into these interviews showing up to, to job interviews and calls and whatever, and it, it's usually a road to nowhere.

[00:04:58] Shea: Mm-hmm. And also working remotely was not so much of a thing back then. As it is today. Yeah. Obviously, I feel like military spouses were kind of ahead of that curve. It's like, hello, we're here. Yes. Now you guys wanna do remote work? Yeah. Welcome to the party doing that. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I kind of had an awakening of like, okay, I love sports.

[00:05:20] Shea: I've, I've always enjoyed working in sports, but this isn't gonna work out right now. And also, you know, I, it had been, I was so far removed from that life mm-hmm. By the time I was, , at, at Fort Riley, I was like, I don't even know if I wanna work it, do this anymore. You know, I was having kids. Yeah. I was at the point where I was having babies.

[00:05:37] Shea: I was like, I, how can I find something that offers flexibility mm-hmm. Where I can stay 'em with my kids? Mm-hmm. Raise my kids. Mm-hmm. We were in the middle of multiple deployments. There were he was deployed in Kansas and deployed again in El Paso. And so actually in El Paso we always joke he was only there for eight.

[00:05:56] Shea: Of the 24 months that we lived there. Geez. And those eight months or all, or at least half of that time, was during Covid where he was like stuck at home anyway. Mm-hmm. So I, it's like I need something that offers flexibility because working a full-time job and doing a lot of the, the parenting and all of the household stuff is just mm-hmm.

[00:06:13] Shea: Overwhelming for me. Stressful. A hundred percent. So, yeah. So I was looking for that. I, I, I was leaning towards entrepreneurship for a long time, just cuz I wanted something I could run from home work my own hours, you know as a lot of military stresses can relate to, I'm sure. Yeah. And so I, I've, I've always been attracted to entrepreneurship, but I, I wanted to wait until the right problem came along.

[00:06:37] Shea: Mm-hmm. I, I didn't just wanna jump into something that I wasn't passionate about or just come up with something that wasn't really a problem, you know? Yeah. And I've never been into the, the common things that people are selling online. I'm not really a jewelry person. I'm not a makeup person. Yeah. I'm not like a girly girl.

[00:06:52] Shea: I don't really, really buy, go out clothes shopping a lot. So I was like, I want something that is, that is, that is more fitting for me mm-hmm. That I can, can dive into that I can be passionate about for a long time. And so a few years went by, had another kid, and I was like, okay. We actually ended up moving to from Kansas to El Paso, and that was when we had already been through a couple really bad moves, but this one was, it just really took the cake.

[00:07:17] Shea: Mm. The, the movers actually lost a third of our entire house. And I was super pregnant at the time. My husband was t d y the whole summer. I was like, are you kidding me? This is just a nightmare. Mm-hmm. I was sitting there on the, on the d p s trying to do the claims.

[00:07:31] Shea: Mm-hmm. You know, it's just a nightmare, the entire process from start to finish. So that was when, that was the first time where it kind of hit me. , obviously it's the mover's fault for losing our stuff, but I was also extremely disorganized. I went into this unprepared. We were missing a lot of boxes that I sh probably could have added my contact information to.

[00:07:49] Shea: , there was just a lot that I could have done on the front end that would've saved me the headache on the back end. So, mm-hmm. Yes, it was the mover's fault, but I'm like, okay, next time I'm gonna be way more organized. I can't rely on them a hundred percent to do the right thing.

[00:08:02] Shea: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So and, and like I said, all of our other moves were hard too. Even even doing a Diddy move and moving ourself is stressful. Yeah. The organization factor, the trying to purge things, trying to make sure that everything's gonna fit on the moving truck. That's one of the biggest, that's one of the biggest nightmares is moving day rolls around and you've got a washing machine that's not gonna fit or Right.

[00:08:25] Shea: Yeah. A couch that you have to suddenly put on the curb or whatever. Yes. You're making donation runs. And so there was a little bit of confusion , going into the moving process where I was like, wow, if I had known all of this, I could have prevented a lot of my heartache. So not only did I wanna create products, but I also wanted to have education as part of it too.

[00:08:44] Shea: So that's why on my, on my page, I do a lot of posts regarding educational content, stuff like that. Yeah. So, yeah. Awesome. 

[00:08:52] Alison: So I feel that on so many levels because that I, God, you know, there's so many things that you, that you could do, but again, , you come into this and, and a lot of times it's the spouse that gets, , the brunt of all of the Yes.

[00:09:10] Alison: Mm-hmm. Of handling the coordination of the movers coming and the packout crew and the, and the arranging 

[00:09:16] Shea: all of the stuff like, it's on, we don't, don't always know the rules either because we're not in those briefings. We're not, Yeah. I don't know what documents I should and shouldn't be signing or Right.

[00:09:24] Shea: How the inventory is supposed to look like. So that was another part of it too. Yeah. 

[00:09:29] Alison: And I think that you just, it's, you don't know. You don't know, don't know what you don't know. You don't know what you don't know. And you really do learn the hard 

[00:09:38] Shea: way for sure. And I think 

[00:09:40] Alison: that if at Bare, so if I was to go back and start it all over again, I would be more conscientious of writing what exactly was in the boxes.

[00:09:53] Alison: Mm-hmm. Because I can't tell you how many times we got to the destination and we're doing the load in and you've got your 20 sheets laid out on the counter and you're check in your boxes as they come in and you're like, oh, I'm missing. And they just write the size of the box. Yeah. I'm missing three of this size box.

[00:10:14] Shea: Yep. Oh, well, word will say, or it'll say kitchen stuff like, yeah, yeah. Well, was it my $500 appliance or what was it? Silverware like, I need to Yeah. Right. What, what was it? Yeah. 

[00:10:24] Alison: And I feel like, and what's interesting with that is because but at the same time, you don't necessarily wanna write everything that's in the box because those boxes tend to walk 

[00:10:33] Shea: away.

[00:10:33] Shea: If there's something in there that's, you know what I mean? That's the other thing is how do you balance organization without giving away your high value items? That's why I'm, I'm very wary of writing on writing everything on the box. , I want to label in, in a way that I'll understand, but I won't necessarily say, this is my fine China, this is my crystal.

[00:10:53] Shea: , yeah. You know, I don't wanna write all that. So, yeah. you have to be careful about what you, you know, what organization is key, but do what, what works for you personally. So, yeah, for sure. Because theft, cuz theft does a problem too, for sure. Yeah. Oh gosh. We.

[00:11:08] Alison: That was like, I feel like that was the, or the move that we did from Florida to Washington, that was like the tip of the scale.

[00:11:16] Alison: And I was like, we're not doing this 

[00:11:17] Shea: anymore. Yeah. We did our, our Diddy after that. 

[00:11:20] Alison: That was part of it too, is it was like, here's this bin. We Yeah. , you have got your camera right. That's a huge one. Take your pictures, like we've said this before, take your pictures of everything. So then when you're like, oh my god, my office, what was on that books show what book?

[00:11:33] Alison: Because you go to fill out your missing thing. Yes. And they wanna know all of it and it's like 

[00:11:39] Shea: really? Exactly. When did I buy that book? I learned the hard way was like, you're exactly, you're exactly right. When I was filling out that summer after that bad move, I was filling out my dpss. Cause of course my husband's t d i, so it's all on me.

[00:11:52] Shea: I'm, yeah, I'm doing this. Yeah. So I'm in DPS making, well, I, I did it outside of D dps. I learned cuz dpss is unreliable cuz it can just choose when it wants to work. So I did everything in the spreadsheet. I, I organized everything by, , model number, serial number brand, all that stuff. I, I, I was like, I am not gonna let this company get away with this.

[00:12:15] Shea: Mm-hmm. I'm going to claim every hair tie, every candle, every baby bib. And I, I was actually quite spiteful about it, but I knew, cause I had heard from other military spouses that they tend to low ball you on other offers. Oh yeah. I was like, I'm gonna go high. I'm gonna claim every missing thing.

[00:12:32] Shea: So that was the other side of it was I tell everyone, take pictures of what's in each box if you're, or at least the valuable boxes of what you're packing. Mm-hmm. Or before the movers show up, take pictures of every room, every drawer, closet. Mm-hmm. Storage space. Mm-hmm. Just snap photos.

[00:12:48] Shea: Because what ended up happening is when I was filling out the claim, I had pictures of like listing photos that I could go back and use and I could crop down and say, this is a chair that's missing. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I would crop photos of. Like, and of a baby bib on my son. Mm-hmm. And I would crop his head out and just use the picture of the bib and be like, mm-hmm this is, this bib is missing.

[00:13:07] Shea: So I would create, yeah, a word document of like hundreds of photos of each item that I thought was missing. I would, I would crop photos of like a lamp in the background and mm-hmm. It was super spiteful, but I was like, this is my proof of ownership. I don't have receipts of all of this stuff, you know, no.

[00:13:24] Shea: All, every receipt. So, no, that was my proof of ownership and I was like, I'm claiming everything that I possibly can. And it ended up working. They ended up paying me a reasonable amount and I, I ended up actually fighting on a couple of things like they, that they didn't wanna pay me for. But it was listed properly on inventory, which saved me because if as long, the rule is, as long as it's actually listed on inventory, they are liable for the full amount.

[00:13:47] Shea: So so I, I claimed it and they tried to fight me on it, and I learned a little tip from another military spouse that if they're fighting you on something that they are li fully liable for, you can. Threatened to report them to the department of insurance and not the moving company, but their insurance company that they use, uhhuh, their claims company.

[00:14:08] Shea: Usually they're using a third party claims company and you can threaten to report them to the State Department of Insurance, and usually they'll pay. I I had an offer in my email the following day, so. Wow. Yeah. That's a good tip to know. 

[00:14:19] Alison: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And the, the other side of that too is that you fill out , your claim, this is the stuff, this is what it was worth.

[00:14:26] Alison: And then they come back and they're like, okay, you're claiming $8,000 worth of stuff. And they come back and they're like, we'll give you 600. And you're like, what? The, and then if you don't know better, you're like, well, crap. That's all they're giving me for this. Great. Exactly. That's all I get.

[00:14:39] Alison: Exactly. I know. You don't know that you can fight it. There's so 

[00:14:42] Shea: many rules and regulations. Mm-hmm. And even on the front end, filling out the inventory, it's that, that was something I had no idea. I mean, I'm like, oh, they're taking inventory. That's great. No, you have to go and check their work. You have to go through.

[00:14:54] Shea: Yeah. And this is why I always say before they show up, have like a spreadsheet of all the valuables that you definitely want listed on their own online. Sometimes people get too caught up on the high value inventory Okay. Versus regular inventory. They might say like, well, oh, I need to put everything on high value inventory.

[00:15:09] Shea: No, that's they, they, the rule is anything that falls under a, like a hundred dollars per pound. So if you have a expensive China plate or crystal mm-hmm. Or artwork or whatever. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Something that's really lightweight but also very valuable typically mm-hmm. Is what would go on that. Mm-hmm.

[00:15:25] Shea: So what I always say is just make sure it's individually listed on the regular inventory sheet and then they're fully liable for it no matter what. Even if it's something that's like, let's say you have a, a Bob stroller. Mm-hmm. Well those are expensive, but they're also very heavy, so that's not gonna fall under the $100 per pound rule.

[00:15:41] Shea: Yeah. So as long as it's listed Bob Stroller, this brand, like brand, name, color, whatever, as long as it has its own individual line. On the inventory sheet, they're fully liable for it no matter what. Yeah. So that's why I always say make a list before they show up, and that way you're prepared going into it, sitting down with the head guy and saying, okay, let me check your inventory sheet.

[00:16:00] Shea: These are the things that I want li like, just wanna make sure are on their listed. Yeah. That's smart. Sorry if you can hear my dogs background. That's okay. No, it's totally fine. This 

[00:16:08] Alison: is real life show here. People dog 

[00:16:10] Shea: bark, kids make noise. I've got a four year old and brew dogs, so 

[00:16:13] Alison: that's, it happens. This is real life.

[00:16:15] Alison: We don't edit that out. That's totally fine. Yeah, totally fine. Okay, so then, okay, so you had this disaster move. Yep. You've kind of had this like, okay, this is what I went to school for. This is what I really wanted to do. It's not gonna work with this. Mm-hmm. And then I, you know what I wonder too is, How much of that is true and how much do we talk ourselves into it?

[00:16:36] Alison: I don't do, did I really wanna do that? Do I, you know, or is it like, are we rationalizing in our brains to make it easier to let that dream go? I, I don't know. I think that's an interesting thing to look at 

[00:16:48] Shea: because I was, it is, it is interesting cuz I've, yeah. Like I, as much as I loved it back then, like we, we also change as people, we change as adults we're like what we were so into back then, you know?

[00:17:00] Shea: Back then I wasn't into certain hobbies and today I'm like, you know, way into different things than I was back then as a kid. Sure. So I feel like coming out of college, we need to, like, it, it's okay, especially for military spouses. If you're down the road and you're like needing to reevaluate who you are as a person and what your interests are and what you want your life to look like.

[00:17:19] Shea: Like Yeah. , that's important too, like mm-hmm. , we should be able to change the story and the narrative a little bit for our. Our future if we wanna. So yeah, I agree. You know, I, I, I miss the idea of like, who I thought I was gonna be. Yeah. You know, it's, it's okay.

[00:17:35] Shea: You know, I had to let it go and that's fine. And I, maybe I, there was something better around the corner, so. Right. Yeah, that's 

[00:17:41] Alison: true. It depends on how you look at it, for sure. Okay, so then, so you had this disaster move and you're like, , there's things that I'm picking up and then I'm learning here, and then as you're evolving and you're, I've got kids and we're moving and we're, what, what am I gonna do?

[00:17:54] Alison: Have this entrepreneurial bug that's in there. So then how, where did the where did 

[00:18:00] Shea: box ops come from? So let's see. I, so after that I, I went into full, , entrepreneur mode. Okay. I was , at my table every night, writing notes and, coming up with ideas and this and that, and drawing things.

[00:18:12] Shea: Just full-blown creative mode. And I'm sure a lot of military spouses can relate to that, where you're just in this. You're in this mode of, creativity, just a burst of creativeness coming at you and mm-hmm. It's like I said, like an awakening. You're like, okay, this is what I'm gonna do. And so for me and I've always been someone who likes to have a project over deployments or ts or whatever, I'll paint walls or I'll, when my husband was deployed the first time, I ripped up our carpet and installed luxury vinyl plank flooring all by myself.

[00:18:43] Shea: It just like, like, I need a project. And so when he was deployed the second time, I was like, this might be my chance for me to spend a lot of time on the business and get it going. You know, figure out a plan, what I wanna do, where I wanna take it. And so that's what I did was just spent the, those nine months tweaking the products and how I wanted them to look and getting them designed and all that.

[00:19:07] Shea: So, I would say towards the end of 2019, at the end of that deployment is when I was like, I had, I was getting product in finally and getting ready to go. I actually initially bought a industrial label printer and was printing at home and doing all the printing myself. And I was like, after a couple months I was like, I can't sustain this.

[00:19:25] Shea: This is, yeah. So time consuming. It's not scalable. I can't do anything. Like, I cannot just sit here and print thousands of labels. Yeah. So I actually found a, a manufacturer and I've been working with them ever since. And every few months now I get pallets of hundreds of thousands of labels shipped to my doorstep.

[00:19:44] Shea: So don't come. That's super fun. My basement, you don't wanna see my basement. But yeah, it's, that, that's where I'm at. Right. I, so but to go back to the beginning I, I actually launched, I, I had product for a while. I kind of sat on it for a few months cuz I had. We were just welcoming my husband home from deployment.

[00:20:02] Shea: Mm-hmm. We were trying to get reintegrated together. That's a whole thing. Yeah. Yeah. Enjoy holidays, all that. And then, so spring rolled around March of February of 2020, I started going to vendor events and then March covid hit and I was like, wow, I can't go to any vendor events anymore cuz they're all canceled.

[00:20:22] Shea: Yeah. How much? So I, that was immediately I got on Etsy. And so I've been on Etsy ever since, and I have not ex I, I had not expected the support and turnout that I've gotten because let's be honest, people don't shop on Etsy for moving supplies. Yeah. No, I wouldn't why I got on Etsy in the beginning, but I was like, this is how I can test my product and get it out there and just see what the interest level is.

[00:20:45] Shea: And I, I have not had time to get on other platforms because I've just been so busy. With Etsy. Yeah. And I'm also on spousely now. And so aside from those two, those are keeping me busy. I have wanted to launch my own website forever, and it, I just have to keep putting it off because until I can hire someone else to help me manage it, I'm on top of military spouse life.

[00:21:07] Shea: We're talking about this earlier, , my husband is t d y all the time, so solo parenting, doing all the household stuff, all the doctor's appointments, all the bed appointments, all the sports, everything. Yep, yep. It's, it's hard to wear all the hats of a business on, on top of mom life and military life.

[00:21:26] Shea: So yeah, that's kind of where I'm at right now. I'm at a turning point where I'm like, I think I can hire someone, but I need, I need. Figure out the way forward. That, so, yeah. So, 

[00:21:35] Alison: okay, so then backing up just a little bit to the actual development of the product? Yeah. , tell me about that process.

[00:21:42] Alison: What did that, you're like, okay, we had this really bad situation and 

[00:21:47] Alison: that got your wheels turning as far as like, okay, I've been thinking I wanna do entrepreneurship, but I don't wanna just do something random.

[00:21:53] Alison: This is a really big pain point for us. I feel like this is something that can grow. And then so walk us through what that looked like. , and then how did it start? Like, I am drawing stuff on a piece of paper. You said you bought an industrial, Yeah, because if there's other people that are out there that are like, Hey, I have this idea for this, how the heck to do, , talk to us a little bit about that process.

[00:22:10] Shea: Yeah. So you mentioned pain points and that's exactly what, what my inspiration for it was. Originally I had created the same size labels, but the design was different. I originally just had them, they would only go on one side of the box. Mm-hmm. That was my initial batch where when I first launched, that's what I was selling and making myself.

[00:22:28] Shea: So when I started outsourcing to a printer, My supplier. That was when I decided to, to change the designs. I, I played around with it a lot. And being a military spouse, you know, you're trying to figure out, you're, you're sitting there thinking of all the pain points you've experienced personally as a customer, right?

[00:22:46] Shea: Mm-hmm. Like I, if anyone has a direct perspective on a cons, a moving consumer, it's US military families. Yeah. Like we have a bird's eye view into this industry as the consumer. We are the experts, probably more so than CEOs of big moving companies. Yeah. So so that was what I was sitting there thinking, what pain points have I been through?

[00:23:06] Shea: And, and I was listing them out. And just in re in regards to the label, I, I have lots of other ideas regarding pain points, but just in terms of the products, it was like, okay. One of the biggest pain points for me was I was by myself when the movers showed up, I was trying to give them directions around the house.

[00:23:23] Shea: I was, I had a, a toddler and I was very pregnant. So Anna, I had three dogs, so it was stressful trying to give them directions around the house, where to put everything, where everything goes. Some, most of the boxes were written with Sharpie and you could barely read it. They were misspelled or illegible, not legible at all.

[00:23:40] Shea: It was just chaos for me. It, and I remember the movers leaving and I just cried. Cause I was like, this is the biggest strain on military spouses right here. And so I remember like, how could that have been done? That process been streamlined better. Mm-hmm. So that was how I came up with the door hangers and the color coded labels, so, mm-hmm.

[00:23:57] Shea: I wanted the door hangers so that way you can literally hang them up and be like, movers, here's the color coding system. You go find where it goes. This is your, this is kind of your job and I'm happy to give you directions. But this hopefully cuts that part of the process out so that way I can spend time focusing on the inventory list.

[00:24:15] Shea: Mm-hmm. Focusing on my kid who's probably screaming hungry, wants to play whatever needs, right. Needs a parent. , focus on other important tasks throughout the day that are related to the house, removing or whatever. And, and focusing on the inventory list and checking things off. Right. As, as, as they're coming.

[00:24:31] Shea: That's a full-time job. Yeah. That's full-time job. You're sitting there. Yeah. They're rat. They're yelling numbers at you. You're, and so you don't have time for anything else. No. So the streamlining, the actual unloading portion of it mm-hmm. Was, would be a big help. And then, you know, obviously having the label wrap around two corners or on two sides.

[00:24:51] Shea: I, I came up with that and like, I was sitting there in my kitchen and I had one of my labels and I was like, what if I just did? And then I was like, oh. And it kind of clicked and I, that's really smart. Point on, I immediately jumped in my Adobe illustrator and started reworking everything. Mm-hmm. And so yeah, that's, You know, in terms of the, like, you just think about how boxes are all stacked up mm-hmm.

[00:25:15] Shea: On the truck or in your house mm-hmm. Or whatever. You can't really, if you're labeling one side, you can't really see it if it's mm-hmm. You know, on a different side. So. Mm-hmm. I was like, this might alleviate that a little bit. And yeah. So, yeah, that's really, really, really smart. And 

[00:25:29] Alison: that's, and and another part too, of the.

[00:25:33] Alison: Of the stickers as well. Is it? So if you've got, and this is a good tip for people that are moving, is put your information on every box that's gonna go, because there's so many Facebook groups and things like Lost During My PC s was made specifically for people to, who have lost something like, Hey, 

[00:25:53] Shea: I got this box to, are you on this page?

[00:25:55] Shea: Yes. You can re re get your stuff back. And this is a great way to be. Let's just have like an email, a name, email and phone number. That's what I told you. 

[00:26:03] Alison: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So that, I think that's so smart. And I, and I think again, if you, so, so what the movers do, like if you're a first time, I've never done this before.

[00:26:13] Alison: They come in and they put a little tiny, like one inch little sticker 

[00:26:18] Shea: that's got a number on it and it's a 

[00:26:19] Alison: color and they're all, you, your family gets either one or two colors depending on how low their role of inventory 

[00:26:26] Shea: stickers is. Yep. And that goes on there along 

[00:26:28] Alison: with like a basic. Kitchen or whatever.

[00:26:30] Alison: That's it. That's all that's on there. There's nothing that identifies it other than, that it, , no, they still do. They start writing their last name. They do. I think 

[00:26:37] Shea: sometimes of a, of times those stickers that you're talking about fall off. Yeah, fall off. So that was why on my, so that was why I designed my labels to have like a line from the box number if you wanted to copy it.

[00:26:46] Shea: If you see the mover putting a number on there, those stickers fall off all the time cuz they're not very sticky. So I was like, just read, just write the number there. Yeah, so that's the other, the other pain point that I tried to address was a lot of the stickers that I've used on Amazon don't stick very well.

[00:27:01] Shea: Mm-hmm. So aside from the two-sided labeling, they have a permanent adhesive. Mm-hmm. So they won't fall off. They last, they're meant to last through long transit times and humidity. Mm-hmm. They're also bigger. They're just bigger than every other label out. There're Yes. You're gonna see that from across the room.

[00:27:16] Shea: Yeah, exactly. Mm-hmm. And we offer more colors than pretty much anyone out there. Mm-hmm. Most of them that you'll find online only offer two to three bedroom colors. Or one, you know just not as many room options. Some of them Yeah. Won't even have an office. It'll say like, study or something.

[00:27:33] Shea: Who calls 'em study anymore? I never but, but in some cases they don't have a family room label. They don't have an office label. Like, it just doesn't make sense for most homes these days. Mm-hmm. So I tried to create sets that matched what I imagined would, most American homes look like now, , I have a two bedroom set, a a three bedroom set and a five bedroom set and mm-hmm.

[00:27:51] Shea: People can pick what, , they're, I guess they're just more tailored for people can choose based on what their lifestyle is. So, yeah, for sure. 

[00:27:59] Alison: And it's a, again, , they're so, like the writing is so big. So you're looking at your law like in the truck or whatever, it's so obvious in the color, it's so obvious what it is.

[00:28:11] Alison: Yeah. I can't, it is seriously. Gonna make, it's gonna make a huge difference as you're loading, as you're packing your house. , especially if you're a diddy, if you're doing your, if you're doing it yourself and you start your pre-pack early, right? I'm starting to load and then you're like, oh, crud, I need something.

[00:28:25] Alison: Oh, shoot what box with, and then you're looking Yep. And then you're unpacking everything to let, or you're moving all the boxes. Is that a kitchen box? Is that, how about that? No. Ah. You know, if you have that, I'm just like, oh my gosh, that's gonna 

[00:28:36] Shea: make a huge difference. Well, and that was, that was my inspiration for the category labels.

[00:28:40] Shea: So like, fragile, unpack first do not pack and parts box. Like the parts box. I mean, every military family knows the parts box. Mm-hmm. So a lot of movers will fill a box with all of your screws, your, your furniture, parts, whatever, small pieces, light bulbs, whatever. So you can, even if you're doing your own move, you can Ziploc baggy everything in, in their individual bags and put 'em all together in a box and label that I've, I've also tried taping like the Ziploc baggies to the furniture, but I always worry that they'll fall off sometimes.

[00:29:11] Shea: I do too. We did that this last time, too. The parts spots. 

[00:29:13] Alison: Yeah. Yeah. That's probably, we did that this last time too. I was like, I'm just gonna put it right on. Like, you took the, that desk apart. The screws get in a zip lock, it taped right to it. Yeah. Yep. But you're right, I always do. I'm 

[00:29:24] Shea: like, if it gets wrapped in furniture wrap, it's usually okay.

[00:29:27] Shea: But yeah, it, the movers don't always do that, so I'm, I'm, I'm fearful of that, so I'm like, give me my parts box. I'm taking it with me a hundred percent. Well, the Unpack first sticker is , probably my, my favorite. Just because you can so smart. Slap it on your silverware box, your mm-hmm. Your dinner wear thing.

[00:29:44] Shea: Mm-hmm. Your, your sheets, your bedding. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Your kids' toys or games or whatever. The things that you're gonna walk into your house and be like, okay, I need this right now. Like, your toilet paper, whatever things that your, your hand soap. Just things that you know you're gonna need in the first night.

[00:29:59] Shea: And the first week, just so that way you can kind of settle in at your own pace. Right? Yeah. Unless you're crazy like some of us. Yeah, 

[00:30:06] Alison: that would be me and my house is, you wanna get, you 

[00:30:08] Shea: want those boxes out. 

[00:30:09] Alison: Like I can't, it's gotta like out. Well, I always 

[00:30:12] Shea: did and I always got 

[00:30:14] Alison: so much crap for it, 

[00:30:15] Shea: but I always did a full unpack and they're like, whoa.

[00:30:18] Shea: You know? And I'm like, I 

[00:30:19] Alison: know. Yeah. You're gonna take everything out of the box. 

[00:30:21] Shea: Sometimes on the floor they just dump 

[00:30:22] Alison: it. Yeah. That was, and that's what happened on our, the move 

[00:30:27] Shea: from Florida, the guy, 

[00:30:28] Alison: like literally he cut out the top, he cut the razor knife, the top razor knife at the bottom lifted it up and everything just went.

[00:30:35] Alison: And there's 

[00:30:36] Shea: glass bra and I'm like, what? I'm swear they do it on purpose. No, he totally do it on purpose because 

[00:30:41] Alison: they don't wanna unpack your stuff, even though they are paid as part of the contract 

[00:30:46] Shea: to do it. At least they don't least, at least put it on the counter or on a dead or something. Like don't leave it in the walkway, you know?

[00:30:52] Shea: Yeah. I was 

[00:30:53] Alison: so pissed. I was up asking. Oh yeah. But it's, yeah, that's, Oh, I don't, I don't remember how we got started on that, but man, that is just absolutely brutal when they do that. Okay, so, 

[00:31:04] Shea: so they, the part, 

[00:31:06] Alison: the parts box, I remember the 

[00:31:07] Shea: first time someone was like, oh, it's the parts box. I'm like, I'm 

[00:31:09] Alison: sorry, the what now?

[00:31:11] Alison: He's like, yeah, we put all of this stuff Yeah. In this box. And I was like, really? Why don't you just keep it with what you took apart? That makes sense in my brain. Why would you, yep. Why would you take the screws to the bed and dump 'em 

[00:31:23] in 

[00:31:23] Shea: this box instead of keeping them with the bed? Like I, but they'll, they'll do it and, and then they'll never be seen again.

[00:31:29] Shea: It'll be in a box that went missing and you're like, yes. Wow. That was this, this part was like, I can't just go out and buy that part, you know? No. Yeah. Very frustrating. Oh my gosh. Yeah. It is very frustrating. 

[00:31:39] Alison: Let's switch gears then and talk about, if you're doing a military move and you sticker all of your stuff as they take it when they're bringing it in, again, you've got the box has a color on it, your door has a color on it or whatever the room is, you've got that door tag that goes to there, then you 

[00:31:56] Shea: eliminate having to be the director.

[00:31:58] Shea: That was my inspiration for the door signs was people who were using movers. Mm-hmm. And especially with the more complex layouts. We also have a room chart that comes with it and that's optional, but. It just, it makes sense for more complex layouts. If you have a ranch style home that's spread out or a big tall home or whatever mm-hmm.

[00:32:15] Shea: It just makes sense for, if you have five bedrooms it just makes sense to, for, to hang the door hangers cuz it's, it saves you the headache of walking into your son's bedroom and finding the office boxes and then walking into the garage and finding your kitchen stuff and like, I mean, it just sorting through the boxes alone can take weeks.

[00:32:35] Shea: Mm-hmm. So this streamlines that process and makes sure that everything ends up in the right spot. Mm-hmm. And you're like, okay, I can just focus on this one room and get it all done and each, each day or whatever you can Yeah. Focus in one room at a time. I feel like. Yeah. 

[00:32:50] Alison: I feel like that is one of, so I'm a ninja.

[00:32:53] Alison: I mean, I think mm-hmm. Again, Military spouses , don't even we are Yeah. 

[00:32:58] Shea: The professionals 

[00:32:59] Alison: with moving. Yes. I, and like you were saying like this, we're probably more experienced and savvy Oh, yeah. Than CEOs of moving companies. Absolutely. Because , we're the Yeah, we're 

[00:33:08] Shea: the person. We move way more than they do.

[00:33:09] Shea: I bet. 

[00:33:10] Alison: Oh my gosh. Yeah. , one of the things that I do to, because I have my house done like pictures on the 

[00:33:18] Shea: wall, 

[00:33:19] Alison: there are no boxes anymore within two or three days because Wow. My brain, I need, you need, I, I'm 

[00:33:26] Shea: overthinker. I'm like, I don't know how want this room to look. And it takes me a few months to get an inspiration.

[00:33:32] Shea: Well, this there you. Oh. So, 

[00:33:33] Alison: okay. So mine look exactly the same. Pretty much. I'm like, 

[00:33:38] Shea: yes, the desk will go here and the bookshelf will go here. I wish I had that. I wish I had that ability. Just be like, no. This is, this is how I want it. Like you just have that clear vision already. I do. Yeah. I do. That's awesome.

[00:33:48] Shea: But one of the best 

[00:33:49] Alison: things that I, that I do to set that up for success is as the, as everything is coming off the truck, it goes to the room, it belongs in. Yes. All of the, the boxes don't come in and get left in the garage. They don't, every box 

[00:34:04] Shea: goes in the room. Yep. That 

[00:34:07] Alison: is written on there. So then at least you've got all of the stuff that's supposed to be in that spot.

[00:34:12] Alison: In that spot. And then you just go room by room, by room, by 

[00:34:15] Shea: room and Yep. And execute. Right. And that was, and that was something that wa was so upsetting to me when using our movers was they took advantage of the fact that I was, , by myself. Mm-hmm. Overwhelmed. Boxes everywhere at it got to a point where I just didn't care.

[00:34:30] Shea: I was like, just, I just want them's to be done. That's, you get to that point. So they take advantage of that. Mm-hmm. And then before I knew it, they were gone and I was finding furniture in my garage, which they were supposed to, they were technically liable for bringing it to the right spot in the right room.

[00:34:44] Shea: They didn't even ask. They didn't, and they just left it on and, and they didn't assemble it. They're supposed to reassemble everything and they didn't. Mm-hmm. So they, they, that was another part where, , I was so upset by the fact that they just took advantage of me because I was a, a lonely military spouse by myself with kids.

[00:34:58] Shea: Mm-hmm. Overwhelmed. Whereas if I had had a better system in place, I would've been able to pay more attention to the, to those details. So yeah, I agreed, 

[00:35:07] Alison: because that's , worst case scenario, right? , you're like, and this is, this is the part, and I don't wanna play, , woe is me because that's not, that's not really my vibe, but like, When people would you hear that con?

[00:35:19] Alison: Cause I've been seeing it more lately when they're like, but the military pays to move you. It's so easy. And I'm like, I Oh my God. If you only knew, 

[00:35:28] Shea: I don't know if it's better. Cause we do it every two to three years, fool. They better pay for it. Oh my gosh. They barely pay us enough to live.

[00:35:36] Shea: So I don't know who else is paying for 

[00:35:38] Alison: it. Then again, the more you move, the more you pack your own stuff. Right? Because like my very first move, they wanted to use my sheets and towels As 

[00:35:49] Shea: packing material. As packing material. Yes. And I'm like, wait, what?

[00:35:52] Shea: Or they'll shut extra packing material in there to up your weight. That's another trick there. There's lots of tricks. And I'm not talking smack on all movers. Okay. There, I know a lot of really amazing movers out there, but I haven't seen a lot of military movers get caught. Committing fraud like that.

[00:36:06] Shea: , they'll overpack with tons and tons of paper and packing materials just to, to weigh the truck down more so that way they get a higher reimbursement amount. Ooh, nice. Or they'll, they, there have been a couple caught in big fraud schemes where they were adding actual weight to the when they go to weigh the truck at the way station, they were adding weight , at the waste station.

[00:36:25] Shea: So that was another side of it. And then military families were getting the bill years later, like, oh yeah, you were, you went over your allotted weight amount and the military families were completely sideswiped by it. Like, wait. Mm-hmm. What? You never told us this, or like mm-hmm. They, you know, cause wait, the idea of, of weight tickets and all of that and it's mm-hmm.

[00:36:44] Shea: It's very foreign to a lot of new military families. Like they, it's very hard to understand the process cuz it's so complex. So a tip that I always tell military or anybody for that matter, it's, it's actually a rule under the US Department of Transportation's, F M C S A. You, you are legally allowed to be at the Way Station and watch them weigh your truck and, and you can request it ahead of time and say, I wanna be at the way station and watch you weigh it.

[00:37:08] Shea: And they have to abide by that. It can be on the front end or the back end, but they, they have to, and you can also request a leeway if you feel like mm-hmm. They went over and you're like, wait a minute. A few years ago I was at 8,500 and now you're telling me I'm at 14,000. No way. Mm-hmm. I didn't gain that much stuff.

[00:37:25] Shea: Mm-hmm. So you can, if it's suspicious to you, you can ask for a leeway before they start unloading and, and yeah. And I always tell people, check your weight tickets, check your weight, and dps s whatever they uploaded and have copies of it on hand for, for backup. And so I've never, I've never done that before.

[00:37:41] Alison: Do 

[00:37:41] Shea: they give you, like before they start 

[00:37:44] Alison: unloading the truck, they show you the weight tickets and how much you have? 

[00:37:46] Shea: They should, yeah. You should have a copy of the weight tickets. I don't remember exactly when you get those, I don't remember if they email them to you or if they. Gi hand, like give it to you at delivery?

[00:37:57] Shea: I don't remember. I, it's been a couple years since that happened for me. Yeah. But but yeah, that was one thing where I specifically remember our weight was 8,500 and, and I remember paying attention to it to make sure it didn't change cuz there have been mm-hmm. Times where they've, you know, defrauded mm-hmm.

[00:38:14] Shea: Military families. Mm-hmm. Mm. So, oh my gosh. Yeah. It's, 

[00:38:18] Alison: yeah. There's, there's so much stuff. It's just, yeah. It's, people don't like moving for a reason, right? Yeah. Like, it's one of the most 

[00:38:25] Shea: stressful times for a reason. And then I, I always say that, I say it's one of the most stressful life events you, you'll ever go through.

[00:38:31] Shea: There's, it's, it ranks up there with divorce, job loss, medical events. Yeah. And a lot of times through job loss and divorce, you're moving. So it's like, yes, elevated, the stress is elevated, so it's mm-hmm. It, it really is one of the most stressful events. And so, yeah, that's part of my goal is just.

[00:38:48] Shea: Helping to lower that stress a little bit. Yeah, for sure. Just a little. Just a little bit. Oh my gosh. The, yeah. I love, 

[00:38:55] Alison: I love 

[00:38:56] Shea: organization Sense, have a lot, so happy. I have a lot of other goals aside the organization is, is just how I got started, but, and I've, I've, there have, I have a lot of other products that are in my pipeline so to speak, but yeah, it's running a small business is interesting times.

[00:39:15] Shea: It's, it's, so the past three years I mean, everybody's been tracking the inflation and supply issues and all that, and our, our, our costs of materials have gone up a hundred percent over the last three years. Oh my God. So, yeah. And, and I've been very careful to try and not price myself too high out of the market because that's another thing is, you know, how, how can I run this business and, find a way to grow it.

[00:39:40] Shea: The past three years for small businesses have been a nightmare. So, but I do have other products. That I want to launch in the future. And there's some really, there's some really awesome fun ones that I wanted to do, but they're just, they, they'll take a big investment, much bigger investment than what I can do right now.

[00:39:57] Shea: Yeah. So that's the other side of it is I'm, I'm excited to do, to launch a lot more products in the future, but yeah, it's just, it's slow and steady, you know how, however small business is. Right. So tell us a little bit about, 

[00:40:11] Alison: tell us a little bit about what that looks like. Okay. So you said that when you initially started, you had an industrial printer and you're printing this stuff and you're packaging this stuff in your house, and then you got to a point and you're like, .

[00:40:23] Alison: I can't do this anymore. So you found a supplier. Yes. So now your supplier prints, you just order like a huge bulk order. They deliver this huge pallet to your house. You truck all the 

[00:40:32] Shea: boxes down to your basement and then you pack it. So that's, so that's the crazy part is the process. And that's another reason why.

[00:40:40] Shea: I have to price higher than a lot of my, a lot of my competitors on Amazon and stuff. Mm-hmm. A lot of my competitors sell you basically a hundred labels of every color. Right. , you'll have , a small little roll, and you'll have a hundred or you'll have like 50 kitchen and 50 laundry and 50 of this and 50 that, and for me I was like, that just doesn't make sense.

[00:40:59] Shea: I need more kitchen than I do laundry. I need more of the, the pr master bedroom than I do of of a guest bedroom. Yeah. It's just common sense. I need more of the living and family room than of this. So that was what I had in mind. I get all of my labels on roles and I have to break down all of these roles.

[00:41:17] Shea: And so that's, that's a process in and of itself is breaking. And, and I, I haven't really found a better system quite yet, but as of right now, it's very time consuming and it's a lot of labor. It's a very labor intensive process to break down all these roles and then assemble everything in the sets.

[00:41:32] Shea: So, and, and you're talking, I mean, I have 19 different label colors plus, well, actually I have 20 total if you're counting my, my newer storage unit ones. But, so I have to break down all 19 different colors off of their rolls and then assemble them into sets. And I have to count it out exactly correctly on what goes in each set, right?

[00:41:54] Shea: Like one set has 60 of this color and maybe in the next set it has 40. So it's it's a very labor intensive process, which is another reason why I'm priced so high because it, it takes up a lot of time. I can only do so many orders each day because I'm Yeah. Limited on, on how many I can produce. 

[00:42:11] Alison: And how much time.

[00:42:12] Alison: Yeah. Yeah. Holy crow. And, and so then, so you get this, you get rolls, huge rolls of stuff. You'd have to break them all down. You package them all up. You print the shipping labels, you put 'em in, you package all that stuff up. You chuck your happy little hi to the post office. Every 

[00:42:27] Shea: Thankfully I'm, I'm at the point where I have like, I like because it's a busy season right now.

[00:42:32] Shea: I have, I'm sending out between. Five and 15 packages a day. So I'm, I'm, I'm having U S P S pick it up at my house. Oh, good, good, good. Cause thankfully they offer pickup, so Yeah. But, but most of the time I am driving myself there or to their, and to FedEx. But yeah, , it's a whole process. It's insane.

[00:42:50] Shea: Yeah. And that's a lot. So that's kind of another reason why I haven't really been able to expand my product line is, aside from the cost lack of time. And so I'm, I'm at that point where I'm like, okay, I need, I, I think I need help. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:43:03] Alison: And I love that because it seems like, I mean, it's prolific, right?

[00:43:07] Alison: Box ops. Mm-hmm. You've been mentioned in Httv Magazine and all of this stuff, it's, and so you're think, oh my gosh, it's this Yeah. Huge business, right? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Nope. It's me's in my basement, me my 

[00:43:20] Shea: basement, breaking, sending messages as if I'm some big company and I'm like, Yeah, this is me.

[00:43:29] Shea: I'm the customer service person. I'm the bookkeeper. And, and every, every small business can relate to that. Wearing all the hats. Being the solopreneur. Yeah. Doing all your taxes, doing all your bookkeeping, doing all your customer service, doing all the product development, doing all the marketing, all the social media content.

[00:43:47] Shea: That's part of the reason why I'm kind of a ghost on social media sometimes is cuz I'm like, I just, I can't, I don't have the energy. I feel 

[00:43:55] Alison: you. I don't know. I feel you. I know I'm the same way. I'm like, I know. Like I, but it's like you gotta, there's so many parts that go into every Yeah, 

[00:44:05] Shea: it's, and I'm very, I'm very like I take customer service and my shipping times really seriously, I'm, I pride myself on quick turnaround.

[00:44:14] Shea: People always think, oh, these are, these are custom and they might take a while. And I'm like, no, I get these out in a couple days. , I have these ready to go. I have, I just did a set of 100 for a realtor, and Wow. I do the smaller starter packs now. And the real estate agents love those, and they have, it's been a big hit with them, thankfully.

[00:44:32] Shea: And the real estate community has been awesome. And so they, they've been buying my products as gifts for their clients, but they order sometimes in bulk. You should, I mean, you don't wanna see my dining room. It's my dining room table. We, we don't use it for eating, thankfully.

[00:44:45] Shea: My dining room is now my an office. Yeah. So my entire dining room table is. Where I build big bulk sets, you know, so. Yeah. Oh my gosh. 

[00:44:54] Alison: Yeah. And I know there's so many military spouses that can relate to that, that have Yep. Shops on 

[00:44:59] Shea: spousely that make products and things like that.

[00:45:00] Shea: And it's just like, what? And it's so, it's so hard. It's over hard, the house and it's, it does, yeah. Yeah. We, military spouse don't always have a dedicated office space or No a warehouse space or anything like that. Cause yeah, that's expensive. So It is expensive. Definitely. Yeah. Oh my gosh.

[00:45:17] Alison: Okay. So then, and we kind of already have said, but if you could say so this is a new military spouse that's , you see them bless their little hearts every day in the spouse support groups time. Yeah. And they're like, oh my gosh, it's my first move. I I don't know.

[00:45:36] Alison: What would you say? What would be 

[00:45:38] Shea: Your, it's so overwhelming. Yeah. It's so overwhelming and confusing. Yes, a 

[00:45:42] Alison: hundred percent. What would you say, , if you were to have a brand new military spouse walk into the room and you're like, okay, this is 

[00:45:49] Shea: The most important things, 

[00:45:50] Alison: What would be your best advice? 

[00:45:51] Shea: Step one would be research how you're gonna move, when you're gonna move, where you're gonna, where you're gonna land. Do you need an Airbnb or a hotel, temporary lodging, how you're gonna get there, right?

[00:46:03] Shea: , who's driving what car? Who's driving the moving truck? Mm-hmm. Who's going with who? There's a lot of, of research that goes into moving, mm-hmm. In figuring out your plan, making a plan. So having a plan in place is important, as well as contingency plans. And, and in terms of a contingency plan, I don't just mean a physical plan, I also mean having a sa, an extra savings in case Murphy's law hits and you're like, oh my gosh.

[00:46:27] Shea: My house isn't gonna be ready in time. Now I need to stay in a hotel longer, or whatever. Or something happens with your car, there's an emergency, whatever, people going, OCONUS probably relate to this a lot. You might need an emergency savings of some sort. So I, I always say, have everything planned out ahead of time.

[00:46:42] Shea: Have your savings in order, you know, save more than you think you'll need. Yeah. Have your, have your plan in place of how you're gonna get there, when you're gonna get there, who's doing what, all that. Mm-hmm. Number two I would say is prep. That includes purging your house, prepping an, an inventory list of your valuables or your items that you definitely want listed on the regular inventory for liability purposes.

[00:47:07] Shea: Yeah. That was really smart. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Labeling, having box labels ready to go. And ha and just, just prepping, you know, prepping the house, making sure everything is, is somewhat clean and tidy for the, when the movers show up. Having, , everything ready to go for the day. Mm-hmm.

[00:47:25] Shea: , making donation runs in the weeks leading up to that. Making dump runs, cleaning out your garage of all the trash or whatever. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You know, purging things that, and I always say purge a little extra than you think because I've been there before where I'm, we're running outta space.

[00:47:42] Shea: I mean, those U-haul trucks, even the biggest one is small. Yeah. And, you know, our small fa, our small family of four mm-hmm. Wasn't even able to fit everything on that truck, so. Mm-hmm. I always say like, purge more than you think you need. Yeah. And that ties in with having a savings cuz you might need to buy new furniture on the back or appliances on the backend.

[00:47:59] Shea: So have that ready to go prep, get have a yard sale, whatever. Yeah. And the third thing, and, and this is really important, is to ask for help. Have a plan on the day of the move for a babysitter, a dog sitter. I mean, pets, especially , people don't think about this, but the horror stories that I've heard of people's cats being stuck inside of dresser drawers for the entire duration of the move.

[00:48:22] Shea: Some of them survived, some of them didn't. It just depends. Oh. And like there, there, there are stories of cats that survived weeks inside of a shipment somehow. Oh. Without food or water. And so I would say that's, those are stories that I, that I hate to hear because movers just, they're just doing things so quickly and sometimes these pets get scared or whatever, hiding.

[00:48:44] Shea: Mm-hmm. You might not notice it. And then when they're gone Yeah. You're like, where's my cat? Where's my, you know, the, if the dog escaped or whatever. So have a ch a childcare situation figured out and have a pet care situation figured out. Yeah. And that's for help if you need people to come watch your kids while you're doing inventory and all that.

[00:49:00] Shea: So, Yeah. 

[00:49:01] Alison: That's, that's really smart. We don't do cats. We have dogs. And that's true. You really do. You've gotta keep your eyeballs on them all the time. Mm-hmm. We have a little and we've had it forever, 

[00:49:11] Shea: but it's like a, it's like a two, we have small dogs, so that makes a difference. Yeah. But 

[00:49:15] Alison: it's like two foot and it's like a little round pen.

[00:49:17] Alison: Yeah. Like, so you can make it long, you can make it however many shape, however, whatever shape you want. And so I will make that, and that's where the dog, you know what I'm saying? Just so they're contained or if I, or if it's nice 

[00:49:27] Shea: contained is nice, but yeah. The booms are going into, cause I have big dogs and I can't just put 'em in a room cuz the moves are like, come in, they're in room.

[00:49:35] Shea: Yeah. I always, I always joke, use use my if you have a dog and you wanna lock them in a room, use my, I have like the do not do not pack. Yes. Do not pack door signs. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I'm like, hang them all over the door or like tape it to the door or something. So Yeah. And, and lock it and put all of your valuables in there for all of the, the hand carry items.

[00:49:56] Shea: Things that your, like your suitcases, your key, your car keys, your wallet, your purse, your medications. Yeah. You know, prescriptions, whatever things that you don't want that you wanna hand carry with you or that you don't want stolen or whatever. Put them all in the same place. Yeah. And, and lock it up and yeah, put a do not pack.

[00:50:12] Shea: Sign on it. Yeah, you, 

[00:50:13] Alison: yeah, you really do. You have to, you have to be really careful. And then my best advice, and I know that this is not possible for every family, but my girls go to grandma's. 

[00:50:22] Shea: I'm like, go to grandma's. Yes. 

[00:50:23] Alison: And we'll pick you up on when we get there. And so they go like three or four days before we are supposed to load, and then we load 

[00:50:32] Shea: and 

[00:50:32] Alison: pack and move and unpack and then the girls come back and the house is done.

[00:50:36] Alison: So they are not part, and they're getting, now they're 10 and 11 now, so I don't know. I still am not sure how helpful they would be. Yeah. Yeah. And the whole thing, it's just like one of those things like, do I wanna hear them being like, I'm bored, or can we, I'm bored I yet, right? Yeah. Like, I don't need to hear that.

[00:50:51] Alison: Go to Grandmama's house, then you at least 

[00:50:53] Shea: that's 

[00:50:53] Alison: like one less stressor you have. So. Yep. And we've said we, when we went from Florida to Washington State, we sent the dogs to grandpa too. And then he drove 'em across for us. Like quick, because 

[00:51:04] Shea: we were taking, we did a parents is such a game changer. Oh, it's amazing.

[00:51:08] Shea: I had my mom drive one of our cars for us on a entire piece one time. I mean it's, it makes such a difference. It makes a huge difference. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And then 

[00:51:17] Alison: I keep mentioning this, and I will keep mentioning it because it's such a big deal, is that I feel like a lot of people are like, I feel like I wanna move myself, but I can't imagine loading the whole truck and off like that.

[00:51:31] Alison: Part of it is, I think that's, honestly, that's the best part of the military moving you is that someone is. Pairing all your stuff out the door and they're bringing it all back in. That's the best part. So I found a company on our last move. It's called Hire a Helper. It's like Angie's List for movers.

[00:51:48] Alison: Yeah. And all they do is, is load and unload trucks. That's all they do. I'm, I'm sure you can find them that would come and pack you as well. Mm-hmm. But I'm too Type A for that. So, but we hired, so we hired two guys for two hours to come to our house and load our ch It's the best money we spent because they're professional.

[00:52:09] Alison: They went, they were go, go, go. The whole time they were here. This is what they do. We just had everything ready to go. And they, because you're like, oh, I, I'm, I don't because how many of your friends are also military spouses or have young kids as well? Like, you don't wanna bother them, right? Yeah. Or, and you don't have family around you, and you're like, who do you ask?

[00:52:28] Alison: Like your buddies at work, at you? 

[00:52:30] Shea: I know they move all the time of life where nobody like, People have lives and kids and jobs. Like, nobody wants your pizza and beer. No. I mean, of course we'll do it for each other. Like, my husband's always helping people move and that's great. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, it's, it's hard to rely on other people.

[00:52:45] Shea: So it is, and to 

[00:52:46] Alison: ask for that. So this is a fantastic service that you can hire people specifically to help you load and offload the truck. So I, I, my God, I keep mentioning that because I'm like, that was a game changer for us. Yes. Because that was the most stressful part. I'm like, oh my God. I would say Michael and I are gonna literally take all of this stuff in and outta here.

[00:53:05] Alison: Like, this is gonna kill, because I've already been packing for weeks. Yes. Like, I'm already tired and now 

[00:53:12] Shea: I'm gonna have to like, ah. It's just, it's, 

[00:53:14] Alison: it's a lot. It just, it, yep. It took away so much stress and tension 

[00:53:18] Shea: from the move. Yeah. It was 

[00:53:19] Alison: fantastic. So 

[00:53:20] I 

[00:53:20] Shea: highly, highly, highly recommend that. I would say that I would say there's three, there's three top ways to move in my opinion.

[00:53:26] Shea: Number one is, is hiring. Help the people that will literally help you load and unload. Number two would be just doing a partial Diddy. And, and the partial is like, you're still getting paid for what you took with you. And you're sending everything else with them. So if you, like, say you, hi, you have the, the military movers coming, they're loading everything up, but you're, you have maybe a small tiny U-haul trailer that you're pulling behind with your, with a mattress, with a, all of your kitchen stuff.

[00:53:54] Shea: All of your overnight stuff. Yeah. And so you can get that weight, and that'll be, you can count that for reimbursement. Mm-hmm. So the partial is a, is another good one. And then, and that way when, when the movers are taking stuff, you're not quite as worried about everything because maybe you're, you're able to fit your valuables and all that stuff with you.

[00:54:11] Shea: Mm-hmm. So if you know it comes to a point where you're like, well, if they lose it, it's fine. It's replaceable, I can claim it, or whatever. And then I would say that the third one is if people want to do a Diddy, but they don't want to deal with the hassle of moving. Or of driving the truck companies exist out there that are freight companies.

[00:54:28] Shea: Mm-hmm. And they will do your move for you, like a B F U pack. Mm-hmm. St Sure. Move Old Dominion household services. So those are just three of, of, quite a few companies out there that will show up, drop off. There's also things like pods, like the container companies, but these are actual free companies that will show up at the truck, drop off the container, you fill it, and, and they only bill you on the space that you take up.

[00:54:50] Shea: Mm-hmm. So you can tetris it to where you're not, you know, you're taking up whatever space. Mm-hmm. And then they'll block it off and another family will fill the rest of it. Mm-hmm. Or, or, or they'll fill it with other stuff. Mm-hmm. That's going to the same destination. So. Mm-hmm. Those are good companies to look into as because you're responsible for doing all of the packing and loading.

[00:55:08] Shea: Yeah. But, but you're just not driving the truck, which some people like Yes. I mean, I, I know. I don't, I can't drive a truck, so that wouldn't work out for people who don't, who want nothing to do with that. Yeah, that's true. I heard, and 

[00:55:19] Alison: I've never spoke to anybody that's personally done this, but they, at the start of their career, they bought 

[00:55:25] Shea: a container and so then they just 

[00:55:27] Alison: have it dropped and then it's stored at a place.

[00:55:30] Alison: And I, and I guess like over the long haul, that would, because like, I, I agree. We looked, actually, we looked into, and I think it's, every situation is a little bit different, but we looked into pods and it is not cost effective. It's so expensive. It's 

[00:55:43] Shea: because it's like, oh, it usually. Oh yeah. So you're gonna have a couple and it's like $1,500 

[00:55:47] Alison: for the pod.

[00:55:48] Alison: Okay. Yes. And then it's 3,500 to transport each one. And you add that up and you're like, well Jesus, I might 

[00:55:54] Shea: as well pay luxury movers to come at this point. Yeah, 

[00:55:58] Alison: exactly. Yeah. If you're almost at that, it doesn't, it 

[00:56:00] Shea: doesn't really save money. So that's not, that's why I like the, the, the I, the, I, I think the pricing has gone up the, in the recent years just because of everything going on.

[00:56:08] Shea: But yeah, it used to be a quote from maybe a PAC was like 5,000, which the, the military easily reimburses you for that. So you just turn in the receipts and they, and, and everything's covered. So, yeah. Yeah, yeah. 

[00:56:20] Alison: It's, that's true. Cuz that, that is very stressful. And then you also, cuz one of the other pain points that's like horrific is when you get to that point in the move and you're, you're exhausted and you're trying, and it won't freaking fit on the truck.

[00:56:35] Alison: And then you're like, ah. And so if you've got something like the container. You. That's not the issue, right? Like you can make whatever work you've got extra, extra space. That's 

[00:56:44] Shea: always because like getting to the end 

[00:56:46] Alison: of the truck and still seeing a pile of 

[00:56:48] Shea: stuff, you're like, ah, yeah. And then comes to like a prioritizing situation.

[00:56:53] Shea: You're like, okay, what's the most important thing to me that I don't wanna get rid of right now? Yeah. That, and then 

[00:56:58] Alison: again, and this is, and that's, we were talking a little bit about the beginning of that, you know, we go into debt regardless 

[00:57:05] Shea: of like, yep, I'm saving, I've got all of these financial 

[00:57:10] Alison: plans in place, and then you, and then you end up leaving your couch.

[00:57:15] Alison: Those are expensive. 

[00:57:17] Shea: Yep. Yep. 

[00:57:18] Alison: You gotta buy a new one or you end up leaving 

[00:57:20] Shea: an appliance and you gotta have a cheap one on Amazon is so, you know, pretty expensive. And they, and they don't last a long time. So you're talking about get sacrificing quality furniture for just. Buying cheap stuff every few years, you know?

[00:57:32] Shea: Right. And 

[00:57:33] Alison: that is is okay. I think when you start, we started that way. Yeah. But then you get to a point when you're like, okay, how long am I living in a dorm? When do I get to be an adult and have nice things when does that happen? I know. And then you have to , you have to measure that with, okay, I wanna have nice things, but 

[00:57:49] Shea: then I also don't want them to get ruined.

[00:57:52] Alison: But how long do you wait? Like we've been in 

[00:57:53] Shea: for 22 years. Like, what? What am I, I know. I know. When, when do I get to live my life? Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Okay. All right. Well, Shay, 

[00:58:02] Alison: I appreciate you taking the time to come on. Cause I know that you are super busy and I I appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

[00:58:08] Shea: Am so excited, 

[00:58:10] Alison: so excited. I will, I will definitely share the crud out of 

[00:58:15] Shea: Oh yeah, out of the Send stickers speaker, send me pictures and all that help. Oh, yes, a hundred percent. 

[00:58:20] Alison: Because I, I'm like, I can already see how much this is going to streamline the process. And, and again, so I, and, and I thought of this as you were talking, if people are like, well, I'm not doing a Diddy, the, their military's moving me.

[00:58:33] Alison: , so this is what happens. If you're like, I don't know what's gonna happen. The military, they come in and they pack and then they leave. Yes. So then you're sitting in your house full of boxes for a long time, right? Yep. You have plenty of time to go behind them and slap your stickers on all of the boxes.

[00:58:48] Alison: Oh yeah. Rewrite the box number. They're, 

[00:58:50] Shea: the movers aren't willing to do it. You can do it yourself or, I mean, most movers are happy to use them, cuz then it's from having to write. Okay. But if, if, if some people prefer to have the power over what they want labeled and how they want it labeled.

[00:59:02] Shea: Yeah. Especially if you're using both types of labels, like the room label, but also fragile or unpacked first or whatever. I know I'm kind of a control freak and I wanna do it a certain way. So yes. Yeah, I, so I would just follow my movers behind or, whatever. So, yeah.

[00:59:16] Alison: Yeah. So this is, so again, this is a system that would make, it would streamline both a Diddy move and if you're gonna have the military move view, or, or if you're moving yourself, like even in the private sec, like in the 

[00:59:28] Shea: private sector, in the, in the real world, civilian 

[00:59:31] Alison: world in this, there you go. That's 

[00:59:32] Shea: the world like, what's it called?

[00:59:33] Shea: Same civilian world. Hello? In the civilian world, overseas moves too. I mean oh. Yeah. We, we ship to the a p o addresses overseas oconus. But people who are moving overseas have, have said pretty often that this helps through language barriers with their movers and stuff like that. So it's, it's perfect for overseas moves.

[00:59:52] Shea: It helps communicate better. It gives people the visual and it just makes smart, it faster. It just streamlines for people in it. And people who are in the civilian world or or military who are actually paying upfront for. Buy the hour packers and loaders and movers. Mm-hmm. This can save a lot of time and money because it just kind of streamlines it, so.

[01:00:11] Shea: Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah. Super 

[01:00:13] Alison: smart. Okay. All right, so tell us all the things. So the best way to find your products, you said you're on XY and Spout, so just give us all the, all the stuff, . 

[01:00:22] Shea: If you go to Etsy or Spousely, you type in box ops, you can find me.

[01:00:26] Shea: I think Etsy, it's like box ops etsy.com. But if you go to my Instagram, everything is linked there. My Instagram is at team box ops Facebook page as well, box ops. So yeah, and I'm, I'm on Pinterest and all that, so, yeah. Gotcha. 

[01:00:39] Alison: Well Shay, I appreciate your time and talking to us and I can't. Wait to use the boxes of the the labels. I am. It's gonna be a huge deal and everybody needs to know about it, so I appreciate your time. Thanks for being here. Awesome, 

[01:00:53] Shea: thank you.