How my journey began

The first family I ever relocated was my own. Although I had moved dozens of times throughout my life, this was the first time I had ever done it as a true adult, with responsibilities, people relying on me, a career, a bun in the oven, and a world of concerns I had never had to deal with before. Concerns such as “what hospital should I deliver my baby at” and “who is the best pediatrician for my toddler’s needs” were only two of what would slowly evolve into many questions, challenges, and elements of our move that I needed to address and have arranged prior to arrival. Between this and the vortex of unending information now available to us on the internet (Online Consumer Reviews, Articles, Blogs, Facebook Groups) I quickly realized I had basically embarked on a second full-time job that would take up months of my time and headspace. I had been officially sucked into the vast black hole of cyber research and was NOT coming out until I was a certified expert on what would be my new hometown.

The move itself wasn’t even the beginning. It actually all started when we began to realize that Chicago was not going to satisfy us long term, and it was time to start exploring other options for both our needs and our children’s. There was just so much more that we wanted that Illinois couldn’t deliver on; having lived in the Bay Area for 4 years, we missed the mountains and the outdoors; we hated the 6 months of darkness and ice-cold winters; and the cost of living was nearly crippling as it had become abundantly clear that my hometown had joined the many other major cities in the US that were clearly waging war on the lower and middle class. We were tired and burnt out and city living was just not serving us. We wanted a single-family home, a large yard for our dogs and growing family, opportunities to hike and see the ocean, and just a more affordable and simpler way of life. A visit to one of Chicago’s local museums was not only an all-day event, but you could easily spend $200 between parking, admission, and food by the end of it all. Consequently, I found myself only leaving our apartment to work or take my son to the park across the street. I was someone who loved adventure but had sadly become isolated and reclusive; everything felt like too much.

So, my husband and I had developed a five-year plan after Jude was born. We would save, he would get his electrician’s license, and I would prepare for my next business endeavor, whatever that was. In that time, I began my research of small towns in the US. Putting together an excel spreadsheet, I created categories for every want and need we could imagine; hiking, outdoor activities, decent schools for our son, great restaurants, and small shops were just a few of the many columns I had created in order to begin our process of elimination. Other items such as weather, political views, and cost of living were all extremely important to me. So began two years of extensive research. I joined Facebook groups from all over the country, read blogs, online articles, and forums galore as I slowly began to highlight in green, yellow, or red which category, per town I was considering, satisfied our wants and needs. We had both decided that our next move would have to be our last, so I wasn’t messing around. In the end, Raleigh, North Carolina, was the area that checked off everything on our list and it was in January of 2021 that we finally decided that that’s where we would lay down our roots and build a life for our family.

So then came the many complications that expedited our perfect little 5-year plan. I was, at the time, 4 months pregnant with our second son, we were living with my mom in my childhood home saving for a condo or larger apartment in the city and hunkering down for the winter during the tail-end of the pandemic. The fact was, we didn’t feel like we had very much direction but there were some large changes coming up. To top it off, the increasing cost of living combined with the current seller’s market made buying or even renting in the city nearly impossible without costing us every dime we had. I looked at my husband and basically said, “what the hell are we even doing here, what are we waiting for exactly?” So began the accelerated version of our 5-year plan into just 3-months. We were moving to Raleigh, and we had to do it quickly because I didn’t want to move with a newborn and a toddler and pregnant women reach a certain point in their pregnancy when doctors won’t accept them as new patients because they’re too far along. It had to happen now, and it had to happen fast.

Looking back, that entire three months of my life were a complete blur. Let’s face it, moving sucks! We constantly underestimate how much stuff we have; we easily overlook details that wind up costing us money we can’t afford to spend (still currently waiting on a big fat ticket from Chicago for having forgotten to take my I-Pass with me when I picked up the moving truck and got back on the highway); we lose days battling the anxiety that stems from uncertainty; we lose sleep wondering what we may have forgotten. Not to mention, it can feel like a marathon without a finish line. I must have said to my husband at least a dozen times, “this move is never-ending.” We got through it though, and in spite of all the bumps in the road, I landed us a killer single-family home rental, in a beautiful part of town, with everything we needed to start our new lives and learned so much not just about moving, but about myself in the process.

And it was in this period of my life that my life-long very best friend made a suggestion for my future that would change my life completely. As our evening conversations revolved around my research, the Facebook Groups I had joined, the reviews I was reading, and the spreadsheets I had made to breakdown pricing, services, and vendors for everything we would need for the move and to begin our lives, my dear friend suggested I start my own relocation consulting business.

It was in those conversations and the brainstorming that accompanied them, that Rootz was born. I’m not going to bore you with the whirlwind of events that followed but I will say that I suddenly had 4 clients within a week of putting myself out there. I realized how many people out there need a service like this; to have someone take on the work, research, and worry for them, and I was just the anal-retentive, high-strung, obsessively detailed control freak to do it.