Instead of the USB stick, you could also use an external hard drive. Back up/copy your data to the hard drive, then install it on your new computer. 2-3 TB external drives are relatively cheap. You can use it later as a backup device to store your data in a separate place. I like external hard drives that don't have any proprietary encryption on them so you can more easily extract your data if the drive electronics crash on you. I can't remember the Western Digital model right now.
EDIT: LOL, I see I was beat to the punch. I question cloning the entire system if you are moving up to a much newer operating system, but my computer savvy is very low. I would just start from scratch and install new software if doing a big upgrade.