Essential Things to Know When Moving

Of course you will need to call in favors from family and friends and you could find yourself spending a lot of The most important thing in a successful self move is to get organized. Chances are that you will know that you are moving months in advance so take this time to plan out your strategy. It doesn't hurt to have a folder or notebook to keep notes in and set a time schedule and stick to it so you won't have to run around in chaos on the last day. Plan out everything you can do to get ready for the move, like packing little used items – assign a date to get them done by and stick to it!

One way to lighten the load on moving day is to get rid of junk you don't need. Why go to the trouble of moving old furniture that has been laying around in the basement or attic only to have it sit around in your new basement or attic? The less you have to deal with for your self move the better off you will be. There's no need to save clothes, toys, knick knacks or anything else that you haven't used in over a year. Plan a yard sale or bring it to the consignment store and make some money to pay for your moving truck rental. If you don't have time for either of those, donate it to a worthy cause like Goodwill. Another way to make your self move a little more organized and less stressful is to pack away everything you don't use ahead of time. Holiday related items, off season clothing, even some of your dishes, pots and pans along with your knick knacks and even your room décor can be packed away at your leisure even months before the move. You can do a little bit each day and have almost the whole house packed way before moving day which will leave you free to supervise the moving of the furniture and other items. If you really want to make things easy on yourself, rent a storage unit for those things and you won't even have to worry about them on moving day at all! Then you can just get them out of storage at your leisure after the move. Don't forget to remove old furniture. Make sure you order what you will need for your self move well ahead of time. You will probably need a moving truck (like uHaul or Ryder) so make sure you reserve one well in advance as it could put a real wrench in the works if you can't get one that day! In addition, you should make sure you have plenty of boxes well before that day and that the boxes are the correct size for the items you need to pack. A dolly and hand truck(s) should be reserved as they will make the move a lot easier especially if you have heavy furniture. When the day comes for your self move, you will need to make yourself available to answer lots of questions. Your friends and other helpers will want to know what room you want them to put things in and which items should be packed in the truck and what ones should go in the cars. Make sure you set aside all fragile items that you want hand carried and assign your most trustworthy person to take care of them, or pack them in your own car yourself. When you get to your new place, it might be counter productive to have people help you unpack while you are still bringing in boxes and furniture. Your job will be to supervise and if people are unpacking they will be hounding you as to where to put things - best to leave that for another day when you can put the things away yourself. You might want to assign someone to clean up the old place after everything has been moved out, or do it yourself and you may want to also clean the new place before everything gets moved in. And don't forget, moving works up quite an appetite so make sure you have plenty of pizza and beverages for your helpers!