Moving Tips & Tricks
This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of CORT for IZEA. All opinions are 100% mine.
My husband and I started our little family almost ten years ago. We were both 21 and still in college. Since then we have both become college graduates, my husband has graduated from dental school, we have added 3 more adorable humans to our family, plus a few animal friends. We have lived in six different homes and three different states. In fact, in my 30 years on earth, I have moved 18 different times. I am no stranger to the task, and I have developed a few tried and true methods over the years that make moving a little less painful.
1. Purge. Before you start packing put EVERYTHING away. I know this sound daunting, but if you have ever been moving and ended up with those four random boxes of junk that was left over at the end, you know why this step is so important. File papers. Have a garage sale. Donate all the stuff you don’t need.
2. Use medium sized boxes and try to keep them close the same size. There is nothing worse than perfectly filling a box only to find that it is too heavy to lift. If the sizes are uniform it makes packing your truck a cinch!
3. Label. On every box I write two things, what is in the box, and where it needs to go in the new place. That way when you are unloading the truck every box ends up in the right room, and when you just need a pair of scissors you know exactly what box they are in.
4. Ask for help. Don’t try to do it all on your own. If you have kids, pay a sitter for a few hours to really get packing taken care of. Don’t worry about making dinner, cold cereal and pizza are great for a couple of days. Moving is stressful, don’t spread yourself too thin.
5. Decide if your furniture is worth moving. We just moved from Arizona to Alaska. That is 3,771 miles and 61 hours worth of driving. We will only be living here for two years while my husband completes a residency program, and our home is less than half the size of our previous one. We wanted to take the smallest truck (hello, expensive), and our new house wouldn’t come close to fitting all of our furniture. We decided to cut back. We sold the furniture we didn’t absolutely need in Alaska, and we left anything sentimental at my in-laws house to store while we are gone. Miraculously, we fit in the smaller truck.
But, once we got to our new home, all we had were beds and handful of other furniture pieces. We didn’t even have a couch! Now what? Knowing we would be moving again in two short years, we didn’t want to spend a fortune on new furniture just to leave it behind.
Have you heard of CORT Furniture Rental? They are the perfect solution for problems like these. Perfect for new families, temporary living spaces, military stations, or educational programs, they can rent furniture for as long as you need it! You can choose to rent a home full of furniture, you can rent by the room, or you can rent piece by piece. You can even rent everything else from dishes to a vacuum. It is so perfect and can really save a ton of the headache that moving provides.
Next time I move, I am letting CORT Furniture Rental take care of everything I need at the new place! It costs you money every month, but just think of the savings you will have from not having to move all of your other stuff!
Isn’t it funny the more stuff you get, the more you realize, you don’t need what you thought you did! If I had just not purchased that thing I’m purging now, how much money would I have!?!
I have a friend that moves every two to three years for her job and she is always complaining about moving costs. I am definitely going to ask her if she’s ever thought of renting furniture. It’s brilliant. Not only because of the expense it can save you moving, but also because you can totally change up your style with every move.
How FUN would that be!!!
I’ve moved like 22 times, so this is one area I’ve got covered. Purge, purge, purge. That’s definitely the key to making it easier on both sides of the move.
We always make sure to get the same sized boxes. It makes it so easy to stack in the truck. I always make sure to label them which room they go in too and then we untape them and stack them in the garage just in case we ever need them again
These are all such a helpful tips. My sister and her husband is about to move in their new house. I’m gonna show it to her.
I find moving to be so overwhelming. It is a good idea to be organized to cut down on extra stress.
I have never thought of renting furniture before. It is a great idea. These are great tips for moving.
Great tips! My husband and I have been looking for a house, so we hope to move sometime over the summer. I think putting names on boxes is what really has always worked for us. That way you know what is in each box when you get to your new place.
Great tips! I hate moving too but when family can help out it makes it so much better! Also spending time after you’re all settled in with some pizza and drinks!
It’s amazing what you accumulate when you live in a place for a period of time. Purging is so hard to do, but worth it in the long run. Thanks for a thought-provoking post.
These are really useful tips! The box one is actually genius: you never realize how inconvenient different sizes could be until it’s too late. Once you get going with a certain rhythm, it’s so frustrating to run into a box that’s too heavy to carry on your own, forcing you to re-strategize and get other people to help out.
Kelly
http://kickingitwithkelly.com
I rented some furniture from CORT when I got a temporary job right after college. It didn’t make sense to buy a lot of furniture if I wasn’t sure I was staying, so CORT was exactly what I needed!
Great tips!! We are getting ready to move here soon and the thought of packing and unpacking is overwhelming! I know we are starting to go through things we don’t wanna take with us right now.
Well, I’m not moving but did buy my grandparents house with over 60′ years of their stuff included! And these tips actually work for that purpose still, especially the pizza bit.
These are great moving tips! I absolutely agree with purging, it’s completely necessary. Also, packing things in the medium boxes is a good idea as it will keep them from being too heavy.
We just moved a few months ago and this is totally accurate! I think it is easier to have all the same size boxes so that they stack together better in the truck.
I hate moving. When I do move I gather friends and beer and pizza and make a day of it!
I can relate to Aimee when it comes to moving at least a dozen and a half times-Not fun. What is even more “not” fun is finding specific items for immediate use after the move. As we all can relate, there has been a time, or two HA!) that this has happened to,and we cannot find that one blasted box that contains that item. UG!!! My most successful moves involved me taking the time to number my boxes and list the items in them. I then create a list to keep in my filing cabinet that has the box number and the items that are in it. then, when you need it, you can easily go right to that box.
Imagine my husband’s amazement when he asked where something was three years later, and I had certainly forgotten where I had put the item, and I found it in box #3 in our attic after looking at my list I had filed away years prior! It may sound anal to some, AND time consuming, but imagine time saved looking for those items later. That isn’t even to mention the money saved due to having to replace those items when you cannot find them, and you need something right away! It really didn’t take a lot of time to scribble short descriptions of the contents of the box either! Happy(er) moving, my friends!