Moving into a new home can be a joyful experience, a time to reimagine your life for the better, jumpstart new habits, and get out of old ruts. That being said, it can be one giant headache, too, thanks to the massive amount of coordination and energy involved. But having a solid plan of attack before the word “packing tape” even comes to mind can set you at ease and make the entire process significantly smoother. This is where we come in. Read along for our complete pre-moving timeline. Guiding you from two months out to just a few days, it’ll tell you exactly how you should schedule your move and when.
Two Months Out
Contact moving companies. Despite how exciting moving can be in the right circumstances, it also happens to be a massive pain – sometimes literally. Don’t want to deal with the physical labor of lugging boxes around for several hours straight? We recommend using an actual moving company rather than yourself and the few friends you could bribe with pizza. This will save you a whole lot of hassle and effort. Just be sure to do your research first. Look for reviews online, ask people you know for any recommendations, and get in touch with a few for comparison. You’re not quite at crunch time yet, so don’t feel the need to rush this crucial step.
Start downsizing. No matter how great and affordable your chosen moving company is, you still don’t want to pack more than necessary to your new home. This is your chance for a fresh start. Embrace this by downsizing a couple of months before your move and recycle, toss, or donate as appropriate. Overwhelmed and don’t even know where to begin? Getting rid of old clothes that no longer fit/you no longer wear, and expired food is a fantastic place to start.
Buy things for your new place. Moving house can have you ready to tear your hair out with frustration, but it doesn’t have to only be a stressful transition. You can make it much more meaningful, fun, and exciting by looking at it as an opportunity to build a happier, healthier, better-designed home then following through on that. Take the next couple of months and buy a few things for your new home. It doesn’t have to be anything big, either. Simply purchasing a cute planter, comfy bed sheets, or a couple of small paintings can revamp your space and improve the feel of your new home.
Create a moving budget. Buying/renting a home and getting everything you own moved over doesn’t (generally) come cheap. Cope with the costs attached by creating a moving budget before you get too deep into everything. Carefully review your moving needs and current finances to craft a well-thought-out moving plan. You’ll feel more relaxed knowing the next steps, which can only make relocation easier.
One Month Out
Schedule boxes to be delivered. We’ve all been there – desperately collecting, taping, and labeling boxes late into the night, hoping that we actually have a place for all our stuff. As any of us can attest, it’s not a fun place to be. So, before this next move, why not flip the script? Instead of nabbing whatever boxes you can find at the supermarket, work, or friends’ places, opt instead for our box rentals here at Simply Box’d. They’re sturdy, stackable, easy to carry, and can be delivered nine days before moving to ensure plenty of packing time.
Find out any moving day requirements. When you’re moving into a single-family home, moving day runs largely on your own schedule. But if your new residence is an apartment or other rental? Well, everything is a little more up in the air. While some complexes and landlords may not care how you go about it or when, others may have very specific moving day requirements like what time you can show up, how long a mover can be parked, what all you can bring, etc. Be sure to find out about these around a month out from your move-in date or sooner to avoid any ugly surprises on the big day!
Take time with friends and family. Picking up everything to live somewhere else is no small task. Not only does it involve packing but it also involves paring down your possessions, changing your address everywhere, dealing with your utilities, potentially transferring jobs/schools, and a million other small steps along the way. Together, these things can well and truly take up all of your energy. However, do your best to make time for friends and family before things really shift into high gear. This will help you destress, but later on, you’ll also appreciate making just a couple more memories at your current residence.
Two Weeks Out
Start and stop your utilities/services. If there’s one thing most people hate, it’s sitting on hold with companies for several hours. Unfortunately, you’ll need to bite the bullet here. Moving house means all those utilities and services you use daily will need to be shut off, turned on, or transferred over before you get any further in the process. Water, electricity, and gas will naturally need to be the first, but remember to mark trash, cable, internet, phone, and any other services that your move will impact.
Update your address. Utilities and location-specific services need to be handled around the two-week mark if at all possible, but those aren’t the only things you need to jot down on the agenda. You need to be sure and update your address across the board, too. That means getting in touch with loan providers, the bank, work, school, governmental offices, insurance companies, the license bureau, and so on. Before this, though, fill out a change of address and set up forwarding mail to your upcoming home.
Take care of any needed repairs. Our homes are our main base of operations –and in the pandemic, this has never been truer. We get a lot of use out of them, but with this use comes wear and tear. Not good for reselling or leaving for future renters! Thus, if you want the most bang for your buck or want to get your deposit back, take care of any needed repairs before moving day gets even closer. And when in doubt, call in somebody who knows what they’re doing. Small fixes can usually be done with the help of a hammer and a little know-how (or a good YouTube tutorial), but more extensive issues definitely call for a professional.
Nine Days Out
Clean up our old home. Much like how daily life inevitably encourages some amount of disrepair, the sands of time also bring a mess in its wake. Cobwebs, dust, staining, pet hair, and general dirtiness have a tendency to build up no matter how type-A we are when it comes to chores, and that needs to be dealt with before handing over the house keys. Give yourself a day then (or a couple, depending) to scrub your home down from top to bottom. The next resident will thank you. But what if you’re pressed for time? There are many excellent cleaning services in the area that would be happy to lend a hand.
Begin the packing process. With a moving company chosen, utilities sorted out, repairs and cleaning done or soon to be, and boxes freshly delivered to your doorstep, practically all of the little nuances can officially be crossed off the to-do list. There’s really only one thing left to do: packing. How you ultimately decide to do it is up to you, but we suggest starting with non-essentials and continuing from there. So, things like most movies, books, out-of-season clothing, pantry items, lesser-used pans/dish-ware should be packed away early on, whereas medications, toiletries, electronics, pet food, etc. should be boxed up last. Meanwhile, fragile items should be packed whenever you can devote the most care and attention. After all, just quickly throwing them in a box while you’re bingeing Outlander will only cause issues!
Finally, it’s time to move!
By now everything should have been handled and ready to go for your moving day.
If you have any questions about your move or need any recommendations for movers, packers, and so on please reach out to us! We specialize in sustainable moving boxes, but are always more than happy to help in any way we can.