You might understand how to save money on things like toy shopping but be mystified on how to save money when you move with your family. If you earn a high dollar amount per hour, then setting aside time to do all the packing yourself is actually costing you money. If on top of that you borrow a pickup truck, you will probably pay in fuel costs making many trips. It makes much more sense to hire a professional mover like Allied and get all the help you need with packing, hauling heavy furniture and appliances, and transporting your household goods.
By doing everything yourself, you will probably spend more in lost time and incidental expenses. Essentially, then, the trick to moving with your family in the most hassle-free way is to increase the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of your move.
Besides hiring a professional, national mover to help you out, here are three more tips to streamline the entire process of uprooting your current life and starting over in a new home:
- Jettison what you don’t need instead of lugging it with you.
Over the years, you have probably bought a large number of things. Many of these things have become obsolete. Others just don’t work. And some are in good condition, but you have completely lost interest in them. The only trouble is that you have lost track of what you still need and what you can safely classify as “junk.”
So the first step to moving is to declutter and do it in a comprehensive way with a take-no-prisoners attitude. It’s also best to do this in a chunked period of time, say a weekend, when you can focus on it. If you spread out the project over several weeks, you will lose interest and momentum. However, an all out, shock-and-awe type assault will turn a task you would rather postpone into an exciting project.
Ideally, it won’t be an army-of-one type of campaign. Recruit as many members of your family as you can. Not only will a team effort result in a faster turnover but it will be a lot of fun, too. You can then all celebrate your victory at the pizza parlor. For a more professional approach and if you’re really pressed for time, you should hire a junk removal company.
Once you’ve created two piles—the things you want and the things you don’t want—then it’s time to sort out the junk.
You can break what you’ve gathered into two groups: “junk that might be someone else’s treasure” and “junk that no-one could possibly want.” Then sell and dispose of your stuff accordingly. Good places to sell are Craigslist, eBay, and garage sales. Good ways to dispose of stuff is to give things away to family or friends who could use it, donate to a thrift store, look at dumpster rental alternatives, or recycle container if the stuff has lost most of its monetary value.
After you’re done, you might come to the shocking realization that you have just saved yourself the cost of one truck full of material that had to be packed, transferred and unpacked again.
- Shut off your services in a smart way.
Many services that you use, particularly your utilities, ask you to pay a full month before you receive the services. So it’s smart to cut off your services earlier rather than later. This way, you’re not paying for services that you never get to use.
- Don’t upgrade overnight.
If you are moving into a bigger home or apartment, you might be tempted to spend time and money in sprucing the place up. Temper this desire to start a new life with new belongings – like a new sofa to replace your old one or a new refrigerator to replace your inefficient one. By restraining this impulse to do a total quality upgrade, you will have plenty of time to find bargains for the new things that you want to buy.
- Start early, finish strong.
When moving, start early. The earlier you start to plan and pack, the less pressure you will feel as you get closer to your moving day.
Life sometimes throws you a curve ball at the last minute. For instance, your boss might have an emergency and calls you in for an extra shift just when you can’t afford to take time away from your move.
By thinking well ahead of your move day, you will be able to save time, money, and recover from unexpected setbacks to your packing schedule. You will handle everything that comes up with grace.
You bet we all have so many things decluttering is first step. However it is very difficult as you get attached to the stuff and also you need to be disciplined.
Once I got in the habit of throwing things out in a mass decluttering pre-move, I was pretty tough about it. So much of my junk was cleared away!
When we moved I really should have started packing earlier. My husband was gone on a business trip the entire week before we moved! ugh!
These are great tips!
Great advice! We moved recently and I was so happy I had the forethought to call our hydro and internet providers enough in advance so that they could switch everything over right on time.
When I last moved (only across the street mind you)-I made every mistake in the book. My friends and I moved with a shopping cart and I brought everything with me!! Some guys I knew carried the furniture over—-and my Mom decided to come over and supervise–7 days later——–my cat and I finally were in our new apartment. I swore if I ever had to move again I would hire a professional service–it is definitely the way to go-even if you are only moving across the street!
I hope to be moving in the next 6 months, so these tips came at a great time! I especially love the tip to wait on upgrades. I will probably struggle a bit with that,lol.
Moving is one of the most stressful experiences in our lives, and all the tips we can get will help ease the stress. These are great reminders too.
I’ve always thought that moving was such a tedious task and I imagine moving out of state can be very expensive. It’s nice to see there are some ways to save money.