One of the most difficult things about moving out is packing. There are just so many things that you want to pack but have no idea about where and when to start packing for a move!
But, let me tell you once you have a proper schedule, some moving hacks, and few good songs to jam to, packing can actually become fun. In fact, you might even discover certain things you probably didn’t know you had.
So, in this post, you’ll see an amazing weekly guide for when to start packing for a move and how you can do it.
This post is all about when to start packing for a move.
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When to Start Packing For a Move
6 Weeks: Deep Clean Your Apartment & Decide What’s Staying Vs. What’s Going
Grab your memo because, in the first six weeks, you need to do mainly two things that include:
- Deep Clean Your Apartment
Trust me when I say: It might be a huge task to clean your apartment and tiring too. However, things can get extremely easy when you deep clean your apartment.
You’ll have a clear idea about all your belongings. You will also find everything that you need to keep with you or discard. So, once you clean it all out, you can move on to the next step!
- Decide What You Want and What You Don’t
Once you have cleaned your apartment, you will find an abundance of things that you didn’t even know existed.
A quick tip: Don’t start looking at your old items because well, instead of one, you’ll end up cleaning your house in three days which you cannot afford!
Moving back to this step, make sure that you start separating everything. You can take a box and put everything in it if you don’t want anything. This way you’ll be cleaning the clutter and knowing what you want to carry and what you can eliminate.
Moreover, if you reduce the stuff from the beginning, your new place won’t have any additional things using up the extra storage space.
5 Weeks: Purge – Donate and Sell Everything You Don’t Plan To Keep
Before five weeks or once you have gathered all the stuff you don’t require for moving, you need to implement the below steps:
- Sell Everything That You Don’t Require
Did you know that selling things can actually get you a lot of extra cash, especially if you have things in bulk? So, if you have any costly items or even saleable ones, you can consider selling them to get some extra bucks.
Another benefit of selling items will be that you won’t have to pay extra transportation costs and you’ll also receive money in return! Sounds like an excellent deal right?
When it comes to selling, what you can do is conduct a garage sale. This might help in selling certain things. You can also sell items on sites, like eBay, Amazon, or Craigslist even though this might get a bit time-consuming.
- Donate Things
Another option if you can’t sell things is to donate them. There are many centers that are open for donation. So, you can donate anything you want, from old books to clothes to even furniture.
While you are at it, considering asking for a donation receipt. This can help during filing taxes and other adulting purposes!
4 Weeks: Decide Between Moving Yourself & Using A Moving Company
Now, just before four weeks or one month before moving, you need to decide whether you are considering moving things yourself or using a moving company.
Options If You’re Moving Yourself
If you are considering moving things yourself, consider the below things if you do so:
- Ask Around For Help
One of the best ways to save money while transporting things is to ask for help. All you have to do is ask your family and friends if they can help you with moving things.
You can also let them know the dates as to when you are deciding to move. This will give them better clarity.
- Rent a Truck or a Pod
If you have a lot of items that you need to move, consider renting a truck from a rental service. (Eg. U-Haul)
You can also rent a mobile storage pod from companies, like Pods. Here, you can load your things in the pod and then unload them at your new destination quickly. You won’t even have to drive the pod.
But, a time-saving and convenient option would be to hire a transportation service.
Options If You’re Going For Moving Companies
If you don’t want the whole stress of transportation (No one does after all!), you can go for moving companies too. Some of them are affordable, quick, as well as trustworthy.
You just need to consider the below things before choosing any moving company:
- Check Out Moving Companies
Your first step is to at least check out moving companies and select the ones that you see fit (preferably 2-3). Then, you can ask for other details.
- Research and Check Their Reviews
Here, make sure that you basically Nancy Drew your way through the web to find the actual reviews about the companies. Make sure you don’t fall for the fake ones!
You can use Google for this or any other review site that you usually prefer.
- Ask For An Estimate
When you find the one’ moving company, you simply need to ask for an estimated cost. Most companies probably charge by an hour.
Moreover, make sure that you ask them about all the costs clearly. After all, the only surprises that you wouldn’t want are hidden, sneaky costs!
- Ask For License
You need to do the grown-up stuff here by asking for proper documentation from the moving companies, like their license.
Thus, making sure that you are not putting your precious things at risk.
- Ask Your Friends and Family
If you simply don’t want to go through the hassle of the above steps, a quick fix is to ask for referrals from family members and friends.
If they know any good moving company, they can simply guide you and help you out. This way you can save up on a lot of time!
3 Weeks: Gather Packing Supplies & Recruit Friends For Moving Day
So, when to start packing for a move? Here’s when you should!
Once you have finalized everything, at least three weeks before the moving day, you need to gather the packing supplies.
You can find a lot of packing supplies that can make things easy for you, from places like Home Depot, or even online, like from Amazon. Here, make sure that you go for sturdy packing supplies as you don’t want anything to get damaged or ruined and cost you bucks.
Just three weeks before the moving day, make sure that you also call up and ask your friends to help you out! A free pizza can definitely convince them!
2 Weeks: Start Packing Away Your Least Used Rooms/Items
After you have bought the necessary packing supplies, you can start with the whole packing process.
First, you need to start with packing away the items or rooms that you don’t use a lot. For instance, you can start by packing the storage room and lastly, the kitchen. This will help you in organizing everything in your new house.
When you start packing, you may want to stick labels on the boxes or even write on them with a marker. This will help you with unpacking everything!
Once you have packed and labeled everything, you can keep the boxes in the garage.
1 Week: Choose A Day To Spend Packing Everything Else
Lastly, just before one week, you need to have a free day to pack everything else. Given below are some quick tips before you start packing:
- Start packing room by room. This will make the packing process more organized and will also help you keep track of everything.
- Label everything for more ease while unpacking,
- Take extra care while packing valuable items and make sure that you transport them beforehand to your new home.
And well, that’s it! You are all packed and you didn’t even need a Harry Potter spell to do that!
Once you are done, just move the boxes either by yourself or with the help of a professional moving company.
Final Thoughts
Packing before moving out is no doubt a time-consuming task. But, if you follow the weekly guide suggested above, you would find the whole process to be quite easy.
So, I hope that now you know when to start packing for a move!