There are a lot of things to consider and prepare for when it comes to moving homes. You need to find a new home, sell or rent out your current one, potentially find new employment and new schools for your kids—you may even have to buy a new wardrobe if you’re leaving somewhere warm like Victoria, British Columbia for somewhere as cold as Yellowknife (home to Canada’s coldest winters of -28.9 Celsius)! With all these things to consider, it’s easy to overlook one very important part: The move itself! Moving homes doesn’t have to be stressful and time-consuming. Follow these six tips to turn your moving day into a success:
1. Stock Up First
The key to any successful move is using the proper materials. Start with boxes and tape: Go through each room in your home and estimate how many boxes you’ll need to properly pack your items, if you’ll require any uniquely shaped boxes, and approximate how much tape you’ll use. Then you’ll need cushioning to ensure nothing breaks, as well as labels and markers to make sure each box ends up in the right place. You can buy all this—and more—at your local Secure Self Storage.
2. Pick the Right Day
Skip the high moving truck or professional movers’ fees charged for the first or last of the month and weekends. Instead, schedule your move for the middle of the week, in the middle of the month. The extra money you save will be well worth it.
3. Don’t Move What You Don’t Want
There’s no sense in packing, moving, then unpacking things you no longer have use for. For sentimental items, you may want to consider investing in a self-storage facility, but everything else should be donated (make sure to hold on to the receipts for tax purposes) or turned into pocket money from a garage or yard sale. Don’t want to move your whole pantry? Contact local food shelters instead of throwing all the food away.
4. Take Time to Count
The last thing you want to discover after you move into your new home is that you’re missing some of your belongings. Whether they were left behind at your old home or overlooked in the moving truck, it can be a hassle to track them down. That’s why you should count and number all your boxes so you can inventory them as you take them off the truck.
5. Hire a Babysitter–or Pet Sitter
Moving can be confusing, stressful, and exhausting—all of which can be made worse if you’re also worried about your kids or your pets. Young children and animals should be left with a sitter away from the home so you can concentrate on the task at hand.
6. Pack an Essentials Bag
After a long day of moving, you’re going to want to shower, put on clean clothes, and go to sleep. But you’ve packed away your towels and shampoo, all your clothes are mixed together, and you can’t find your sheets! Make things easier on yourself (and your whole family) by packing your day-one must-haves in one convenient place.
Now that you know how to make sure your moving day is a success, it’s time to find a safe, reliable place for the things you weren’t able to take with you, but don’t want to say goodbye to. Contact the storage professionals at Secure Self Storage for an affordable, secure, climate-controlled solution to your storage needs.