Once you have gotten the word you are moving or honestly if you even suspect it is likely review the Mistakes below to avoid repeating them.
- Go ahead and start weeding out the items you no longer want, fit or are just plain tired of…very rarely will you actually miss something once you have made the determination you no longer need it. Many people wait too long and don’t properly purge and end up bringing items and then never opening the boxes or getting rid of it at the new home – both time consuming and costly.
- Procrastinating on the moving process will end up costing you more money and stress. Even if you are planning to pack yourself go ahead and get a separate bid for packing the house which will include proper packing materials and you can get an idea of the cost and determine if this is something that makes sense. We had friends who planned to pack themselves and both worked demanding jobs and literally got to Moving Day and really hadn’t made a dent. Be realistic about the time you have available and your timeline and see if you will actually have the time to gather packing materials, assemble boxes along with managing all of the other details associated with moving. Clearly mark every box.
- DIY moving – same thing determine what truck and gas will cost as well as insurance coverage to protect your belongings. When we were moving out of state that was my biggest fear was how in the world would I know what size truck to rent, who would drive it and how to actually pack it. We had four drivers, a boat and four cars so we were a driver short traveling 9 hours not to mention the only person towing the boat through the mountains would have been the moving truck driver….the stress alone of driving nine hours with two teenage drivers was enough to tip me over. Watching the Movers in action was like viewing a life-size Tetris game as they knew what to stack where to use the space the most efficiently and not crush or damage the items and furniture below.
- Read the company’s online reviews and customer testimonials and look to see if they have a good number of reviews and how recent they are….google reviews can tell you a great deal about companies especially those that are service oriented.
- Make sure you have packed like items together so you can designate on the box on multiple sides what room it belongs in and the contents. This will help you get main areas set up and allow you to unpack other nonessential items at your leisure.
- Get written bid from companies and make sure you understand how they are calculated. West Tennessee Moving and Storage provides a written Guaranteed bid that will not change. Other companies charge by the weight of your belongings which is almost impossible to determine so often there are surprises at the end.
- Have a plan where you want items to go in the new space so you can direct and get the boxes in the right spot to make the process simple on Moving Day.