Following on from the post I wrote a few weeks back about
things to think through for your house move, I now share my next five tips on getting ready for
your move and making things go as smoothly as possible -
De-clutter your
belongings
I pride myself on being someone who de-clutters
regularly. Most of my friends have
random baby clothes and equipment sat in their loft and I’m pleased to say mine
have always gone within about 3 months of them not being used anymore. I really
can’t stand mess but I have discovered that even someone like me has far too
much when it comes to moving house. I managed to condense my wardrobe by at
least half and there is plenty you can do with your old clothes, give them to a
charity shop, a local family in need or our local food bank takes clothes too.
Or it might be that you need to make some extra pennies and you can sell your old clothes online.
Mail redirection
It is only £50 to redirect your post with Royal Mail for a whole year, this really surprised me and struck me as very good value. It would have been easy to assume I am super organised and that I only need six months but then I might miss out on the odd random Christmas car or the pension update that only comes out once a year.
Change of address
notifications
I used word and a few images of our new house and area
(luckily it is very beautiful) to make a change of address announcement. I then
sent this via Facebook, email and snail mail to family and friends and it
hardly cost a penny.
Make sure that you don’t start to change your address with
all your service providers too soon as you may end up like me, having to call
them all again and amend the move date. Wait until you exchange contracts and
have a firm move date to get this all sorted, even though it might be tempting
to do it early.
Collect packing materials
You want to ensure that you have all your valuables really
well packed and this means loads of newspaper (or packing paper), bubble wrap
and boxes. Yes you can go out and buy yourself a complete move pack but why
spend £50 when you don’t need to? I found the DIY stores like Homebase and
B&Q to be really great for getting large, sturdy boxes and dh was able to
collect lots of metro papers from his train travels into London each day. Or it
might be that all this manual labour is not your bag and you can find out how
much your removal company charges to pack it all for you.
Investigate removal
companies thoroughly
Talk to local friends and family to see which removal
company they used. We chose our company on the basis of two independent
recommendations for friends and then when the owner came to price up our job he
was friendly, knowledgeable and wanted to make sure I understood all I needed
to about our move job. Don’t just go on price, the cheapest is often not the
best option. Also, make sure you find out if they offer insurance for your belongings
or if not then it will just be liability to cover them on a like for like basis
and you need to check with your contents insurers that you are covered
adequately.I'm due to move in just a couple of weeks now and I have to be honest and say I can not wait, I just pray all goes well with our house sale this time.
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