Preparing for a Move

Moving is not for the tenderhearted. Whether you are moving solo or with a large family, a smooth transition requires a huge amount of time, thought, and preparation. It’s the difference between throwing everything into boxes vs. keeping what’s important so you have a smooth time on the other end.

If you subscribe to my monthly newsletter The Neet & Greet, you know that my family of 6 is moving. Well, we are eventually moving! Prior to that, we are embarking on a year or more abroad, exploring the world and reconnecting. This adventure has been a dream for my husband and I for many many years, and it’s wild to think that we are less than a month away from our departure.

With that said, we are in the final dregs of moving. Boxes everywhere, weekly donation runs, and eating meals consisting of dusting off cans from the back of the pantry and thawing out cubes of soup from the freezer. It’s glamorous, this moving thing.

So what have we been up to in preparation up to now? Let’s see.

Continue the Decluttering Journey

Thinking back, I believe the start of my decluttering journey was in 2014/2015 when I read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. The book is a classic start to a big reframe for many people, especially those in the organizing space. While I’ve always been organized with our things, up to that point I hadn’t really considered that all of our crap was making it hard on us. That organize all I could, the influx of things, especially after having our twins, was the bigger problem.

It baffles me to think of all that we moved from Arizona to Vermont in 2013 with only 1 child at the time. Even without furnishing that waste of a second living room that is found in many homes, at least in Arizona, we had amassed a ridiculous amount of stuff. Clothes, toys, and craft supplies I had accumulated since my youth. My husband was working overseas half of the year which meant that 99% of the packing was left to me. And I was pregnant with twins while entertaining a needy toddler. Not ideal. So I did what most people would do. I mindlessly packed it ALL up, doing my best to keep the boxes categorized by room. We lived with my sister for a month or two while we looked for a new home and then unpacked it all into a 1800s farmhouse, this time only 2 months away from having our girls. It wasn’t pretty.

Back to that life-changing magic - I found myself pouring through clothes and books like it was my job and quickly got the bug. I wasn’t going to let all that stuff have any power over us anymore. Power I didn’t realize it even had. Since then, we have been continuously decluttering. It’s never a one and done type of job because real life means that things are always coming into the home - gifts, new appliances, clothes, books, toys…but now we were working on ensuring that we kept it under control. Continuously identifying things that we were done with, thinking twice before purchasing new things, and throwing broken things away instead of holding onto them to fix “one day”.

Deciding to Move

Once we decided that a move was most likely in our future, we kicked decluttering into high gear. I came home from working with clients and their clutter to doing it with our own. This time with a new frame of mind. Instead of the normal questions we asked ourselves, we added “Do we want to pack this up and move it?”. What a mind shift. This simple question made it much easier to decide what stayed and what went. Do I want to keep the mini trifle bowls that went from the garage in AZ to the house in VT and were nothing more than a Pinterest-worthy dream of hosting some elaborate party (hosting gives me major anxiety, so no). What about the soap making supplies that I used all of a couple times to make sub-par bath bombs that probably cost more to make than if I had just bought them. Nope. This process has been getting easier every day and when I look at what we are keeping and seeing that it’s likely going to be less than when we moved as a family of 3, it feels pretty darn good.

Pack the Easy Stuff First

Just like I encourage clients to do with their decluttering, I suggest starting with the low hanging fruit. We are in the depths of a wicked hot and sweaty summer, so I started with the ski gear. Thoughtfully setting aside anything that the kids wouldn’t fit to next season for friends or family, I carefully packed up one bin that we might pull out of storage for a ski trip in the Alps this coming spring. We may decide to rent it all, but if not, the necessities (helmets, goggles, mittens, etc) are all packed in one clearly labeled bin that we can easily grab from storage when needed.

Memorabilia isn’t something that I’d usually put at the top of the list when decluttering - it’s almost always saved for last - but in this case, I jumped into it on the early side. We don’t need any of it for daily life…ever to be honest. Space is an important consideration for us with this move, so my goal was to condense as much as possible. The 3 medium-sized bins of my memorabilia are almost down to one. I’ve spent a lot of time taking photos out of brittle albums (that take up a lot of space). 80% of the photos can be trashed (blurry, duplicates, random landscapes, people I don’t know) and the rest go in photo boxes until they can be scanned down the road. I’ve let go of hundreds of Halloween, Valentine’s Day and Christmas cards that I’ve been given since I was born (thanks mom!), realizing that as a first-born, it was all special for my mom to keep. As a mom myself now, this exercise has been confirmation that my kiddos probably would appreciate to see their grandparent’s handwriting on one card, but not every single one ever. I really enjoyed looking through them but nearly all of them were just signed with a name - no sweet note or memory that I felt the need to keep.

Be Real

With a year or more abroad between now and our unpacking, it’s important to be real. Will I actually like this sweater in 2 years? If I barely like it now, it will probably not be the first thing I want to wear on the other end. Do we want to pay to store a bunch of socks or a dinnerware set that has slowly been dwindling away due to broken or cracked pieces? Of course there is a balance - we do need to make sure we can live when we get to our new place without buying everything new. So yes, among our favorite kitchen items, books & housewares, we will be keeping 6 towels, pillows, and a set of sheets for each bed to ensure that we can sleep and shower comfortably when we settle back down.

Categorize by Room for Easier Unpacking

Unpacking is so much easier when you start with the right boxes in the right rooms. It usually makes more sense to pack by room than it does by category. Packing all your family’s sweaters in the same box doesn’t make sense because they are going to end up in different places. It’s ok if your sweaters are in the same box as your sheets since they are all going in the same room. On the other hand, you don’t want to pack your silverware with your shoes. Ew.

One important box to pack is the “Open First” box. This will have to be packed closer to move day but should contain things like sheets, pillows, towels, a couple rolls of toilet paper, paper plates & napkins, basic cleaning supplies, chargers, and anything that will make that first night in your new home a little easier. I promise - you will thank yourself!!

Wrapping Up Loose Ends

With less than a month to go, we have let our Costco membership expire (eek!), canceled our Subscribe and Save recurring orders from Amazon, along with other subscriptions as we think of them. The more we can do now, the easier that last week or two will be when we are in the depths of the final packing and cleaning. Other things that can be done ahead of time are forwarding your mail, making and attending any last minute doctor/dentist/vehicle maintenance appointments, ensuring important paperwork is collected and organized, and visiting as many loved ones as you can before your time is up.

Have you moved before? What was your biggest success or failure? What would you do differently the next time? I’d love to hear. Send me an email with any tips and tricks that worked best for you!