If you are planning to move soon, you may be getting a little anxious about all of the jobs ahead. Here’s a quick time line you can use to plan your move and make it go smoothly.
Six Weeks
- Sign the lease or make a bid to purchase your new home
- Make any travel arrangements to take you to your new home
- Secure a moving company or reserve a moving truck
- Tip: Make sure you have the mover come to your house to do a detailed inventory and ask for a “Not to Exceed” bid. This protects you from a big budget busting surprise at the end of your move.
- Resist the urge to buy things for your new home. You’ll just have to pay to move them, and you’ll have plenty of time to splurge once you’ve unpacked and see what you still need.
Five Weeks
- Order packing supplies
- Decide what you are not planning to take with you
- Note: climate changes are not as severe as you think! You may still need a winter coat in Los Angeles or Fort Lauderdale, just not often. Don’t give everything away!
- Plan a garage sale or post on Craig’s List
- Pack all of your seldomly used breakables (unless the movers are packing these), your off season clothes, as many of your books as possible and half of your toys
Four Weeks
- Contact your child(ren)’s current school(s) and inform them of your impending move
- Contact your child(ren)’s new school(s) and enroll - Note: you will probably need to finish this once you have utility bills from your new home
- Pack another quarter of your toys, your seldom used kitchen equipment, picture frames, and knick knacks
- Sort through your files and discard anything you haven’t had to read in over a year. Keep only vital information about each of your accounts - how to access them online, the last year of statements and important information about the account. Discard extra brochures, prospectuses, envelopes, and other junk you never needed in the first place.
- Shred anything with your personal information on it.
Three Weeks
- Have your garage sale
- Make sure all of the items you are not taking have found a new home
- Have any left over items taken to a charity
Two Weeks
- Call all of your service providers for your existing home and cancel your services as of the day after your moving out date.
- Call all of the service providers for your new home and have them turn on services at your new home the day before or day of your move in date.
- Send out change of address cards or emails to your friends and family
One Week
- Have your mailing address changed to your new address.
- Finish all of your laundry and pack it away
- Finish packing anything you are not leaving for movers to pack. If you are moving yourself, this means everything you don’t need on an absolutely daily basis.
- Visit all of your favorite places in your old town and take pictures
- Say good-bye to friends
- Change the billing and shipping addresses on your:
- Bank account
- Credit card accounts
- Frequently used websites
Day Before
- Throw your last belongings into a suitcase (should be just your toothbrush, coffee cup and teddy bear!)
- Make sure you have coffee, water, beer, soda, and the phone number for the pizza place handy
- Create a work station with extra tape, markers, Band-aids, an Exacto knife, keys to the house and all the extra doors, sheds, garages, storage areas, etc.
- Withdraw enough cash to cover your expenses for the day - figure that the movers will expect to share about 10% of the value of the move as a cash tip, with a little more going to the supervisor/driver
- Get your valuables out of your safety deposit box and shut down the account
- Put your feet up - it’s going to be a long day
Moving Day
- Make a big pot of coffee
- Have lots of water on hand
- Order pizza and plenty of beer
- Stay out of the way of other movers
- Thank everyone profusely
- Give big tips to the movers
- Take pictures of your home
- Let yourself feel sad and anxious and excited at the same time
- Leave the keys with a trusted neighbor or real estate agent
Moving In Day
- Arrange to pick up the keys from a trusted neighbor, landlord or real estate agent
- Pick up a big box of coffee from a local store
- Have lots of water on hand
- Order pizza and plenty of beer
- Stay out of the way of other movers
- Thank everyone profusely
- Give big tips to the movers
- Take pictures of your home
- Let yourself feel sad and anxious and excited at the same time
- If others are moving the stuff into the house, unpack boxes as they arrive in their proper home - you might find you are almost half done by the end of the day
One month later
- You aren’t still unpacking are you? We won’t tell.
