Moving tasks to do early
I’ve had two people say to me this month “Wow, I wish I had known about you a year ago!” After hearing about their move difficulties, I wish they had known about me, as well! Moves are huge projects, made up of many tasks that are best performed in a sequence to minimize costs and stress. There are so many things we must do to accomplish a move! And, the packing of the home and the financial tasks of buying and selling a home are so all-encompassing in the weeks leading up to the actual move. Yet, it’s often during these last weeks of the move when folks can be very unpleasantly surprised and overwhelmed by unplanned tasks. If I am working with a client, I’ll often start by taking care of these items first to save those frustrating, last-minute errands and expenses.
Household Chemicals
There can be some surprisingly toxic things under kitchen sinks or on garage shelves. These items cannot be easily disposed of, they can’t go on the moving truck, and they can’t be left behind to surprise the new homeowner. The easiest and least expensive way to dispose of these items will be through a local hazardous household chemical drive. Many towns and counties will host these items in the summer. The trick is to plan for these drives and to have all items collected together and ready to be transported. Missing those drives by waiting until the last minute can turn a simple errand into a very long drive to a recycling center.
Outdated Electronics
Those old laptops need to be taken back to your IT department, and that heavy hard drive in the basement needs to be wiped, and the old tube TV in the garage needs to be recycled. Oh, and what about that bin of random cords?? Electronic recycling errands are going to be a real pain to do when you need to focus on packing your kitchen. By jumping on these tasks early, we have the ability to take advantage of easier and less expensive ways to get obsolete electronics out of the home.
Photos
A move can really illustrate just how many forms and types of photos are spread throughout our homes. There are bins of scrapbooking projects that are half-finished, envelopes of printed photos, SD cards in desk drawers, and tons of framed photos on the wall, on shelves, and tucked into closets. Sometimes I find the photos still packed away in moving boxes, years after the last move. For many of us, our photos are some of our most important possessions and we need to take special precautions to move them safely. Taking the time to organize photos well before the move means we can reduce the physical size of the collection while protecting these precious memories. Digitizing and backing up photos gives an even greater sense of reassurance.
Passwords and Bills
If you heavily depend on physical cues to handle financial transactions, moving is going to be very disorientating. How do you log into your bank account when the post-it note with the password details is somewhere on the moving truck? That’s both frustrating and risky! If you are planning a move, take a little time now to organize your financial world. Online payments are less likely to be missed, digital statements mean less mail to transfer or lose, and a password manager means you can get into all your accounts no matter where you (or your stuff) are. Organizing passwords and billing give you peace of mind and greatly reduce the risk of losing access to important information during the move.
Memorabilia
Most of us love having physical, tangible reminders of the people we love or special moments in our lives. Over the years, it’s probably been easy enough to find room for one more coffee mug or souvenir in the home we live in. We don’t have to make choices until we start considering the work involved to pack and move ALL those sentimental things we have kept for decades. This is the most emotionally weighty stuff in our homes and it takes time and mental energy to edit this category. Waiting to the last minute means that precious things may be misplaced or, in the case of downsizing, we overwhelm the storage of the new home. Editing and properly packing these items means we can protect what matters the most and are more likely to unpack and enjoy living with the most precious items in our new home.
The best time to do these move-related tasks will be before the move becomes ‘real’. Clients are often surprised at how limited the options can be to dispose of chemicals and electronics or how long it takes to organize financial information or a household’s worth of photos. By taking care of these items long before the house is on the market or the moving truck is reserved, homeowners save time, money, and last-minute stress.