How I Managed to Successfully Move Long Distance
Moving is not for the faint of heart. Whether you’re moving across town, across the state, or across the country, it’s no secret that you’re bound to face a tremendous amount of stress. As you probably know, my family and I recently moved from St. Louis to Chicago. The moving process was much more difficult and time consuming than I anticipated, but overall, it wasn’t a terrible experience considering we moved across the state. So I want to share with you how we managed to successfully move long distance.
Start packing early.
I seriously can’t stress enough the importance of beginning to pack as early as you can. You don’t have to pack everything months in advance, but if you have a storage closet in your house that you haven’t touched recently, take a day to pack it up. Chances are if you haven’t needed something in it recently, you can do without it for a while longer. Starting packing early will also help you get your house ready to show to potential buyers.
Don’t pay for boxes.
Learn from my mistakes and don’t pay for boxes. They’re expensive when you have to buy enough to pack a whole house and you’ll never get that money back. Instead, post on a local Facebook page that you’re looking for boxes or hit up local stores. Most stores just break down boxes and recycle them, so if you can catch them early, they’ll most likely gladly give them to you.
Don’t stress about how to organize/label boxes. Just throw it in and move on!
In a perfect world, we’d be able to make an entire cabinet fit in one box to make labeling and unpacking easy, but in the real world, it doesn’t work like that. When it comes down to it, it doesn’t really matter what boxes things go in. The way you have your current house laid out and organized isn’t how your next one will flow, so you’ll end up moving stuff around anyway. Take it from me – a VERY Type A, organized, intentional perfectionist – just put it in a box…any box! The most specific I got with my box labels was “Master Bedroom.” Other than that, they either said “Upstairs,” “Downstairs,” “Basement,” or nothing at all. The ones not marked at all were the ones that I packed super last minute and didn’t even care to label. I had the movers put all of the unmarked boxes in a room that I knew we wouldn’t be using for a while so I could open them one at a time to figure out where things should go. So how did that all turn out? Really not bad at all! Since our new house is so different from our old house, tons of things are finding new places to live and be stored, so it really made no difference to me whatsoever that my boxes were jumbled and poorly labeled.
Use a moving company.
I have moved long distance before, but I had never used a moving company. Mainly because the first few times I moved (halfway across the country) I was a poor college kid or just out of college and couldn’t even begin to think about spending the money on a mover. As an adult though making the move with husband, kid, and pets, it didn’t make sense to try to figure out how to pack an entire house in a U-Haul and make the trek ourselves. So we opted to get some help with this from a moving company. There are definitely no shortage of them out there, but I wanted to make sure the ones I went with was a national, reputable provider. I ended up calling 3 different companies and got estimates from 2 of them before making my decision on who to use. In the state of Illinois, there are laws that regulate how much moving companies can charge and they’re limited to charging based only on mileage and weight. So in making my decision, the estimates I had were basically the same, but the person providing the estimate for the one I chose was far more knowledgeable and explained things very well, or so I thought. Which leads me to my next tip…
Ask a TON of questions.
When having someone come give you an estimate for the move, don’t hold back – ask ALL THE QUESTIONS. Even if the estimate they provide is going to be largely based on weight and miles, there is so much more that goes into it that I failed to realize.
- Is there a charge for you to pack anything for us? What is the cost? For anything you don’t get packed, they’ll gladly pack for you, and charge you a lot. They’ll come with extra boxes and other packing materials, but they definitely charge a premium if they have to pack any of your stuff. That means lamps, large picture frames or mirrors, grandfather clocks, TVs, etc… So try to either pack those things ahead of time.
- What is the cost to make an extra stop at a storage unit or family member’s house? Making an extra stop adds to the cost. So if you have things at a storage unit or parent’s house, try to put them back in your house before the movers come or you’ll be charged more.
- Do I have to take the headboard off my bed? Is there a charge if the movers do it? I failed to ask the second part of this question and it cost me several hundred dollars. Disassemble everything you can – it’ll take a lot of time, but save you a lot of money. So disconnect headboards from beds, take the bed frames apart, remove shelves from bookcases, take TVs off the wall if mounted, etc… All of these things added a ton of money to my moving bill because I failed to ask the right questions. The same was true for reassembling. Everything they took apart, they put back together, but it also added to the bill to have them reassemble things.
- Are there any items that can’t be guaranteed safe in the move? I didn’t ask this question, and while it wasn’t a big deal necessarily, I did have a couple things that made it to the new house in a little worse shape than they started out in. The main items that didn’t fair so well were our bookcases. We don’t have fancy real wood bookcases. Nope, we have Target bookcases. You know, the MDF ones with the cardboard backing that barely hangs on with some itty-bitty nails? I’m sure you have one or two in your house right now! Well those aren’t guaranteed to make it intact by the moving company. In fact, anything constructed of MDF isn’t guaranteed because the structural integrity of the product may not be able to withstand the rough conditions of moving via a semi for several hundred miles. While it wasn’t a big deal to me that my bookcases were a little worse for wear coming off the truck, it was fine, but just be warned.
- I have antiques or fragile items – can they be guaranteed as safe in the move? You will likely be told that yes, these items will be safe. And while I do believe that based on my experience, please be aware of the above item regarding structural integrity of the item. I had two old sewing machines that were my grandmother’s and two grandfather clocks passed down to me from my grandfather. I expressed my concern to the person providing the estimate that said they wouldn’t be a problem, but I made certain to tell the movers specifically when they arrived that I wanted extra caution applied to those items. They were happy to do so and packed the items gently and in a manner that kept them safe for the move.
You probably don’t need to purchase the insurance from the moving company.
The moving company offers various levels of insurance for the items that will be in their possession for the duration of the move. For decent coverage, you’ll likely be looking at a few hundred dollars. To me, that was an extreme cost and the likelihood of the truck going up in flames for me to get a check for the payout of the total damages was slim-to-none. But of course, worry kept nagging me and I decided to opt for the insurance. I didn’t choose the best one, but one that was decently priced for an ok amount of coverage. Well, that was a stupid decision on my part. A couple of days after signing the contract for the movers, I stumbled across my homeowner’s insurance benefit guide. Wouldn’t you know – they cover moving! For real, I was so mad at myself! So be sure to call your insurance agent prior to signing your moving contract to see if they cover the contents of your house while moving. If so, it’ll likely save you hundreds of dollars!
Send the kids to Grandma’s!
Moving is stressful enough when you’re by yourself, but trying to move with kids around is impossible. Especially little kids. So if you can, let the little ones stay with their grandparents during the actual move. This way, you’ll be able to relax a bit more knowing they’re having fun and you can focus on getting what you need done without interruption.
Consider the pets during the moving process.
Pets are obviously part of the family and should be considered during the moving process. If you have dogs, consider boarding them or sending them with the kids to Grandma’s while the movers are in the house to make sure they stay safe while the door is left open for things to be continuously moved out. If you have cats, boarding may or may not be an option depending on the temperament of your cats, but my guess is that boarding will likely not be an option. I had made arrangements for my 3 cats to be boarded while the movers were packing the truck, but at the last minute I cancelled because I thought that would just add to the trauma of the whole ordeal. So instead, I emptied one of the bedrooms the night before the movers came and the morning of the move, I put all three cats in that room with a litter box, food and water, and some pet beds and blankets. I know it was still stressful for them because it was out of the ordinary and they could hear a lot of commotion, but at least they were all together in a familiar surrounding. Once the house was cleared, I loaded them all into their individual cat carriers and put them in the car for our 5 hour journey to the new home. Once there, I let them out to roam, brought in their beds and blankets to make sure they had something that smelled familiar, and set out their food and water. The next morning, I again put them in a room that the movers would not be entering so they wouldn’t run out and panic. Although stressful for all involved, I think it managed to work out as well as could be expected.
So there you have it – my advice on how to successfully move long distance! I hope this helps you in your move should you find yourself having to move further than across town. And if you’ve previously made this journey, do you have any advice or tips to share that I didn’t mention?
