I will save money by cutting back on the things I own.Don’t take everything with you. Sort through, throw out, give away, or sell things you don’t need anymore. When you’ve gotten to the bare minimum—or everything you truly can’t live without—start packing.
—ILYCE R. GLINK
The day will come when it’s time to move—and you can get excited that you really have the opportunity to go through everything you own! When you put your house on the market, you will attract more buyers without excess belongings. Also, you have less to pack and will save money moving. And you will have less setup time at the other end before you begin your new life. It’s a win-win situation all the way around—if you get busy when you hear those words, “We’re moving!”
Most moving tip sheets tell you to “simply let go of the clutter.” That one sentence alone may start hours of haphazard activity that ends up being frustrating and unproductive. No more! In this chapter, you will learn how to prepare for a move and set up at the other end.
This is the time to make those hard decisions and let things go. Ask yourself, “Is this item part of my past or my future?” If it’s sentimental, take a picture and let it go! Save the memory in a picture, but not on your shelf.
Here’s my best tip for preparing for a move: get rid of anything you don’t like or use. Especially leave anything with bad memories—the bigger, the better! Whether it is an old couch, an attic full of who knows what, or a back closet full of old jackets and tools, it’s time to give these things away.
Don’t spend the time or money to move anything you don’t like or love. Now is the time to let go of things that have been taking up space in your life. Simplify your move to make your next home easier to manage.
Create a Plan
In this chapter, you will learn how to set up to move—whether the move is for you or for a friend or relative. Very few people live in the same place forever. So when it’s time to move, enjoy the opportunity to do a thorough purge of your belongings.
If you know where you are moving to, make a diagram of the rooms you will have. Then match them room by room to your current situation. It’s very likely that you won’t have the same number of rooms.
If you have fewer rooms, then eliminate the contents of the rooms you have to give up—an extra bedroom, a hall closet, a set of built-in bookshelves, or a basement. The rooms you won’t have in your new home are the rooms you empty first at your current home.
If you are moving to a home with more rooms, decide how to divide your furniture. It may be easy to divide a combined room, like a guest room/home office, into two rooms in the new home. Other rooms may require new furniture when you get there. But just because you have more space doesn’t mean you need to take everything. You probably still need to let go of things.
Simplify Your Next Move
Motivation:
I will save money by cutting back on the things I own.
I’ve wanted to sort my things. Now is the time!
I want my new home to be clutter free.
Supplies:
Donation boxes
Packing boxes
Trash bags
Markers and labels
Notebook with inventory sheets
Camera or video camera
Time Estimate:
4–8 hours per room
Note: The more drawers and cabinets a room has, the more time sorting will take.
Reward:
A sense of accomplishment that you are moving just what you want to take with you.
Getting your home ready to put on the market also doubles as a way to get ready for a move. Your efforts will have double benefits—you will sell your home faster and save on moving costs. So start the simplifying process as soon as you can!
Approach It by Sections
This time, we are going to work in reverse. Here is what needs to happen to simplify nine different areas in your home. Do one room a week, or one a day, depending on the urgency of your time frame. These simple tips for each room will embellish what you already learned in prior chapters.
Start a three-ring binder called a “moving notebook” to hold all your notes and work lists. Some tabs to include are:
Rooms (one inventory sheet per room)
To-Do (before the move)
Dreams (for my new home)
| DONE | # | DATE | ITEM | SELL/DONATE WHERE? | KEEP AND MOVE |
Before you begin working, videotape or photograph each room in your current home. This creates a good memory of your home to take along while it is still intact. It will remind you of wall groupings of pictures, furniture placement, and china cabinet or bookshelf contents.
Set up a giveaway table with items that anyone who stops over can take. These items will be good-bye presents to your friends without you having to sell or donate them. Your friends will appreciate the memory of times spent together with that object from you.
Kitchen, Pantry, and Papers
The kitchen should be kept clean right up until the move. You can organize a drawer or cabinet as part of dinner cleanup each evening until then. Get rid of small appliances, dishes, or containers you can live without.
When you have thoroughly sorted the cabinets, begin to pack the least used items (i.e. small appliances, large pans, extra glassware) for the move. Match plastic containers and lids and toss the mismatched ones.
Use up baked goods and perishable food in the pantry and refrigerator starting now.
Give away spices and use up food in the freezer. Finish up condiments in the refrigerator.
This is a room you can do wall by wall at mealtimes each day. The kitchen will be the last room packed, but you can do it a little at a time.
Family Room
Keep your family room clutter free, and try not to stack any moving pile or boxes here. This is your place to gather and relax, so keep it clean.
However, do sort through and pack the DVDs, tapes, CDs, photo books, and toys. Lots of things from here can go in garage sale boxes or on your giveaway table.
SPACE-SAVING TIP #46
Maintain order in your regular living areas. Don’t create piles for the move in the family room and kitchen.
Master Bedroom and Closet
As you get dressed each day, go through one drawer or closet section, pulling out things to donate and organizing the space. One motivation to organize your dresser drawers is that movers will carry them separately and you don’t want anything falling off in the driveway in front of your neighbors!
Take one day to go through every hanger in your closet and ask, “Do I like this? Do I want it in my new location?” It’s expensive to move hanging items, so be sure you are only taking what you really value. Leave the “maybe” items behind.
Now sort all your shoes, handbags, belts, scarves, sports gear, and under-the-bed items. Leave no corner unturned in sorting your closets and bedrooms.
Children’s Rooms
Children find it difficult to leave familiar surroundings and friends. To prepare their items for moving, sort the closet and under the bed first.
Leave the wall hangings and visual items until they are ready to take them down. As a parent, you can model the way by doing your bedroom and the rest of the house first.
Take pictures of your children doing daily activities like studying at their desk, playing in their room, playing their sport or musical instrument, and hanging out with their best friends. Later in life, they will appreciate the photo memories of their childhood home.
SPACE-SAVING TIP #47
Accept the offers of friends to bring meals and help you pack. Cherish the extra time together.
Bathrooms and Laundry Room
Now is the time to really simplify the contents of your bathrooms and laundry room. Open the cabinets in these spaces as if you were a prospective buyer. Keep the front four inches of every cabinet and shelf clear and toss all the expired or unused bottles, medications, and toiletries.
For the move, keep matched sets of towels, but demote older ones to rags to use for the move. You will need plenty of rags for cleaning when you are preparing for a move.
Once you weed through all the bathrooms, treat yourself to a cleaning service to make the rooms sparkle. Then keep these rooms as clean as possible so a buyer assumes you take care of the rest of your house this meticulously.
Home Office
You will love or hate your move depending upon the degree to which you’ve organized your office(s) for moving. There is nothing worse than not being able to find your checkbook, bills to pay, or current projects. Showing up with boxes marked only as “Office Papers” can seriously handicap your effectiveness on the job. Something important may not surface until three months later!
The secret to organizing your office for the move is to pack it yourself. Put everything in a file drawer, desk drawer, or box that you personally label. That way when you unpack, you will easily find your desk and contents transported just as you left them.
It takes time to sort through an office, so begin with the closet and shelving away from the desk. There you will find books, office equipment, and supplies you can take with you or give away. The more you give away now, the happier you’ll be to quickly set up your office essentials and jump back into the “driver’s seat” of your work life at the other end.
Be sure to sort current files and project files daily so they are complete and at your fingertips in file drawers. Make sure every loose paper on your desk ends up in a labeled file or binder before you pack.
SPACE-SAVING TIP #48
Don’t pay to move anything you don’t love!
By now, you are probably in the “divide and conquer” mode of assigning people to sort the remaining rooms, based on who uses them the most.
Dining Room and Living Room
The biggest challenge in the dining room and living room is wrapping china and valuable items. Be sure to go through each item to decide if you still want it. The best advice is to downscale one-third to one-half of what you move. This gives you the feeling of a fresh start and helps you focus on your favorites.
Where do you get rid of fine items like stemware and china, or larger items like furniture or a piano? Try consignment shops, antique dealers, or estate sales. You probably could recoup some money from your nicer things in these rooms.
SPACE-SAVING TIP #49
Cherish your home and past experiences, but don’t cling to them. Know the difference so you can move not only physically, but emotionally as well.
Garage and Basement
Though it may be hard to imagine, every item must come out of your garage and basement and be transported to your new location, sold at a garage sale, or given away. That can be a daunting task, but it is really just a series of small tasks together.
Begin by setting up signs around the perimeter of the garage and basement for items to keep, sell, donate, and toss. Put boxes under each sign and begin sorting in similar sections: all the storage boxes first, the seasonal items next, and finally the currently used items.
If you put these sections away from the main walking areas, then buyers will understand that you have neatly boxed items on the far wall or corner you are moving. Or better yet, cover them with a sheet. Clean up and clear out the garage and basement so you can stack boxes from elsewhere in the house that are ready to be moved.
While you continue your sort for the move, potential buyers will be looking for the general appearance of the garage and basement, general condition of the rooms, and how their own things will fit. The more clean space you can display, the better they will like your home.
Attic, Shed, and Storage Unit
An upcoming move is the perfect time to purge an attic of all the contents that have been sitting unused over the years you’ve been in your current home. This is the time to dust things off, part with the old, and prepare for the new.
A shed often has accumulated overflow storage or garden equipment that may not be needed in your new home. Give these items to a neighbor or relative. Take what you will need, but not more than you will use.
A storage unit can mount up expensive monthly fees, so use this time to decide what goes with you. Often folks pick the best items to go with them and then donate the whole unit to a charity or community garage sale—if the charity will empty the rest of the unit. Many times, the expense of storing items is more than replacing the contents.
Decide now whether to continue to store your items or to downscale the whole unit and save yourself the time and expense to decide later.
Lighten Up and Let Go
Here are seven ways for you to get rid of extra things before your next move:
1. Return borrowed things like tools, books, and casserole dishes.
2. Donate usable items to charities.
3. Offer things to friends by placing them on a giveaway table in your home.
4. Offer sentimental items, like china and furniture, to grown children or other relatives.
5. Donate larger items to an auction for a tax writeoff.
6. Hold a garage sale and use the income for something new like updated bedspreads or furniture in your new home.
7. Toss or recycle it. Sometimes you have to admit that some things really are junk!
Your Next Move Checklist
____ 1. Am I keeping the kitchen clean while I sort one shelf or drawer a day?
____ 2. Have I sorted DVDs, tapes, CDs, and photos?
____ 3. Am I willing to keep what I like and use in the bedroom while giving away excess closet items and bedding?
____ 4. Do I need help filing papers and projects to prepare my home office for this move?
____ 5. Are my bathroom and laundry belongings simplified to just the necessities?
____ 6. Have I downscaled my dining and living room belongings to my treasured possessions?
____ 7. If I were shopping for a house, would I like my garage and basement?
____ 8. Are there things in my attic or storage shed that I can give away today to free up space?
____ 9. Am I willing to box, pay to move, and unload all the items I have?
____ 10. Am I doing something every day before I move to make it easier on myself at the other end?
Tips from “The Decorating Coach,” Susan Wells
Seize the opportunity to reinvent yourself with a fresh decorating style. Only keep decor that will complement your new look. Give away supplies for the hobbies or crafts that you no longer use.
Victorian accents may not go with your new contemporary furniture, but some sentimental items can be re-invented for special occasions. Tip: your grandmother’s doilies could be used as a fanciful wrap over napkins at ladies’ tea times.
A striking vase or picture frame may not match your new colors, but otherwise their shape or definition is up to date. If it doesn’t walk, you can paint it! Create an upscale look with a decorative spray paint to refinish special pieces.
Manage It Simply
When you get stuck making decisions, try to keep in mind that all your things are just that—things. Say your good-byes, pack up your favorites, and move forward. Manage the move simply by keeping all your notes in a moving notebook.
• Our new neighbors moved in with a positive attitude and eagerness to meet and greet new friends. They came to the Christmas Open House where we all gathered. But the next year, they sadly reported they would be moving again . . . and many of their prior moving boxes were still packed in the garage untouched.
Should they move those boxes again? They decided since they hadn’t opened them in the entire year since their move, they would give them away. After opening each box just to be sure, they only pulled out their college yearbooks and let the rest go. Out of sight and out of mind for a year or more generally means that you can live without it.
• My friend Polly prepared to move overseas while preparing her home for renters for the years away. Organizing her home office became the top priority for privacy.
We went through every file, loose paper, and four-drawer file cabinet. We created a complete listing of which files were in each file drawer. The files were moved and locked in the basement.
One day she faxed me from Taiwan to pull certain files and send her information. With her file inventory, she told me exactly which drawer and what file to gather. Now that’s organized when you can pull a file from overseas!
• Downscaling a parent to smaller living quarters can be difficult because of the many familiar family items involved. My brother and I and our spouses had four days to dismantle my mother’s apartment and move her into half of a retirement room. We divided up the two bedrooms, kitchen, and living room.
My brother did the books, files, and my father’s closet, my sister-in-law did the kitchen and pantry, and my husband did the electronic items. I arranged for antique dealers for the china cabinets, and we all staged the living room for a moving sale on the third day. On the fourth day we delivered the remainders to a charity and bags of clothes went to the Salvation Army. Together, we said good-bye to an era. It was a bittersweet memory of our good family heritage while helping a parent age gracefully.
Our mother was comforted when surrounded by her favorite afghan, family pictures, bedspread, and table decorations. You really need less than you think!
Review: The CALM Next Move Approach
Create a Plan
Start with a “moving notebook” to contain all your lists and plans.
Take pictures before you start to dismantle your home.
Picture clear rooms and boxes neatly stacked to go.
Approach It by Sections
Keep the kitchen and family room clear of boxes and clutter.
Sort and box up storage areas right away.
Label every box and area you sort to stay organized.
Lighten Up and Let Go
Donate and give away as much as you can.
Sell online or in a garage sale any items that have maintained value.
Let go of things that others could better use.
Manage It Simply
Keep your family first in the move.
Simplify your possessions so you can focus on people.
Determine to simplify yearly so you won’t have as much accumulated next time.
Though many things are out of your control when you move, you can be in charge of your possessions . . . dividing them up to sell or donate and boxing up what you want to keep. Expect surprises and changes in plans. But do yourself the favor of being in control of your remaining items and free yourself of the rest. Simplify your life by moving on without the excess.
It is stressful to pack and unpack our lives, for during the process, we relive the memories attached to our possessions.
—SUSAN MILLER