okay, I estimate that I need about 80 large strong cardboard boxes but the ebay prices seem extortionate!. Not bothered whether they're used but they need to be pretty strong for transporting a LOT of books (about 400) and other associated household crap. I'm in Manchester. Any suggestions people?

I just got a hire quote for those plastic packing crates for about 10 days and it came to £350! WTF!

storage places, staples etc

supermarkets? Macro? a packaging company? Best bet I would think is to find out what is shipped in a similar sized box and contact a company associated with such products? Failing that, how about freecycle for moving boxes? Someone else must have moved house lately, and if they're anything like my wife they will have kept all the boxes just in case?

storage places, staples etc

hmmm still pricey! thinking cheap cheap / free (can be returned after use)

Are getting a removal company in? Ours offered us as many boxes as we wanted included as part of the service.

When we moved we went to boxes4u.co.uk They were pretty good. The do several packages with brown tape and pens etc.

local supermarket, ask nicely. I've been collecting them for a while for my move.

I got mine from freecycle then got rid of them that way too.

Got a local fruit and veg wholesaler/big retailer? Banana Boxes are your friend. We get asked daily for them and must hand out 10 or 12 a day.

I just got a hire quote for those plastic packing crates for about 10 days and it came to £350! WTF!

We got a house full of stuff packed into boxes provided by the removal company for less than £200 extra.

Unless you're absolutely skint, it is absolutely worth getting a removal company in and getting them to do the packing – you don't have to do anything much until the day of the move.

Obviously if you're doing it yourself in hire van or something, you might save a fair bit over getting removals in, but if you have enough that you are already paying someone else to drive vans for you, the extra they charge for packing makes moving so much easier.

Joe

Go to a supermarket, best would be a 24h and a big one. Replenishment is mostly done during the night. Ask nicely and I never had a problem. Biggest boxes will be in the crisps isle, strongest, but big as well, in frozen department after some chips and veg 🙂 You will probably not get 80 boxes at one go but over couple of days not a problem. Also the way it works (I'm a student working weekend night shifts :-P) is the delivery is in the evening and our night shift starts 10pm, so best time to come and get some boxes would be around midnight or after that time.

Sometime you just gotta let it go……….. 😀

The parts dept in most car/commercial vehicle dealerships will have numerous boxes that get thrown out every day. Try a few.

Have a search for local box/packaging companies near you and give them a call, we found one locally that sold secondhand packing boxes for about 50p each…

cheers for the freecycle tip. Just placed an ad. Will give the supermarkets and Makro / Costco a try too.

@ duntstick. now you're talking. I'd love to get rid of about 50% of the crap my wife has hoarded over the years – but I'm not sure it would go down well…………… having said that, if we did get rid of all the crap, we probably wouldn't have to move – and then I wouldn't get my man cave! 😉

Hospital/Council IT dept?

Argos sell house moving packs.

Don't forget to pack everything for the day (coffee, kettle, milk etc) into an easy to reach box.

Have fun.

Moving myself on Friday, and got a load of boxes from my local Oddbins.

Yeah but sl2000 they came with your latest wine order right?

Small double walled boxes are essential for books. Almost all commercially used boxes are too big for carry books, and you end up with boxes that are half full, too heavy or breaking.

Just fork out for some from a box supplier.

Box supplier – as tron said the most useful ones are smaller ones for books which are hard to come by from super markets etc.

My wife is a nurse, we got ours from the hospital. round the back of the hospital where the supplies get delivered, find the person with the least glazed expression and ask nicely.

This lot any good?

http://www.a1box.co.uk/acatalog/products.html

rajapack for boxes, but for anything but the most delicate stuff I'm a big fan of the 40p blue ikea bags that you get by the checkout. I buy them buy by the hundred, they stack well, are stronger than boxes for heavy stuff (I've used them to move a riverbed) and more flexible than boxes so you get fewer voids. Pick carefully though they now have them in three different sizes, the smallest and largest are often the most useful. The small good for book, stops you packing too many heavy items into one bag, the largest are good for things like bedding and both fill out to quite a boxy shape so they stack well, the mid-sized one is nearer in shape and size to a bag-for-life shopping bag and you'll find fewer uses for them. But when they are folded in the rack its tricky to tell them apart

re: skip hire. My mate hired a large skip, stacked all his stuff carefully in it, tarp over the top and "moved it" to his new house where he unloaded it. Granted a van would have perhaps been better but he is a skip man not a van man and you use what you've got!