I'm moving house in the next couple of weeks and have started the packing process, anybody have any top advice to take the stress out of moving?

Pay someone to do it all for you.

And make sure all boxes are clearly labelled.

And have a box of essentials that you can get your hands on straight away (coffee, kettle, mugs, Razzle).

^^^This^^^

Dexedrine?

I'm definitely paying someone, the days of making a dozen trips with a transit are well over.

Are you moving house on your own? If you're moving house with a S/O and you know there are some things* that are 'precious' or likely to be required at short notice…make sure you know where they are. 😉

*The difficult bit is working out what those things are.

There are two options for the actual move.
a) everything in one day. a tiring long day but it's all out of the way quickly and then you can relax/unpack.

b) Spread the move over more than one day (only possible if rents overlap?) and do little chunks. Less tiring and you can do some unpacking as you go along. However if you take too long feels like you've been moving for ever!

Oh and work out how many boxes you think you need to pack everything in and then add 5!

yeah, put your stuff in storage, book into a hotel, take a month off work to get your new house how you want it because when the previous owners move their stuff out it won't look anything like it did when you saw it last…. oh and stay calm!

I agree, you need to have one box that has 'essentials' – kettle, tea bags, milk, toaster, toast, number of local chinese takeaway….

And try to stay calm 🙂

Throw everything away.
Start again.
Except kettle & brew kit.

If you don't do that, you WILL have boxes of utter rubbish that you will never open, but move every time.

This is just scientific fact. I am living with this right now.

Pay someone to do it all for you.
+ 1 million. Best £400 I ever spent.

We're moving in three weeks. As we haven't found a house yet we're moving in with my inlaws. Which is fine cos I get on really well with them.

We're doing it over three days and putting everything we don't need into storage. The things we do need will live in the spare room with us until we find somewhere to go.

I've moved house so many times it's scary. Best thing to do is get your essentials sorted out and out of the way. Then box and label everything. I used to list everything that's in the box on a separate notepad but that was overkill.

If you are using a moving company make sure they have insurance and aren't a 'man with a van'. An ex of mine booked someone like that for one of our moves and they ruined the fridge freezer and we couldn't get them to cough up.

I moved with a Luton van last time with a mate; only just got everything in even though I'd taken 3 car loads up previously for the bikes and whatever else I could cram in. As my new house is a lot larger that'll never happen again so paying others from now on – not that I ever want to move again.

I got a load of boxes from freecycle and took twice as many as I thought I'd need which was fortunate. My wife's clothes were the main problem – so many bin bags full of them.

A1Box

For all the boxes and covers. I don't get a referral fee but I've used them loads of times. I need to stop moving!

Not so relevant in your case, but two things I've found:

a) if moving yerself, buy the unit-sized boxes that removals guys use – they stack nicely in the back of a van, unlike picking up discarded ones in various sizes that later give you grief when trying to stack, or start moving about in the back of the van

b) you can do this do this yourself if you're disciplined, but it may be worth paying the guys to come in the day before and pack – they just bag up/pack contents from drawer irrespective of what it is. There's a huge temptation when packing your own stuff to try and reorganise it, etc – just pack it and worry about it at the other end.

After having to move twice in a year!

Once doing it myself with a Van (thanks to a cowboy firm letting me down the night before the move!)and the 2nd time getting the Pro's in to do it.

It is far far less stressful letting the pro's do it.

I did the rental van 4 round trips of 80 miles each time, aching so much afterwards, the next day I could not get out of bed!

Just make sure you don't book the local cowboys 😉

Ooh A1 Box look good – must remember that. Er what they said ^^^^ we've always moved ourselves and I'm a bit of an organisation freak so was in my element with boxes and packing tape. Get standard size boxes, covers for things like sofas and tape them up good and proper, label everything and keep the kettle handy. Chill. Simples. 😉

Pay some one to pack it all up, move it and un pack it.

Bit more expensive but worth every penny

>It is far far less stressful letting the pro's do it.

Bear in mind that the pros aren't just the local 'big company'.

We moved almost 5 years ago (after 15 yrs in the same place – loads to shift!). Bunch we were buying off (bloke was a solicitor too..) didn't do enough to get the contract exchanged on the friday, and we were due to complete on the *following* friday. Dropped letter off to removals on the sunday night to say we expected it'd happen on the monday – then find out on the monday/tues morning they've removed our reservation. Grr !! – 3 days to sort it 🙁

Ring around, find one bunch that are free, don't have their own vans, never heard of 'em – could they be a bunch of cowboys? But very professional, friendly, even helped out shifting a whole lot of plants I'd squirreled away at a mates place – finally finished at 10pm !

On the other hand, the bunch we'd previously booked were *also* moving in our buyer from nearby (didn't put 2 n 2 together re the two bookings), turned up, then disappeared, came back again, then try to charge our buyer for 'late keys' which the silly tart tried to pass on to us.
(Let me qualify silly tart: got solicitors letter demanding we pay the excess – and we'd already let her off some ££ over a few survey issues as a matter of goodwill- we gave a polite but firm reply of 'not all our fault'. Then get a spoilt child kinda letter from her including complaining about cleaning the house – which we'd been quite careful to do…she'd previously had the cheek at one point to ask if we'd take the carpets out upon leaving 😮 We ignored the bitch. My GF would probably be less complimentary..)

Oh, and if you live in Surbiton/Surrey, the removals company are both well known and also have an undertakers service – that should narrow it down. Tossers.

Second the pay someone to do the lot – often not much difference in price over just removals.

I think he’s probably finished the move now….

😆