Cross Country Moving Tips For Getting Yourself Prepared

Deciding to move cross country isn’t as easy as just driving down the street and finding a place to stay. Cross country moving involves a lot of planning — ranging from packing your things, preparing a new place to stay, and securing the right documentation for your endeavors. All these things don’t make cross country moving impossible, however. They do prove there’s a lot more in cross country moving than meets the eye. Here are some tips to help you ensure your cross country move is a breeze.

Cross Country Moving: The Best Approaches To Your Biggest Move Yet

It helps to be aware of the state of affairs in terms of moving in general. In fact, in the United States alone, 11 percent of Americans moved in 2017. Reasons cited include the desire for a better home or apartment, establishing their own household, getting a new job or being transferred for work, or a desire for cheaper housing.

If everything seems a bit overwhelming before your big cross country move, it may help to start with the basics. Here are some moving tips to help prepare yourself:

• Make yourself a moving checklist early on in the move: If you want a more seamless moving process for you and your family, you ought to make yourself a moving checklist. Try to set up tasks for you to do every day leading up to the day of the actual move. What sort of things do you have to prepare? How do you want to prepare for them? What things do you have to follow up? Having this list early on will save you the time to think about other things.
• Consider your moving expenses to get an accurate assessment: Try to calculate for yourself how much your move will cost. What expenses do you have to consider if you buy packaging materials and decide to move things yourself? What are the additional expenses that come with hiring a mover? Some moving companies offer in-home consultations, wherein one of their professionals will come to make a moving quotation given the items in your home. This could help you determine the financial feasibility of hiring a company or doing it on your own.
• Consider hiring a mover to help you: Regardless if you’re moving with friends or family, moving your things on your own can be a risky move. While vehicles and rental vehicles may have enough space to fit your furniture and boxes, the worry and the hassle of ensuring everything gets transported seamlessly can be too much stress to handle. Meanwhile, movers like North American Van Lines may be able to assist you in ensuring your items are safe and sound in vehicles outfitted with the resources to move them.
• Assess things you own and remove those that you don’t like anymore: Before you start packing, make a preliminary assessment of things you own around the house. Separate what you want and those that have no use for you. Throw away the things that you can’t resell, and consider holding a garage sale for the objects you do feel like selling. If some items are of sentimental value, think if you’ll be able to use those items in the near future, or if they’re better off being sold. Remember, the heavier you packages are, the more expensive hiring a mover could get.
• Look at the new home and see where you want to place your things: Before packing your things, go to your new home for a visit and determine where you’ll place your items. Don’t just visit and say “Ah, this is probably where we should place X,” though. Try to make a list of things you can place in every room, so you can also label the boxes you’re going to use when you’re packing.
• Pack things carefully and with precision: Hiring a mover can be very expensive, especially if you also have them help you pack. Instead of handling extra expenses, consider packing things yourself. Remember to label your boxes not just with rooms in which you’ll place the boxes’ contents, but also with the contents to be found in the box. Be sure to pack in such a way that makes the contents easy to remove as well.

Preparing For Cross Country Moving Starts Now

Preparing for a cross country move isn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world. Not only should you prepare your boxes, but you should also ensure things such as your new house, your movers, and your paperwork are secure. These can be overwhelming, but the above tips could hopefully steer you in the right direction when it comes to your preparation. Remember, the earlier you prepare for your cross country move, the more time you have to fleshing out all aspects of your plans.