These last few years have been an eye opening experience for me. I have learned many things and one of them is simply how to utilize different types of items to make moving from home to home better. It has literally been the year of moving for my personal family and also a lot of my friends as well. We have had the opportunity to help out many people and they have also been kind in helping us as well. So even though I hope I am done I want to share a few tips that really ended up being a big help for us in getting from place to place. With interest rates as low as they are and the housing market booming, I figured this might be able to help someone else out.
The first thing to know about moving is that the equipment matters. It took me a while to get my moving gear together but I finally have it. It turns out that if you look in the right places that many people already have really good moving packages set up and ready to go. Normally I wouldn’t dare spend money on extra boxes for moving, but the reality is that it would have saved me some pain and in the end a lot of money. So what am I talking about?
I am talking about using cheap moving boxes that have been used over and over again. This is what we all do when we move. We ask friends for boxes and go around and ask stores for used ones and the reality is they are old and used. Five years ago I would have told you to do just that, but after moving so much I now know that using cheap moving boxes causes pain and financial burdens. Let me tell you why.
On our first move of the year I picked up a bunch of old boxes that I had in my posession for years. I put lots of weight in them and got them ready to go. I used extra tape because they were old and figured they would still work. Well one of them happened to be put in line to hold dishes. Our plates and a few mugs were in this box and it was a bit wobbly and flimsy even with the extra tape. But I picked it up walked down the stairs and it shifted. THe box flexed and as with age the cardboard bent and it made me move in a weird way. 60 pounds shifted on me and my back pulled a muscle. I then dropped the wobbly shifting box and hundreds of dollars of dishes broke. Now this was the first time I thought about getting a new box. But I didn’t and the next time it was a box of clothes. It was no big deal but I still pulled a muscle. Moving was super hard after that and it was costly to see the Doctor.
THe answer to all this was that packaging supplies stores sell moving kits for about 20 bucks. They have new heavy duty boxes, thick tape, and markers. Now I spend 20 bucks rather I am moving me or my friends. I send it over to them days in advance as a mini gift and in the end we are all happier.
