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Keep organised while moving home

Moving home can be a time-consuming and potentially stressful process for the inexperienced (and even the experienced) mover. However, there are great ways of saving time, money and effort when relocating as long as you do your research and come prepared.

It’s important to remember that you will have to move your stuff from A to B. Boxes make for ease of use when loading and unloading and help you to get your stuff organised. Properly distributing heavy items and securing the bottom of each box will avoid your precious belongings ending up all over the pavement. Large boxes are ideal for packing bigger items, clothes and other lighter pieces. But medium and small boxes will prove far more useful for delicate and heavier items such as glassware and books.

Moving kits are a great way to get the right selection of removal boxes and accessories together for a reasonable price. For packing away larger properties, tape dispensers are a worthwhile time saving purchase, as are mattress covers and additional bubble wrap.

The most efficient way to pack your home up is to start at the top of your house and finish at the bottom. It’s best to leave bathrooms and kitchens until the end, as these will be in constant use. Plus, setting aside a bag of clothes, wash stuff and useful kitchen utensils will mean you won’t have to make a trip to the supermarket for things that you’ve accidentally boxed. If you order your packing it will save you time when unloading at the other end. It’s far too easy to spend half an hour musing over old baby photographs, so give yourself hourly targets. This will really hurry up the process.

You don’t want to be hauling around your old college books for the rest of your life. So this is the ideal time to put aside unwanted items and see what of your precious junk you can donate to charity, swap, give to your friends or sell online. Equally, if you find yourself short of furniture, online marketplaces are full of free and cheap goods.

Now that you’ve disposed of as much as you can bear to part with, consider labelling the boxes that you’re keeping with a marker pen so that you know what their contents are. It will also be useful to note whether or not they’re fragile and what room they belong to. This will avoid the stress of not knowing where any of your stuff is for the first few days of moving in and ensures that you don’t accidentally leave a box behind.

Unfortunately, little things are bound to go wrong regardless of how organised you are. But planning in advance and thinking things through properly can really limit the amount of money, time and effort that’s involved in moving house. Remember, this is a new opportunity to start afresh, so keep focused, plan things as far in advance as possible and stay positive.