Moving is always an exhausting process: planning, preparing, purging, packing, pick-up, delivery, unpacking, and re-establishment. It seems just when you are finally feeling settled and have 99.9% weaned yourself from the GPS to get around town, it is time to move again.
Moving for my family includes household goods along with my home-office. While we are fortunate we have the option of a DITY (do-it-yourself) or full government-run move, there is always a percent of immediate need items that are sequestered and personally transported. While movers move the larger office furniture, I tote my office equipment and files.
Speaking of files, reducing the amount of papers and paperwork will minimize the number of boxes, overall volume, and storage issues.
Here’s a tip from the article Purge Your Home of These 9 Things Before You Move by Jamie Wiebe
9. Paperwork
Go through all your old paperwork, setting aside documents you should keep (tax records, closing documents, recent bank statements) and ditching everything that’s no longer necessary—like old insurance policies. Create a filing system you’ll stick to, since that paperwork’s gonna keep coming, and promise yourself you’ll go back through everything once a year.
As we prepare for the next move, I have compiled a resource list to help anyone paring down for PCS (Permanent Change of Station), or simply downsizing in general:
- auctioneer
- consignment shop
- church
- convenience bins – drop-off
- craigslist
- dump
- ebay
- Habitat for Humanity ReStore
- nonprofit organization(s)
- personal Facebook
- Military Order of the Purple Heart
- recycling event
- Salvation Army
- tag sale
- used book store
- yard sale: local
- yard sale: online
