Packing up things to move.

[Coffeemonster1]

What's the cheapest way to do so? We will be packing our selves but after looking round a number of shops and online sites, it seems to be £4-£7 per cardboard or plastic storage box with lid. Imagine how many you would need to pack up a three bed house along with all the clutter a 21 month old comes with it would cost more than the deposit for the new place itself!!! How did you do it?

I put out an appeal on Facebook for cardboard boxes. We were inundated with them. Boxes and crates of all sizes. Some proper removal boxes, some from shops and supermarkets. They were all free as lots of people have access to them from work. To repay all the favours, I readvertised them on Facebook for other people who were about to move house. In the beginning of starting to pack, I had bought 10 boxes for £12 from the removal company. What a mug I was. They were old pot noodle boxes (massive ones, but still), so they weren't even new. I forget how many boxes we needed to move a family of five, but it was lots! Filled two rooms completely with boxes and that didn't include anything from the kitchen.
Ask your removal company if they can bring wardrobe hanging rail boxes on the day of the move. They were really useful, stuff straight from one wardrobe, into the hanging rail box, then into new wardrobe.

I bought a shitload of boxes from Staples. Can't remember exactly how much they were, but they were cheaper than the removal company ones.

We just asked the local corner shop to save us theirs. And popped in twice a day to pick them up.

Go to shops. Or try asking any local hospital - all their supplies come in cardboard boxes, they might give you some.

freecycle came up trumps, but I was moving from Surrey where that works. I got loads of packing material too - but you have to move fast!

also lots of supermarket cardboard for mirrors, disassembled furniture etc. Plus loads of packing tape and labels.

put it all back on freecycle afterwards and watch it vanish.

Our removal company gave me 40 flat pack boxes when I booked them. They were fabulous and came from Germany with hand holds on them. They bought their own boxes for the delicates and breakables (we paid for them to pack them) which included all the crockery and glassware.

Following - I had no idea how expensive boxes are

Most removal companies will give you flat pack cardboard boxes.

Our removal company bought them back off you once you'd emptied them, so, in effect, you were only hiring them, not buying. You could also do this if you weren't using them to move, so worth asking about.

Do often see them on Freegle though.

If you have a local Mcdonalds then ask there, they were brilliant at keeping boxes when we moved and they're really sturdy

I've moved lots and find a lot of boxes end up very heavy if filled.

I use vegetable crates, always available at lidl/ aldi, really strong and stack with a slight interlock.

For soft stuff like bedding, towels, pillows etc I use lots of bin bags with white labels on to identify the content and end destination at new house.

YY to vegetable crates. Whatever you put in them you can still carry them full. Indestructible too. Just go and ask for them in supermarkets.

We got a job lot of removal boxes cheap on Ebay once.

This time the removals firm are providing the boxes in the price even though we are packing for ourselves.

I bought boxes off ebay. Worked out about £1-2 each. Have used them twice already and they're now being taken out for our third move in 3 years!

Yes we were bitten by removal box costs before.

Some high street shops dump their boxes on some days. Most of boxes from last move I found were dumped outside Gap shop, as they were all ideally medium sized and sturdy (picked up 24 of them). I also asked discount book shop near my work to keep small boxes (it was hard as I am pretty shy to ask for things like that!)

Bin bags for things like duvet. Tapes from pound shops/market.