Moving day

[Sleepyhungryfattyanddoc]

Just wondering if anyone has any tips for moving day

Last time we ‘completed’ on a house we were FTB and had no furniture, we literally just moved a few suitcases of clothes in. We didn’t even go on the same day because we were both at work

This time we are selling a house, moving some of our stuff into a new one and then moving into rented whilst we renovate the new place.
We also have a very young puppy I’m not sure what to do with on the day / how to get them settled.

Does anyone have any tips? Is it best to move early or midweek or end of the week, does it matter?
What time will we have to be out of our current house? How do you get it all done in a day?

We cant hire movers for various reasons so will be doing it all ourselves

We moved out of a 3 bed, moved 2 miles away and it cost us £1800 with packing. But boy was it worth every single penny. If you are buying a house which is £200000 then £2000 on moving is only 1% of the total cost of the house....not expensive at all.
Given that you might complete at 10 in the morning would you have got everything out in time?

I agree with others - unless you are getting the rental a week early then don't even consider doing this yourself.

We paid extra to have the bunk beds dismantled and reassembled.....we could have done it ourselves as we put them together originally- but the movers do this all the time. They knew how to do it with minimal bits taken off. We could have spend a few hours either end trying to work it out....

I had to empty the loft myself - I kept it tidy but even that took me a whole afternoon. Once it was down there was no space left to pack more boxes as the contents filled the small space in out living room.

Could your parents or a friend look after your puppy? If not, maybe look for a dog sitter near your new place and try to find one who would take a young puppy. The council website in each area has a list of licensed dog boarders (so you can ignore the kennels) and you could phone each to see if they might have your puppy for a day or two.

We moved ourselves and it was absolutely fine. We moved on a Monday so hired a van for the weekend and the Monday and started loading it up on the Friday. We had started packing well before.

I would do it again. It was the least stressful part of the move as it was something we could actually control!

Your removal quote sounds a bit steep. My move got a 3 bedroom house earlier this year cost £800, including insurance, and dismantling furniture. They then put it all into storage, so they didn't have to rebuild the beds or wardrobes, but it would have been included had the new house been ready.

I had 6 movers on the day, they came at 8am, finished loading up by 10.30am, completed the job by 12.30pm. It was worth every penny, and took the stress out of an already fractious situation.

I shipped a full container from Australia including packing and transporting it at both an entire big family house for under three thousand pounds. The journey from the port to our house alone was much further than two house. Your quote is very high for a two hour move.

We've moved countless times. If you are doing it all yourselves absolutely everything will need to be packed before moving day. Get as much moved out or thrown away as you can.

Keep a separate box with cleaning materials and tools like screwdrivers, scissors etc and another one with essential items for the other end. Kettle etc. We once forgot to do that and our children had to have prawn crackers for breakfast. Label the boxes.

At the other end make the bed up as soon as you can.

However you do it, have a box you bring with you (rather than in the truck) with essentials: a loo roll, kettle, tea/coffee/UHT milk etc, paper towels, cleaning stuff, pencil/pen and notepaper, soap and hand towel, cups, biscuits, string, duct tape, first aid kit, scissors, pen knife, a couple of lightbulbs (different fittings just in case), medications, a torch and batteries.
Just to tide you over until you unpack.

@Sleepyhungryfattyanddoc we hired a man and Luton van (well 2 men and van) which cost £300 or £400. And another relative came to help us as an extra pair of hands and another vehicle as back up which we didn't need in the end.
We had boxed up 90% of our stuff in advance and put it in one room and on moving day had little actual packing to do - it was just a case of moving boxes and furniture. We dismantled the bed the day before and slept on the mattress on the floor that night so it was one less thing to do.
We have a cat and we cleared the bedroom as soon as we got up and left the cat shut in there with food/water , litter tray and basket. Once all the boxes and furniture had been loaded onto the van I collected the cat and accessories which I took in my car. When we arrived at the new house I shut the cat in one room until everything was in.
It worked very smoothly.

You need to be out at midday and you will struggle to do this moving yourself. The contractual time is usually 1pm. The money will hopefully change hands sometime in the morning. Once this happens, the property is not legally yours anymore and you need to get out ASAP. Get three quotes from removal companies, dismantle all the furniture yourself and do all the packing. Our company was super efficient and charged £1,800 (moving our furniture into storage for two weeks) and then moving us into new property. Get family or friend to look after your puppy. Don’t be mean and leave your buyers in a van waiting to get in at 4/5pm. Good luck

People are saying you need a removal company. You don't need one and if you can't afford one, that is fine. However, thw compromise is a lot of hard work and it is incredibly hard work.

You will have to hire a van the day before and load it up the day before. So this requires probably two days of packing up boxes (depending on the amount of things you own) and you will need the day off work before the move to load the van (minus valuables until the next day).

You might want to pack the weekend before you move and live from a little suitcase for a few days. The last night will feel like camping!

You may need two vans if you have a lot of things, or to also fill several cars of family and friends on moving morning. You need a lot of people to help if you're not paying for a company.

You will then probably need the van for another overnight and another full day to unpack it after you've unloaded cars and things, as sometimes delays can take you until teatime.

It can be done. But it is stressful and I wouldn't recommend.

@Soontobe60

Yes, there is often a delay before everyone can collect their keys, especially when there is a sizeable chain. But the point is that there is never a moment when you own both properties so you cannot have a plan that relies on a relay of vans.

your buyers accommodated your inefficiency and circumstances, but it isn’t fair to advise that this is ok as a plan A. Because it relies on people being ok with you going against the terms of the contract.

I have bought and sold 6 times, the only time there was a problem was when we had someone like you in the mix.

Moving yourself always takes a lot longer than you expect. We had the keys to the last house 12 hours after completion, at 11.30 at night. It was filthy too. The people, who were actually lovely, had completely underestimated how long it would take to move everything and it was to a house nearby. Took weeks to clean and it was a standard family house that looked fine on viewing.

We've moved ourselves several times. I think I may have some residual ptsd from a couple of those moves. We had to give stuff away, hire extra vans, all sorts of things.

The puppy will be unsettled by the move. We moved with a small puppy and one thing I did not realise until recently was that toilet training is related to the house. So in a new house, you need to do some more training, just to get them used to where to go. I had a parquet floor ruined by the poor pup, due to my ignorance.

Pony up the money for movers, really try to do so, include packing if you can...a 2-hr move with a small dog when you won't have realised how much stuff you've really acquired is a recipe for disaster. Trust me...

We're as tight as hell, this has cost me (DH usually disappeared off to work) and I have mental scars as a result. :-)

@Mumdiva99 but that’s the same price as m being charged for less service though
Yours is £1800 for a 3 bed with packing and unpacking, and dismantling and rebuilding furniture.
Albeit a closer move,
Mine is £1800 for a 2 bed, to literally collect the boxes I’ve packed and the furniture I’ve dismantled and put them in a van. Drive them 1.5 hours to storage and dump them there.

That’s clearly not value for money.
I’ll still have to pack them. pay to store them and then pay to move them again. And I’ll still have to unpack and rebuild everything myself. So I don’t think it’s comparable.

If someone offered me £1800 to move some boxes into a van and then into storage I’d think that was a good deal - so that’s the same as me just doing it myself and keeping my £1800 (minus the cost of a van)

@GOODCAT thank you! Did you find you could do it all in one trip?

@Felyne excellent tip thank you!!

Thank you to everyone else too
I do agree we are probably underestimating how much work it will be.

I’m not sure on the packing either as everything’s still in use and we’re packing for rental and for storage so I’m definitely faffing about and not doing that as early as I should be!

We had to be out of the one we were selling before we could move into the one we are buying so one trip was the only option.

Although it took us two and a bit days to load up the van, it only took an hour and a half to unload.