10 moving hacks to make your life easier

This post is long overdue. We moved to our new home back in July, but since renovations at our new house are still in progress, we still have boxes laying around. Every week or so we have to move our cardboard boxes from one room to the other and if it weren’t for these 10 moving tips and tricks we would have a really bad time. We chose to learn from other people’s experience and now, we want to give back and share what we’ve learned.

10 Proven Moving Tips and Tricks:

1. Don’t buy boxes, go to stores
2. Don’t take your clothes off the hangers
3. Use towels and sheets to pack things that might break
4. Roll don’t fold
5. Pack your shampoo bottles in plastic bags
6. Put paper plates between ceramic plates
7. Label your wires
8. Colour code your boxes
9. Pack an essentials bag
10. Get rid of the old

Don’t buy boxes, go to stores

If like us, you’re in the process of buying a new home or moving somewhere new, chances are you’re on a tight budget. Spending money on a bunch of clothes bags that you’ll only use once is a waste. So save yourself a few bucks and go buy something nice instead.

To solve your cardboard boxes problem, just visit a few local shops. You would be surprised how many stores will be more than happy to get rid of boxes they do not use.

We found that electronic stores and wholesale grocery shops had the biggest cardboard boxes. Just go to your closest store and ask one of the employees if they have any boxes they don’t need in the back. Before you know it you’ll have a whole bunch of boxes.

Don’t take your clothes off the hangers

The easiest way to get your clothes out of your old closet and back into the new one is to leave them on the hanger. Place a plastic garbage bag over the top of the hanger and tie it at the end. This way they’re easier to pack, carry and when you are ready to put them back in your new closet, all you need to do is take the plastic bag off.

This saves you a tone of time and space. If you move fast and get the clothes back in their new place in just a few hours, you won’t even have to iron them. If you’re moving across the country or can’t unpack for a few days, your clothes might get a few wrinkles, so plan ahead.

If you have more sensitive pieces of clothing that need extra protection, you can invest in a few commercia clothes bags.

Use towels and sheets to pack things that might break

When packing glasses, flower pots, terrariums or other stuff that might break during transport, you have to keep them safe. Most people spend a lot of money on bubble wrap or similar solutions. But, that’s a bad choice both for your wallet and for our planet. A better solution to moving fragile objects is to wrap them into towels and sheets.

You probably have more towels than flowerpots, but if you run of towels you can use sheets, t-shirts or any other cloth items that are soft. The best thing is that those textile take up the empty space between your glasses so you can fit more stuff in one box.

Roll don’t fold

I think this might be the best space saver ever. Instead of packing your towels, sheets, clothes, etc roll them instead. You will be able to fit more into the same space.

Pack your shampoo bottles in plastic bags

Pack your shampoo bottles and anything that might leak into plastic bags. Trust me on this one you do not want shower gell all over your stuff no matter how good it smells.

Put paper plates between ceramic plates

If you want to avoid any of your nice plates getting broken in the moving process, look around the house for some paper plates. Alternate between ceramic plates and paper plates when you put them in your boxes to keep them safe during transport.

Alternatively, you can use newspapers, but be sure to ruffle them before putting them between your plates to make it more fluffy.

Label your wires

Cables are always a pain when moving. Learn from my mistakes and don’t throw all of your wires in a big bag to get it over with. You will pay for it later. Trust me.

The easiest way to keep your cables organised and untangled is to label each one. This way when you need a cord you will have no trouble in finding it. Also, you can place all of them in a box designated for wires so you won’t be looking for them for days.

Improvize from something you have laying around: price tags, ribbon tape or just some string and paper labels.

Colour code your boxes

This might be the best hack we shared so far. This is going to make your life so much easier when unpacking.

Use coloured labels, stickers or post-it notes to label your moving boxes. You can group items by room type or other criteria. Make simple rules such as all the green labelled boxes contain kitchen items or all red labelled boxes contain fragile items.

This is also really usefull when you’re going to keep some of the boxes in storage spaces while you’re moving. It makes it so much easier to find out where you put your stuff.

Pack an essentials bag

I do not know anyone who moves and has everything out and organised on the same day. That is why you always need an essentials bag with a few pairs of socks, underwear, shampoo, toothbrush, medicine and anything else that you might need on hand and use on a daily basis. This way you will not be stuck looking through boxes to find your medicine or clothes for the next day.

Get rid of the old

Clear out! You won’t believe how many thing I had in the old apartment that I didn’t use or need. The best thing you can do for yourself is to get rid of the thing you do not need. Do not carry them into the new place. Either throw them away or donate them. Clear out of the old to make room for the new.

These 10 moving hacks got us through the whole moving process with fewer headaches. We hope you found some good ideas that you can put into use!