Day 35: The staging area

Moving is a balancing act between discomfort and panic. It's irritating to have boxes everywhere, or to have something you need packed away in a box somewhere. But it's terrifying to look around and see all the things you haven't packed yet.

The solution involves two things, one difficult, the other simple. The hard part is packing things away at just the right time, so you don't spend too much time without access to things you need, but don't wait too long to pack everything up, either. At five weeks out, you pick the low-hanging fruit: boxes you haven't opened since your last move, clothes that one kid has outgrown but the next hasn't grown into yet, and out-of-season seasonal items. The Christmas decorations and holiday plates have now been packed away.

The second part of the solution is to establish a staging area. The idea is to declare some part of your house dedicated to the piling of boxes from this moment forward. The ideal staging area has easy access both to the rest of the house and the place where the moving truck will park - which usually means picking one or the other. For our last move, the staging area was in an unused room that had been carved out of the garage.

For this move, I chose the part of our garage where we were already storing the moving boxes. I sorted the boxes into three piles: recycle (too small or flimsy), particular objects (so the label matches the contents, a minority of the collection), and the general box collection. Then I scooted all three piles out of the way, moved everything else that had once been there, swept, and started stacking boxes. I've got one empty shelf there already, but more are coming soon. When the truck shows up, it should only take a few hours to move all the boxes into the truck, and anyone who shows up to help will know exactly what to do.

Day 42: I hate moving (but I love ABF U-Pack)

We're moving again. We've known this was probably coming for a long time, but we've always hoped there would be a way to avoid it.

There isn't. My job is ending and I have a new one beginning in August about 1000 miles away. If all you know is that you'll be leaving, you can keep pretending, but once you have somewhere to go to, it's real.

Compared to the last, oh, five moves, this move will be of only average complexity (no foreign countries or air travel involved), and we have six weeks to prepare. That's probably around average lead time, too. Even when we've had longer to get ready, you don't really get serious about moving until about five or six weeks out.

How do we know we're six weeks out? Because we reserved a truck today. Step One: get a new job. Step Two: reserve a moving truck with ABF U-Pack.

Moving is a physically and emotionally draining experience that attracts incompetents like honey attracts flies. In all of our moves, U-Pack has been the one reliable part, the one thing we could count on. This will be our fifth move with U-Pack. We should get a customer loyalty card or something.

For the uninitiated, U-Pack is the moving side of ABF, a commercial freight company. The way it works is that a professional truck driver drops off an empty semi trailer in your driveway. You fill the trailer with your stuff, put up a bulkhead, and let the driver come pick up the trailer. ABF fills up the rest of the space with commercial freight as the trailer crosses the U.S. to your new home, where it magically appears a few days later.

Is it more expensive than driving a rental truck? I don't think so. Here's the math:

Rental Truck for 1000 miles vs. U-Pack
U-Pack quote for 1000-mile move: $2400 (13 linear feet, ca. 1000 cubic feet)

Truck rental: $1000 (ca. 1000 cubic feet)
Gas: $400 (10 MPG = 100 gallons @ $4/gallon)
Damage to my marriage, my sanity, and the citizens of two surrounding states as I try to drive a gigantic truck while Rose is stuck all the kids in the minivan: Priceless

The only catch is that you have to know how to make U-Pack work. So here's what's important:

1. You're paying by the linear foot, so pack efficiently! You have to fill every inch of space up to the ceiling. No throwing things in and hoping for the best. It's 3-D tetris (while you're hot, unhappy, and stressed to the max).
2. You're paying  by the linear foot, so pack those boxes tight! Leave no space unfilled, including inside furniture. Every cubic foot has to pull its weight.
3. You're paying by the linear foot, so don't bring along a bunch of junk you never want to see again. That which came from the thrift store must return to the thrift store. Shopping for new used furniture is a pain, but do you really want to see those two dorm cast-off couches again? No. Throw them away.
4. Come up with a packing strategy. Where are the book cases going to go? How is the whole pile going to support itself? Do you need 2x4's across the middle to support a layer? If you ever wanted to be a civil engineer, your moment has come.
5. Speaking of book shelves, forget about them. The pressboard bookshelves you picked up at Walmart are not going to survive the trip. However, they make excellent packing material. As they collapse mid-route, they will keep the boxes they held cushioned and organized. Buy new ones once you get there.
6. The U-Pack space estimators yield some, let's say, exaggerated space requirements. Maybe the furniture from someone else's 5-room house will fill a truck, but we've come in right around 12-14 linear feet on our last few moves. If you need an extra foot or two, you pay a little extra. If you don't need as much as you thought, you end up paying less than the quoted estimate.
7. You have three days once you receive the trailer before it has to be picked up. Getting it at least a day ahead of the move is a smart idea. That way, you know it's there when friends come over to help you move.
   At least, that's what we keep telling ourselves. We're even going to try doing it this time. The last several moves have all involved tight schedules, though, so we end up waiting for the trailer to arrive and then packing it in a desperate rush.
8. Above all, you've got to be organized. Pack boxes methodically and don't leave empty space. Tape things shut and label them. Establish a staging area where you stack boxes days or weeks in advance in preparation for the moving day. An efficient move is a logistical masterpiece.

When you put it like that, it starts to sound like an interesting challenge, like installing a garbage disposal. Are you up to the challenge? Will your 3-D spatial reasoning skills be sufficient? It sounds almost fun, in a way.

It isn't. I hate moving.

Disposable clothes

So you're going through your closet and drawers to get rid of things that you don't need anymore. If you're not using it now, there's no way you want to pay money to haul it somewhere else, right?

Right.

Sort out everything that is still usable that doesn't fit you or that you don't want. Donate it to your favorite local used clothing store. Right now I'm loving the drive-through donation window the Goodwill in my neighborhood runs. The nicer stuff (barely worn baby clothes) I give to friends; you can also have a garage sale or sell to consignment shops. Safe houses for women and children in crisis can also be good places to donate your gently used clothing; when children are removed from meth houses, for example, they can't bring anything with them in case it's contaminated. So those nice baby blankets you never got to use because so many people gave you gifts? Great destination.

Now, you're left with the stuff that's too worn to donate, that has nail polish stains and grass stains, etc. Wait--don't take that out to the curb just yet! Pick out about a week's worth of it if possible, toss it in a box, and save it for that last week. When your washer is gone and you're going to be dirty and smelly from all the hauling and cleaning, you don't want new clothes, anyway. Save the "real" clothes for once you depart (because who knows how long it will take for your moving van to arrive at your new house?). Wear the old. At the end of each day, just peel them off and drop them in the trash. Voila! Laundry problem solved!

Moving with toddlers

Let's face it: the hardest people to move with are the littlest ones. Moving can be much more distressing to older, school-aged children, as far as adaptation to the new and missing the old, but when it comes to the physical act of moving your stuff from one place to another, watch out for the babies! They want to be held when you need to pack, they will forswear all naps, they will go to bed at midnight and rise at five, and they will follow you around, unpacking your neatly-sorted boxes faster than you can say duct tape.

Ideas for survival:

1. Get a friend or relative to remove the child from the scene while you're sorting and packing. And cleaning. Above all, cleaning!
2. If that's not possible (it usually isn't), give them a box to "sort" while you are doing the real sorting and packing. They are going to copy you, anyway. Use a little psychology. Get them a toy broom so they can sweep after you (preferably the clean floor, rather than smear your dirt piles around before you can sweep them up). You're going to have to make some kind of tradeoff. If you go into it thinking this, you won't get so worked up when they go to work. Remember the Rubik's cube? You have to mess some things up to solve it. Same with the moving.
3. Consider holding off any other important life changes for the toddler. Like toilet training. (Actually, toilet training while moving is sort of a nightmarish idea. Wait until the new house, definitely!)
4. If you have to pick and choose when you might have childcare, consider saving those precious moments for sorting through the toys. Presumably there are some you'd like to keep (their favorites), and some you'd like to get rid of (the ones they don't care about--until you decide to cart them off). Leave a few toys out until the very end, to take in the car, however. Small kids pick up very well on nerves and change, and keeping things as normal in their part of the world for as long as possible will help them. Besides, the last things packed in the van are the first things out on the other end, which makes things easier on everyone.

We'd really love for any additional suggestions in this category!

Welcome to Move Smart!

Between the two of us we've moved about 49 times. The earliest of these moves involved those handy moving people who come and pack everything up for you and gently drive it off to your new home. The rest have been on our own. We've used the U.S. (and German) postal system, U-Haul, U-Pack, cars, airplanes, and trains. We've stored things in storage units while leaving the country and refitted our entire household from scratch more than one time. We've moved alone, with a spouse, with school children, and internationally, with a newborn--twice.

Our experience may be unusual, but at the same time, we're not the only ones. As the economy continues to struggle, there will be others facing unexpected moves into unknown territory. If you are joining the moving club, we hope this blog will help the process go smoothly.