We saw on the Angie’s thing the other day a moving tip to control the cost of moving the said you should move during off-peak times. They said that you should choose a departure time after the first day of the month and before its last ten days. Angie also suggested that you avoid the summer months. The thing about it is that the summer months are indeed very busy for moving companies. People tend to mover more in the summer than any other time. Kids are out of school and older kids are going away to college in the late summer, as well kids that graduate college start their first leases and living on their own the summer after graduation. Once we start our lives with annual leases during the summer months we tend to do the same thing around the same time of the year, year after year.

We sell a house, we sign a lease, we take a new job, we have to move when we have to move, summer or not. The biggest cost savings while moving came when I was younger and could move my cheap furniture myself. Sometimes perhaps I could move with the help of friends. I would help them move and they in return would help me move. Someone would have a truck,or we would rent a moving truck, and we would get some food and refreshments and load the truck, and say goodbye to the old joint. Another piece of advice is the part I really don’t like, which is cleaning up the old place. I remember the last apartment I lived in, I had time to go back and do some quality cleaning. Things were never cleaner, except for the day I moved in. I had a damage deposit on the line, and they still took a little out for carpet cleaning. But I got a check for several hundred, which is better than being a red headed bank robber in a lineup in China.

Not that I have ever been to China, mind you. After all, we are trying to save money on moving. Another tip is packing yourself. I always struggled with this one. Depending on the size of your household, we just have to budget money for packing materials if we wish to pack ourselves. I always wanted to get the biggest boxes, but we really should get a lot of small boxes if we wish to move properly. The large boxes tend to get overloaded, they should only be used for light weight items.

As a general rule, buy a half dozen small boxes for each bedroom, a dozen for the kitchen, two for each bathroom, and twenty small boxes for the garage. Buy another dozen medium boxes for linens, from the bedrooms and dining room. Lastly a dozen large moving boxes for quilts, blankets and pillows should allow you to pack the bedding of two bedrooms. Lastly are the wardrobe boxes with hanger bars, at least one box for every two feet of closet space. Additionally for your kitchen you need three to six dish packs for dishes, pots and pans.

The rule about smaller moving boxes is doubly important for the cheaper boxes you get at office supply stores and home improvement stores. A good first step for a three bedroom home is to buy 50 small boxes and several bundles of packing paper. Many people believe that newsprint is a better way to go, but the ink rubs off and stains clothes, books and fragile items. The best packing paper available is the plain white paper in sheets.  You will save money if you come to Mark the Mover and buy the 25# bundle of packing paper for around $ 30, which may be enough for a small home without an abundance of fragile items.

Dish packs should be packed with dishes stacked on edge. It may sound counter intuitive but professional moving packers will tell you that this results in the lowest likelihood of breakage. If you own a home stocked with valuable china and porcelain there can be no scrimping on small boxes, dish packs and packing paper. Also have a large marker and label the boxes by room.

Some people forget about the canned goods that fill their kitchen pantry and cabinets. These are heavy, and a home improvement store small box filled with canned goods exceeds the weight rating for this type of box. The best thing to do is fill the bottom layer with the heavy canned goods and place kitchen towels, lightweight pots and pans and boxes of pasta or other lighter kitchen items on top. If the box is heavy but not full, liberally smoosh packing paper into the voids before sealing the box.