MOVING TIME: WHAT TO TAKE YOURSELF, AND WHAT TO LET THE MOVERS PACK AND SHIP

Assuming that you’ve decided on a moving company, and made all the bookings and arrangements, its time to start packing. First you need to decide whether you wish to pack all the stuff yourself, or hire the services of a packing company (most movers do this as well). If you decide to do it all by yourself, its going to be one hell of a task, and if you decide to hire professional packers, you still have work to do.

When hiring professional packing services, you have a choice whether you want them to pack the entire household or selected items. The kind of services hired should depend mainly on your budget, and personal preferences if any. Say you have a medium budget, here are some tips as to what to let the movers pack and ship, and what to pack yourself, and take with you if need be.

There are certain things that some packers don’t carry. Although they usually include flammable or hazardous materials, but its always better to ask. It is recommended that you take the valuables like jewellery, important documents, and other things of monetary or sentimental value say, for example, your stamp collection. Let the packers take care of the rest of the stuff like furniture, appliances, and other household items. These guys are specifically trained so its better to let them take care of the fragile stuff, although you might want to supervise.

For the stuff that you need to pack yourself, you’ll need packing tape, scissors/craft knife, markers to mark the boxes according to content/room, lots of bubble wrap (if you wish to carry any fragile items on your own, and of course, boxes! Once you have the stuff, get to work. Apart from the items mentioned above, the most important thing that you need to carry with you is the essentials box. This should include everything you need to survive for 24 hours (overnight most probably) in your new home without unpacking anything else. A rough list of included items should look like this: toiletries, towels, a change of clothes plus nightwear, an emergency kit, flashlights, small toolkit with the tools needed to unpack, important papers (licences, passports, medical records, leases, financial info etc.). This should be packed in such a way that you are able to carry it conveniently, as it is usually the last box to be packed, and first to be opened. Do make a list of what you need in this box, and keep adding them as you go along packing, otherwise you’re likely to pack half the stuff in other boxes. Apart from these things, if you wish to keep anything with you, its your choice.

Happy Moving!