Worst of All? Failing to Plan Well! 
Ah, yes: planning. No household move is smooth without it! If if it seems like we’re making that too much of a mantra in our blogs and web pages, you’re right! We are! After all, when you employ us to do your move, we’ve got a vested interest in ensuring that it’s pulled off successfully. And if you’ve
hired a mover other than us? In that case, planning becomes absolutely imperative! The more prepared you are up front for not only everything that should happen but also a few things that shouldn’t happen but could, the better your move will go. So, by all means, plan!
Missteps That Planning Can Help You Avert - Tackling too much yourself. Why run yourself down? Unless you’re Superman or Wonder Woman you can’t do it all. Ask friends and relatives to help you. Let the kids pack what’s theirs in their bedrooms. Divvy up the inventorying and packing of various rooms between yourself and your spouse. And hire a professional moving company to do the loading, shipping, and unloading – or whatever else you don’t have the time, the proficiency40], or the desire to come to grips with personally.
- Waiting until the last minute to take care of everything. Moving is done in stages. By way of illustration, there are timelines for discontinuing services (gas, electric, phone, and the like) at your current address and authorizing their hookup at your new address before you move in. Special arrangements must be made and care must be taken to pack and ship huge or pricey items. When the movers arrive, everything that’s got to go had best be ready to go if the move is to keep on schedule. Holdups can cost you – and not only money. Dashing around at the last minute is a sure way to ensure that things get lost or left behind. Or damaged.
- Not developing a Moving Day plan for the kids and pets. Are the kids leaving with you or your spouse or staying with grandma until the move’s over? Have plans been made relative to their school situation? Can you take Fido with you or is he better off being boarded until yougotten settled in}76} your new home? You know these things have to be considered. Don’t wait to consider them!
- Not not alerting your moving company to changes in your schedule. Has the start date of your new job in your new city changed in a way that could require changing91 your move date? Can’t make the time originally arranged for the home survey that governs your move estimate? Need to have the movers come a little later than planned on Move Day? Okay, sometimes changes are unpreventable. There’s no reason for them to be a stumbling block, though … if you alert your moving company to them well enough in advance!
- Not reading the paperwork from your mover thoroughly. What? You didn’t spot that added charge for the moving company’s packing services on page two of the contract? Or the cost of packing and shipping that big old grand piano of yours? Or that your moving insurance doesn’t really cover the total valuation of your belongings? Of course, maybe none of that was actually in the contract – and should have been. If you didn’t read it, how would you know? Surely you’ve heard the old adage that you shouldn’t ever sign a contract you haven’t read. Heed it! Or you’ll surely get a bill you weren’t expecting!
Follow the advice above, start planning early, and you might discover that your household move has all the adventure you hoped for – and none of the agony you dreaded!
