You’ve hired the moving company, started the packing process and called the utility companies to stop your service. These are the type of moving tasks that everyone remembers, but it’s often the small and often-forgotten tasks that make the moving process more difficult and stressful. Here’s a quick list of tasks we find that people commonly forget to handle before moving day.
1. Copy Your Records
One of the first steps you should take, after calling a moving company, will be to contact all of your doctors and get copies of your medical records. Often people remember to get records from a GP or pediatrician, but they might forget to contact the veterinarian, the dentist or the optometrist. Additionally, if you have kids, be sure to grab those school records, as well.
2. Transfer Your Prescriptions
Even if you are just moving a few miles away, it can be smart to find a more conveniently located pharmacy and transfer your prescriptions. If you have prescriptions mailed to you regularly, be sure to update the new address. Often, you can accomplish the prescription transfers at the same time as you request your medical records. Be sure to keep all of these records with you, and don’t pack them, as it could be difficult to find these items after the move.
3. Label Everything
Our moving company employees often show up for a job and find that everything is packed, but not everything is labeled. While this doesn’t affect our ability to load and unload a moving truck, labeling your boxes definitely makes the moving in process easier. We recommend that you label each box as to its contents, but also where that box should be placed in your new home or new apartment.
To make it even easier, you can color code each box with colorful packing tape or use different colored markers. You might use red on all boxes heading to the kitchen, green for the master bedroom, blue for the family, etc. You can even number the boxes, and make a note of how many boxes should be in each room. If you really want to get organized, make a spread sheet that lists content by box number, so you can find something you might need as quickly as possible.
4. Cancel/Change Memberships
While you probably won’t forget to have your electricity turned off or you cable disconnected, people often forget about club and gym memberships. In fact, it could be a month or two before you notice that you are still being charged a monthly fee at a yoga studio, a gym or perhaps your child’s karate school. Forgetting to cancel these memberships can be costly. Don’t forget to cancel your library card, either, as if someone gets a hold of the card number, they could check out costly items and not return them, leaving you to foot the bill. Even if you are moving just a mile away, be sure to update your addresses at the gym, country club and library.
5. Update All Addresses
As soon as you have a concrete moving date, head to the post office (or its website) and create a forwarding order, updating your address. While this is crucial, it also is important to actual update your address for anyone who sends you mail, especially bills. Make sure you change addresses for credit cards, magazine subscriptions, newspaper delivery, your bank and anyone else who might need your contact information.
As moving company experts, we highly recommend that you make a detailed list of all the tasks that you need to accomplish before your move. This includes everything from dealing with utilities to picking up dry cleaning to packing and every task, large and small. Keep this list in a folder along with all of the other paperwork relating to your move and start checking items off your list as soon as possible. We also recommend that you start packing non-essential items as soon as you know you will be moving, to make the packing process less stressful.
If you’ve been searching for a top moving company, the team at Move 4 Less is here to help. We’ve handled more than 15,000 apartment moves, 35,000 homeowner moves and nearly 10,000 commercial. Whether you need to move across town or across the country, we can handle any job, large or small.
