Tips For Moving Out Of State

It's been about a month since I've moved, crazy how time flies right? I decided it's time to make a little post with some moving tips, especially for those of you who might be thinking about moving out of state like I did! (Especially if you're moving with pets!) I loved reading my friend Annaliese's posts about moving and wanted to add some tips and experiences of my own! Moving is crazy with a lot of unexpected things coming at you all at once, so the more you're prepared for it the better. Without any further adieu, here's my guide to moving out of state.

Plan Earlier Than You Think

We started planning a few months out from our move, and it was the best thing we did. Once you know where you're moving you're going to want to scope out a place to live (if you don't have one already) and how exactly you and your stuff are going to get there. It's better to have everything completely lined up so you don't have to worry about it once moving day comes! Even if you're just writing down ideas for apartment complexes or neighborhoods, it's better to go in with an idea than going in completely blind.

Visit Your New City (And Housing Choices)

I'm a firm believer that you should see whatever place you're going to live in before you sign a lease. Websites can be completely misleading for apartments and homes, so it's ideal that you can get your eyes on a place and really see if it's as good as you thought it was. My best friend and I spent about 2 months making a spreadsheet of apartment complexes so that when we visited Seattle we could narrow down a list of ones we wanted to visit. Two months is a bit much, but we were just excited to move, haha! Make a list of places that are of interest to you, do some pros and cons, and then create a smaller list of places that you can actually visit if you were to make a short trip to your city. Our number was 5, but you can do more or less depending on how many days you're there.

Make sure when checking out each place to look around the neighborhood. What restaurants are nearby, what can you do for entertainment, are there any parks, etc. Really take a good look around because this is a huge part of your moving process!

Start Packing Early

Similar to planning, if you think you've got a head start on packing, you probably should have started a week earlier. We started packing about 3 weeks before the move and I wish we had started earlier. At the beginning it seemed like we had so much time, but once it got to the last week it all felt so rushed. You could tell when unpacking boxes at our new place what time the boxes had been packed since the first boxes were carefully organized and labeled and by the end practically everything was "Miscellaneous." Give yourself a ridiculous amount of time to pack and start early with the items that you know you won't use like Christmas decorations or extra clothes.

One of our pods! It was packed completely full.

Have A Moving Fund

Now this doesn't actually have to be a separate fund, but you should have an idea of all the expenses moving will come with plus any extra obstacles along the way. After doing your research on how you're going to move (We used a place called U-Pack since we were driving ourselves and our pets up, and it was the cheapest option!) set aside that amount of money plus 25-50% of that cost. Add that to any cost of boxes shipping off from your house, the cost of gas and hotels along the way (if you're driving to your new state), and moving supplies. You should have a solid chunk of change for all these costs and hopefully anything else that pops up. We signed up for one 'pod' but had so much stuff we had to reserve another one! Definitely not a cost we anticipated, but glad that we had set aside some money just in case something like this happen.

And Plan For A Little Extra Once You're There

We trashed or sold some items that we couldn't take with us, and ended up doing a good amount of home shopping once we arrived. Simple things like utensils, cleaning supplies, groceries, etc will all be an added expense once you arrive, so have a little more money stored away for this kind of thing!

Have The Pets All Set

We were traveling with both a cat and a dog and for a while we weren't exactly sure what we were going to do with the both of them. Since we were driving we realized that the only realistic option for us was to put them both in the car and hope for the best. We didn't have enough space for Henry's carrier, so he and Khaleesi had free reign in the car the whole drive up! Yeah, it was as crazy as you can imagine. That being said, have a plan for your pets if you have any. Are you flying and can you take them with you? If you're driving will you be using a carrier or not? If your trip is taking multiple days you'll need to arrange hotel stays with pet friendly hotels, this can be a tricky issue if you have cats! Many pet friendly places don't specify on their website, so you'll need to double check and call places along the way so you aren't blindsided when you arrive!

Have Supplies On Hand

I constantly make fun of my best friend for saying that we would only need 8 medium boxes for our move between us. HA. We completely underestimated how much stuff we had and ended up using 40 medium boxes, hence the reason we needed to reserve another pod! So with our underestimation, we also didn't buy enough supplies and made about 15 trips to home depot. Save yourself a few trips and just buy more than you think you'll need, most likely you'll use everything! What we ended up using most were boxes, bubblewrap, moving saran wrap, and packing tape.

And that's all I've got for you! If you've moved out of state do you agree with these tips? I'd love to know your thoughts and if you have anything to add! Of course if you're moving soon and have questions I would love to answer them!