4 simple tips for making your house move stress-free

Moving home can be both exciting and stressful at the same time. It’s a big moment in your life and it’s only natural to feel some anxiety about the whole process. With a lot of formalities and paperwork to be completed, belongings to be organised and packed away, and many other hurdles to be jumped, it can begin to feel overwhelming — especially when the moving date begins to loom.

To help you make the transition from one home to another as easy as possible, we’ve put together four stress-busting tips that can make life a little easier.

Change your address

Changing your permanent residence means that you will need to notify essential contacts and services of your new address so that they can update their records and send post to your new home. This is an important task to remember, as it will ensure that you do not miss any vital correspondence, such as bills, invoices, or confidential information at what is a crucial time. This will also ensure that your important post is not susceptible to fraudulent activity. It is well worth sitting down and making a list of anyone that needs to know this new information, just to be sure.

You should also think about organising a mail redirection at your local Post Office, so that mail that isn’t from those essential contacts will also be delivered to your new home. Doing this is quite easy, as you can set it up through the Royal Mail website, provided you have an account.

Keep your essential documents together

There are several stages in the moving process during which you will be required to present essential documents, such as passports, deeds, or proof of salary, and the process may be held up if there’s a delay in you finding these. To avoid this, you should create a safe storage box that you will always keep in a certain location containing any important paperwork. Another advantage to this is that when it’s time to pack, you will simply need to pick up the storage box and pack it away safely, rather than having to hunt for individual items among your half-packed belongings.

It is also a good idea to create electronic back-ups of these documents on your computer, and to keep them on a secure portable hard-drive or cloud storage service, such as Google Drive or Dropbox. This way, even if you do lose them, you will still have access to key information.

Think about the little things

When the time comes to move, there a few little things that you may have overlooked that can make your life a little bit easier. One of the ‘big’ little things is internet access — something that you will probably be without at your new home. If you are willing to forgo this luxury for a few days, be sure to print off any essential information you may need so that you have a hardcopy to refer to. If you don’t want to go without, consider a short-term solution, such as buying more data on your phone contract or signing up for a month-to-month wireless dongle deal. To find the best deal for monthly mobile broadband, you can use comparison websites like MoneySupermarket to compare offers from service providers.

If you don’t want to miss out on small essentials like toiletries, phone chargers, or snacks on moving day, leave them out of any packing you do and store them separately in a small survival kit. That way you will have them on-hand for the first few days in your home.

Consider a professional removals company

Though it can be costlier than doing it yourself, you can take a lot of stress out of the moving process by hiring a moving company to help. If you do choose to bring in some extra help, be sure to invest in a professional mover with a good reputation, as they are likely to be highly experienced and trustworthy — exactly the kind of people that you want to be handling your precious belongings.

Professional moving companies, such as Pickfords, will often provide a packing service to make life even simpler, and will also provide a dedicated move co-ordinator that you can go to with any requests.

Take these four top tips on board and you can look forward to a move that will be less stressful and place less demand on you around moving day.