Moving to another home is a huge project that should not be underestimated by whoever is getting ready to move out. That’s right, a house move is a serious matter… but it’s also a chance to learn something new about the house moving process in general and… about yourself as well.
Believe it or not, a house move can help you understand things about yourself that you either didn’t know before that moment or you suspected them to be true but you just weren’t quite sure. Most of the time, it’s about how you react to the various situations during the tough preparation period, and later on Moving day itself, that will reveal your true character and give you some useful insight into your individual strengths and weaknesses.
Regardless of whether it’s something you can be really proud of or something you can definitely improve in the future, the ability to see yourself objectively and understand the truth about yourself will help you make the right decisions during the tricky transitional period of moving between two homes.
Here are 5 things you can learn about yourself during a move.
1. Your organizational skills are better than you thought
Any brave attempt to organize a house move entirely on your own will almost always prove to be way more complicated than you thought. That’s especially true in case you’re moving out for the first time and you don’t really know what to expect when it comes to the purely organizational stage of the relocation.
You assume that your organizational skills will be put to the test during the preparation period, but you are not sure how well you can manage the challenging task ahead of you.
Luckily, with the help of a detailed MOVING CHECKLIST, you learn that you’re actually good at introducing order and structure in a notoriously chaotic event. What’s more, your confidence in your own abilities to tackle the move successfully will grow each time you check an individual task as DONE in your personal moving timeline.
Of course, being an organized person, in general, will help you tremendously in planning and executing a well-organized house move with as little stress and drama as possible.
And yet, your best chance of proving to yourself that you can cope with the crazy number of strictly organizational tasks is to follow a good moving checklist that you have personalized for your own specific needs.
Must-read: Moving timeline: Interactive week-by-week moving checklist
2. You may have become a hoarder without realizing it
All sorts of odd things tend to get accumulated over time when you’ve been living under one roof for years. But since most of that stuff has been tucked away somewhere around the house (Out of sight, out of mind, right?), it’s possible that you may have even forgotten about its existence… until it’s time to move out.
Regrettably, one of the things you can learn about yourself when moving out is that you have almost become a genuine hoarder through the years – collecting and keeping random things that have long stopped being useful, or maybe they have been useless since the very beginning.
A house move will present you with the perfect opportunity to get rid of all the unwanted clutter found in your home. And while you may have hoarded more worthless items in your home than you should have, now is the time to correct that mistake by sorting out your possessions very carefully and choosing to pack and move only the things that you intend to use in the foreseeable future.
Packing and moving all your stuff without decluttering it first is usually a serious mistake because
- you’ll spend more time packing it all up,
- you’ll pay for more packing materials,
- you’ll pay much more for transporting it,
- you’ll have to find sufficient storage in the new home.
Make sure you declutter your home before packing up your things for moving. As a rule of thumb, you should not move an item you haven’t used for over a year.
See also: How to declutter your home before moving
3. You used to handle stress better, much better
One thing that you may not suspect about a house move – and Moving day in particular – is that moving to a new home is often ranked as one of the most stressful events in a person’s life.
And in case you’re wondering why moving is so stressful, just keep in mind the following 4 facts:
- Moving is expensive. The average cost of an interstate move is roughly $4,300 for a move distance of 1,225 miles.
- Moving is time-consuming. Sorting out and packing up your things can take weeks to complete. Also, a move includes countless non-packing tasks such as collecting your medical records and taking your pet to see the vet.
- Moving is emotional. Moving away from family and friends can be one of the hardest things you’ll have to do in your life.
- Moving is uncertain. You’re moving to a new city, most likely in a new state too, and your future seems pretty uncertain.
Yes, moving house can be an extremely stressful and daunting experience and one thing you can learn about yourself during that uncertain transitional period is that you no longer cope with stress as well as you used to in the past. You’re feeling pretty stressed out as your moving day anxiety intensifies with each passing day.
Luckily, there are proven ways to handle the stress of moving.
Read also: How to handle the stress of moving
4. You can be quite thrifty when it matters
It’s no secret that the house moving process can be quite expensive. In reality, how much you pay for your move will depend on a number of critical factors such as
- move distance;
- total weight of the shipment;
- specialty items to be transported;
- add-on services such as packing, furniture disassembly, temporary storage, unpacking, etc.;
- moving company itself; and
- season and date of moving.
But here’s the deal: while you won’t be able to control some of these price factors (the move distance will remain the same no matter what you do), you will still be able to manipulate the rest in order to bring down the final moving cost.
The thing is that it’s never too late to surprise yourself about just how thrifty you can be when it matters the most. Moving is definitely not cheap but it’s up to you to make it much more affordable by employing smart cost reduction techniques – from using a low-cost moving company to moving only the things you will need and use in the future.
And in-between, you will have a number of unique opportunities to reduce the moving cost, including negotiating a better deal with your mover (yes, it’s actually possible).
And yes, if you’re proud of the way you manage the family budget, then the chances are very high that you’ll do a great job managing the moving budget as well.
Good advice: How to cut moving costs
5. Your negotiation skills are not your strongest point
When choosing a moving company, you’re likely to get multiple cost estimates from different top-rated movers so that you can compare their quotes and pick the offer that seems the most reasonable one in terms of price and the most sensible one in terms of conditions.
Another thing you may learn about yourself during a house move is that your negotiations skills are not good enough to secure a price reduction from your mover. Add the fact that you may be too nervous or too shy to ask the movers for a price discount and there you have it – your chances of paying less than what you were quoted originally will be quickly vanishing into thin air.
Remember that it won’t hurt to try to negotiate a better deal with movers simply because you’ve got nothing to lose. The worst that can happen to you is to get a NO, and that’s OK. However, the prospect of conducting successful negotiations with your moving company can prove to be very beneficial to you because the negotiations should conclude with you paying less for your local or cross-country move.
Follow the link below to learn how to enter into price negotiations with your moving company. After all, no movers’ prices are set in stone, are they?
Practical advice: How to negotiate with movers
