Organizing Your Possessions: Bring It, Sell It, or Store It

Ah, moving. It is an experience to remember, isn’t it?

You have found the house or the apartment you’ve been looking for. Now, all you have to do is decorate your new place and make it feel like home.

Uhm, no. Because now, you have a few questions to ask yourself: “Where do I start?”, “What am I going to do?”, and, most importantly, “How to pack for a move?”

Every move starts with packing. And that’s when you realize that your belongings are much more than you remembered. Suddenly, you realize you need more and more boxes. Don’t worry. All you need to do is make a plan.

Plan Ahead

Planning your move is more important than someone could ever think it is. In addition, if you have kids or your time is limited in general, you may find yourself packing weird hours and you might not be able to find a place to buy some last-minute supplies, such as:

• Boxes
• Markers
• Bubble wrap
• Tapes –lots of them!

Get them all in advance and save time, energy and a lot of frustration. Before we move to what you can bring, sell or store, let’s take a look at some general tips before you start packing.

Before You Start Packing

Now that you have everything it takes to be the best mover ever, you have to follow these important steps to make your life much easier.

• Start with the kitchen supplies. They never seem to end!
• After the kitchen supplies, pack everything stored in cabinets and closets. You will leave all the other things you will have to pack in plain sight.
• Put in a suitcase everything you are going to need for the first couple of nights.
• Get harder boxes for all your fragile stuff or  sensitive goods.
• Pack room by room.

Now, the next thing you want to do is to categorize your possessions in three categories: BRING, SELL, STORE. “How are you going to figure out which stuff go where?” you ask? We are here to help!

Bring it (and How To Pack for a Move)

This might be the pile which will have the most stuff in. People tend to attach themselves to stuff they might not even need, and this is quite normal. Just take a look around you. Do all the stuff you are looking at, make you feel happy? Are they that useful to you? Do you know how to pack them? Would it be easier if you just gave them away, sell them, or even donate them?

The answer is simple: No.

We are used to holding on to things –it’s just the way we are. When you are planning a move, try to separate yourself from these second thoughts and ask yourself two simple questions:

Do you use it? We all have some belongings sitting there waiting for us to use them some day. The truth is that if you make a list of all the stuff you haven’t used over the past 12 months, you will be surprised. So, make sure you don’t pack the things that haven’t been useful to you in a year.

Without trying to sound too cynical, the only stuff you really need are these ones:

• Clothes you wear every two weeks
• Precious stones and pieces of jewelry
• Personal and important documents (your ID, passports, social security documents etc.)
• Furniture you really like and you can arrange in your new place
• Expensive tech equipment you really use (do you really need that old, dusted Hi-Fi?)
• Half of your kitchen supplies

Stuff you could leave without in your new home include:

• All of your mugs (you already have too many of those, don’t you?)
• Clothes you know you will never wear again
• All of your notebooks
• Borrowed stuff
• Things you had forgotten about their existence
• Things you have more than one of
• Expired items (you won’t believe how many of them you will find)

Sell it

Okay, now that you know what to keep and what not, it’s time to proceed. Don’t hesitate. You’ve made your three piles and you have to stick to your plan. Go on! It’s time to sell! That home moving company will not help you for free. Plus, you don’t have to wonder how to pack all this stuff you can just get rid of.

We know you are thinking about garage sales or something traditional like that, but it is time to modernize and update your options. Create an  E-bay account and start selling stuff that really has some value, such as furniture, appliances, or even clothes –even though secondhand stores would be a better option for them.

Anything else that isn’t worth selling, you can always donate to church or people in need. Good karma is definitely better than some extra cash in your pocket.

Store it

It is a brand new home. Not everything you already possess will be able to match your new place’s decoration, but you knew it right from the start, didn’t you?

Some furniture will not even fit your new central wall’s dimensions, but you don’t really want to throw it away because you’ve invested money or even personal effort if it’s a DIY we are talking about.

There is only one solution for you: Put it in storage. Some day you may make some modifications to use it again or even realize you want to sell it. However, if you believe that, for now, it is something you have to hold on to,  store it. If you don’t know how to pack things for a storage unit, just use a lot of bubble wrap. A LOT OF BUBBLE WRAP!

Other possessions to store include items that you are really emotionally attached to. It might be your grandmother’s coffee table that you want to pass onto the next generation or the first gift your children have bought you.

Things that really matter, can go in a storage. Just be picky and don’t hold on to something that is not really worth it.

Have fun!

What you need to remember, though, is that you don’t have to get lost in emotions. Leaving a home with memories and plenty of happy moments behind can be tough, but think of it as the end of a cycle when another one is about to open soon.

You may even invite some friends over to help you. That would be so much fun!

Do you have any extra tips on moving to a new place? What has your experience taught you? We’d love to hear what you have to say.