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[FastDogWalker2]

Does anyone have any?  I would love to hear them-thank you!

[Peaches McPhee]

Yes.  Call and confirm the night before.  Years ago, we were moving, and confirmed several days prior.  In the meantime, another couple with the same last name as ours and a different moved day, canceled.  The moving company made a clerical error and canceled ours instead.  Hijinks DID NOT commence.  

[faeriemoon]

Plan on it taking longer than you expected.  We recently moved three miles away from our old home.  The movers arrived at 7 am at the old place, and didn't finish unloading us in the new place until almost midnight.

I was exhausted.  We never thought it would take that long.

Also, a little suggestion, movers are happier when they are fed.  This truly annoys me because it seems like a very bad time to expect food.  But both times we have moved (the first time was 25 years before this move), the movers were expecting to be fed.  (Doesn't anyone bring a lunch anymore?)

[dex]

Do the movers need to be tipped?

[Buck-i-Nana]

Are you hiring a mover or moving yourself?

If you're moving yourself, don't skimp on boxes!  Boxes packed to heavy are a nightmare.  Also, it's worth it to buy good boxes and padding from U-Haul or another place for your breakables.

Easiest local move I ever did I rented a POD, which is a moveable storage container.  They place it on your driveway and then you can pack a box and load it into the POD.  When you're totally packed up, you call and schedule them to come pick up your POD and deliver it to your new home.  Once at the new home, you just reverse the process.  Bring in your furniture, then bring in a few boxes, unpack, breakdown, bring in a few more.  Much more organized, less pressure and really comparably priced to renting a U-Haul truck.

[forest4thetrees]

What we did was to have them load, then present them each with a $10 (this was a few years ago!) and tell them to please stop en-route to the new place and take a break.

It was also hot as hades that day and at the old place and at the new one we provided a small table with cold water, lemonade, tea, and small towels that could be dipped in the ice water to help cool off.

Then, once they'd unloaded, yes--we tipped each mover a $20.

[Sweetbay magnolia]

What has worked for me:  Frame your mind to be calm, try to be organized but know that some of that will go out the window, and look towards the reasons you are going through this in the first place, which I hope are positive!

We've moved locally 2x, and each time we did it ourselves, with the help of friends.  It's been really nice for us to deal with settling in to a new place, but with the same "stuff" around us - the local papers, radio stations, grocery store, etc.  Many wishes for joy to you in your new place!

[NickNack]

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@dex wrote:

Do the movers need to be tipped?

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I just Googled this, because we just moved furniture from my Dad's house this weekend.  This is what I found:

HOW MUCH SHOULD YOU TIP MOVERS?

As is the case with most services, the moving industry standard tip is about 15-20% of the total move divided among your moving crew (rather than a certain amount per person) for a local move. Where in that range you decide to tip depends on your circumstances. If you’re asking for the movers to move any difficult items like pianos, hot tubs, or pool tables, you might want to tip more. If you’re asking the movers to disassemble and reassemble any of your furniture, or pack for you, you might want to tip more. If you’re extremely satisfied with the way the movers handled your job, you might want to tip more.

WHEN SHOULD I TIP THE MOVERS?

It doesn’t make sense to tip for a service before the service is performed. You should tip the movers after you’re done moving in. The tip will be a satisfying conclusion for the movers after they worked very hard on a difficult job.

[BabyYoda]

We moved ourselves but hired many local men to lift our stuff and move it into our house. We bought boxes from UHaul and Home Depot and I labeled everything in boxes to what room it goes to and wrote what is in them so I can find everything I needed first. It went fast because we had a lot of men and it took about 2 hours to move everything in. I put the furniture in the truck last so it's the first thing to be placed first. 

Don't forget to hire a a cleaning crew to clean your house before you move in. I was too tired from packing to do it myself so I hired a service that morning and they put down plastic runners on the floors and by afternoon we were moved in with our stuff. Easy on me. 

[Mominohio]

Here is a little tip I came up with when we moved locally about 21 years ago.

We had possession of both houses for quite awhile, and did the whole move ourselves (no money to even rent a truck, let alone hire movers).

I have a lot of really special (to me) home decor that is fragile, so I bought a stack of full size heavy duty laundry baskets (about a dozen). I used the towels and wash cloths out of our linen closet to wrap everything, and took as many baskets as would comfortably fit in each vehicle, each time we made a trip to the house.

I would never trust movers with these things, and was able to unpack and put things away a little at a time on each trip, bring back the towels and baskets and load up again. 

I did this with dishes and glasses as well. And at the end of the move, all the linens got washed and were fresh and clean in the new closet.

This may not work for people who have to get all moved in a very short period of time or in one day, but for me, I found it easier than having so much stuff to unpack all at once, (we were making trips to paint/paper/carpet etc for weeks anyway), and I knew how my delicate things were being handled.