When I announced the Fisher House giveaway our closing date was the end of October. Now it is the end of November. That means that I am going to have to push the giveaway back so that I have time to move, unpack, and then get things squared away for the auctions, etc. It also means there will be a few more items in the giveaway pool, so that is a good thing. I plan on doing it in December instead of November.

But I don’t want to just post a notice about the giveaway leave it at that. Like I did with catch toys (found here), I am going to give some moving tips based on my extensive research (we have been in moving and packing mode for three months now).

In addition to pushing the giveaway back the move will impact what gets published here. I have been working on a series for people new to EDC, a “Start Here” series that many enthusiast websites have. That will be going up throughout November. It was not time sensitive and so writing and releasing it will allow me to focus on the move this month.

Boxes

Boxes are essential to moving. In my mind there are two schools of thought—permanent boxes that you will use for storage after the move and non-permanent boxes. Because this is probably my last move, we are not moving a long distance, and we don’t want to save a bunch of stuff, we opted for the second option. That meant acquiring a metric ton of boxes. Some were found and borrowed, but most were purchased.

After more than two weeks of looking, it is clear to me that the very best deal on moving boxes is at UHaul. Their boxes are sturdy, meet both UPS and FEDEX shipping standards, and are as cheap as you will find. Be careful—if you find a cheaper price, my experience tells me that they will make up for it in shipping. The internet will let you easily compare prices per box, but that doesn't matter. The unit you want to measure is PRICE PER BOX SHIPPED. And using this metric no one came close to UHaul as of Fall 2021. Here is the last thing—UHaul will buy back your unused boxes at the price you paid. If you have a local UHaul, this is a tremendous deal, as you don’t have to pay shipping back to them. No matter what way you slice it, right now UHaul is king of the box game.

We got 100 medium boxes and 40 small boxes along with 5 garmet boxes. We over estimated medium by 40 and I took them back and got paid for them. The boxes themselves are rigid and easy to use. They have stay open tabs that make packing easier and they are very likely to be sturdy enough for multiple uses. They also have nice printed spaces for labels including first and second use labels. Overall, I was very pleased and it was easily worth the 10 hours for comparative research I did and the price per box shipped spreadsheet I made. Okay, maybe not. But now I can give you this information and pass along the work I did.

Gear

One overarching tip: buy stuff that you can use after the move more freely than stuff that is one time use.

Tape

The EZ Start Duck Brand tape is the way to go. I tried three different style tape guns and they were all hard to use, large, heavy, and expensive. These are cheap and fast. Brilliant design.

Pens

I wish I could give you some tips beyond—go Sharpie, but after trying a ton of different stuff nothing even came close. Its Sharpie or Bust.

Wrap

You 100% absolutely need this stuff. There are so many irregular shaped things that don’t pack well, but with a bit of packing wrap, they are magically solid and easy to move. I used a ton of this stuff—packing our entire Lego collection and all of the boys sets (see below), all of the Nerf gear including the homemade Nerf rack, and a bunch of shop stuff like my gray parts bins. Buy what you think you need after you multiply the original amount by two.

Packing Material

Don’t buy a lot of this stuff, as its basically garbage after the move. For more on packing material see Tip 8, below. I have not purchased any packing peanuts or air bags, but I have purchased some craft paper. In fact, I use the craft paper on my workbench for glue ups, so I used up what I had and start in on my spare roll. That way I get double use out of it.

Moving POE

Don’t pack everything in your house. It is both time consuming and unnecessary. Instead, pack only what you want to keep. For me, this involved a moving process of elimination (because, if you haven’t guessed, I am crazy). Here is that rubric:

Sell/Exchange, Giveaway, Burn, Recycle/Throw Away, then and only then PACK.

Selling is pretty easy. First, I found DeCluttr, a media buying company. They have an app that you download and scan your entire media collection. Then you can sell what you don’t want to move. We have migrated to mostly digital stuff, so a lot of things got sold this way. DeCluttr pays for shipping, too. The only issue is the prices they give you are dirt cheap. If you have bunch of high quality stuff it is probably worth it to take that stuff to an independent music store near you. Video games went to Gamestop, which, surprisingly still exists. We also swapped out a bunch of board games at BoardGameCo. In total we got about $100 for just getting rid of junk. For other stuff, I used Facebook Marketplace. Stuff sold very quickly through there—like a day. I hate Facebook and it pained me to register, but the quick turnaround on stuff sold there was great. Tools, bike stuff, and outdoor furniture went very quickly.

Giveaway is also pretty easy. After filtering through stuff that would sell, I tried to find places to take stuff for free. Savers takes a lot of stuff. Once I had organized stuff to sell, I took what was left and brought it to Savers. To simplify the process, I got some wine boxes at a local liquor store and just unloaded the boxes filled with stuff, instead of taking stuff and unloading out of my boxes. It was fast and I got coupons for Savers. For stuff that Savers didn’t take, I also went to the local shelters and donated things. Some items, like clothes for interviews, were really warmly accepted, so if you have a dress shirt or a tie you don’t want think about donating to a shelter for this purpose.

The next step was a big bonfire. There is a lot of stuff that we have that is not really worth selling, but is a huge space eater in a garbage can. For things like this, especially a lot of my place-specific shop furniture (my lumber rack, for example), I took apart what I could and saved parts like 4X2 (which I will use in my bench at the new place). Once the big pieces were removed and neatly packed away, I burned the rest.

Once the fire was over I was left with a very small pile of stuff to throw away, like old paint. I checked my local disposal laws and then got rid of it by either throwing this stuff away, recycling it, or bringing it to the dump with a dump pass. BTW, do not burn old paint. It is dangerous to do so and probably illegal. Check your local laws.

After all this minimization, we started packing. We have been packing for two months now.

Packing Tips

Tip 1: Small for Heavy, Big for Light

Don’t overpack boxes, especially if you are moving yourself. For that reason we got two different size boxes (small and medium UHaul boxes) and used the small ones for heavy stuff or stuff that packed neatly, like books, and the medium ones for lighter or more irregularly shaped items. This prevented a box from being too heavy.

Tip 2: Trash Cans Helps

For long, especially heavy, or especially regularly shaped items, jam them in your garbage cans (assuming you own them, they aren’t the classic metal ones, and you have cleaned them out). I have three tools with large, irregularly shaped fences—my table saw, my router table, and my band saw. No box that was a reasonable size could fit these, so I dropped them into our garbage cans, along with my extra long clamps.

Tip 3: Bugout Bag Plus

During the move there are going to be a few things you want with you—your cellphone, your charger, etc. drop them into a bag, hopefully your bugout bag, and live out of that for a few days while you sort things out.

It is also helpful to have a few things ready to go immediately upon moving it—bed sheets, cleaning items, etc. For those things make a separate box or container that doesn’t get put with the regular stuff and take it with you.

Finally, pack a tool box with basic tools—a hammer, a drill/driver, a multitool, a set of needle nose and adjustable pliers, a socket set, a drywall patch kit (in case you ding the walls on the way out), a putty knife, and some abrasives. This tool box will both help you move in and move out.

Tip 4: Packing Plates with Plates

This is a tip I saw somewhere on the internet and I can’t remember where. It is all over the place so I don’t have the ability to credit someone. Either way it is simple—buy some styrofoam plates (yuck, I know), and place one or a few between each of your glass plates. It provides cushion and it gives you a plate to eat off of immediately upon moving.

Tip 5: Wrap your Lego Collection

Despite hours of research there is no good set of tips for moving Lego. Our collection is huge and my boys have some stuff we put together, both store bought and MOC, that is nearly a decade old. For these items I used packing wrap. I used small Lego sets to fill in the gaps present on big Lego sets providing some structural support. We then tucked in some sets into the massive storage system we have for Lego and wrapped those boxes. In all, even if the sets get pulverized in the move, all the parts will be together. If they don’t we can just cut off the wrapping and they are ready to go. We used the parts bin storage to give the boxes the sets are in a bit of rigidity by placing it on the diagonal (the standard parts bins fit on the diagonal in a UHaul medium box) and then tucking the wrapped ships in the corners which are reinforced and therefore less likely to compress. I also took pictures of sets before packing them, so we can rebuild them if necessary. We also saved every set of instructions, so if they do get super bashed, the boys can put them together again, which is a large majority of the fun.

Tip 6: Let No Box Go to Waste

Our Medium Boxes from UHaul came in a huge flat box. My wife had the brilliant idea of using this box to pack irregular or large pictures once dusted and wrapped with cushioning material. Instead of pitching the big box, we doubled its use.

Tip 8: Limit Packing Material

Try not to buy packing peanuts as there is very little use for them after to the move and they are surprisingly expensive. Instead, you what you are going to pack anyway—throw pillows, blankets, towels and beach towels, tarps, and drop clothes. I have a huge collection of tarps and drop clothes in the shop (THANKS Harbor Freight!) so many tools, especially large ones weird shaped ones like my circular saw, got packed with these cushiony items.

Tip 9: Moving “Dangerous” Liquids

Lots of moving companies and shipping companies won’t move stuff like paint thinner, mineral spirits, and kerosene. I have a modest collection of found milk crates and I used these to pack our “dangerous” liquids that are making the move. It means we have to move them, but we also can see what they are and handle them carefully. This is after I disposed of a lot of stuff safely at the dump and left (with permission) paint for our various rooms for the new owners.

Moving your Gear Collection

Don’t for get to do the POE for your gear—don’t move something you don’t want. After that I think it is worth investing in a nice storage container, whether it is a Pelican case, a tool chest, or, as I have, a Gerstner Chest. Make it a moving expense. And, of course, you move this. Our babies need to stay with us, right?

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EZ Start Duck Packing Tape

And just to prove something you probably already guessed, here is my elitist way of labeling all of philosophy books in our house: