Take It or Toss It? What to Take with You When Moving

Posted on 12/09/2016

When you are undergoing a house move, it is quite important to have a moving checklist. And when you do, there is one other thing you should be extra careful with when the time comes – the packing. There is a right way to pack and there is a wrong way to pack. And the wrong way includes dealing with quite a lot of clutter which a removal van cannot take in one go. This means more trips to the house or more than a man and a van for the relocation. Just how wasteful can you be? It is much smarter to simply sit down with everything you are planning to pack and answer one question: Take it or toss it?

Here are some guidelines to giving the right answer:

Would you buy it?

Sometimes it’s very easy to figure out whether you will need to take something with you. When you look at an item, you should immediately ask yourself the question: would you buy that if you saw it on a store display right now? This immediately appeals to your needs more than your wants and an immediate ‘yes’ means that you need to take this item with you. If you have to think about it, then you probably don’t really need it that much.

Have you used it for the past couple of weeks?

Be honest with yourself – when was the last time you used this item? If not very recently, then ask yourself do you plan on using it at all. If no, then you do not really have a need for this item and you should discard it to save space and have less clutter when the man with van comes. An item you do not use very regularly is probably not that important anyway, so why bother with it? The space it will take could be used for much more important – much more ‘immediately usable’ items.

How many of these do you have?

Admit it, it’s not like you keep one of everything in your home. Cutlery and utensils excluded, sometimes you just buy two of something, just in case. When you sit down with your items and you see two of each, then think about whether it would be a good idea to take them both, or just take the new one and toss or donate the older one to someone who might find more use out of it than yourself.

Is its only value sentimental?

Again, you need to take with you what you need. Items of sentimental value often times have very little practical value, so be smart when dealing with them. Unless you are holding something that brings you to tears just by looking at it and without dipping into the memory banks of your consciousness, you do not really need that item and you can either store it somewhere else, sell it, or donate it – just don’t take it along for the ride with the man and van, because you simply have no use of it.

The biggest thing you have to remember when you are downsizing and reviewing all the items you are taking with you is that you need to be ruthless. You should not have to get sentimental or petty about going through your things and when the man with a van comes, you should load only what is most important to take along. Clothes, dishes, sheets – important. A big painting and a toy you got for Christmas last year and didn’t use since – not as much. Make the smart choices and you will save quite a lot for your house relocation.