Moving home with kids can make one go crazy if not planned correctly. Today we are going to explore how to do it right. If you do it wrong you might get some new grey hairs by the time your move is done. If you do it right you’ll be loving life and your kids won’t be impacted too much by the move.

Before Moving Day

To get this right you need to start planning well before you move. Kids are, well, kids, right? Dropping something on a child like “honey we are moving today so say goodbye to your room… forever” is not a good idea. In fact, it’s very bad parenting. It’s best to let your kids know that you plan to move at least a month before.

Even sooner is better! Think back to being a child and having to leave your school if you were to move far away. That means leaving your friends. Leaving all your favourite spots you play at the local park and event daycare and all those friends. It’s not a fun thing to go through so you should prepare your kids for what will take place.

Look into all the new opportunities that you kids will have where you are moving. All the parks, the new daycare, the new school they will attend and start to reinforce how good it’s going to be.

During the Move

Like we mentioned above get the kids involved with the moving process. You will have a lot of organisation to do with de-cluttering before you start packing. So get them involved and then get them involved in packing also.

This is a great opportunity to teach your kids some life skills also. Basic things like packing their room together is also a good opportunity for some relationship building. Let them plan out how they will pack their room under your guidance.

Tip: Make sure their favourite toys are packed last. This way they have something to ‘hold on to’ from your now old home and there will be less emotional de-attachment for your kids.

Once the packing is done move them through what will happen on moving day.

Moving Day

The best advice for moving day with kids is to keep the kids out of the house. Drop them at the in-laws or a trusted friend after they say their final goodbyes. This way they are in a comfortable spot with people they are trust tehmselves instead of at daycare or somewhere that they have been dropped and have fellings of abandonment.

If you have the kids in the car with you during the move you can play their favourite songs to keep something familiar in their head.

Setting into the New Home

After the move is done the best thing you can do is make your kids their favourite home cooked meal the first night. Too once again, you guessed it, create familiarity.

Have your kids unpack their rooms and set things up how they want. But make sure you oversee it and once again create a familiar and safe space for them by making their room look the same as the old room.

Another thing you can do is to make sure the routine that takes place on a daily basis is routine and things are not chaso in the household so they adjust quicker. This is proven to work to help kids adjust faster.

If your kids behave differently during the move or even in the weeks after the move don’t be alarmed. To be blunt you might have just ripped their world apart if you pulled them out of school. So they need time to adjust, they will adjust eventually, but as kids, they need time, more than adults do.

To fast track their adjustment get them involved in daycare ASAP. Get them playing with their new friends on weekend. Get them going to the local park and so on. And of course there is school. The faster they get back to school the better as this is the easiest way for kids for make new friends.

If you have been reading our blog since the early days then you know moving can be a stressful experience. Or perhaps you have moved homes once or twice yourself and know first hand what we are talking about.

Below are a few things to keep in mind to keep those stress levels right down.

Don’t Leave Everything to Late!

Procrastination is a killer and you know what we are talking about.

Every soul on the planet is guilty of it. Don’t do it! It’s tempting to say you will deal with planning your move tomorrow and then repeat the same thing a week later but if you are not organised on moving day things will be a mess.

If possible start planning your move one month in advance. 2 weeks is the absolute latest you should be planning the move if you are really busy and pressed for time.

This means you should start packing one month before you plan on moving. This way you can slowly segment your move instead of cramming everything the day before moving.

DIY Is Not For Everyone

DIY moving is an option but it’s not for everyone. It’s actually not as cheap as you think it’s going to be as there are always several added costs that will come up like extra fuel and movers insurance. This is especially true if you are moving across the country.

It’s always better the hire a moving company that does full service moving. For example removals Swindon or at least go for a man and a van option. Unless of course your day job is in the transport industry already and you know you are going to have everything covered.

Don’t Forget Your Moving Day Survival Kit

When you move into your home you are going to have something like 100 boxes that are all taped up. It is foolish to try to rummage through everything to find things like your toiletries or your phone charger.

It’s much better to plan to pack a box or two that is going to have the first few days worth of essentials that you will need. Such as toiletries, electronics, maybe some kitchen equipment and utensils, makeup for the ladies and a week’s worth of clothes.

This way you know if you need something on the first or second day in your new home it’s going to be in your survival box. If you stick to these tips you will make your move much smoother!

You can also watch this video for some bonus moving house tips.

If you are moving your home internationally, you need to consider what the transportation options are. Your options will vary depending on the number of items you want to move and where you are going to move to. The most common transport ideas will be sea freight, air freight and land transportation.

Why You Should Choose Sea Freight

If you are moving internationally, the first transportation idea you should consider is sea freight. This will involve placing your possessions in a shipping container and having it sail to your international destination. There are a number of reasons why you should look into this transport option with the primary one being the cost.

Sea freight is generally the cheapest transportation option when moving internationally. Of course, there is a downside to this that you need to be aware of. This is the fact that sea freight is also the slowest transportation option. The slower speed is one of the reasons why this transport method is much cheaper than the others.

The amount of time that it takes for your possessions to reach their destination will vary depending on a few factors. The first is where you are moving to. The farther the final destination, the longer the transportation is going to take.

Another factor is how often the sea freight company you use sails. There are some companies that only sail to certain destinations once a week while others will sail every few days. The more often they sail, the sooner you will generally be able to get your possessions.

Why You Should Choose Air Freight

Another transport idea will be air freight which is one of the faster methods of moving your possessions. Most moving experts would recommend that you choose sea freight instead of air freight for a number of reasons. The cost will generally be the most important because air freight is much more expensive than sea freight.

Another reason will be the fact that you cannot actually send as much with air freight. If you are moving your entire home, you would be spending several thousand on air freight for and some items may not be taken. Of course, there is one primary benefit that many people consider when looking at this transport option.

This is the speed with which you will get your possessions. Air freight can take a few days to reach your new home while sea freight could take up to a month. If you are willing to spend more to get your possessions as quickly as possible, this will be the best transport idea for you.

Why You Should Consider Land Transport

Land transport is not something you can always consider when moving internationally. This will only be a viable option if you are moving to a country that shares a land border with the one that you are leaving. If you are moving from the UK to continental Europe, you will be able to choose land transport via the channel tunnel.

There are a lot of moving companies that offer land transport when you move internationally. This is a good option when you want to get your possessions in a timely manner, but do not want to break your bank account. Land transport is faster than sea freight, but slower than air freight. It will also carry a cost that is in the middle of the other options.

Reduce Your Possessions

When you are moving internationally, you need to look at reducing the number of items that you want to take with you. This is important regardless of the transportation option you are going to choose. When you have fewer possessions, you will be able to save money and potentially time.

If you have a small consignment for sea freight, it can often be placed in a container with other freight. This could result in your possessions being shipped sooner. You will also pay less because you are not using as much space in the container or moving truck.

There are 3 ways that you can transport your possessions when you move internationally. The cheapest is sea freight, the most expensive is air freight and the middle option is land transport. However, it is important to note that land transport will not always be an option depending on where you are moving to.

Moving house can be expensive! Just ask anyone who has moved a full family home across a city let alone across the country. Let dive into some tips to slash the cost of moving as every penny helps, right!

De-clutter, Then Pack

This is an easy one that will save you money. Organise before you move.

If you organise instead of just cramming everything into boxes you will use fewer boxes than you were planning to and this will lower your cost if you are planning to use a moving company. Or reduce the number of trips you will have to make if you do a DIY move.

In addition, you will have everything organised so you will be able to sell off things locally with a garage sale that you don’t need or if that is not you style then you can seel on eBay or Craigslist.

One more thing to add to this section is to weight up the cost of moving furniture if you are moving across the country. Moving furniture can cost you a lot of money so it can be worth it to actually sell your old furniture and buy new furniture when you move into your new home.

The Mid Week Move

Have you heard of the mid week move? Also known as the money saving move. If it’s not clicking for you here is a hint. Everyone is trying to move on the weekend. This is a perfect example of supply and demand. If everyone is trying to move on Saturday or Sunday then the moving companies are charging more for weekend moves.

If you can move midweek then do so and make sure you confirm the rate you are getting with your moving company is going to be a weekday rate.

Tip: Friday is also the weekend when it comes to moving. A lot of people take off a Friday to move and spend Saturday and Sunday unpacking. So when we say move midweek we mean from Monday to Thursday. Tip provided by Fox Removals Perth.

Free Boxes

Don’t pay a dime for boxes as you can get them for free. Think about all your friend who has moved in the past you could ask.

If that fails, go to the local supermarket and they will happily hand them over as it costs them money to pay staff to break them down and put them in the recycling bin. If you take them off their hands it’s free of charge. So don’t be shy and ask your local supermarket for their spare boxes, that will be thrown out anyhow.

Another option is to get boxes from the moving company that you are going to use for your move. Any good moving company should be supplying boxes for your move. If you are using their bottom tier budget service this might not be the case but the mid-range services and above should include moving boxes.

Food In Your New Home

When you move into your new home forget cooking for the first few days. You will be so busy unpacking that it will just stress you out.

In the day and age, we live in with food delivery apps like Uber Eats or just searching Google for something like ‘food delivery + city’ there is no need to add that extra stress. Just eat in.

Or better yet use the opportunity you have to explore the local food scene around your new home to find your new favourite go-to spot for dinner.

Hopefully, you found this article helpful. If you want more moving tips then look just below and you should see some more articles to dive right into.