108. Moving Series: Episode 3 of 5: 4 Weeks Out

Can you believe we're halfway to moving [day]? I know some of you didn't believe me in the first moving episode, but time FLIES when you have a thousand things to pack. In this episode, we really start cracking down on household items and perform a check point of where you should be if you started with us a month ago. No worries, though! If you are moving this Summer, there is still time to sign up for this series and save a TON of money by being proactive and prepared!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

We are halfway through the moving series. Can you believe it? We started at eight weeks out. That was our first episode. Last time we did six weeks out, episode two. This is our third episode, which means we're four weeks out from our quote unquote fictional moving day. If you are brand new to the series, let's say you listened to episode one and you went ahead and paid the three dollars and you decided to become a subscriber and you jumped to this one, you may want to go back to the episode two because you want to make sure by the time you get to this point, you are caught up with us. It doesn't mean you won't understand what I'm saying in this episode. I just want you to make sure that all of your boxes are checked from the first two episodes. Because really, when it comes down to it, by the time you get to four weeks out, you should be halfway packed. And you're like, well, that makes no sense. We're still living here another month. Think what a lot of people don't understand is that the last week that they are living in a property, they're not really living there. It's almost like you're staying in a hotel room. You're staying in an Airbnb. You are in someone else's space in terms of the way that you are operating. Okay. It's still your place, but you're not sleeping on your normal beds. You're not pulling from your walk-in closets. You're not eating with your regular plates and glassware. This is when you are quote unquote roughing it. So the fact that we have four weeks out knowing that the final week is going to be roughing it, means that you have to fill in the gap between now and one week out, which means you really only have three weeks to be completely packed. Because again, you don't want to save that last week so that all of a sudden, if two or three things go wrong, now you're staying up until 3, 4 a.m. You are calling in sick to work. Maybe you have to move to another state and you have to be on a flight. Maybe technically you have the keys until that Friday or Saturday, but all of a sudden you hear on Monday, well, now we have to be there by Wednesday or Thursday because the closing date changed. Or we can pick up the keys early. We might as well pick them up early because all of our stuff is packed and we want to get there early. And so we have the opportunity to go and be on the other side of this. And so you want to have some flexibility because if something happens, good or bad, in that final week, you want to have everything else done. So we talked about in the first two episodes, and I'm not splitting them up for the sake of this talk right here. I'm just giving you kind of a brief rundown of some of the things that you should already have done. You should already have all of your seasonal stuff packed up, all of your decor. Anything you're getting rid of should be donated. Everything. You shouldn't still have stuff in your car that needs to be dropped off. If you're still deciding as you go, you know, like if you have everything else done and you're like, well, we haven't packed every room. And as we are packing each room, that's when we're making the decisions. That's fine as long as you are keeping up with the timeline. If you are already behind, with it being four weeks out, if you're like, crap, well, we really haven't been listening to you. It has been going fast. We didn't believe you. And now we realize that we have, you know, eight out of the 10 things we were supposed to do at eight weeks out. We only have like two out of the 12 things you said to do in episode two. And so now we're like, what do we do? If you're in that freakout mode, whether you listened or not, if something got derailed, then I would pause this episode because this episode is going to make you feel as though you just have more and more and more to do. Okay. The reason I'm saying that is because the way that I have this set up is so that it's not as stressful and you don't have those freakout moments. So this is the time to calmly pause this episode, go back to episode one of the moving series. And I know I talk a lot, but at the same time, you can probably jump ahead to different sections. If you've got to go back and listen to episode one and you have already listened to it, you can probably skip ahead seven or eight minutes into the episode and save yourself some time there. And then as you go along, say, okay, good, we've got our seasonal stuff. Yeah, we were starting to condense, you know, some of our clothing items and drawers. And okay, yeah. So we got to this episode, and then, you know, we've packed our organizers, we've packed a lot of our plates. Okay, good. We're doing the whole Noah's Ark of moving, which is the, you know, two by two we're keeping two plates and two glasses. Okay, yeah, that's great. You don't have to worry as long as you have been doing something, okay? But here's where I would suggest go back to the first episode, go to the second episode. If stuff is still on your walls, pull it down, lean it up against the wall, take out the nails, patch the holes. And then you can slowly bubble wrap the pictures. If you find interesting size boxes for some of your frames, your bigger artwork, go ahead and get those packed up, do a quick sharpie on the front, you know, put fragile hallway picture or fragile dining room frame and start doing that. Okay, because it all has to be done. But again, if you have to delay the things that we're gonna do today and start today, I would rather you do that because the things that we're gonna do from here to two weeks out are things that if you really put your mind to it, you're gonna be able to do quicker. I'm just spacing them out so that you don't get freaked out. So let's talk about what you should be doing starting at four weeks out. You definitely need to have your moving company secured by now if you're going to use one. If you're not gonna use one, you need to have your truck rented, your trailer rented. You need to know if it's a local move, if someone's going to show up with a truck, if you're gonna try to sell most of your stuff, if you're gonna try to put some stuff in storage for a while, you need to figure out by now. So in the next couple of days, what is today? Okay, so today is Saturday, May the 30th. By June the 2nd, if you don't already have all of this done by June the 2nd, I want you to have everything secured. If you have to put down a deposit or you have to agree on a time or you have to sign some kind of consent or paperwork or whatever it is, get all of that done because what's gonna happen is we're going into June, and June and July are the two biggest moving months, hands down, right? We know for the most part that it's gonna be nice weather. We've got a better chance of not having severe weather, even if it's rainy, you're probably not gonna have something rotate and throw it into your next door neighbor's yard. And then a lot of people are moving, a lot of people are going from A to B and they're securing storage units and they're working on projects. And some people are renting trucks and trailers just to do like remodeling on their house. Everybody is gonna try to be out this summer and they're gonna be reserving some of these vehicles and equipment. So you want to make sure that you've got your spot now, even if you're not moving for another month. Want to have it all secured in the next three to four days, okay? Let's talk about your refrigerator. This is a good time to start eating some of the things that have been in your refrigerator and also pulling stuff that's been in your freezer. As you're going through your freezer, if there's freezer burn or something just doesn't look right, or you pull it from the back and you're like, I have no clue how long this has been in here. That's when you toss it. And again, you want to try to get a lot of your trash bags filled before that two-week out, one week out mark. You don't want to wait till the last minute and overfill your trash cans and it not even be trash day. And then you know that you're moving in two or three days and now you don't have anywhere to put your trash. And then you have to try to, you know, either take it to the dump or bargain with a neighbor to use their trash can. So a lot of the things that need to be thrown away from the freezer and the refrigerator, you need to do it now between four weeks out and two weeks out. So over the next two weeks, say to yourself, say to your family, we have a lot of stuff in the freezer, and we are gonna take some of it with us because we just maybe put some meat in there a month ago that can be frozen for a while. Maybe we've got some vegetables that are in packages that can be in there for a year. You know, maybe we just bought some popsicles for the summer. So there are some things that at the very last minute you're probably gonna pull out a cooler and throw them in there. I'm talking about the older stuff. This is when you go through and you actually clean out the freezer of anything that got lost, got stuck in the back, that's just kind of a question mark. And you're like, you know, we haven't eaten this because we're unsure about it. And so now we have to be sure about it and we have to throw it away. Or let's move it to the refrigerator today so that it can thaw in the next couple of days. And we know that on, you know, maybe Tuesday we're gonna put this steak on the grill. And so you wanna start working out of your freezer, you want to start throwing away a lot of old condiments that are in your refrigerator. This is when you pull stuff to the front. If all of a sudden you've got, you know, some food storage items that got pushed to the back, funky stuff growing on, you know, some of your fruits and vegetables and just random stuff for those of you who really load your refrigerators. This is when you either have to thin it out or you have to throw away stuff. And while you're doing this, I also want you to try to kind of clean up behind you. If you have a lot of spills, like if you've had like jelly kind of spill over onto those glass shelves, now's the time to take a warm, damp paper towel and try to pull some of that up. And if it's really, really sticky, sometimes you kind of have to take, you know, just a little bit of water and kind of sprinkle it on there and then lay your damp paper towel over top of it and then just try to pull, you know, for those of us who have fingernails, you know, try to use the paper towel as a little barrier and try to get some of that up. Some people have little scrapers that are really, you know, work really well. Magic erasers are phenomenal. I do love them, but when it comes to spills, you don't really want to use a magic eraser for a spill. It's just gonna be a waste of a really good eraser. And you don't want to use necessarily use sponges because they're gonna get all gunky to where you can't use them, you know, on other surfaces. So I always recommend just a damp paper towel. For those of you who are like, we're not doing a full clean before we move, that's totally fine. I would at least be considerate and try to get some of the big spills and messes. If things have kind of spilled over the side as you've put them in or try to pull them out, if something has exploded, like a can of something, I would at least try to do just like a once over. If you have old eggs, if you have old cheese, go through your random drawers that you're not always sure if you actually put stuff in there, um, especially things that are stacked. So if you have multiple little packages of cheese or turkey, actually separate them and look and make sure that they're all good. Because sometimes you'll get one that gets pushed to the bottom, and then when you find it, it's like a science experiment. Okay. So you're gonna work on the refrigerator, you're going to work on the cabinets in terms of making sure that everything is pulled down from the top two shelves. Now, if you're like, well, our cabinets are kind of low and I can see all but the top shelf, I still want you to not have anything on the top two shelves. This is where you do your check, double check, triple check. You don't wait for moving day because something will always get left behind. If you don't climb up on the step stool before that week, things are gonna be so crazy. So you're gonna check above the refrigerator. If you have any decor over your refrigerator, now's the time to pack it up. You can also kind of wipe the top of the refrigerator with a damp paper towel because chances are whatever's up there is not only gonna be dusty, it's gonna be a little greasy. So greasy plus dust, that gives you a chance to kind of wipe it off before you pack it. Let's talk about Amazon supplies again or wherever you go, Lowe's, Home Depot, wherever, even the post office or like a staples. Remember last time I told you to go ahead and get a little bit of packing material. So get one roll of bubble wrap, get one little dispenser of packing tape. If those are already gone and you liked them, go ahead and do your second order. And it should be here in the next day or two. So, like I said, if you start early with the series, you're gonna end up saving money because you're gonna pay as you go for the things that you need. And when you run out, you're still gonna have plenty of time to replenish. If you do have the opportunity to get something in bulk and you're thinking, okay, I can use these for the move, but then when I'm done, I can also use these for my business. Then by all means, go ahead and take the deal. We just had Memorial Day sales, some of those have been extended. Sometimes there's just random sales because most places know that a lot of people are gonna be moving. Here's what I don't recommend. And oh, my storage unit friend is gonna hate this because I'm friends with a storage unit manager where I have my storage unit. I would not recommend getting moving supplies at the storage units. I have not checked in a while to see how much the markup is, but I can almost guarantee you that you can get boxes and packing tape and bubble wrap and all that stuff cheaper somewhere else now. If you're already at the storage unit and you are trying to pack from there, then yes, go down into the lobby if they have one and say, Can I just grab like two or three medium-sized boxes and a little roll of packing tape and get that done? And then the next time you go back to the storage unit, bring the supplies that are a little bit cheaper. Okay. Don't waste a trip there because you're trying to save 80 cents a box or you're trying to save $2 on a roll of packing tape. And that's just an example. It may not be marked up that much, but you never know. Sometimes, especially this time of year, they're not worried about marking stuff down. Usually, if you're moving in the fall, winter, they may have a sale because people aren't necessarily, again, getting out when it's cold and rainy. So I would just try to be aware of that. At four weeks out, if you've got a storage unit, your storage unit should be packed up. If you have big items in the storage unit, like if you have a wire rack, like wire shelving, what you want to do is you actually want to pull out enough of your items. Like if you, for instance, let's say you kept the storage unit because those items are gonna move on moving day or even before, but you didn't have anywhere to put them until you actually moved. So let's say you went in and you pulled out some items and you packed them up in a box and then you put the boxes back in on the wire shelving. What you want to do at four weeks out is you actually want to go in and take down the wire shelving. Now, if you're gonna try to sell it, I would take a picture of it assembled first. And then as soon as you have a couple of good pictures, then I would disassemble it and then stack it all of those items in a corner together. You want to make sure you've got a ziploc bag for any of the hardware, any of the little snap pieces. There's little plastic pieces on most wire shelving when you've got like a five-tier or three-tier unit where you actually snap the little plastic pieces in place, and that's how the shelving actually comes down and is secured. I try to keep a box of either quart bags or snack bags at my storage unit. And if you're getting ready to go to your storage unit and you're listening to this and you haven't left the house yet and you don't have those items, say, Oh, I'm gonna run to the kitchen, I'm gonna grab some little baggies because when we start disassembling some of this stuff, I want to make sure it all stays together. So if you're gonna list your shelving on marketplace or for some kind of local pickup, I would do that today. And if it's not sold by two weeks out, I would go ahead and take it somewhere if you know that it's not moving with you. At two weeks out, if somebody hasn't purchased it within the two weeks that it's listed, I give you one, I'll let you have one price reduction and that's it. After that, it's gotta go. This is also the time you can check with your friends and family and say, hey, does anybody need a wire rack? So if you have a storage unit at four weeks out, it should be packed up. You can still have stuff in it because if the moving truck is going to both places, then yeah, there's really no point in you spending a lot of time moving your stuff from the storage unit to the house if the drivers are going to both places. I will say that if you have enough room in like a truck, like a family truck, and you know, let's say you're taking two cars on the move and you don't have that many boxes from the storage unit or that many totes. Instead of making the moving truck go to two different places, which can cost you money, if you can load up a lot of the stuff in your own personal vehicle, like a big van or a truck, or if you have a little trailer, sometimes it's beneficial. And we'll do this when we get closer, okay? But just start thinking about this. Sometimes it's good two or three days before the move to go ahead and get a little trailer and start packing up the storage unit into that little trailer. And then that way you can close it out and be done with it completely. And then that way you don't have to go back to it. So that's just an idea. All right, you want to make sure that all of your area rugs are rolled up at this point. So at four weeks out, and when I say at this point, what I'm saying is today we're at the four-week mark. In two weeks, we're gonna be at the two-week mark. Okay, so between now and the two-week mark, you gotta get all the rugs rolled up. What could be an extra credit assignment? If all of your rugs are somewhat new, or let's say you've got one that's a high traffic rug, okay? Let's say you're taking all of your rugs with you, they're all in pretty decent shape. You don't want to spend a ton of money on it, but maybe you have one rug that's a really high traffic rug, whether it's like a hallway runner, maybe it's your living room rug. This is your chance if you're gonna have it cleaned. Go ahead and go drop it off between now and next week because I don't know what their turnaround time is gonna be and I don't know how much it's gonna cost. But if you know that you want to do it, now's the time to do it so that you have time to go pick it back up, you have time to bring it back home, and you have time to actually wrap it with some plastic wrap, like that real, you know, you know, those big rolls, it's almost like saran wrap. That's what I would do with your rugs. I would roll them up. First, I would vacuum them. Okay. If you're not gonna go have them professionally cleaned, I would vacuum them. Vacuum the rug, make sure it's out from under all the furniture, of course, make sure there's nothing on it. And then even if you don't have one of those cardboard rolls, some people save those. I know I did for a while, where you don't have, you know, if you don't have the little piece that kind of goes in there to kind of keep it, you know, you can roll your rug around it. That's totally fine. Just make sure it's even on both sides when you go to roll it, roll it up. And whether you have a big rubber band, sometimes I just use ribbon. I've kept ribbon over the years that maybe I bought a set of washcloths and they had a big ribbon tied around it. If you have something like that, don't feel like you have to go get special packing material in order to tie these things. If you have any kind of string from, you know, like a kite or from a balloon, especially if you've gone through your junk drawer and you're like, oh, what can we do with this big ribbon? Sometimes it's long enough you can actually wrap it around. Because really the big goal with the rugs and the ribbon is just making sure it doesn't unroll. Okay. So all of your rugs need to be rolled up. The other thing is that you need to have one room completely packed up at this point. And I really want to encourage you. Between now and two weeks out to go ahead and pack up your office, go ahead and pack up your guest room, and go ahead and pack up your playroom. When it comes to the kids' toys, have them, you know, a lot of times you know what their favorites are, but just say, Hey, what are your three favorite toys right now or your three favorite games? And we're doing the whole condensing thing, okay? You don't have to wait till the very last minute and pack all the games up together in one box. Most people will need two boxes anyway, so it doesn't matter if you pack them together or you pack them separate. What I would do is if you have like 20 board games, I would have your kids pick three or four. Because over the next month, they still have options if they want to play, but they're not gonna play all 20 games. And even if they could, even if they get really bored and you're like, well, my kids can go through games pretty quick, they need to settle on three or four for now. If you have travel games, this is a good time to pull those out because not only can they play them, even if you're in your house and you're like, well, we're not traveling, they can still play with the travel size and then you can keep those out for the car ride. So if there's something that they play with in the car, sometimes you can bring that into the house temporarily and say, listen, a lot of our stuff is gonna be packed up, we're gonna move. But for now, you guys can play your travel size connect four or your magnetic board game that you play in the car. We'll do that. When it comes to movies, a lot of you still have DVDs. There are some houses, not only do people still have DVDs, they still have the original cases that they came in. Here's what I would suggest with that. If you are moving and you're keeping the same setup, and I say it this way because some people have just kept the cases because they've lived in the same house for 20 years. So 20 years ago, they were still using their DVDs and there was really no reason to give them up. But let's say you're downsizing, these are some of the areas where you can really, really create space for yourself to where you don't have to give up the actual item. You just have to give up its original packaging. So I'm gonna let that sink in for a second. Why does that matter? A lot of tutorials have popped up in my Instagram feed lately. I'm not sure why. I don't even really look for organizing stuff. I try to get away from it. I try to look at baby wild animals on Instagram, okay? I get a lot of footage from like the different zoos and the wildlife places. Like when I get on Instagram, I'm trying to escape. I don't want to look at organizing stuff. But there are a lot of people that take these little project cases, and instead of having a big box of Monopoly, they take all the pieces out, they put it in a project case, and a lot of these cases are like really slim and they can stack on top of each other. Some of them even have a handle. So that way you can actually carry them out to the car or carry them to the next place, or they're just easy to pick up and slide into a box side by side so that they're all kind of like ducks in a row. If you have DVDs in cases on bookshelves and you're getting ready to pack them up, and the only reason that you've kept them is because you've been in the same house for a very long time. Either think to yourself or look at your spouse or your partner or your roommate, whoever you've been living with for all this time, and say, I wonder if we should give up these cases. Some of you already have, like the sleeves, where you can slide in DVDs and CDs. Some of you have kept the cases and they're partially empty, maybe they're completely empty. If you're gonna do a project like this where you're actually going to switch some stuff around for the new house, this is the week to do it. Because you still have enough time where you could start a project as long as you finish it in the next week. And if you are investing time in this project because it's gonna save you time unpacking, I totally support those kinds of projects. Those are okay because again, you still have time. Now, when we get to the two weeks out mark, you're not gonna be able to work on special projects like that. You're just not. I'm not gonna allow you because what's gonna happen is you're gonna get off track, you're gonna start working on the project, you're gonna get halfway through it, and then something's gonna happen and you're like, well, now I don't have time to finish this, and that's gonna cause stress. I also want you to gather more boxes if all the boxes that you have already found that were free on marketplace or next door or friends and family, if you were able to pick up some free boxes and now they're all gone, now's the time to source another round of boxes. Okay, you still have time to collect free boxes. When we get to the two-week mark, that's gonna be the time where if you need a certain size box, you may just have to go buy it. But we'll get to that later. Okay. I'm just preparing you because you still have time to do that collection to where you're not paying for brand new boxes. Other places where you can get boxes. Sometimes you can go to a liquor store. Are there any boxes that I can get from you? A lot of those boxes have inserts where they've carried wine or other products. They're very custom. So if you're trying to pack up like your glassware, your wine glasses, a lot of people will get boxes like that for free. And then they're able to put in their glassware. And not only do they save on the packaging to wrap each individual glass, but they have that little extra protection of the separation from the cardboard and all those little custom foam pieces. So furniture stores, some of their boxes may be really big, but if you go to a place like I would say, like a Hobby Lobby or an at-home, you can say, by any chance, do you guys have any medium to large boxes that you've broken down? Um, are they in the back? Is there any way I can get them? Just start asking around. I wouldn't go to a super busy store on a Saturday and try to do this. Okay. Sometime during this week, I would say probably like a Tuesday or Wednesday is when I would do it. And if you could do it at like maybe two in the afternoon, I would say that's probably a good time to try to do that because you're probably not gonna get a lot of pushback. Someone will either say yes or no, we can do that, but there's probably not gonna be as big of a line. You can probably also go to like a TJ Maxx or a Home Goods. Sometimes they can be flexible on stuff like that. So again, you want to make sure all your decor is packed. You want to make sure all of your seasonal stuff is packed, everything is off the wall. If there's something that has to be repaired, we talked about that last time. It should already be repaired. This is also the time when if you have bathroom items, okay, that are more decorative, you want to get those packed up. If you have shelving that is yours that you put up, that you put towels on, you know, maybe the cute little signs that say, rate us, rate our bathroom. How did we do? Little signs in the guest bedroom that say Wi-Fi passwords, stuff like that, all that needs to be packed up between four weeks out and two weeks out. Literally, you should only have two bath towels for yourself. So if there's two people living in the house, each person has two bath towels. You're either using one or washing one. I would say when it comes to your clothing, if there's anything that you're gonna donate, sell, pass on to somebody else, this is your last chance. When it comes to the closet, I would go ahead and pack as many hangers as you can because some of these things near the end will be the death of you. Because you're like, well, I'm not gonna pack up my clothes because I don't want to live out of a suitcase. We're not there yet, but at the two weeks out mark, you will be. You're gonna start actually packing your suitcases to live out of them. We've already talked about seasonal clothing and getting that packed up. Obviously, you've already packed up your winter coats, you've packed up your hats and gloves. If you had any sports items that are out of season, think about what you're really, really gonna use at your next place. If you have bigger items, or if you have like, you know, soccer balls that have a hole in them, or basketballs that aren't that great, or baseballs that you're like, well, we'll just go buy some new ones because these look really rough. Instead of holding on to all that stuff, go donate all that stuff or throw it away if it's something that has like a big hole in it. Pool items. If you have a swimming pool, I know that it's summer. I know that it's summer. Everybody gets to keep one bathing suit out. If you live in a place where you swim all the time, or you're on the swim team, or you're doing a summer swim or you're getting ready to go on vacation, go ahead and pack those items as though you're going on vacation, or hey, I live in Florida, I swim literally every single day. You can keep two or three bathing suits because they're smaller, they're lighter to pack. You know, it's not like I'm telling you to keep two or three sweaters. I'm talking about bathing suits. So just think to yourself in the next month, what am I gonna be doing? If you don't normally wear dress pants, let's say even when you go to church, it's pretty casual. Maybe keep one dress outfit just in case, just in case you decide to go to dinner or you decide to dress up for a work meeting. You know, maybe you do remote work, but every so often you have to go into the office and you dress up a little bit more. Pack that one item now, that one outfit. Decide what the outfit is. This is when I would go on Amazon and get packing cubes. And you don't have to spend a lot for them. You can even get like a pack of five or a pack of six, and whatever cube fits that outfit, put that outfit in that packing cube. And then if you have like a little luggage tag or some way to market, or even a label maker, if you just make a label that says dress outfit, then you can kind of push that aside. And when you go to pack in a couple of weeks, you can put that in your bag. And then that can be kind of like your dress outfit. Everything else we got to start packing up. Your shoes. At this point, you should only have four pairs of shoes. And again, when I say by this point, I mean starting at this point. So over the next week, if you own 30 pairs of shoes, you gotta pick four. You can have a pair of flip-flops, you can have a pair of tennis shoes, you can have five pairs if you're playing a sport. So if you have to have cleats, if you're keeping out your golf shoes, if there are swim flippers, fins, whatever, if there is a sport, that can be your fifth pair. But that should stay in your sports bag for the most part. So, like if you're a golfer, try to keep your golf shoes with your golf bag, etc. Otherwise, pair of flip-flops, pair of running shoes, pair of slip-ons, like boat shoes. A lot of people I think still do like the slip-ons, and then a pair of dress shoes. And that's it. So if you're like, well, what am I gonna wear into work? I'm not gonna wear the same pair of shoes every day. Okay, if you are actually going into work and you're wearing some kind of a heel, say one day you wear a loafer, another day you wear a heel, and then another day you wear a little bit more of like a high heel or a strappy shoe, then you have to pull something else. Pull your boat shoe. Because what's gonna happen is you're gonna have all these shoes left at the very last minute. If you're like, yeah, we when we move, we are gonna go on vacation. We're actually gonna put everything into a storage unit and go on vacation. Go ahead now and pack for vacation. If there is a pair of pajamas that you love and you're gonna wear those until the minute you get on the plane, you can keep those out. If there is a pair of leggings that you're like, I wear these all the time, there's no way I can pack them yet. Have a little pile, like make a little area on your desk or a side table or a dresser where you keep those items stacked while they're clean. So let's say you've got your favorite pair of leggings and you wash them, you fold them. Don't put them back in your closet, don't put them in your luggage, put them on top of your dresser, folded, and then that way you know where they are at all times. That way you know that they're there, and if they're not there, they're in the hamper or the washer or the dryer, okay? Because things are gonna get chaotic with the clothes and with the accessories. That brings me to another point. If you're somebody that has a lot of jewelry, a lot of hair accessories, you gotta pair down. Think about over the next month how many pairs of earrings am I actually going to wear? And this is when you keep out all your neutral stuff. Unless you are going to an event in the next month, unless you are getting married, you know, if you're getting married and that's why you're moving, then you can keep out your wedding earrings, you can keep out your honeymoon earrings, and really you need to go ahead and pack them in a special bag. You need to have a bag prepared for the wedding, you need to have a bag prepared for the honeymoon, and you're doing all this, you're like, I still have four weeks. Well, guess what? If you're getting married and you're moving, come on. Come on. You have won the grand prize, okay? Because here's where you need different bags for different things. Okay. Maybe you've got a tote with a lid, and everything in that tote is bridal, bridal party. Then you've got a tote with a lid, and you're like, everything in here is our road trip. We're gonna go hiking. We want to make sure that we've got all of our stuff. This is where you can stay sane and you can stay organized. Like I said before, after the six-week mark, you are no longer organizing your house, you're organizing your move. Do not care what your house looks like. So, what that means is organizing the move is we're not gonna have everything hung up pretty for the wedding in the closet unless you're hanging it up to put it in a garment bag. And then at that point, you need to have a little rack that you can assemble. It's just temporary. You put all of your wedding stuff, all of the garment bags on that little rack so that it's separate. And then the day before moving day, wherever that stuff needs to go, you take it there. So let's say the venue tells you, yes, the wedding's tomorrow. We will let you bring stuff the night before. And I don't know, I mean, every place operates differently. You may not be able to actually use their space until the day of, but that means a lot of the stuff you go ahead and put in the car. If you're somebody that says, Well, we're gonna get married and have the reception and then we're gonna get up the next day and we're gonna go to brunch, and then we catch a late flight later that evening, then I want you to go ahead and have everything packed for that next day, or have that in a special little bag and actually put day after the wedding. This is where you're actually organizing your travel life because you want to move from this is our house, everything has a place to now everything has a bag. Now everything has a tote. It's part of a bigger mobile system. Now it's on wheels, now it's in a bag, now it has a handle, now it's hanging up, now it's getting ready to roll out of here. That's how I want you to look at it. In the next couple of weeks, I want you to start thinking about shopping less in general. Really, really pull back on the grocery shopping. If you have milk, if you have certain canned drinks that you're like, yeah, you know, we usually just get carry out and then we come home and we've got a bunch of drinks. That's fine. Just don't get cases and cases of stuff. Try to limit it to, okay, we're out of Cokes, let's just get one case. Okay, because you don't want to start bringing more stuff in that you may have to move to the next location. If you don't drink sweet tea that often, don't get a gallon, get like one of their smaller sizes. Same thing with milk and orange juice. If you're like, well, I just pour a little bit of milk or a little bit of creamer in my coffee, or I drink orange juice twice a week, consider getting the smaller bottles and then work on emptying your larger bottles and then not replacing them. And then, like I said before, when it comes to condiments, if they're expired, throw them out. If they're almost empty, try to build your meals. Like if you've got the freezer food you're trying to get rid of, like say you've got hamburgers that have been the freezer, you've got to eat them. Try to pair that with a ketchup that's almost empty, a mayo that's almost empty. And then once they're empty, try to just use ketchup packets. Try to use some of your leftover condiments that you put to the side in case a place doesn't put them in your bag. Try to start using your travel stuff. Okay, so you want to make sure your guest bedroom is completely packed up between now and two weeks from now. If you do have people coming to stay and either they're flexible or you're flexible and you're like, well, I mean, we could have them stay on the couch. You know, if you have to pack up your guest bedroom, if you've got to get all the bedding off so you can wash it and pack it in bags. And I do recommend soft bags for soft items, okay? If you have a lot of kids stuffed animals, like big blocky stuffed animals, I recommend getting the really big, thin nylon bags with zippers off of Amazon. And a ton of people sell them. If you've got really big nylon bags from the container store that, I mean they're huge and they have a handle, you can put stuff in there. I would not try to put soft items into hard cardboard boxes because you're not going to be able to utilize the whole space. When you put them in bags, you are literally the soft bag is gonna form around all of the soft items. And when it comes to sheets and towels and all that extra stuff, if you can put those in smaller nylon bags or if you've got extra suitcases, if you have backup suitcases, start filling those with some of your backup clothes. And not only is that gonna get some of your backup clothes out of the way, like if you've got ski outfits and you're not gonna go skiing, and then you have a luggage that's like red and all the luggage you take on vacation is black. When you see that red luggage at the new house, you're not gonna think to unpack it first because it's not your main luggage. So it's gonna remind you that don't worry about the red luggage, go put it in the guest room because my ski outfits are in there. So that's another way that you can organize the move and organize your things without even having to label it. Okay, you just know red suitcase has all of my skiing stuff in it, or you know, all of those things from the guest room, all of my fabrics from my sewing room, all of that stuff is in there. Again, if you have a craft room, a sewing room, a hobby room, now's the time to completely pack it up. If you're still wanting to do some of the activities, you can pick one project. If it's not your business, it's different if it's your business. If you're sewing because you sell stuff on Etsy, that's different. You can save your sewing room, not necessarily for last, but your main stuff, like your sewing machine, your ironing board, whatever you use to actually make your product, you can wait until two weeks out to pack that up, okay? If it's a hobby, it gets packed up now. If you're like, well, I sew for fun, I do a lot of sewing in the winter. If you haven't even turned on your sewing machine in the last three months, go ahead and put its case on it, snap it, put it off to the side. One last note about storage units, okay? And then we're gonna end today's episode. Let me tell you a little story. When we moved from Tennessee back to Indianapolis, there was a storage unit that I got in Louisville, Kentucky that's kind of the halfway mark. The reason I knew about the storage unit is because there were different times we would pass through and we would stop in a certain area of town to either eat or get groceries. And I'm like, that's a really cool storage unit. It was huge, it was really nice. And I thought, hmm, we passed by here once every couple of months, once every six weeks. Because at the time I had clients in Indianapolis. And so every about six weeks, I would drive up there, I would work for my clients, and I would come back. And then it hit me if we're gonna move back up there at some point, every single time. I drive through Louisville, I could be putting stuff in a storage unit. And that's exactly what I started doing. Now we knew that we were probably going to move within like four to six months. But what that did was all of my seasonal stuff, all of the stuff that I knew I wasn't going to use in the next three to four months, I could pack up two or three medium-sized totes. And every time we drove through Louisville, we would stop on the way up, put the stuff in the storage unit, drive up to Indianapolis, I'd work with my clients, come back. And then when we went to move, we actually packed up the car and we actually put some of the stuff that wouldn't fit in a storage unit in Nashville. Things that it was like, you know what, it didn't make the first one or two cuts, but I don't want to give it away. I don't want to sell it. I do want to come back for it. And we're going to be back here in like a month. So we used the storage unit in Nashville to kind of put stuff in there that would just be kept safe until I could come back for it. Then we passed Louisville. We didn't stop. We drove through, went to Indianapolis. And then the next weekend, I drove from Indianapolis down to Louisville by myself. So two hours, two and a half instead of five from Tennessee to Indiana. I drove two hours by myself, not a big deal. During the day, it was a nice drive. And I started loading up the car with these storage unit items. And then I drove back to Indianapolis. And so it was like I was still moving, but I was utilizing the trips that I made back and forth. Every time we pass through Kentucky, it's like we're right here. We don't have to have anything shipped here. We don't have to have every single thing moved right away. It's going to save me manpower. It's going to save me money on movers. Because some of this stuff is I'm already passing through town on a work trip. I can go ahead and keep it here. And then that way I'll come back for it. But I can do a round trip in one day. So I can leave Indianapolis, I can go to Louisville, I can pack up the car with as much stuff that will fit. And I left one more car load behind. But then the following weekend, I did the same thing and I went back down. Now some of you are like, I don't want to go through all that work. That was what I personally decided to do because it was just easier for me. And I also had one potential client in Louisville. And so there were a couple of times that I'm like, well, I can just go do a consult while I'm here, or I can drop by and do XYZ on this side of town. And it really wasn't that big of a deal. But I really wanted to do that instead of dealing with movers that could have cost a couple thousand dollars, maybe even more, because when you go do an out-of-state move, and then you also don't want to lose stuff, you don't know if everything that they're taking is necessarily gonna make it there. You hope it does. I wish I could guarantee that everybody that uses a moving company is gonna have good results. But for me, especially since we were quote unquote only moving five hours, that's what I decided to do. And if that's something you think that you're going to do and you're like, yeah, in two weeks, we're actually going up or over or down to our new place and it's like three or four hours away. If there is either a storage unit where you're going, right? So if you're moving four hours away and you're like, yeah, we have to go look at the apartment one last time. We're definitely getting it. We just have to go sign the lease. Go get a storage unit there and take a load with you. Because the worst thing that happens, it all of a sudden the lease falls. If you're like, well, what if the lease falls through? Well, if the lease falls through, all you have to do is go back up there and get your stuff. And if you know you're already moving to that town, but that lease falls through, then you're probably gonna get an apartment somewhere else. Or if you're closing on a house and you're like, yeah, let's just go get a, you know, we're gonna be up there this weekend. Let's go ahead and take a load of stuff. And then that way you can put it in the storage unit, and then you've actually taken a load and then it's off to the side. And like I said, the stuff that you want to put in the storage unit is either stuff that has already been in your current storage unit, or it's off-season stuff, or it's sports equipment that you're not gonna use right now, or it's memorabilia. If it's memorabilia, make sure it's in a weatherproof tote, and if it's clothing, make sure it's in a weatherproof tote. So as long as you're doing those things, I think it's fine to pretty much store anything as long as it's in a weatherproof tote. And if you can get climate control, that's gonna be even better. Okay, you guys, I think that's enough for today. I hope some of you aren't saying, wait, is that it? I will add one more thing. Okay, this is kind of your bonus assignment, if you're willing to do it. I talked before about air mattresses. If you have an air mattress and you can go ahead and break down one of your beds, or if you're breaking down a guest bed, I would go ahead and try to do that and plan on sleeping on your air mattress the last week that you're there. Same thing with your desk. If you have to disassemble a desk and you have a folding table, consider doing all of the breakdown of your desk now and tell yourself, okay, for the next month, I'm just gonna put my laptop on the kitchen island, I'm gonna pull out this folding table, I'm gonna work on a folding chair, I may even just go to a coffee shop and work, or I may just go to my office and work, okay? Because if you save all of the furniture disassembly for the last minute, you are gonna be so miserable. And if you're paying the movers to do it, you're gonna be, you're gonna be paying for somebody else to do it. And it's gonna be at the rate of probably a hundred an hour, just to be honest. That's also something else a professional organizer can help you with. They may not do furniture, but if you're like, well, I can break down my own desk, but I've got so much paper in the drawers, I've got so many files. Go ahead and call someone and say, can you come help me organize this for the move? And that could be a way that you're investing for the unpacking stage by having someone come and help you by shredding some documents, by getting some things uploaded to like a Dropbox or onto a USB. And that way you are scanning, shredding, tossing as you go. And like I said, the office should be cleared out by the next time I talk to you guys in episode four of the moving series. So we're getting there. Don't get discouraged. Like I said, if you haven't checked off boxes from previous episodes, go try to do that. Even if you listened to this episode, even if you carried on, even though I told you not to, that's totally fine. Just know that where you are at right now, there is still time for you. Okay, but we're running out of time. In the next episode, I will not be so friendly. I'll still be kind, but I'm really, really gonna push you guys because if you are moving in four weeks from now, you are literally running out of time right now. And the next time you hear me in this series, it's gonna be a lot of scrambling if you didn't do all the previous things. All right, so I will see you in the next episode, and then I will also see you in the regular podcast. I've got two or three new episodes that are dropping later this week. Thank you for listening, and I will see you in the next episode.