If you happen to be traveling or moving to a far away location, then you will need to deal with all your belongings in the best way possible. You will have to downsize and cut away a lot of your belongings so that you can make the move, especially if you are not planning on leaving a home behind. In many cases you will be able to leave some of your belongings with family or friends, letting them use them or giving them away completely, in other instances you will have to deal with a self-storage facility. The following tips will give you some knowledge on how you can prepare yourself for that day.
- Choosing a Self-Storage Facility
One of the first things you have to do with your efforts is to figure out which local company has the most cost-effective solution for your needs. It would be wisest to choose a self-storage facility located near a major street or even a highway, this will give you the easiest access at all times. There is more than that though properties outside city limits may also be less expensive. Here is a great article about Finding a storage unit for your next move.
- Downsizing Your Belongings
Once you have chosen the location of the storage unit you will need to rid yourself of all the things that you won’t be using anymore. Large pieces of furniture that you know you won’t need should go away, allowing others to make use of them. You can use classifieds websites to help facilitate get the job done or you can organize a yard sale. Alternately, you can just donate them to a charity to pass through the process faster. If you are doing a yard sale remember to keep prices low so you won’t have pack all of you belongings up. The main idea is to get something out of the whole ordeal so you can help to counteract the expenses of your move. Be sure and get a receipt from the charities then you can get the tax write-offs.
- Packing Phase
Once you have completed the downsizing phase of your preparations you must pay close attention to the packing of everything that is left for your storage unit. One of the most important moments here is labeling all you boxes so you’ll know what is goes where later on. Make certain to do that in a way that will allow you easy access once they have been delivered to their final destination. Having a good list on-site will help to organize things and find where everything is whenever you need to return to the storage unit.
- Moving Things
After all your preparation is complete you will need to move everything to its final destination. One thing to remember when you are storing things is to avoid over-stuffing and making the stacked boxes to tall. This will only serve to make them more unstable and dangerous to everything you have stored inside. Remember to stack heavy boxes on the bottom, this will give you a stable base to work with.