How Far in Advance Should You Downsize Before a Move?

Moving house is a stressful, lengthy process that can take months of careful planning before you are ready to actually up sticks and move away. But how long in advance should you downsize before you move? Does it really matter when you start doing so?

Consider How Long it Will Take to Sell Things

If you hope to sell some things before you move, you should factor that in to your timetable. Yard sales can be unpredictable. You can either end the day with a tidy sum of cash to show for it, or regret the fact that you wasted the day and only made $10 on a few small trinkets. If you have several months to go before you move away, start thinking about downsizing now, rather than waiting until the last minute to downsize. Doing so is beneficial in a number of ways.

First, selling things early gives you the opportunity to host more than one yard sale, thus increasing your chances of maximising profits. Second, you will have less stress of trying to shift unwanted possessions in the run up to your move if you downsize early. The earlier you host yard sales or post items on eBay or Craigslist, the better it will be.

Timing Matters when Weight is an Issue!

Whenever you move, you will need to consider how much weight you will be taking with you. After all, a lot of moves are paid for entirely by householders, so you should think carefully about how much you are prepared to pay to ship your household goods.

Downsizing in advance gives you the opportunity to carefully go through your household possessions and trim the weight by disposing of items you no longer need, use or plan to use in future. If you leave it to the last minute to downsize, the likelihood is that you will end up taking a lot more with you than you really need.

As soon as you know you will be moving, you should start making firm plans to downsize. That may be six months to year out, but the benefits of starting early outweighs waiting until the last minute to sell, donate or dispose of items. Starting early gives you multiple opportunities to sell items at yard sales or elsewhere and you can reduce the weight, and thus the amount you will be paying to ship household possessions, to your new location.