Top tips: Moving house

So recently I moved house and before the big day I thought I had it all sussed. 'It'll be fine' I said, 'we'll be done in no time'. Wrong. It took SO much longer than I anticipated, it was 10x stressful and tiring but I have learnt from my mistakes and thought I'd put together a few helpful tips for you to save you going through the same cardboard box hell.

Get organised
Oh my God get organised. I can't stress this enough and during moving week I was really annoyed at myself that I was a lazy slob and basically did nothing before the big day. When I say get organised, I don't just mean pack things into boxes either, there's so much de-cluttering and cleaning to be done as well. If I had gotten off my butt and got this done BEFORE moving I wouldn't have had to spend the entire week going back to the old house and sorting and cleaning it.

Lists are definitely you're friends - write down every job you need to do. Walk around the house as you do it as it will help you to imagine and remember everything that needs doing. Sort wardrobes, dismantle furniture, clear out garages and do the gardening. This will absolutely save you so much time at the other end of your move.

Save as much money as you can
Our move was all very last minute and we had zero money saved - thank God for overdrafts! If you have lots of notice of your move or you're looking to move out of your parent's house for the first time, I would definitely advise you get your saving hat on. Moving always costs so much more than you think. I'm talking from a renting point of view in this post so there's not only lettings agency fees but also credit check fees, first month's rent in advance plus a deposit and as if that wasn't enough you might need to hire a van on moving day as well as buy lots of new bits and bobs for the new place. When you're switching addresses for things like phone lines/gas/electricity or animal insurance details, some of these places will charge you so be warned! We had to pay an extra £100 deposit for having our cat so it all adds up.

Clean, clean, clean
One good thing about moving out of a rented house is that you should get your deposit back...however the place has to be left in the same condition it was when you moved in. This means you need to clean it from top to bottom, fill in any holes in the walls you've made, touch up any marks, clean the carpets and make sure the garden is clean and tidy.

Stupidly we left all of this until after we had moved out. It's tricky to get lots of cleaning done while there are still boxes all over the place and you're still living in the house but things like the garden, windows, kitchen and bedrooms can be cleaned and sorted prior to the move, then once you're all moved out you can come back and give the carpets or floors a good clean.

As we were at the old house for most of the week it meant we weren't getting much sorted in the new place. It also meant lots of late nights and LOTS of car journeys to the local tip...and I mean LOTS.

Keep details up-to-date
You may not realise but there are so many things you'll need to update once you've changed addresses. Not only your bank details but also gas, electricity, driving licence, TV licence, council tax, doctors surgery, vets, microchip details and insurance details if you have animals, passport, car insurance, internet, SKY tv and phone to name but a few.

You also need to make sure you cancel phone lines at your old place as well as taking meter readings for water, gas and electricity. If you get a lot of post it might also be a good idea to look into the Royal Mail's postal redirect service, personally I didn't do this because it cost £30! I made sure all addresses were changed a few days prior to moving day and informed anyone I knew of that regularly send me parcels.

So these are my main pointers and things that really stuck out in the run up to moving day and the actual day itself. There is probably a lot more I can go into both pre and post the big move but this is the most stressful section of moving so I thought it was probably the most important post.

If you're organised I think you'll save yourself hours, even days, in the moving process and will be all smug and settled into your new pad in no time.

If you have any tips for moving day, please leave them in the comments!