Moving Soon? Here’s What Most People Forget to Do Before Moving Day
Okay, friend. Pull up a chair because I just got done moving my entire family across the country and I have things to say. Important things. Things I wish someone had sat me down and told me before I found myself crying in an empty kitchen at 10pm surrounded by boxes, desperately searching for my kids’ pajamas.
I learned a lot during this move, some of it the hard way, and if I can save even one of you from the specific misery of having no toilet paper in any bathroom on night one, then writing this whole thing was worth it. Here’s what I wish I had done before moving day arrived.
1. Stock the Bathrooms in the New Place Before Anyone Arrives
This one sounds almost too simple to be worth mentioning, and that is exactly why nobody does it. Run ahead to the new place and put toilet paper, hand soap, and a hand towel in every single bathroom before the movers show up. Every one. Do not skip the half bath.
If you have movers coming, they will need to use the bathroom at some point during the day, and you will feel so much better knowing you thought of it. It takes five minutes and it makes the whole day feel slightly more human. Throw a small trash can in there too while you’re at it.
2. Pack a First Night Bag for Every Single Person in Your Family
This was the single biggest game changer for our move and I will never do it any other way again. Pack a bag for every member of the family as if you’re going on a short trip, including pajamas, a change of clothes, toothbrushes, toothpaste, all the shower stuff, body towels, phone chargers, and any daily medications.
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For the kids, this bag is everything. Pack their absolute favorite comfort items, the stuffed animal that cannot under any circumstances end up in a box, their favorite blanket, whatever makes them feel like home is wherever they are. When kids have their things within reach, the first night in a strange new place goes so much more smoothly than you would expect.
The alternative is digging through a wall of unlabeled boxes at midnight while your kids melt down and your partner asks you where you packed the towels for the fourteenth time. I speak from experience when I say you do not want that night. Pack the bag, label it clearly, and keep it in the car with you.
3. Book a Cleaner for Both Ends of the Move
I wish someone had drilled this into my head weeks before we moved. Cleaning is the thing that sneaks up on you when you are already completely out of gas, and it lives at both ends of the move which means it never fully leaves your plate from start to finish.
Your new place needs to be cleaned before the furniture goes in and the boxes start piling up. Once that happens, a real deep move in clean becomes basically impossible for weeks because you are not going to move the couch again once it’s sitting in the living room. Getting a professional in before your belongings arrive means you’re actually starting fresh in a space that has been properly taken care of.
And then there’s the old place, which needs to be scrubbed down before you hand over the keys. This always feels manageable in theory and completely overwhelming at the end of an already brutal moving day when you’re exhausted and emotionally wrung out and just want to be done. Landlords walk through with checklists, buyers notice things, and a missed clean can cost you part or all of your security deposit.
Hiring a professional cleaning crew for your move-out clean, your move-in clean, or honestly both back to back is one of the best gifts you can give yourself during this whole process. Clean Bees specializes in exactly this and they know what landlords and buyers look for during walkthroughs. Book early because moving season fills up fast and this is not the thing you want to figure out at the last minute.
4. Set the Beds Up Before You Tackle Anything Else
The moment your bed frames and mattresses come off that truck, stop everything and set them up. Make the beds right then with the bedding you wisely kept separate from everything else.
I know it feels counterproductive when there are a thousand boxes staring at you from every corner of the room, but crossing this off the list early means that no matter how exhausting the rest of the day gets, you always have somewhere to fall at the end of it. That peace of mind carries you further than you think through the afternoon chaos.
5. Figure Out Where the Furniture Is Going Before the Truck Shows Up
Walk through your new space beforehand and map out where the big pieces are going. Measure doorways if anything is a close call, because nothing derails a moving day quite like discovering the sectional won’t fit through the hallway after four guys have already carried it up the front steps.
Label the rooms clearly so your movers know exactly where to put things without stopping to ask you every five minutes. On moving day you are simultaneously wrangling kids, signing paperwork, answering questions, and trying to remember where you packed the coffee maker, and every minute spent redirecting movers is energy you are going to desperately need by mid-afternoon.
If you want to go the extra mile, sketch out a rough floor plan for each room and tape it to the door. Your movers will love you for it and everything will end up where it actually belongs on the first try.
6. Do Not Pack the Toolkit
Keep it out and keep it accessible from the first day of packing all the way through the last day of unpacking. Moving generates a completely endless stream of small tasks that require tools, and if your toolkit ends up in a box buried under the guest room stuff you will spend twenty minutes hunting for it every single time something needs to be assembled, tightened, or fixed. Just leave it out on the counter where you can always find it.
7. Declutter Before You Pack a Single Box
Moving is genuinely the best opportunity you will ever have to get rid of things you don’t need, and most of us miss it completely by waiting until we’re already in the new place surrounded by too much stuff with nowhere to put it. Go through each room before anything gets packed and be honest with yourself. The clothes that haven’t been worn in a year, the random freebies from events that have never been used, the kitchen gadgets still in the original packaging that you bought three years ago with good intentions. Let them go before they get loaded onto a truck and follow you to your next chapter. The research backs this up in a pretty compelling way. Not decluttering before the move is the single most common regret people report once it’s all over. Fewer things means lower moving costs, less to unpack on the other end, and a new home that feels intentional and calm right from the start rather than overwhelming for the next six months.
8. Photograph Your Old Place Before You Hand Over the Keys
Before you walk out that door for the last time, photograph every single room, every wall, every floor, and every corner you can think of. This is especially important if you’re renting.
Documentation of the condition you left the place in is what stands between you and a landlord trying to keep your deposit over something that was already there when you moved in. It takes ten minutes, it costs nothing, and it has saved people a significant amount of money and a significant amount of stress. Please do not skip it in the rush of the final day.
9. Have Cash Ready to Tip Your Movers
Your movers are going to work harder than you expect, and having cash ready to tip them at the end of the day is something worth planning for ahead of time. Most of us don’t carry cash regularly, so this is exactly the kind of thing that slips through the cracks.
A good baseline is $20 to $50 per mover for a local move, or 10 to 20 percent of the total cost for a larger job. Your moving company should tell you in advance how many movers they are sending, so you can do the math ahead of time and have the envelopes ready to hand out when the last box comes off the truck. It’s a small gesture that means a lot at the end of a hard day of work.
10. Get Your Utilities Sorted Before You Arrive
Call ahead and confirm that your electricity, gas, water, and internet are all transferred or activated before moving day. This is one of those tasks that feels easy to push off and then suddenly it’s the night before and you’re not sure if the lights are going to work when you pull up to the new house after dark.
Internet especially has a way of feeling less urgent until your kids are asking for the wifi password approximately four minutes after walking through the front door. Get it all sorted at least a week in advance and give yourself one less thing to worry about on the day itself.
Moving is a lot, and anyone who tells you otherwise has either never done a big move or has successfully blocked the memory out entirely. Give yourself grace, plan ahead where you can, and hand off the things you don’t have to do yourself.
You’ve got this. And whatever you do, remember the toilet paper.