Moving Out, sans Stress

Finals are over and you’re thinking there is nothing standing between you and a summer filled with cook outs, laying out by the pool, and trips to your friends’ beach houses. Sadly, though I wish it was, this is not true. Gone are the lazy summers, and here are the summers filled with work, internships, summer classes, and maybe the most stressful of them all: moving out.

Many people place moving into the category of the most stressful events, along with death, divorce, and illness (read more about it here). So here are a few tips to deal with that stress.

Organize your stuff ahead of time. This might be one of the easiest ways to reduce stress while moving. Go through all of your things few weeks before the big move, and decide what you want to take with you, what you can sell, and what you want to donate or just throw away. This way, when the time comes to actually pack and move, you simply have to pack up your things and move them instead of sorting through everything and packing all at the same time.

No one wants this to be their moving experience.

Organizing beforehand also minimizes the actual amount of moving you have to do. If you get rid of everything you don’t need, you won’t have to pack and move as many things.

If possible, move in little by little. This year, I am moving out from my apartment and into a huge house downtown, and my leases overlap by a month. Instead of moving all my stuff at once, and I do have a lot of stuff, I plan on moving in a little at a time so I won’t get overwhelmed.

My house for next year!

Unfortunately, I am moving from a fully furnished apartment into a completely unfurnished house. This is what I have been stressing out about the most, but I have calmed down after a bit of planning. Moving into an unfurnished place can be really stressful, especially for college students, because furniture is expensive. A great way to find furniture is to ask around. I am not a fan of getting used furniture from people I don’t know or thrift stores, but I will ask my parents or family friends if they have a couch that they no longer need. In my experience, many people are more than willing to help out us poor college students, especially when we will be taking things that they don’t want anymore but don’t know what to do with.

Get organized and plan ahead to make moving less stressful, and you will be able to host your own cook outs at your new place.

Lisa Garsson