Are you moving to a new neighborhood, city, state, or country? Not sure where to start? Allow me to suggest shipping! Every time I’ve moved regardless of how far, one of the first things I like to figure out is what am I packing versus what I’m selling, donating, or throwing away. I find that this takes care of a couple of different logistics at once. It also allows me to finally get rid of those things that have had a good life but shall go to rest in peace now, RIP to all of my piggy kitchenware, you served me well.
To start the purge process, I first focus on the things I am going to be donating. I try to donate as much as I can, from clothes and shoes, to household and pantry items. I of course try to be respectful and only donate gently used items. There are many places that can take different kinds of donations and that can easily be found with a quick online search.
When it comes to clothes, shoes, office or art supplies, I’ve donated those types of items to shelters, churches, schools and libraries. I have also donated food and pantry items to meal centers or food banks. For the more general household items there’s the larger organizations like Goodwill and the Salvation Army that I’ve also donated to in the past, although I first try to find similar organizations locally. Certainly, if you live in New York you know the stoop is a solid place to have your things find a new home, whether through a stoop sale or just setting them out for free. I myself have found some sweet treasures from stoops all across Brooklyn.
Once I’ve taken care of donations, I shift my focus to the things I’m going to sell. These are usually things in great shape, like furniture or appliances, that people can buy from me at a better price than they would buying them new. I had a bit of a culture shock with this one. Since I had not moved in 5 years, I hadn’t had the need to sell any of my stuff for a long time. Now…am I the last millennial to find out that craigslist is dead? Trying to sell some of my stuff online made me realize that no one uses craigslist anymore, not even scammers! I was like, “dang not even scammers are hitting me up for my things?!” I quickly learned that Facebook market is all the rage nowadays. Cue in the gasps of millennials like me who were too busy running half marathons or buying new plants, iced coffee in hand, to realize this. Thankfully, once I figured out that everyone is using Facebook to sell their stuff online, I had a pretty good experience with it. I listed a good amount of my furniture and appliances for sale, as well as some free stuff, and I managed to successfully get it all picked up without any issues.
Ok, before I get to packing, I do a little research about the best way to dispose of things that are so called trash. Although we should try to minimize, there’s definitely certain items that do end up in landfill. These are things that may be too old or used and cannot be donated or recycled. However, there are also things that should be safely disposed of regardless and not just thrown in regular trash bins. For example, electronics, batteries, camping fuel canisters, etc. There are different waste sites that can be searched by location and I always make sure that I drop off any possible toxic waste at the proper waste sites. For any large items like broken furniture and fairly used mattresses or rugs, I either schedule a pickup with the city sanitation department or I make sure that I put it on the curb on the days where the city specifically does their large item pickups. Again, in New York I’ve put out mattresses and other stuff on the curb and sometimes they’ll be gone before I even make it back to my door, let alone before the city picks it up.
Now that all I have left are the things that I will be shipping, let’s get to packing! In the past I have used all sorts of methods to move my belongings. From fitting only the essentials into my little KIA Forte, to Uhaul trucks, to shipping across the country using Greyhound buses (affordable way to ship but it felt like a gamble, honestly not even sure that they still offer that service). Anyway, as I mentioned, for me deciding what to use for shipping always depended on how far I was going. Since my most recent move was across the pond, I had to focus on companies that were able to ship internationally. There are a lot of options out there and it can get overwhelming quickly. Personally, I didn’t want to spend a lot of time on the phone trying to get an appropriate quote especially because I didn’t exactly know how many boxes I was going to ship. I wanted to do it more based on how much I was willing to spend. Which is why I was really excited to find Seven Seas Worldwide.
Their website has a pretty cool and easy to navigate online quote feature and it allowed me to play around with building an order. I was able to choose from different size shipping boxes, suitcases, picture frames, or choose from different categories like instruments or sports and outdoors items. The things I was shipping would all fit in normal large shipping boxes so I picked that option and then played around with the amount of boxes until I reached my budget. The quote takes into consideration the shipping pickup and drop off locations, you can also choose to ship via sea or air. Selecting the sea option is of course more affordable but it does take longer, so it just depends on what you’re able to accommodate and afford.
Seven Seas was also very transparent when it came to any other fees associated with insurance, transport, and customs. The overall total to ship 8 large boxes from Brooklyn to London was about $1,200 and it took a little under 3 months to arrive by sea. The order included all packing boxes and materials, as well as door to door pickup and drop off. Overall, I thought Seven Seas was pretty affordable and I found their website super user-friendly. Also, their customer service was great, I spoke to them a couple of times to ask questions regarding import duties and customs forms to avoid paying taxes on my personal items and they were very helpful. I would definitely use them again or recommend them to a friend, they do both domestic and international shipments.
So there it is! I know that there are so many little details that can make even just thinking about the moving process so overwhelming, but I hope this gives you a good starting point. I’ve attempted to highlight some of the most important things to think about when it comes to organizing, packing and moving your belongings. If there are any specific parts you’d like more details on let me know in the comment section and I’ll try to answer any questions.