5 Hacks for Moving With Multiple Family Vehicles

Moving can be stressful, but if properly managed, a big move across a long distance can be a wonderful way to reduce your household stuff to a small, manageable amount.

If you have a long time window to make your family move, it’s also a great time to adjust your finances to have more cash available for your move and your new home.

Hacks for Moving With Multiple Family Vehicles 1

Cut to the Essentials

Everyone has their baseline needs. If your family loves to play pool and have game night, then you need a pool table and storage for games.

If electronics and movie night are your way to connect, you need a great spot to gather and watch your favorites.

The time before a move is your time to walk through your existing home and note

  • what you’re storing but not using
  • what you use consistently
  • the spots that just collect dust

This is critical for anyone who is moving into a smaller home. If your family is moving from a 4 bedroom, 3 bath home into a 3 bedroom, 2 bath home, you have a lot to get rid of.

Walkthrough your home with a notebook and write down what you absolutely have to take with you. Next note what you would like to bring, then what you think you can sell, then finally what you don’t want in your new home.

Pack Early and Take Partial Loads to the New Home

For those who don’t have far to travel, making partial trips could be a great way to keep your current home from becoming an overwhelming mess.

The first step could be to load up cleaning supplies, head to the new place, and give it a good once-over. Even if the sellers cleaned it, it’s nice to know that you had the chance to put a final polish on it.

You may be able to move some items in your family vehicles. Depending on the number of drivers you have, you can transport boxes and bins over a number of days and trips.

For example, if you have children who are licensed and able to help with your move, you might

  • load a minivan with out of season clothing
  • put all the holiday decorations in your SUV
  • pack up cleaning supplies in a sedan

Of course, the distance you have to travel will also make a difference. Such a caravan can work if you’re moving under 100 miles, but if you’re headed across several states it may make sense to hire a car transport service, movers, and a truck.

Consider a Pod

If you have the space, put a pod in the driveway and clear things out as you pack.

You can save space and cardboard by not packing things already in storage; for example, you can move clothing and linen already in drawers by the drawerful, then just relocate the dresser to the pod and wrap it up.

Do take care to plastic wrap large items that contain smaller items; one nasty tip of a buffet or bureau can lead to a lot of breakages.

Your pod should come with straps to hold these items to the wall, and of course, you can fill them in around it to stabilize it.

Use what you have for packing materials when loading up your pod. For example, you may have special tableware you only use for the winter holidays in the cupboard.

Load this into boxes between layers of towels and flannel sheets from the linen cupboard to both lighten your packing load and protect seasonal items.

While a truck will need to pick up your pod, you can use your van, SUV, hatchback or sedan to transport smaller containers over time.

Take Friends Up on Their Offers to Help

If you have friends who are willing to pitch in, put them to work! Ask them to prepare a meal so you can keep packing and get the kitchen all boxed up.

Ask them to take your children to the park or host them for an overnight so you can work late or get up early as you prefer.

Unless your friends are quite physically fit, hire someone to move the largest pieces for the safety of your friends and your possessions. Professional movers are insured in the event someone is injured or something is broken.

For those with friends who love a road trip, see if one of them will drive one of your vehicles. If you have a minivan that you generally use to transport children, another driver can give your moving process a great deal of flexibility.

For example, you can load up your SUV with boxes from your office, kitchen, and bathrooms and let your volunteer driver meet you at your new home.

Once you arrive, the main cook can start arranging the kitchen while the other driver helps move boxes to the office and bathrooms.

With multiple vehicles and multiple movers, you can move a lot of your household in small chunks.

Put Luggage to Work

Keep your suitcases empty and available until the day of the move. Make sure that each person in the household has a piece of luggage assigned to them, even if your child can’t quite manage a suitcase yet.

In each case, you will want to load

  • toiletries
  • a towel
  • pajamas
  • sheets for their bed
  • a change of clothes

No matter how crazy your moving day gets, you can be confident that, at your destination, you can take a bath, put on pajamas, and sleep on a freshly made bed.

Finally, many of us have a child who is keen on electronics. Put them in charge of your electronics backpack. This backpack will hold all the charging cables for everyone’s gear.

Moving multiple vehicles may take a transportation company, but if you have enough drivers available, you can cut costs and have a slower, more manageable move. Watch the weather to make sure your youngest driver isn’t facing serious winds or heavy rains in a fully-loaded vehicle.

Julie Higgins
Author
Julie is a Staff Writer at momooze.com. She has been working in publishing houses before joining the editorial team at momooze. Julie's love and passion are topics around beauty, lifestyle, hair and nails.