What are the hidden costs of moving?

[jsmith]

Since you are divorced-check state laws regarding moving your children out of state-not just your custody agreement. In Colorado it is illegal for the custodial parent to limit the access of a non custodial parent to the children by removing them from the state. So, in Colorado, even if your ex only has visitation, unless they expressly agree to allowing you to take the child out of state-you are breaking the law if you do.

 

[lucyem]

get rid of anything you don't just love and start over. Your old stuff probably won't look good in your new home. Plus it will cost you less to move all the stuff, less to pack and unpack.

This would be my advice too. There is nothing more frustrating then opening a box of stuff you just paid to move and realize you could have just thrown it out. Sell, donate or toss everything you do not need, can cheaply replace or do not love.

 

[MissAndrea]

Everyone gave great advice. We just moved from KS to MO in October and our biggest headache and expense was selling the house. You already said you have done a lot of updates to the house, so that's good. We hadn't and ended up spending a lot on upgrades in hopes that the house would sell faster and stand out a little compared to other houses in that price range. The one thing I would consider before getting rid of everything is the staging aspect. Our couches were in desperate need of replacing so we had to buy a new set before we moved. Our house sold in about 4 months so it wasn't immediately but not too bad. I don't remember if you said how long you've been in your house but consider how much the real estate agents will take. We'd been in our house almost 5 years and the agents ended up with every dime of equity we had in it. So we made nothing. In fact, we were lucky to pretty much break even. We were close to losing money on the deal. But I would definitely say selling the house was the biggest expense/headache. The actually moving part seemed like peanuts compared to the selling part.

Oh, and absolutely do not buy boxes. You can get free boxes almost anywhere. And I wouldn't think you would need to start hoarding them now. Just start getting them about a month before you plan on moving.

I just remembered one other thing. We did our own staging so no one told us to do this, but we put SO much in storage when trying to sell. If it wasn't aesthetically pleasing or absolutely necessary in our every day lives, it went to storage. So another expense would be the monthly storage fees.