Tips for moving entire life/house to another state?

Never done it myself, but have had a few family/friends do it.

If you hire movers, they decide how big of a truck you need. Make sure you are specific about everything to be moved.

You say you have a few months, now is also the time to start decluttering. Don’t get too drastic or impulsive

Finally, anything extremely valuable and/or sentimental; pack and move yourself. Same goes for jewelry and firearms.

Line up a storage unit near your new house. Use it as a place to stage stuff you’re either not ready to deal with or don’t need but aren’t ready to part with.
It’ll help to keep your new place better organized and cluttered as you’re spending the next year and half unpacking.

Welcome to Birmingham!

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We drove a UHaul with stuff we didnt want to go in the big moving truck and the professional movers took the rest in an 18wheeler.

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I have moved a few times and this is what I did.

Nice, that’s a good area. Lots of good food and spots for a drink there. We looked there for awhile but ended up buying in Mountain Brook.

Sell everything that can be replaced.

Get rid of anything that has been touched for a year.


We've moved cross country a couple times and these are the two things we stick with. Heirlooms, pictures, clothes (after getting rid of some) and a couple furniture pieces are all we've brought. Packing/unpacking is a breeze. Family enjoys shopping for new furniture, home goods, etc whenever we get where we're going because the new house never ends up looking like the old house.

i moved from BR to NC 5 years ago. Sounds like a similar situation. 4/3 house with 2 kids. i had to get rid of alot of stuff that I slowly am replacing (big ice chest, pots, burners, etc). We used united and they packed and moved everything, I did not touch a thing and if I remember it was about 10K. It took about a week for the delivery to come but there were a few missing/broken items. It took up about half of an 18 wheeler trailer.

Don't let anxiety take over, you will not regret it. Start packing now and getting rid of stuff you can do without.

Just did it, it sucks but not as much as you think, the kids were excited the whole time thankfully So them not bitching and complaining the entire time at least took that weight off.

The amount of boxes and subsequent trash is kind of overwhelming, had to get a dumpster at the new house to haul everything off.

The wife got this sticker kit off Amazon that labels boxes then you put the corresponding colored paper on the door of the room it goes it, helped making sure everything got put in the right place.

We had 3 trucks, took an entire day to load then we had to drive, stay in a hotel , get up close and wait for the trucks to arrive, they weren’t done until 10pm that night.

Get some bean bags for your kids, bunch of snacks and just hope they’ll veg out on their pads all day.


ETA: like others have said try and purge before you leave your current house, we got rid of a ton of stuff and threw a way a whole dumpster of just crap we had been saving for no reason too.

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Great information, thank you. Do you mind sharing a general expense all in for the workers you hired/trucks?

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Around 22k plus I tipped the guys 100 each after loading and again after unloading.

They sent 6 guys to load and 4 made the trip to unload.

Easily another 2-3k in boxes and tape if not more, it just seemed like an never ending trip to Home Depot and the packing store.

Another thing we did when packing was start in the closets and cabinets then work your way out to the stuff you actually use on a daily basis.

Buy moving insurance. A lot of moving companies use a "$.60 per pound" formula for anything they destroy.