Downsizing Your Home in Chattanooga Before Moving

When you need to move, it can get expensive in a hurry. Downsizing your home in Chattanooga before moving can help mitigate the cost. It might not be an option if you’re going from a larger home to a smaller one. Whether you’re moving for work, retirement, or any other reason, it’s a good time to go through your things and downsize. It’s time to figure out what you’d like to keep and what you don’t need. Regardless of your reason to downsize your home, when you’re moving, it’s time to make your load lighter. Maybe you’re ready to let go of some things or you have no choice. When you’re moving into a new home and you will have less space, it’s time to downsize. Here are some tips to help you.

Top 11 Downsizing Tips to Use Before Moving

1. Create a Plan

The first step in downsizing your home before you move is to create a plan. There are several ways to approach this project and it may depend on the type of home you have, where you’re moving to, and how much time you have. When you need to create a downsizing plan, you want to make sure you have an idea of how much stuff you need to cut. It’s also a good idea to know what you plan to do with things you cannot keep. Creating your plan and following it to get through with downsizing your home in Chattanooga before moving is a great way to help make moving easier.

2. Inventory and Make First Cuts

After you create a plan or during the process of planning, it’s time to create an inventory list and make your first cuts or decisions. You can mark things you are for sure about quickly as you inventory everything you own. Just mark things you know you will get rid of and things you know you will keep. With some items, you can mark them as unknown and deal with them later. This will help you make the first cuts and get the ball rolling in the right direction.

3. Use Your Current Space Wisely

If you have extra space to work with, use it wisely. You can use it to stage items you plan to sell, keep, or donate. You can even start putting the things you will toss out in the garage for now until you have a chance to rent a dumpster in Chattanooga. It’s best to keep the things you plan to take with you in one area, while the things you plan to donate or give away can go in another area. With the right space, you can easily create an area for each category as you downsize your Chattanooga home before moving.

4. Rent a Roll-Off Dumpster for Your Junk

Once you have things separated, it’s time to start tossing out the junk. You want to rent a temporary dumpster in Chattanooga to help you get rid of all your trash. This includes old furniture, kitchen items, old clothing, and even yard waste. There are many things you can dispose of in a residential dumpster rental. When you rent a dumpster, you want to make sure you choose the right dumpster rental company. This will help you to get the service you need. At Waste Removal USA, we deliver fast to any home in the Chattanooga area and we give you plenty of time to load up your dumpster rental. Our rates are super affordable and the process to rent a dumpster from us is super easy.

5. Split the Project into Bite-Size Pieces

A large home can seem like a project you cannot completely handle. It may become rather overwhelming and it could be very difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Instead of looking at the project as a whole, split it into bite-size pieces. When you look at one room at a time or one area at a time, you have a better chance to handle the project without becoming overwhelmed. This can be a part of your plan and you can split up the project in a way that makes sense to you.

6. Consider the Space You Will Have

We often need to downsize our homes before moving when we are moving to a smaller home. Maybe you’re retiring or you’re just ready for a smaller home. When this is the case, you want to consider the space you will have in your new home. If you’re moving from a larger 3,500-square-foot home to a smaller 1,200-square-foot condo, you can’t keep everything. You might be going from two living rooms and four bedrooms to one living room and two bedrooms. It’s time to make some difficult decisions with furniture. Consider the space you will have and don’t keep too much stuff or your smaller space will seem very cluttered.

7. Give the Family a Chance with Some Items

Anything you plan to donate, give away, or sell, give your family a chance to claim first, especially if you planned to give it to them in the future anyway. This is the time to give away heirlooms you want to pass down and anything larger that you simply cannot keep. Family is important and when you want to keep things in the family, make sure you do so before you move. It’s better that your family gets to use the things you don’t need than keeping them in storage.

8. Plan to Sell Some Things

You probably have things worth money you can sell instead of giving them away. Not only can this help you fund your move, but it can also allow you to get top dollar for the better things you have that you cannot keep. Whether it’s a large couch or something small you want to sell, this is the time to sell it. Smaller, shippable items can be sold on eBay, but larger items should be sold on the Facebook Marketplace or through another method, such as Craigslist or a moving sale.

9. Start As Soon As Possible

The sooner you can start, the better, as downsizing is a large project. If you have 90 days, you’ll have to hustle a little, but you should be able to handle one part of the project each week until you move. Six months is a better amount of time, but sometimes, you have to downsize your home in Chattanooga before moving in just a few weeks or a month. When you need to downsize fast, get started as soon as possible. If you have more time, that’s better, but downsizing can be done fast, if necessary.

10. Cut the Paperwork and Pictures

One of the easiest ways to cut something from your belongings is to digitize paperwork and pictures. This is a great way to eliminate boxes of stuff you don’t need to keep anymore. If you feel like you need a physical copy of something, that’s fine, but keep it to a minimum. You can take pictures of documents and other pictures with a simple camera on your smartphone or use a scanner. There are even services that will not only scan all your things but can also shred things for you after it’s digitized. Just make sure you have a second copy somewhere as a backup. This can be in a cloud storage service or on a second computer.

11. Don’t Let Guilt Dictate your Downsizing

We often end up keeping things we don’t need due to guilt. Maybe it was a present given to you for your birthday years ago or a simple item you received from someone you care about. Maybe you’ve been holding onto things from your kids and it’s time to give them a chance to take them or lose them. Don’t keep things due to guilt. Let the guilt go, if you can, and also the items you don’t need. If you don’t need it or use it, let it go, even if it was a gift. There are many good reasons to downsize your home in Chattanooga before you move. Use these tips and you can get your downsizing project done faster and easier before you move.