THREE WEEKS BEFORE YOUR MOVE:

• Take inventory of your everyday household goods, such as radios, pots and pans and small appliances. Decide which items you will discard or put in storage.
  
• Self-packers: start your serious packing. Label the contents of all boxes, and pack carefully.
  
• As best you can, box essential items together, and write "Open First/Load Last" on these boxes. When you move into your new home, you'll be able to easily identify these boxes and get to important items like pots, dishes, silverware, alarm clocks, bedding, pillows, towels, cherished toys and essential items for babies or children.
  
• Make sure you have your driver's license, auto registration and insurance records.
  
• Contact your doctors, dentist and veterinarian to receive copies of medical records.
  
• Pack phone books from your old town to make staying in touch with old friends easier.
  
• Make personal travel arrangements (flights, hotel, rental cars) for your trip.
  
• Plan your food purchases to have as little as possible in the freezer or refrigerator by the time you move. Use up all frozen items, and buy only what you'll eat in the next three weeks, because you can't ship them.
  
• Arrange to clean your new home, or plan to clean it yourself as close to move-in as possible. Since the home will probably be unoccupied by this time, make sure the cleaning is thorough and covers all those nooks and crannies usually blocked by furniture or appliances.
  
• Contact your children's schools, and arrange for records to be forwarded to your new school district.
  
• Make new bank safety deposit box arrangements in your new hometown. Make arrangements to safely transfer items from your old safe deposit box to your new one.
  
• Hold a garage sale now. Make travel arrangements for family for moving trip, allow for unexpected delays and cash needs that often occur in moves and house closings.
  
• Collect all important papers (insurance, will, deeds, stocks, etc.).
  
• Arrange to close all local bank accounts and open new ones in new location.
  

TWO WEEKS BEFORE YOUR MOVE >