A gypsy is defined as one who is inclined to a nomadic and unconventional lifestyle, or someone who moves from place to place as required for employment. Based on both of these definitions, I can wholeheartedly say that my family are gypsies.
During the past six years, we have lived in four different homes located in two cities more than 500 miles apart. When our son was born, we moved from Cleveland to New York City, so my husband could open a restaurant. When our daughter was born, we moved back to Cleveland, eventually opening another restaurant. We have lived in the suburbs and in the city. After spending way too much money on moving vans, we have moved into our dream home – until of course, we find another dream home or restaurant.
To be a successful gypsy one must know how to move and how to do it efficiently and thriftily. Here are five tips to get you through any move.
Spend the money on the right boxes for the items you are packing (dishes, clothing, etc.) In our past moves, we have used garbage bags, restaurant food boxes and those plastic tubs that store things you should throw away but don’t. For my most recent move, I wised up. We bought wardrobe boxes for our clothes and used color-coded boxes for the rest of the house, assigning each room a color. The boxes were pricey, but being able to direct the movers to put all of the blue boxes in my boy’s room and all of the purple boxes in my girl’s room was the easiest thing I did throughout the entire move.
Understand that you and your significant other will not be friends during the move. When my husband and I moved from Brooklyn, New York, to Cleveland, we attempted to go the frugal route. We decided to rent a truck and move on our own, without any movers. The morning of our move, we meandered the mean streets of Brooklyn, to the water's edge, in search of our moving truck. I had never been to this part of Brooklyn before, and I soon realized why. As we walked several blocks, I noticed that each business had its own snarling guard dog tethered to a chain link fence. The company I had secured our rental with was located in a rickety shack, and the standard-size moving truck I had envisioned was actually a semi truck. The truck was so tall and wide that there was only one route out of the city: the long route. My husband glared at me, eyes like daggers. I knew that once we sat in the cab of our newly rented semi, the marriage moving wars were on.
Set up utilities, cable and Internet a month before you move. Paying for utilities a month in advance sounds less than ideal, but so does not having Internet when you've just moved to a new neighborhood and don’t know where the grocery is. When my family first moved to the Lower East Side of New York City, we didn’t turn on the electricity right away. We had countless romantic dinners by candlelight.
Invest in floor sliders. In my twenties, I became the proud owner of a gorgeous turn-of-the-century armoire. It is the only piece of furniture that's accompanied all my gypsy moves. This past summer, my family moved to a home built in 1875. Moving into this Shaker Heights home was no easy feat. Each room features beautiful, easily scratchable hundred-year-old wood flooring. Floor sliders are the small discs that you put under furniture, so your husband (who doesn’t believe furniture scratches wood floors) won’t be able to show his handiwork with a permanent six-inch groove across the dining room floor.
Plan a vacation. We hadn’t even unpacked the first box when we packed up the car and drove to Sandusky. Don’t unpack right away. You’ve worked very hard to move all those boxes and furniture (and people), and it only gets worse once the unpacking begins. Grab the dogs and the kids and go. We headed for Cedar Point after moving this summer, and it not only ended our marriage moving war, but also allowed us to have three days of fun before the dreaded unpacking began.
