The Process of Packing Your Life

We have begun the process of packing our apartment for the start of our journey. Since we will be living in furnished apartments, we will not be needing quite a few things. As a result, we have started going through all of our possessions, and making determinations about what to do with them.

We do not plan on maintaining a fully furnished apartment here, but instead will put many of the duplicated items into storage, and maintain some of our items at my in-laws home instead. Our largest items will be going into a storage unit, as we will not need them in our travel apartments, and they are not really needed at my in-laws. These will most likely include:

• Our bed and bedframe
• Dressers
• Couch and chairs
• Our Dining Room Table
  

The next group of items are the ones that will need to go with us to our destination. The majority of these items are either things we will need on a daily basis, or are not easily replaceable at our first stop:

• Clothes & Shoes
• Computers
• Printer
• My video games (Nintendo and PS2)

Also, we will be taking many of our "semi-personal" items. I view these as items which will give us reminders of home. These include some of our movie collection and a pair of digital photo frames.

This will leave us with the remainder of our possessions. The majority of items in this group are going to be things that are not easily replaceable, but not needed based on our assignments:

• The personal knick-knacks that make our house a home
• Movies (the rest)
• Board games
• Our wall hangings (posters, frames, etc)
• Our dishes and glasses
• Other kitchen items

It has been a bit freeing to do this. A fair amount of items were hand-me-downs or donations, and as such may not necessarily match our style. We are grateful to have had them, but when we set up in a more permanent location, we will be able to replace these items with some that match us a little better. It has also made us take a really hard look at items, and forced us to determine if an item will be going with us long-term. It has been my experience in the past that any time you move there are a few boxes of stuff that you generally should deal with, but don't because it is easier to just shuttle it along to the next apartment. However, since we are going to be paying for a storage unit, we would like to keep that to a minimum.

The most surprising thing to this point has been the fact that it has not taken particularly long to do this. As of this writing, we had packed almost all of the items that were going to storage that were not likely to be used in the next 2 weeks before we move. And realistically, it only took about 6 hours to do this. When we first started this, I knew that we did not have a lot of possessions, but I am a bit surprised that we have this little.