My Move Cost Over $5,000 More Than I Expected. This Was My Biggest Mistake

Under the perfect conditions, moving is still a giant pain in the rump.

My cross-country move was not, by any stretch of the imagination, under perfect conditions.

When all was said and done, the move took more than a week longer than planned, and it cost over $5,000 more than I initially estimated.

We moved nearly twice the stuff I thought we owned

To say I made some mistakes along the way would be an understatement. But the most expensive mistake I made was vastly underestimating exactly how much stuff we owned -- and how much space that stuff would take up in a moving truck.

When all of your possessions are neatly stowed in your cabinets, closets, drawers, and garages, it's very hard to appreciate the sheer volume of items you own. It's not until you take those items out, wrap half of them in something cushy, and try to cram them all into boxes, that you can really understand the true scope of what you've amassed.

In our case, underestimating how much stuff we had to move meant we still had stuff left over when we thought we were done. And that meant we not only needed to rent another moving truck, we also had to make an additional trip to get it to our destination.

If you haven't moved in a while, let me tell you, moving trucks have gotten very expensive. And that cost gets supercharged when you're moving to another part of the country.

Of course, the truck was hardly the only expense. We also had to pay for:

• Flights from our new city back to our previous city
• Hotels to sleep in on the drive (a night in a real bed makes a big difference on a long drive)
• Food (you eat a lot of takeout when everything is in boxes)
• Gas for the truck (big trucks = low MPG)
• Rental car (since ours was already at our destination)
• Tolls (no small cost)

By the time it was all added up, we'd easily spent over $5,000. A good chunk was the rental truck, but the other expenses weren't negligible. (Adding insult to injury, because the expense was last minute, I couldn't even get a new credit card. So much missed sign-up bonus potential!)

Lesson learned: Prepare well in advance

So, how could we have avoided a lot of headaches? By preparing far earlier than we did.

The packing alone ended up taking three times longer than I anticipated. Other than my books (which took more boxes than I'll admit), few of my possessions were easily packed. No, everything was oddly shaped, needed wrapping in protective paper, or otherwise required extra care and attention to safely pack.

That wasn't all we should have done sooner, however. I guarantee that no small amount of what we moved is stuff we absolutely didn't need to move. Had we put in time earlier in the year to properly declutter, we probably could have eliminated a ton of junk that is simply going to clutter up the new house, too.

No, seriously. Start packing and decluttering now

As soon as you make the decision to move, start decluttering. Sell off the items you think you can make some profit on -- then donate, give away, or trash what you can.

Not only will this help you streamline packing and moving later, but having less clutter will probably improve your daily life in the meantime, too.

As for the packing itself, well, start at least three months before you move. Ideally, start six months out, especially if you're buying and/or selling a house. (The month before a big move is hectic enough without trying to pack up everything you own.)

The sooner you can get a proper idea of how much stuff you have, the better you can plan the actual move. If you're fully packed before you pick a truck, you're far less likely to choose something too small. Or, if it comes down to it and you need multiple trucks, at least you'll know ahead of time.

Bonus tip: Err on the side of the bigger truck

Speaking of moving trucks. If you're torn between truck sizes, my hard-earned advice is to go with the larger truck. The hit to your bank account is a little bigger, but it can be well worth it for having a little extra space to work with when you pack.

I can honestly say I learned a lot of important lessons during this move. And, as someone who thought I had a rock-solid handle on my personal finances, it was all a little humbling, too.

If you're planning a big move, or have gone through one, don't feel bad when things go a little sideways. It happens to all of us.