In the past 9 Years I have moved a grand total of 8 times. I also have a bit of a reputation to family and friends as a giant pack rat who keeps an absurd amount of useless things for no reason (for example one move we found the bottom half of a pair of jeans my sister cut into shorts 3 years before…)
Between the number of moves and the amount of stuff I have a plethora of lessons to share about moving, But today I’ll be sharing an “AHA!” moment from my most recent move.
As I was organizing all of our belongings for the big move from Toronto to Singapore I had 3 categories
- Pack
- Give Away/Throw Out
- Carry
Everything to be Packed would be sent with the moving company and Carry was all the important things that would come in our suitcases. There was a lot to think about since we would be living in a hotel for a month and it could take up to 2 months for our belongings to arrive (as we learned the hard way, but more on that later). Also our belongings were being picked up by the movers over a week before we actually left our Toronto apartment. For the most part we did quite well, making sure we had the essentials and didnt over do it with things that could be purchased easily in Singapore.
Movers came on Monday and by Tuesday I wanted to open a gifted bottle of wine a friend had brought as a goodbye gift. Well … I had packed our corkscrew and given away our 2 backups. I ended up running across the street to 3 different stores before I finally found one. 30 minutes and $12 later I was on the balcony with a glass of wine.
A month later I had bought new knives but had nothing sharp to open the packaging, so I once again had to run around trying to find scissors that don’t come in that crazy packaging that’s impossible to open…
When all of our belongings finally arrived we were ecstatic. When I hacked open the boxes with my new knives I face palmed so hard. I pulled out not one, not two, not three but FOUR Swiss Army Knives…
One small tool that would have been fine in our checked bags would have saved hours, money and frustration.
Never again will I move without at least one of these magical tools by my side
