More With Less Mom

Use common courtesy when asking for boxes, if you say you’re going to show up then show up. Get people’s cell or email so you can let them know if something comes up.

If you need bigger boxes you can look on Craigslist or your area Facebook groups for someone offloading their moving boxes cheap.

Some U-Haul locations have a spot where people can leave their boxes, and you can pick them up free.

McDonalds fry boxes are great boxes, they are strong, they stack beautifully, they are almost always clean, they are free. Go inside and ask for boxes, they will usually tell you there is a cardboard only dumpster in the back to look for more.

Liquor stores are excellent sources for boxes. They usually keep a pile of them in a corner until the end of the day. Ask and someone will let you know if you can take them, they keep some empties for boxing purchases that are not for taking. The boxes do tend to be smaller and sometimes are cut open funny, requiring more taping.

Most big box stores have compactors now and don’t have boxes unless you happen to catch some. Mom and pops and restaurants often have boxes, but it is better to call around and find some, than drive around hopelessly wasting gas.

Next: How To Pack

Dire Straits Moving – Make a Plan, Stan – Moving Truck Budgetness – Preparation – Computery Preparedness – Binder of Doom – Organize, Sort, Declutter, and Otherwise Blow Your Stuff Up – What Do I Do With All This Junk I Don’t Want? – Needful Things for Packing – Where Do I Get Boxes? – How To Pack – Moving Tips – Moving Day/Stuffing all the Stuff – Moving with Pets (tons of cats for me) – Moving with Kids – How Do I DO Schtuff with No Home? – How Do I Eat with No Home? – Meal Plan for Dire Straits – I Moved and Now I Don’t Have Anywhere to Sit – Need Help?

We hope you enjoyed our Dire Straits Moving: Tips for Relocating in a Not-So-Pretty Situation – Homelessness and Other Hard Times Moves post

Rehome it, donate it, toss it. Burn it on a funeral pyre (but get a permit, safety first!).
You can stuff clothes in donation boxes in your area (although I found that my nearest clothing box disappeared, this may be harder in a pandemic). If you have time you can donate different things to various places. Goodwill or Salvation Army may come pick up large items like furniture. Smaller local charities and thrift stores may pick up other items.

If you have a lot of time yard sale it, or you can post individual items on eBay or Facebook yard sale or Buy Nothing groups. Post on Freecylce, Craigslist or your local Facebook groups that you have stuff (which site works best depends on where you are). List your terms, like if resellers are ok, a brief description of the contents, if you smoke, if they have to reply within 24 hours (not that I’ve had people leave me hanging or anything). I had a man come and take bags and bags of stuff that I assume he sorted and resold what he could, but I was just grateful to get that stuff out of the way so I have room in storage for the stuff that matters to me.

Next: Needful Things for Packing

Dire Straits Moving – Make a Plan, Stan – Moving Truck Budgetness – Preparation – Computery Preparedness – Binder of Doom – Organize, Sort, Declutter, and Otherwise Blow Your Stuff Up – What Do I Do With All This Junk I Don’t Want? – Needful Things for Packing – Where Do I Get Boxes? – How To Pack – Moving Tips – Moving Day/Stuffing all the Stuff – Moving with Pets (tons of cats for me) – Moving with Kids – How Do I DO Schtuff with No Home? – How Do I Eat with No Home? – Meal Plan for Dire Straits – I Moved and Now I Don’t Have Anywhere to Sit – Need Help?

We hope you enjoyed our Dire Straits Moving: Tips for Relocating in a Not-So-Pretty Situation – Homelessness and Other Hard Times Moves post

Do some household tasks now so you won’t inconvenience yourself later. Create a binder that has important documents in sheet protectors. Put all the really important papers like birth certificates in here so they are not buried in boxes. You need to keep this binder safe.

I recommend you have a print copy of many things, since charging your phone may be an issue if you don’t have somewhere to live. You can’t just look it up on Google Docs.

Scan the fronts and backs of the contents of your wallet and print them, and keep in your binder.

Create emergency sheets for each family member (and each fur baby) in case something happens, you will have a recent photo, birthdate, their height and weight, and their insurance info in one place. Print off lists of prescriptions for family members and keep them with the emergency sheets. If you do not already have one, create an ICE (in case of emergency), family binder, or home management binder, now is a good time to start one, even if you just start with these really important documents.

Develop your budget (as best you can) past when you expect to be in your new home, and print it.

Print your passwords, account numbers, and any other information you refer to often or might need.

Create a contacts document of people you will need info for, including utilities, the school, doctor and vet, in case something happens to your phone and you can’t access anything else. My contacts document was printed and lived in my purse. Mine had the following info: Each child’s birthdate (because no I can’t remember them), my license number, car plate number, my contact info including cell, the doctor’s info, the bus my child would be riding and pickup and dropoff times, hours and addresses for several local stores, my child’s work info, hours for accessing our PO Box, the number of a neighbor who would let me use her phone, contact info for the studio where we get guitar lessons. I had the following for both towns: address and phone for school and school bus company, the hours of both the transfer station and swap shop, info for the town offices, and contact info and hours for the library.

If you may be job hunting tidy up your resume (many libraries help with this, even if the building is not open to the public). Get it gussied up and print it out so you can make copies, and add this to a flash drive/memory stick so you can print it from the library.

Next: Organize, Sort, Declutter, and Otherwise Blow Your Stuff Up

Dire Straits Moving – Make a Plan, Stan – Moving Truck Budgetness – Preparation – Computery Preparedness – Binder of Doom – Organize, Sort, Declutter, and Otherwise Blow Your Stuff Up – What Do I Do With All This Junk I Don’t Want? – Needful Things for Packing – Where Do I Get Boxes? – How To Pack – Moving Tips – Moving Day/Stuffing all the Stuff – Moving with Pets (tons of cats for me) – Moving with Kids – How Do I DO Schtuff with No Home? – How Do I Eat with No Home? – Meal Plan for Dire Straits – I Moved and Now I Don’t Have Anywhere to Sit – Need Help?

We hope you enjoyed our Dire Straits Moving: Tips for Relocating in a Not-So-Pretty Situation – Homelessness and Other Hard Times Moves post

Take stock of your pantry and freezer. You need to make a plan to eliminate the most perishable items. If you get to move to a new place then yay, you just need to limit what you bring in so you can fit your food in a cooler or four on the way to the new place. Otherwise, make a meal plan or use another method to figure out how to eat all the foods, like the just-eat-all-the-things diet.. Stone Soup has a lot of very simple, good recipes.

You can also take the opportunity to use your pantry ingredients to make some just add water mixes that will be easy to whip up later.

Take some time to ponder what tasks you will have coming up in the time your housing is in flux. Do you have any bills coming due, social commitments, or other responsibilities? Do you need to make payment arrangements or bow out of commitments now, while something can be done about it if you plan ahead? Is there anyone who will be affected, that you should warn when you still don’t actually know where you will end up?

If you have time develop a meal plan with inexpensive ingredients and basic equipment, so you can tightly plan your budget and your shopping right after the move.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help! The first time we did a dire straits move I was an irascible New Englander. New Englanders are a hardy bunch, and don’t like to ask for help. I wanted to do everything myself, I didn’t want a handout from anybody, and despite how grim the outlook was, I didn’t ask for any help. Instead everyone from my awesome office and family showed up and threw things in boxes, we stuffed storage to the gills, and we lived in the car in a warmer climate. If I had looked for assistance I might have been able to keep my kids near my family and support network.
Maybe you are proud. Maybe you are afraid. Maybe you can’t stand not being self-sufficient. Are your feelings really more important than keeping your children comfortable, secure, and safe?

Call your town welfare office and the local transitional shelter, they will be able to get you started. When applying for help you may need documentation of your income, your eviction or foreclosure notice, birth certificates, bank statement, proof of residence in your current town (unless you’re already homeless), social security cards, car titles, latest taxes, proof of auto insurance, your lease or rental agreement, your latest utility bills, and any statements for expenses like child support. All of these documents should be in your binder so you have access to them. We call ours the Binder of Doom.

Also, most of these programs have waiting lists, especially transitional housing. Get started now and keep track of who you have contacted. I have a document of who I have called, the results of that conversation, and the requirements they had whether I met them or not. I jot these down and then copy them to my document on the computer/Google Docs when I can. You can use Google Docs to access this from any computer. Just make sure you log out and clear the cache on any public computer.

Consider your car situation. Maybe you are making car payments and don’t have the money anymore. Is it better to turn that BMW in and get a beater, or wait until they repossess it? I will at least check Facebook for a van or maybe RV that will work better in our current situation. If you have a truck you could look at campers. Did you know that pop-up campers have lovely things like heat? I may have to use the security deposit I have saved to do it, which will admit that I am going to be homeless, and put our rehoming off that much more. But if it is the smart decision, I will do it. Keep in mind that what you buy might be a lemon, and if you carhouse breaks down or is stolen you will be in deep doo-doo. If you live in the city it’s possible you could sell your car to get a security deposit, and just use public transportation until you can get another. Use your limited resources as wisely as you can.

Consider relocating. If you have kids then this is a very hard decision to make, but you need to explore all of the possibilities, weigh all your options, and make the best decision you can. If you are on a fixed income, like disability, then your income will be the same no matter where you live. Your dollar may go further in other places. Perhaps you have a grandpa in Tucson the kids have never seen, or a grandma in Orlando. Seasons might influence your choice as well, it’s hard to live in your car in New Hampshire in January, but Arizona is absolutely beautiful. You can compare the cost of living in different places. If you refuse to accept help until you can get back on your feet then relocation is a very real possibility. However, if you pull your kids from school and uproot them from their friends and family you may be seeing the emotional scars for years to come. If you have a support system in place then use it, and investigate your options for local assistance. It could be that someone in your church has a rental property they’re fixing up, will trade labor for the deposit, and will be happy to have someone they know in there instead of a stranger who may wreck the place. You won’t know until you ask, as hard as it is to put yourself out there.

When you are moving you want to overlap services like power in both locations by a day. However, you must call to have them read the meter for power about four days in advance. They usually have a backlog and will need to schedule you in. Also if you find a place, getting the cable and internet people scheduled early is a good idea.

Next: Computery Preparedness

Dire Straits Moving – Make a Plan, Stan – Moving Truck Budgetness – Preparation – Computery Preparedness – Binder of Doom – Organize, Sort, Declutter, and Otherwise Blow Your Stuff Up – What Do I Do With All This Junk I Don’t Want? – Needful Things for Packing – Where Do I Get Boxes? – How To Pack – Moving Tips – Moving Day/Stuffing all the Stuff – Moving with Pets (tons of cats for me) – Moving with Kids – How Do I DO Schtuff with No Home? – How Do I Eat with No Home? – Meal Plan for Dire Straits – I Moved and Now I Don’t Have Anywhere to Sit – Need Help?

We hope you enjoyed our Dire Straits Moving: Tips for Relocating in a Not-So-Pretty Situation – Homelessness and Other Hard Times Moves post

First of all, don’t panic. Okay, if you like, panic a little. Then make a plan so you can feel confident you are doing your best. Even if your best definitely isn’t what you would like to be doing. Make a plan. Make contingent plans. Make multiple budgets depending on what happens. This last time I had my regular budget continuing like nothing happened, a budget for finding something immediately (this budget had a lot of red in it), and a budget for if we were homeless for a while.

Use your local Facebook group to find real estate listings to budget for a new rental. Review your requirements, revise your expectations, and see how much it would cost to actually get a new place. This is typically your first month’s rent, plus the same amount as a security deposit (depending on your state). Sometimes there is a smaller pet deposit. It may be that you can’t pay for a moving truck to get your stuff out of storage until a later month, but getting into a place and living out of boxes is more fun than living in your car. Search all of the towns in your school district, and if that isn’t promising expand to area districts and towns where you have more family. You may find that one lovely town that has cheap rentals AND is a nice place to live. Be wary of moving to a larger city with cheap rentals, and scary neighborhoods. If you get trapped in a bad area you may be stuck, and your kids will be less likely to break the cycle of poverty.

There is a method of dealing with anxiety attacks (not that I get those) where you picture the absolute worst thing that could happen, in vivid detail. Confronting those fears helps diminish your anxiety. Collect all your problems and hurdles, and face them. Dig down to the very worst that could happen, follow all the ugly branches, and shift your Rubik’s Cube of Troubles until you have exhausted all the possibilities. When you are the Emperor of if/then situations and have considered the best responses in each case, you can make educated decisions and be smart about what you do. This also allows you to take the best advantage when things do go right.

Examine your lifestyle and budget for things that will be an adjustment to your expenses. Cut anything and everything you can. If you have no money coming in then it must stop going out. Call your utilities and see about getting on a payment plan, many companies will only do this before you are actually behind on the bill. Keep in contact with the people you owe money to, a lot of people are in trouble and if you explain what’s happening they will know what the company can do, if you do not contact them they will just send you to collections.

Also, try to be upfront with your landlord if you are renting. At one point we had a lease, but circumstances changed and my shoestring budget told me we couldn’t stay. I could contact my landlord, or wait until the money ran out and I didn’t have cash for a truck. The landlord released us from the lease without penalty. I used to help with apartment clean-outs. The filth that accumulates when you do not have electricity (and sometimes running water) is expensive for a landlord to pay someone to clean, they would much rather you move your stuff out and sweep up the place. Another time the house was foreclosed on and the new owners kicked us out despite our lease. We cooperated with them (without being pushovers, know your rights) as much as practical, and still got a good reference despite contesting eviction in court. We always paid our rent on time and worked with them, so I still had a decent reference when applying for the next place.

Anticipate an increase in costs, or something you won’t have to pay. We are on a plan for our electric bill that averages out our use and that’s our monthly payment. But if we find a place with electric included we have to pay the entire balance, which is $500. I am using almost all reusable/cloth items, so I have to buy lots of paper products, diapers, and wipes, since I won’t be able to wash the cloth products if we’re homeless. I will have to pay to go to the Laundromat, too. Also, when you move for the first month you should double your food budget to replace pantry items and perishables, and eat more expensive but quicker food as you unpack your kitchen equipment. I make my own cleaners, laundry and dishwasher detergent, and I know that I need to have the ingredients on hand to make a final batch before I pack it up, or budget the money to buy premade stuff when we need it. When staying in a transitional shelter we actually had less money than renting. We were required to save a portion of our income, plus storage, plus the laundromat, plus all those little expenses I had eliminated that I didn’t have my stuff to work around buying…

Next: Moving Truck Budgetness

Dire Straits Moving – Make a Plan, Stan – Moving Truck Budgetness – Preparation – Computery Preparedness – Binder of Doom – Organize, Sort, Declutter, and Otherwise Blow Your Stuff Up – What Do I Do With All This Junk I Don’t Want? – Needful Things for Packing – Where Do I Get Boxes? – How To Pack – Moving Tips – Moving Day/Stuffing all the Stuff – Moving with Pets (tons of cats for me) – Moving with Kids – How Do I DO Schtuff with No Home? – How Do I Eat with No Home? – Meal Plan for Dire Straits – I Moved and Now I Don’t Have Anywhere to Sit – Need Help?

We hope you enjoyed our Dire Straits Moving: Tips for Relocating in a Not-So-Pretty Situation – Homelessness and Other Hard Times Moves post