Moving as a Cleansing Process

Scene from the office:  All packed up!

With barely a week to go before the big move, the Frugal Miser Homestead has been turned upside down.  Unlike most people I enjoy the actual process of packing up and moving my things.  It's a cleansing process, a way to analyze the "things" in my life and question whether they are worthy of coming along for the adventure.

On Friday we took a huge load of donations to the Salvation Army.  Gone are the cheap desk I've hated since the day I bought it, the stack of almost new CDs I came to own after finding them in the attic of one of my properties, and dozens of perfectly wearable clothes that I haven't worn in years for various reasons.

I've resided at my current home for just over four years.  Fortunately I haven't amassed a ton of new things since I've been here.  I was able to whittle down the "office" to just what will fit in a four drawer filing cabinet (what you see in the photo are the boxes full of things that will go back into the filing cabinet when we reach our destination).  And since we are moving south, I purged the majority of my winter clothes.  A side benefit of that is the fact that winter clothes are generally thicker and take up more room, so this frees up a ton of space in my closet.

Slightly off topic but I wanted to mention:  I compared moving trucks from Budget, Penske and U-Haul.  Based on reviews and personal experience, I wanted to avoid U-Haul if possible because of the age and condition of their fleet.  Eventually I settled on Penske.  Since my move date was flexible I played with the dates on their website to find the best price.  For whatever reason, I managed to find dates that were 50% less than all the other dates available.  The move from Birmingham to Clearwater is 500+ miles, but the truck rental is under $200, including taxes.  Guess it pays to compare.