As a student who is moving to a new student home every year for at least 3 years then the process of moving becomes quite regular and perhaps by the time it comes to moving for your final year you finally have a system. However, it might be nice to be able to move efficiently a little sooner than that.
Student Move
A student move is likely to be local to the point of immediate in terms of old location to new location. In fact, I know students who moved next door or just a few houses down the same road from year to year. For this reason, using a removals company is usually a hugely unnecessary expense and definitely not worth doing unless you’re moving to a new postcode. Therefore, try to find alternative ways to get your possessions from your old address to your new address.
Student Mobility
I know students who have managed to get hold of shopping trolleys or wheelbarrows and just do multiple trips with their trolley full of all the things they own and I’ve known others who have attached boxes, chairs and a whole host of other things to skateboards or scooters and dragged their lives around the town. For those who want to move cheaply but not in full view of the world there has never been a better time to have a friend with a car who you can reimburse for their help with petrol money and a lovely home cooked dinner in your new abode. Or if this isn’t an option and you have loads of stuff then hiring a van, which you may be eligible to drive, or a man with a van is a very valid option too. Of course one of the more obvious choices for moving would have to be getting the parents or guardians to fulfil their official role as taxi driver and move you in. This is extra useful if your contracts don’t overlap and you’ve taken everything home for the summer.
Student Contracts
The contract overlap times are another thing to take into consideration. A lot of contracts will have a strange gap where your contract will end on the last day of the month and the next one will start the following day. This sounds logical but in practice it means that all of your stuff has to be out of one house and the keys handed in on close of business on the last day of your old contract but you cannot get into your new house until start of business on the following day. There are ways to remedy this. One is to ask the current tenants of your new house if you can move your stuff in on the day they move out and just find somewhere to sleep on the intervening night. Another is to come up with an arrangement with your new agency/landlord where they allow you to move in before the contract start date if the house has already been vacated and is just waiting for you. The easiest thing to do, especially if you want to work at home over the summer, is to stay at home until the new contract starts and then move before term starts.
Therefore, a student move should be treated very differently to a domestic move of primary addresses. It should not cost nearly as much and hopefully it’ll be a lot less stressful especially because you will be surrounded by a whole town of people doing exactly the same thing at exactly the same time and you can all lean on each other.
Daniel Stenton is a student and a blogger sharing useful tips how to organize your Barnet relocation.