Today I’m pretty much just going to complain about moving and what an abject mess it always seems to be.

So I’ve found a London-based side hustle, if anyone is looking for one – rent out automatic cargo vans.

The project this has been to figure out a cost effective way to move two people’s apartments (one is really only a bedroom worth of stuff) 90 minutes outside of London. My word.

We looked at movers and couldn’t find any under £400 and they were constantly flummoxed when we would request two stops in London and then a trip out to Peterborough.

Is it really that weird?

So then we actually looked at renting in a cargo van in Peterborough, which I was way more excited about as the only driver between the two of us – I would absolutely rather have the harder part of the day first and just drop off the van near our new home at the end of the day.

But it was impossible to find an automatic cargo van rental there too – though two websites claimed to have them but they did not respond to email inquiries or phone calls.

My favorite solution we found was an automatic van rental in London, for about £300 for a 4 hours or so rental, with an added surcharge fee to drop it off in Peterborough instead of London at more than £600.

I have been so spoiled by my family always helping me move at home and the fact that my dad is a contractor and has always had a large van.

Sigh.

Another exciting adventure was that I had to give notice on my flat ages ago and we confirmed this place we’re moving almost a month ago – and because the landlord was holding up one piece of paper, we signed the contract to move like 48 hours before we actually did.

Genuine homeless fears over here (I suppose we would’ve gone to my partner’s parents, but not ideal with a full apartment’s worth of stuff and the fact that we would’ve had to deal with the moving van debacles twice).

24Also, why on earth are cardboard boxes so expensive and so hard to find? In the US, you just go to a store and ask them for their old boxes. I could not find an option like that here.

I am also horrified with myself that I moved here with two suitcases two and a half years ago and I have amassed like 20 boxes of stuff in the meantime. I never thought I was a hoarder but… I am a little bit of a hoarder. I have a weird number of boxes that aren’t large enough to be useful moving that I was just keeping a pile of in some closet like a deranged little raccoon and even as I told myself I have to toss them, I kept thinking, but it’s a good box. So sturdy.

I would say one tiny win is that we moved the day after Amazon Prime day, which, incidentally, even if it is an evil empire, that is the day to move. I had a shopping cart of stuff we knew we’d need to buy and knocked almost $100 off the price of some things.

What tips do you have for others moving house?