Our moving day nightmare….

Did you see my post a couple of weeks ago about how everything that could go wrong when we were selling our house did go wrong?

Well today I thought I’d share our moving day story, because it went about as smoothly as you would expect based on our house move journey up until that point…. 😁

(we moved in the last week of February but my operation happened shortly after and then I was getting better so it’s taken me this long to share)

We decided early on to book a moving van rather than try and do it all ourselves. I knew I wouldn’t be able to do any heavy lifting as I was still two weeks away from my operation, so it just made sense to get help rather than try and struggle through it.

We’d been told that things usually happen around lunchtime on moving day, so we spent the morning doing all the final bits. That meant packing up anything we hadn’t already boxed, taking apart furniture, cleaning and generally trying to get the house ready to empty as soon as we got the go-ahead.

Looking back, we massively underestimated how much there was left to do. We’d been packing bits and pieces for months, but I’d never let myself go all in with it because I just couldn’t quite believe the move was actually going to happen after everything we’d been through. That definitely came back to bite us on the day.

Miss Frugal arrived at some point during the morning and honestly, she was amazing. She turned up with a bag full of cleaning stuff and just got on with it. While my partner was taking down beds and moving boxes around, she was cleaning everything, and I was just focused on filling boxes and labelling them properly so we knew where everything needed to go at the other end.

Our solicitor was in touch throughout the morning saying it hadn’t quite happened yet but everything was on track, so we just kept going. Even so, it started to feel like an impossible task to get everything packed, loaded and cleaned in time.

Then lunchtime came and we got a call to say their solicitor had gone out for lunch, so everything was on hold until he got back. At that point, our solicitor was trying to manage expectations and said it was very likely to go through that day, but not guaranteed. Given how awkward their solicitor had been throughout the whole process, she advised us not to load the van just yet, just in case.

We carried on packing anyway, and when the removal company called to check if we were ready, we asked them to hang on for an hour while we waited for an update.

An hour later, we’d pretty much got the house ready to empty. The only things left were a pile of bricks (a big pile), the sheds, the bike shed and the summer house, and the plan was to load those straight into the van once the main house was done.

Then we got the call to say everything was nearly complete and we were just waiting for the funds to come through.

That was enough for us to start loading the van, and to be fair, that part went really smoothly. The removal men took over the heavy lifting and got everything loaded quickly while my partner finished off the last bits inside.

By about 2pm, the van was full and the house was basically empty, so we were just waiting for the final call to say we could go.

And then came the call we didn’t want. The funds had been released, but they hadn’t been received yet, which meant we couldn’t move.

At that point, we were in a bit of a limbo. We desperately needed to get the first load over so we could bring the van back and deal with everything outside, which we’d estimated would take about an hour with my partner, the removal men and Master Frugal, who arrived around 3pm to help.

3.30 came and went, and the money still hadn’t arrived. Our solicitor was chasing it, but she did warn us that if it got much later, the move might not happen that day at all. It was honestly one of the most stressful parts of the whole process, just sitting there waiting and not being able to do anything.

We finally got the call just before 4pm to say everything had gone through, but by that point the removal men only had about an hour left before they had to leave. They said they could do one trip, but that was it, which meant all of the outside stuff wasn’t going to make it over that day.

I headed to the new house with Miss Frugal so we could start directing where everything needed to go, while my partner and Master Frugal stayed behind to deal with the last bits and start loading the outside stuff into our trailer.

When we arrived, our sellers were still there and they were absolutely lovely. They’d even unpacked some of our food shopping for us, which I definitely wasn’t expecting but really appreciated in that moment.

Not long after, our buyers arrived at our old house and they were just as nice. They told us to take our time with the outside because the house itself was empty, which took a lot of pressure off.

We ended up doing two trailer runs that evening to move what we could, and then they told us they didn’t need to use the outside space straight away, so we could keep a set of keys and move the rest over the following week.

Honestly, after everything that had happened, that level of kindness at the end made such a difference.

I’d love you follow me on Twitter and it would be amazing to see you over on my Facebook page and on Instagram. If you’re interested, you can find out more about me here and while I’ve got your attention, if you’re wondering why some of my posts lately are a little bit less frugal then have a read of this post. 😉

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