The hardest part of moving is keeping track of your stuff

Sad play on a fantastic 2gether song. You’re welcome.

When you move a lot, you do need to keep track of your stuff. My parents created an inventory of their possessions that moved with us all over the United States. Mac and I decided to do the same with our belongings. We kept the design pretty basic: information about each item and a picture.

You will need:

Paper to print inventory forms
Photos of your household goods
Adhesive dots, tape runner, glue stick
Binder(s)
Tab dividers
Documentation for household goods (receipts, warranties, etc)
Sheet protectors

Type the info in each form (we have a hard copy and a digital copy), print it out, and attach a 4×6 photo of each item with scrapbook photo glue dots (the digital version of the item is then inserted and saved). I wait until Snapfish or Winkflash runs a special for penny prints. Sometimes, it can be helpful to have more than one photo, and those can be attached to the back of each page.

Find a decent sized binder (large enough to hold and organize your inventory) or a separate binder for each category of goods. We went with separate binders for each category. Each page has a colored border. At first, this was just to jazz up a rather boring page. I changed the color of each page to correspond with the color of the binder in case the it falls and bursts open. This might cause emotional meltdowns to this day (like the one time my three-inch, 600+ page audit program fell off my desk and EVERYTHING FELL OUT. I almost cried. A situation where color coding helped the clean-up process).

Clearly, my rage was justified.

Next, you can divide your goods into categories. This is purely for organizational ease, and it can be an easy way to quickly document everything in your house. We chose: electronics, furniture, media (books, DVDs, Blu-Rays, etc), wall art, kitchen wares, and valuable goods (jewelry).

Now you need to document each item. I accomplished this by walking through each room and writing down what was in it. I over-utilized the “Save As” function and created a new document saved as the name of each item. For books and movies, I created a master Excel document and just listed the titles. No need to print out 30 sheets for all of my Disney movies. Or my four six copies of Titanic. Or my ten books on Anne Boleyn.

To fill out the forms: list where you bought the item or where you can buy it (Macy’s, Bed, Bath, and Beyond, Target, a local store) and the actual retail price (pretend that it will never be on sale again and you will have to pay full price to replace it). Also record any visible damage before the move, so it’s easy to see if something breaks (we purchased several scratch-and-dent coffee tables and a floor model chair). In the off chance your movers damage or lose something, you have a dollar amount and a evidence of the original condition to file a claim with the moving company.

I’m really Type A, overly organize everything, and like to click through short folder lists instead of a massive list of files.

My household inventory folders

What you find in the Furniture folder

A unique document for all bedroom furniture (includes the guest room)

Collect any and all documents you have for each item (receipts, warranties, etc). Neatly stuff those and the inventory record with photo into a sheet protector. Place in the binder behind the correct tab divider. Repeat ad nauseam until you’re done!

If you stuck around through this whole post, bless you. I truly hope this information can be useful to anyone else who’s moving soon. Any of y’all maintain a home inventory?