I’d love suggestions for how to move my recent college graduate 700 miles away for a new job. They want her out there asap and she happens to be at a professional conference this week, so I’m doing some brainstorming.
We will take one trip to move her with our minivan and her car. She has musical instruments that will take up space.
What is best to buy there? What’s best to bring?
There’s a Walmart in town and a metropolitan area a couple hours from where she’ll be that will probably have more options. I’ve got to look into IKEA locations!
She’ll need a bed, bedding, something for clothes, table, chairs? What am I missing?
Is it crazy just drive out with the basics and hope she’ll find a place in a few days as long as she sets up visits to apartments ahead of time?
Figure out how much room you’ll have left in your van/car after her personal stuff (instruments, clothing, important personal items) and go from there. A combo of Amazon Prime, Ikea, Target will get you just about anything she will need. I know someone who recently even ordered a box spring from Amazon - how great!
As far as the actual apt itself, how much do you know about the city she is moving to??? Do apts seem plentiful in her budget? Do you know good parts of town?? I’d spend a good amount of time researching all that before hand.
Just had pretty much the same conversation with Happykid who is headed to grad school 8 hours away this fall. She is identifying apartments to visit online, and through a realtor who is a friend of a friend of a friend. We plan on two to three days of apartment hunting, and will set her up with a blow-up mattress for starters. What doesn’t fit in the cars at move in time will be something for her to track down later at the thrift shops. Fortunately for her, we can apartment hunt in advance of the move.
On our last cross-country move, we holed up at a Super 8 while apartment hunting. This took only a couple of days, but our options were limited by what was immediately available. That is likely to be your daughter’s situation as well. She can ask the human resources office at employer for suggestions about the local market. They may have helpful ideas for her.
A few other suggestions - possibly Costco.com? Also, you could start looking on sites like OfferUp, Craigslist or local Facebook Marketplace pages for nice used furniture items near where she’ll be living (like the week of the move date). You could use your van to pick up the items while you are there.
It’s going to depend a lot on the local rental market. You can furnish over time of you can at least get set up with a comfortable bed and stuff to cook with in the kitchen.
This may not be available where your child’s moving, but we did a furniture package through Cort. My kid’s budget was tight and he wasn’t super fussy about his furniture so it worked well for him. The furniture he bought was pre-used but with the kind of scuffing he would have put on his own furniture in a couple of weeks of use. There are different grades, so you have to make sure you end up with A (new) or B (gently used) grade furniture, not the D grade stuff with noticeable damage. We went to a local Cort showroom to check on the quality, which I found to be much better than that of IKEA furniture. He went with a 3-room package for $1499.00 https://www.cortclearancefurniture.com
As our gift I took him to Bed Bath and Beyond to do a sweep for all the things he’d need-dishes, towels, hangers, wastebaskets, cleaning supplies, etc. He put them on hold and picked them up a couple of weeks later when he moved in but you can also have BB&B deliver.
One of my kids was far from home. Thankfully we owned a van at the time. Kid had his own car. We loaded up both cars and drove, alternating who was driving.
He found an apartment sight unseen, it was a small town with few options so he picked an apartment complex, figured he could last a year after college housing.
Both kids had a bed and a tv when they moved but honestly little else, kitchen stuff. We did a big shop at Walmart. He bought a couch a little later and had it delivered. D bought a couch, love seat that she’s still using. Ordered tables from wayfair or overstock.
My advice, bring what fits and buy everything else. Don’t buy a ton if you think this isn’t going to last long.
For S, he only spent a year far away. Transitioned into a traveling position and lived with his girlfriend on the weekends. The harder part was getting his stuff from far away place to his permanent place. His job was reluctant to pay to move his stuff. But that’s a really long story for another day.
We helped ds get situated in an apartment last summer for an internship. He used a blow up mattress and his dorm bedding. We bought a card table and four chairs at Walmart for $50. We bought another $100 worth of items for the kitchen, bath, cleaning products, trash cans, etc there as well. They have those plastic draw thingies for about $20-$30. Ds didn’t even want one of those, though. It wasn’t glamorous, but certainly worked fine for the ten weeks of his internship.
My point is that I would rather blow a couple hundred bucks on temporary, make-do items and take my time picking out what I wanted longer term. Best not to feel rushed into buying furniture. Less likely to have buyer’s remorse on your choices if not rushed, I think.
S moved from LA to a new living space in DC. He decided slowly which things we wanted to sell and put them on Craigslist or disposed of them. His employer paid moving expenses so he had the rest moved and stored until he go to DC many months later. He slowly shipped things piece by piece from HNL and also SF. Mostly, he sold whatever he could, just because lots of his stuff was IKEA and he figured he could buy just as good stuff in DC as he had in LA. If you’re not sure how much space your kiddo will have in the new city, err on the side of less is better.
When I moved into an apartment just after graduating from law school, I only moved a dresser and a folding mattress, plus my clothing, bedding, towels and some kitchen stuff. It was enough.
Both my darling boys have moved from Connecticut/NYC to California. Of course they are in different cities. One had an employer paid relocation – the other did not. With the paid relocation, he had movers take everything including his bed and his (ack!!) motorcycle. I flew out with him for 48 hours to apartment hunt. He’d set up appointments ahead of time and found several that would work.
The other son did not have paid relocation – sold his furnishings to the incoming NYC roommate and flew out to live with friends in the new city. We gifted him a bed purchased on macys.com and had it delivered.
An air mattress with an electric pump makes an apartment inhabitable immediately. The only other things the kid absolutely needs right away are bedding, enough dishes and utensils to make it possible to consume takeout food, her personal electronics, and perhaps a few lamps if there aren’t any ceiling lights in the apartment.
My son actually lived in an apartment that contained nothing except an air mattress and his bicycle for weeks. Once he had an Internet connection and could set up his laptop on the kitchen counter, he considered it quite livable. He eventually bought a desk and chair, a TV, a kitchen table and chairs, and some other amenities, but he didn’t buy an actual bed for six months and he didn’t buy a car for about five years.
Yes, folding dense foam mattresses and air mattresses are very versatile and will be useful later after they get a bed, when guests visit. It allows the young person more flexibility for moving to a better location when the option arises. I graduated from the folding mattress to a regular mattress on the floor and didn’t get a real bed until just before my wedding many years later.
My son moved from his college town in Vermont to Seattle almost three years ago. He pretty much just took two suitcases and bought everything on-line and at local second hand stores within walking distance. Costco and Amazon pretty much deliver everything. We offered to go out but he said he would figure it out. It did make a difference that he moved into a two bedroom apartment as the new roommate so the basics were there. A few months ago he moved into his own place and my daughter and I went to Ikea with him to get a sofa and a few smaller items. All that is to say, that you really don’t have to stress about setting everything up just so. Part of the fun of getting your first place is finding stuff here and there.
My daughters have found and moved into their own apartments since graduating from college: two places in San Diego, four in New York City. I’m a big fan of providing moral and financial support but not having to actually travel cross-country to help with moves.
Will she be getting an apartment on her own or getting a bedroom in an apartment with roommates? If she is sharing a kitchen and living area, she will only need to furnish a bedroom.
Going to add Wayfair to the list of places to order stuff from.
I helped furnish my daughter’s post-graduation apartment (a small 3rd floor studio walk up). She had kitchen stuff from her dorm days (she had lived in suites with kitchens). Ordered her a bed, mattress, dresser, and end table from crate and barrel - which they delivered and assembled. Ordered her bar stools for her kitchen area from Wayfair which they shipped and she assembled. Got her an Ikea chair and a floor lamp which we drove to her. Ordered a window AC and countertop oven from Amazon.
She basically used her existing bedding, towels, etc. The stuff she needed extra was bought at Target, BBB, or Amazon.
Many apartments still have a shared laundry area (and you can use coins or credit cards).