9 Moving Mistakes That Are Okay to Make

A lot can go wrong when you’re moving. A bottle of shampoo might spill in a box covering all its other contents in a soapy mess. The truck rental company might have logged your reservation wrong and given you the wrong size vehicle. It could be snowing or raining or sleeting or 105 degrees outside. Things going wrong is just part of the moving process—it happens to the best of us. But most of those things aren’t really your fault so much as a matter of bad luck. Except, that is, those moving mistakes that were actually in your control.

No move is perfect. What matters is you get from point A to point B safely and with your belongings intact. That being said, even the most experienced of movers make mistakes. And often, it’s nothing worth stressing over. Here are nine moving mistakes that you’ll likely make at some point, but that aren’t worth getting upset about.

You don’t label your boxes

You leave everything to the last minute

You forget to pack an essentials bag

You underestimate how many boxes you’ll need

You don’t buy enough padding

You don’t get rid of stuff

You leave the kitchen for last

You don’t get everything done before moving day

You take a long time to unpack

There’s a pattern in these moving mistakes, which is that while none of them are particularly horrible, they’re all inconvenient and result in more work for you. But with most of them, you only have to do them once to realize you’re better off not making the same mistake during the next move. Live and learn, right?