How to work out what moving house actually cost you
Moving is a short, expensive project spread across two or three months and a dozen categories. Framed as ordinary monthly spending it is unreadable; framed as a project it produces a number worth having.
Moving is the clearest example of a household expense that a monthly budget cannot represent. It is concentrated, it spans a boundary between two or three months, it touches almost every category you have, and a good deal of it is money that leaves and later comes back. Looked at as ordinary spending, the months around a move are simply chaos.
Looked at as a project with a start and an end, it becomes one of the more useful things a household ever records, because the total is genuinely surprising and because you will want it the next time somebody suggests moving.
Frame it as a project, not as two bad months
The single decision that makes the difference is to create one label — a category, a tag, a note you use consistently — and put it on everything connected with the move regardless of what kind of expense it is. The removal firm, the deposit, the letting agency fees, the first shop for the new place, the drill you bought because the old one is in a box somewhere, the takeaway on the night the kitchen was not usable.
Because those items would otherwise scatter across transport, home, food and admin, where they are individually unremarkable and collectively invisible. The point of the label is not accounting neatness. It is that at the end you can ask one question and get one number, and there is no other way to get it.
Start the label a month before you think you need it. The move begins earlier than the moving date: viewings, travel to them, a holding payment, the fee for a survey or a reference check, the first boxes. People who start labelling on the day of the move typically miss a third of the cost.
The money that leaves and comes back
Renting produces the largest example of a category that a simple record handles badly: a deposit. It leaves your account, it is not spending, and some or all of it returns months later, sometimes reduced by a deduction you will spend an evening disputing.
The clean way to handle this is the same as with any reimbursement. Record the deposit leaving on the day it left, because your account really was that much lighter and that is what made the month difficult. Record the return of the old deposit as a separate entry on the day it arrives. Do not attempt to net them off in advance, both because the timing rarely lines up and because the amount returned is frequently not the amount paid.
When you total the project at the end, you can then treat the deposits properly: the true cost of the move includes any deduction and any difference between the two deposits, not the full sum that moved in each direction. That calculation is trivial once both entries exist and impossible if you tried to be clever at the time.
A related trap is the overlap. Most moves involve a period of paying for two places at once — a fortnight of double rent, or a mortgage plus rent, or a month of storage. It is a real cost of moving and it is recorded under housing, where it looks like an ordinary bill. Label it or you will lose it.
What belongs in the total
The boundary is worth deciding in advance, because otherwise you will decide it at the end in whichever direction produces the more comfortable answer.
- Clearly in: the removal firm or the hired van and its fuel, packing materials, letting or agency fees, survey and legal costs, cleaning at the old place, storage, any difference in deposits, the overlap period, redirecting post, and reconnection or transfer charges for utilities and broadband.
- Usually in: the first big shop for the new place, replacement of things that did not survive or did not fit, and the food bought during the days when cooking was not possible. These are genuine costs of moving even though they look like ordinary spending.
- Arguable: curtains, a new sofa, paint. A move is when households replace things they had been tolerating, and calling all of that a moving cost inflates the number. A reasonable line is that replacing something that no longer works in the new place is a moving cost, and upgrading something you had already been meaning to upgrade is not.
- Not in: the ongoing difference in rent or mortgage. That is the cost of living somewhere else, not the cost of getting there, and mixing it in makes the project total meaningless.
- Worth noting even though it is not money: days of unpaid leave taken to move, and the driving. If someone took leave, write it in the note. It is part of the honest answer.
The tail is longer than anyone expects
The visible part of a move ends when the van drives away. The spending does not. For six to ten weeks afterwards there is a steady stream of small purchases that exist only because you moved: a different size of curtain rail, a second set of keys cut, a shelf, an adaptor, the thing that was definitely in one of the boxes and has been bought again.
Households that stop labelling on moving day capture the dramatic part and miss the tail, and the tail is not small. Keep the label running for two months after the move and then close it deliberately, on a date you choose, rather than letting it fade out. Closing it is what makes the number final and therefore usable.
It is also worth resisting the reflex to feel bad about the tail while it is happening. A household in a new place is reconstructing a set of arrangements that took years to build in the old one, and doing it under time pressure. The elevated spending for two months afterwards is a feature of moving, not evidence of anything about you.
What to do with the number afterwards
Write it down somewhere that is not the ledger, with a one-line description of the move: the distance, whether you used a firm or did it yourself, whether it was rented or bought, and roughly how much stuff there was. On its own the figure is not very portable, and with those details attached it becomes the single best estimate you will ever have for the next one.
The other use is more immediate. If moving is something your household does every couple of years, the project total tells you what that pattern costs over a decade, which is a fact that is easy to avoid noticing when each individual move is filed away as an unusual couple of months. Whether that changes anything is not the ledger business. But it is the kind of thing people say afterwards they wish they had seen written down.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best way to track moving costs?
Use one label or category on everything connected with the move, whatever kind of expense it is, and start it about a month before the moving date. The costs otherwise scatter across housing, transport, home and food, where each one looks unremarkable and the total is impossible to recover.
How should I record a rental deposit?
As a separate entry on the day it leaves, and record the return of your old deposit as its own entry when it arrives. Netting them off in advance fails on both counts, because the timing rarely lines up and the amount returned is frequently reduced by a deduction.
Should new furniture count as a moving cost?
A reasonable line is that replacing something which no longer works in the new place counts, while upgrading something you had already been meaning to replace does not. A move is when households renew things they had been tolerating, and counting all of that inflates the figure until it stops being comparable to anything.
How long do moving costs carry on for?
Typically six to ten weeks after the move, in a steady tail of small purchases that exist only because you moved. Keep the label running for around two months and then close it on a date you choose, so the total is final rather than fading out.
Should the higher rent at the new place count as a moving cost?
No. That is the cost of living somewhere else rather than the cost of getting there, and including it makes the project total meaningless and impossible to compare with a future move. Keep it in ordinary housing spending where it belongs.
Try it for one month
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