Whether you’re coming to the end of your time at university or just going home for the summer, you’re going to have to shift some stuff around. Even if you’re coming back in September, you may need to clear your room in college, or you might want to empty your student house for security reasons. You can trust your housemates (probably) but can you trust their feral mates from home, who will inevitably come for a visit while you are away?

Student life is hectic – but with a bit of planning you can avoid the need to abandon furniture or expensive textbooks that you can’t transport.

How will you be moving?

Even if you moved into your halls of residence by packing your stuff into a car, you’ll probably have accumulated more during your time studying and it may not be possible to move out in the same way. So either you need to:

• pay for a van.
• dump some stuff
• store some stuff

Let’s take each of those in turn.

Hire a van to move out of uni

It can save a lot of hassle to just hire a van to move out of college accommodation, rather than risking driving an overloaded car. The cost of van-hire varies , depending on where you are in the country, but you should get a few quotes to make sure you’re getting a good deal. Save money by opting for self-drive – but you may have to pay extra if you want to drop the van off near your home rather than driving it back to your university town.

How can you get rid of unwanted household goods?

If you know you need to shed some of your things, start a few weeks before you plan to leave. Trying to get rid of it all quickly at the last minute means you’ll end up either selling it for much less money than it’s worth, or simply taking it to the tip. You might be tempted to leave unwanted goods in your room – but remember your accommodation provider will probably charge you for disposal.

Some student unions hold sales and swaps and you should take advantage of these, or organise one yourself. You can also offer things on Freegle, Gumtree or eBay, but again, don’t leave this to the last minute. Textbooks are expensive, and some of yours may be worth quite a bit, so put in the effort to ensure you get their full value.

Charity shops seek out household goods – but don’t burden them with chipped crockery and greyish tea towels. Or it may be worth offering gently-used domestic items to the local domestic violence shelter. Shelters need domestic goods to help people furnishing a new home in difficult circumstances. Find a contact via your student union’s welfare rep.

The dustbin and recycling boxes should be your last resort. Depending on where you live, overfilling your bins can result in fines from the council or sanctions from your college. Consider getting together with mates to do a run to the recycling and domestic waste centre if you’ve got more stuff than the bins can handle. Or at least warn your parents that they may be taking a carload up the tip when they come to bring you home!

Where can you store your college stuff?

Living out with housemates? You can simply lock your room – but should your student house get broken into, this might act as a temptation rather than a deterrent as people don’t usually lock away low-value items.

Your college or university halls of residence might allow you to store items in a box room. Another option is to club together with some friends and rent a dorm room for the entire summer and put all your boxes and cases in there. These are cost-effective options, but not particularly secure, and it probably won’t be possible to insure your stuff either, which is bad news if something goes wrong like a fire or a break-in.

Self-storage is another option: that way you get complete peace of mind because only you will have access to the unit. There are ways to save money on your storage and many storage companies offer discounts to students, so ask when you book to see if this applies, or check the National Union of Students discounts list. You can insure your domestic goods in storage through Store and Insure. If you’re worried about the cost of self-storage insurance per month, remember that we can offer insurance coverage for domestic goods in self-storage from just 57p per week per £1,000 sums insured. Once you’ve got your storage organised, contact Store and Insure and ask for an insurance quote.

So now you’re ready to go home for the summer

All you’ve got to do is let your parents know when you’re coming home.