As noted above my bro-in-law works at Lowe's, and he works in Receiving. They break down and throw out boxes by the truckload, they have a particular kind that they go through like crazy that is just the right size for most basic packing and even has the little slots to stick your hands through on the sides for easy toting around.
He is already on notice to save them for me. And I've already brought home (and packed) at least a dozen boxes from work. The only thing that stopped me from doing more was that most of what I was packing to start was books, and they get too heavy and I ran out of smaller size boxes. Then I started putting them in the bottoms of bigger boxes and filling up the top half with lighter stuff that I could safely pack with them. Then I ran out of non-breakable stuff to pack, and ran out of stuff to wrap breakable stuff in... so I'm kinda stuck until I get more supplies.
I'll probably go to Lowe's tomorrow (if I'm not on the phone all day dealing with other details of this process) and get some packing paper and wrap and pick up whatever boxes I can get. I can buy some nice ones there pretty cheap as well if I have to do that.
But yes I moved in here many years ago with a couple carloads of small stuff and one van load of larger items, and the van was only about 1/2 full. But it's gonna take a truck to get me out.
We will have a yard sale at some point but the nice thing is, I'm moving into a much larger space so there are some things I was on the verge of getting rid of that I will now probably keep because, hey, I might actually want them or need them and have room for them. If nothing else I'll have room to store them until we can have a sale later in the year.
Right now I have a living room, bedroom (which also doubles as my "office"), tiny eat-in kitchen and one bathroom.
In the condo I'll have a living room, den, dining room, eat-in kitchen (which is probably twice the size of what I've got now and three (!!!!!) bedrooms. Lots of closets, plus extra storage space in the garage. I will probably need to leave trails of breadcrumbs around the place so I don't get lost.
