I knew my Edinburgh house move would be expensive, but this cost is shocking

I thought we’d be onto the box packing and bubble wrapping stage by now.

Perhaps that sounds premature, but I’m not a last minute sort of person. Unlike most other journalists, who thrive on the adrenaline of writing something just before the deadline, I do not like being close to the wire in any aspect of my life. It’s too stressful. I prefer to do things WAY in advance. The earlier, the better.

However, my dreams of hyper organisation are being swiftly scuppered. We remain in decluttering limbo, because we’re stuck at the booking-the-removal-firm phase.

We got our first quote a fortnight ago and it was a shocker.

I should have known. The bloke who came round had a very smart fleece on, and it had a cool logo. You pay big money for branding. Their website was slick, with drone footage, and their vans have beautiful pristine livery.

He inspected our house, in a business-like but friendly fashion. He made us feel safe and loved. We knew that nothing would get broken on his watch.

On removal day, they promised to put cones out, and do a parking suspension at our new home, so there would be no problems getting unloaded. Great. They disassemble and reassemble beds. Our clothes would be put neatly on rails.

There was also an additional packing service, for an extra fee. That would involve coming over the day before the move, and getting everything organised neatly into boxes.

My thoughts immediately turned to them rifling through my underwear drawer. I’d do that bit myself before they arrived, it’d be fine.

Would we like that service? Well, go on then, let’s have a wee quote.

They got back to us a few days later, and it turned out that we would need a few more removal technicians than they’d thought, and that their initial estimate had not included VAT. Watch out for that one. It is a Very Annoying Tactic.

For our two and a bit bedroom flat move, the total cost would be over £1600. The packing service was nearly £500. My tea nearly shot right out of my nostrils.

It seemed incredible, as that price is probably more than the total value of all our furniture, which is 90 per cent Ikea discount section, 8 per cent junk shop and 2 per cent gifted or inherited. I mean, we don’t even like most of our stuff.

I’m guessing that this firm usually moves Lord Fwa-Fwas between townhouses. The sorts who do their weekly shop at Lyon & Turnbull.

They need someone to swaddle then coddle their possessions into a new nest.

We don’t really need their required levels of insurance cover either, as a ten year old Billy bookcase is probably only worth three pounds.

Anyway, as this is my first time using a removal firm, I had been rather naive.

The last time we moved, 12 years ago, we were going from a rented flat across the street to our bought property. So, we didn’t need removals and decided to do the transition ourselves. We carried everything over the course of a weekend. It was horrible and exhausting. We must have zig-zagged across the road about 200 times, as if we were trying to escape alligators while carrying our worldly possessions. At least there was no furniture.

As we’re not that removal firm’s typical customer, we have been gathering quotes like nuts in May (and into June).

We went from the tippet-y top, to the rock bottom, thanks to various recommendations from equally cheapskate friends.

The most affordable came over and wasn’t wearing any sort of branded fleece. His vans are probably white and have “clean me” scribbled on the back doors.

He looked round our living room and said, “So, are you really taking EVERYTHING here”, with a theatrical sweep of his hand. His jaw dropped as he looked in the cupboards and said he recommended that people get decluttering as soon as possible. We didn’t bother explaining that we’d started weeks ago.

He sent us a quote with shouty random capped-up letters, ie. ‘the pRice wILL be’, which was clearly tip-tapped out on his mobile phone at speed. There would be no cones, unless we procured them, or a fancy packing service. Nobody would be wrapping our pants in scented tissue paper.

We’d have to organise the council parking suspension thing ourselves.

The boxes wouldn’t be supplied for free, but £1.50 each. That’s cost price, he said. No wonder the box industry is in such dire straits, I thought. I’m joking, I have no idea of their situation.

Still, he may have been hallyracket, but his estimate was less than half of the original quote from the other guys. Also, my friend likes him, because he was kind to her on a move, when she was crying because she didn’t want to leave her old place.

This one was filed under maybe.

We’ve now got three more quotes, with most of them hovering around the thousand quid mark.

That’s still a heck of a lot, but we’re splitting it, and we don’t want to implode with stress on the day. We may not want branded fleeces, but we need some professionalism.

I certainly don’t think we really want to be finding our own traffic cones.

However, I’m more than happy to pack my own pants.

Read more: “I knew clearing out my Edinburgh flat would be tought, but I didn’t expect it to be so embarrassing”.