Line 31 on the list was the optician, and I only found it because a letter arrived at the house on 17 February addressed to the flat, with a yellow Royal Mail sticker across the front. It was a reminder that my eye test was overdue. I stood on the hall carpet holding it, thinking: I have a spreadsheet, a notebook and a very smug sense of being organised, and I still nearly lost an optician.
The list in six piles
I started the list on the second of February from a handful of post on the mat. By the end of the month it had 31 lines, and I'd sorted it into six piles.
- Money (8): two current accounts, the joint account, a savings account, the Lifetime ISA provider, two workplace pensions and Premium Bonds.
- Government (6): HMRC for each of us, the DVLA for both driving licences, the electoral register through the council and the Student Loans Company.
- Health (3): the GP, the dentist and the optician. The GP didn't change, since the same practice covers Walkley, but it still wanted the new address.
- Work (2): my HR record and Matt's. I process other people's address changes every week and had left my own until the second month.
- Car (3): my Fiesta's V5C, the car insurance and the breakdown cover.
- Everyday (9): two phones, TV Licensing, the Royal Mail redirection, two online shops, two charity direct debits and the gym.
The order we did them in
The bank came first, the same evening, because it's the account where a wrong address does the most damage fastest: cards, statements, anything with a PIN in it. After that came the ones that send official post that can't be missed.
HMRC was a few minutes on the personal tax account. The DVLA's website says you must tell them as soon as you move, with a fine of up to £1,000 mentioned somewhere near the bottom of the page, so that one went up the list. The new V5C for the Fiesta arrived in a week, and the photocard licences took about two. The electoral register went in that group too, since it feeds the credit files that lenders look at, or so I've read.
Pensions and HR came next, then the health trio, then the car, then everything else as its post turned up. Most took about four minutes. The exceptions were the gym, which wanted a paper form handed over the desk in person, and my own employer's HR system, where I spent a very odd ten minutes typing my address into the same screen I use for other people's. Anything I couldn't finish in one sitting got a line in the notebook and a deadline of the following Sunday. By the middle of the month, 28 lines were ticked and I thought I was done.
The safety net
The redirection was the best-spent money of the move. It runs for six months and cost just under £50 for the two of us at the time, because we have different surnames and Royal Mail charges by name. It started on the Monday after the move, and within three weeks it had caught the three things we'd forgotten.
Premium Bonds turned up first: an NS&I letter I opened over the washing-up, remembering the £100 I'd bought in 2019 and never thought about again. Then a brown envelope from the Student Loans Company, which Matt held at arm's length as if it might go off. And the optician.
That's what redirection is for, but I'd like it on record that I would rather have remembered. What I'd change is the start date. I should have written the lines down in January, before the move, instead of working backwards from a pile of post on a doormat.
The one that isn't on it yet
There's no vet on the list, because there's no animal. Matt has started saying "when we get a cat" in the way other people say "when we win the lottery". If one turns up, line 32 is ready.
