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I definitely did this last August. We had about a month to move and clean and list the old house. It was so much nicer than a crazy weekend of moving. We did do one bigger day with a rental truck to get all the larger furniture, but mostly it was us using a pickup and doing a couple of loads every day or so. I was able to unload, unpack, and get organized as I went along and that meant that there weren't boxes sitting everywhere for months afterwards.

I think if you can do it, I would definitely recommend it!

We did this somewhat for our last move. Really it was my husbands goal because he wanted to get all of the tech stuff (read: TV and computers) set up before we moved. So all of the cable stuff was done. We moved a lot quasi-essential stuff like extra pillows, sheets, wine, basics for the pantry, clothes we'd need quickly, and the kitchen items I'd need soon. We also used that time to order stuff we realized we'd need for the new place and measure for it (grill, furniture, new bathroom stuff). By the time we did our actual move, we were ready for it.

We are doing a 5 day overlap for our in town move. But really by the time we close on the new house and a day to turn in the keys to the new place its not quite that long.

Thursday - Sell our current house
Friday - Buy the new house, start cleaning at new house that afternoon
Saturday - Moving truck load 1 all boxes and most furniture. Sleep at old house on mattresses with overnight bags
Sunday - Moving truck load 2 mattresses and any other random things to be moved. Return moving truck
Monday - Unpack at new house and clean old house (we will be working short hours as well)
Tuesday - final day to clean/pack, etc and then hand over keys to the new house.

We did this last summer. I loved it. We stayed in our old house during the slow move. We moved all non essentials over the slow move period to the new house and then hired movers to move the essentials at the end. I thought it saved us a lot of stress and moving expenses with the movers.

Our last move took about a month and a half. It was pre-kids and also before we had really big furniture so we did it all with an SUV. We moved (bare) necessities over first one weekend to start living at the new house. Then we'd go grab more stuff a few times a week and unpack it as we went. We cleaned the old house as we went too. It worked very well for the stage of life we were in.

ETA: One nice thing about moving essentials first and leaving non-essentials for the end, is that towards the end a lot of it can just go straight to goodwill or the dump because you realize you don't actually need or want it.

My parents did a slow move when I was a kid and it was not a great experience on my kid end. It felt totally disconcerting, I felt like my stuff was all in limbo and nothing really felt familiar or like home for the whole move period until we were settled in the new place. My "old room" was all in boxes and felt weird and I didn't know where anything was, my "new room" didn't feel like my room either until I had all my stuff in there. I think it drug out weird moving feelings.

It wouldn't work well for me as a procrastinator. I like it move all in one sho and get as much unpacked as possible. Our last move was my quickest yet because we had a shorter closing and had to unpack fast as we were getting married a month after moving and having people visit our house during the wedding.

Hate moving! Haha.

My friends did a month ish long slow move. They didn't mind it and have a toddler, but I can see the having to run back and forth to grab stuff thing happening.

I'm debating this, we are in a rental right now while our house is being built, so I'd like to have a week or so to move between the two, however I know for a fact I'm going to want to be in our new home as soon as we can! I'm impatient like that If anything I'm hoping the builder will let us move some things over before we officially close.

We are only about 1/2 mile away.

I like to have some buffer between being out of the old place and into the new, but it's really because I like to have the new place cleaned to a certain level and having certain things set up, like closet systems, before moving my stuff in. When the actual moving happens, I prefer to do it all on one day and literally move everything, boxes and large furniture.

@justjules: Have you factored in the cost of "renting" two places for a longer time period? That extra rent could add up. Also, extra utilities costs? Gas costs going back and forth (although 1/2 mile isn't much).

I still think that doing it over 10 days seems about right.

I like a combination of these two - I've moved a bunch of times and like to spend about a week moving non-essentials over by car. My DH is a collector of many things so there are always plenty of non-essential items that can go without anyone missing them!

However, I do like to have one official "moving day" for big items with a truck. Having that deadline makes me much more efficient in my slow moving days.

All this being said, I've never been able to afford movers and if I ever move again I'm totally saving pennies to make it happen!

We JUST did this! A few thoughts:

* it was so awesome not to have to wrap/pack all of our dishes and other breakables. We just carefully put stacks in boxes and drove 2 streets over, and immediately unpacked them.
* we still had an official 'moving' day, where movers came for the big/heavy things (bed, table) and I was shocked by how much odds and ends were still left, even though the house was 90% empty.
* DS is 2.5 and he really loved the slow move. He decided he HAD to sleep at the new house 2 days before we were schedule to have the movers come for the beds. But we went with it, because happy toddler = happy life. We moved his crib over before nap, and DH and I slept on the small guest room mattress for 2 nights before our bed made it to the new house.
* on the downside, OMG it feels like we have been moving forever....