​When taking a new job with a company right after school, most companies (in my limited, manufacturing-specific experience) will give you a modest moving stipend if you are relocating by more than 50 miles to come work for them. If you are a good enough actor to appear competent and motivated after you start working (check out “20 Pieces Of Advice For New Graduates”) your company might actually upgrade your title and add a nickel to your pay. We call this a promotion. For those of you who are not the 11 loyal readers following my Twitter feed, I just received a promotion last month. I moved from the bright lights of Houston, Texas, to the swamplands of rural Louisiana, where the alligators outnumber the people three to one. I wanted to share some of the moving tips I learned along the way.

1. Spend as little of your moving allowance as possible. I know it seems obvious, but this is WAY easier said than done. Here’s the trick: expense reports. Save every single receipt of yours that is not fuel related (see #2) and throw everything else on an expense report. Any and all meals, your first grocery store run, the administration fee on your new apartment, fees on driver’s licenses and car registration (if you’re moving across state lines), and even a pet deposit fee if you have one. Are you starting to get the picture? The worst they can say is no, and then you have your moving allowance to cover it. It’s a point of personal pride that I was able to convince accounting to reimburse me for a full back massage; I needed it to cope with the stresses of moving, right? Companies with profit margins less than 30 percent might care a little more about your expenses, but that’s why I work for the oil industry.

2. Drive as much as possible and keep fastidious records of where you drove, along with how many miles you put on your car. Your company should reimburse mileage, and most companies (at least that I’m aware of) will match the government’s reimbursement rate of $0.56 a mile. Let’s pull out our cell phone calculators for a second. If I moved 300 miles away from Houston, that means my company paid me $168 extra dollars just to drive my car to my new apartment. My 2002 Ford Ranger gets 24 mph on the highway, resulting in 12.5 gallons of gas that I had to pay for. I filled up yesterday for $3.36 a gallon-that’s $120 of pure profit. Then once you get to your new place, keep track of every trip you make for moving errands before your first day on the job (Bed, Bath & Beyond, Walmart, Chipotle, etc.). God forbid you have to make a second trip back and forth carting all your crap to your new home…cha ching! Accountants don’t mind paying you back as long as everything is transparent and detailed.

3. Sell or throw away at least half of your belongings. My first job with my company was as an efficiency expert, which is six sigma and lean manufacturing kind of stuff. The first thing they teach efficiency experts is the seven deadly wastes. One of the wastes listed is inventory. Everything you own in your apartment is your personal inventory. If you want to move as efficiently as possible, cut down on your inventory, period. I moved to Louisiana with two suitcases of clothes, two guitars, three pairs of shoes, a box of treasured mementos, my laptop, and my bed. That’s it. I was done unpacking in 20 minutes. The best way to blow your moving allowance is to pay an expensive moving company to haul all of your junk in a giant moving truck. If you want to, you can donate all of your unwanted stuff to Goodwill. Not only will people who are on tight budgets have the option to buy your stuff, but you’ll get a pretty sweet tax deduction next April if you’re savvy about it.

4. Bring the essentials that you would have to buy again if you threw them away. These are, but are not limited to, shower curtains, silverware, shot glasses, kitchen and bathroom trash cans, a broom, dustpan, and mop, Windex and cleaning supplies, a toilet plunger, a bathmat, folding chairs, air fresheners, plates, and blankets. I’m sure there are a dozen other items I forgot, but if you bought everything I just listed at a Walmart or a Target, you’ll drop $100 bucks, easily. That’s money you could spend on alcohol.

5. Save all receipts that your company did not reimburse. I’m not a CPA, but I’m pretty sure the federal government reimburses legitimate moving expenses up to a certain amount (probably not a back massage). It’s better to be honest than shady here, though. I’ve never been audited, but tax audits are portrayed very negatively in modern film and TV shows, and I have no desire to meet with some creepy, little IRS agent to talk about the items I chose to deduct.