Major brownie points if you read the title and immediately started singing the song by Reel 2 Real. You get even more brownie points if you actually knew who sang the song before reading this!
Despite that epic opening, I’m not the biggest fan of mid-90’s rap songs. shocker
Nope. Instead, I like to move. You know, the one where you decide to move to a different location so you have to box up all your crap and shove it in a truck to transport it to the new place so you can rearrange all your crap?
Yeah.…… that kind of move.
In the past 5 years, I’ve moved 6 times. That’s less than 12 months at each location, on average. (In all actuality, it goes 3 mos — 4 mos — 18 mos — 18 mos — 3 mos — 12 mos. Just in case you were curious!)
You’d think I’d be a pro at this by now with just a few backpacks full of essentials and the cat’s stuff. Again.….. nope. I’m attached to my stuff and have managed to accumulate several room’s worth of furniture and well.….. stuff.
All of this soon became VERY apparent as my boyfriend and I moved box after box after box down 3 flights of stairs and around numerous corners.
In preparation for the move to my new city and state, I did a few things. I pared down my belongings and tried to sell some of my bigger stuff like my dresser and futon. I also researched moving companies to figure out what was the best way to transport my belongings 359 miles away.
Since I put in all that effort of researching, here are a few of my thoughts on how to move a 2 bedroom apartment. (or said equivalent of stuff)
I looked around for moving companies on the internet and was completely overwhelmed. Hello, analysis paralysis. As I started to get quotes, I realized I was looking at two classes of moving companies: DIY and Movers.
DIY
Companies like U‑Haul, Budget, Enterprise, and Penske fit this bill. They are companies that rent you the stuff to do the move: trucks, blankets, boxes, and dollies. Everything else is up to you.
Since I was moving away AND NEVER COMING BACK, I had to figure out transportation. You can do round trip, but who really wants to drive 12 extra hours along the same stretch of boring highways if they don’t have to? Round trip gave me the cheapest option up front, but then sneakily added in mileage costs on the back end to make it deceptively expensive. One way trips don’t charge mileage.… but then what to do about my car? Some places had the option for towing it behind the truck, but that just seemed like a recipe for disaster. I have a lot more experience driving big trucks thanks to the military, but no way was I going to be responsible for hooking up the car behind the truck and then trying to maneuver in tight city streets with it.
Since I moved over Easter weekend, I drove up a few days before the move with my car. My boyfriend and I then headed back down in his car, and then caravaned back up in the truck and car. That was the best solution I came up with that didn’t involve paying a company $.68/mile.
The one way prices I got were actually pretty reasonable after doing some calculations on what a round trip rental would cost me (in both time and money). 
U‑Haul: $369 (3 Days/421 miles allowed)
Budget: $295 (3 days/unlimited miles)
Penske: $539!?!?!
Enterprise: Strike out, only round trip.
Ryder: $425 round trip, no mileage restriction
Budget was the cheapest by far. This was all thanks to a 20% coupon I found on their site. U‑Haul matched the pre-coupon price of Budget, so good going there, guys. Penske, really? $539? No way. Enterprise didn’t have a one way option, so that was out. Ryder would also only give me a round trip option, but they were nice enough to quote that out at $425, no mileage. If I had done a round trip, I probably would’ve gone with Ryder.
The other level of moving was full-service movers.
Full-Service
Full-service is exactly what it sounds like. A big truck comes up to your house, a crew of movers descends upon your house, packs up all your belongings, puts it in the truck, and then a few days to a week later shows up at the new place and does it all in reverse. This includes companies like 2 Men & a Truck, Zippy Shell, PODS, and Allied. I’m positive there are other companies out there, but these are the ones I got quotes from.
Allied: $2800 minimum as they charge by weight/mi with a 2500 lb minimum.
Zippy Shell: $1335
PODS: $1700
2 Men & a Truck: $2300
Zippy Shell and PODS work roughly the same way. A container shows up at your house, you or someone from their company fills it, they haul it away and a week later it’s delivered to your door. Someone told me PODS was reasonable but $1700? Not super reasonable. I guess it does seem better when you compare it to Allied, but yeesh.
I was tempted to do the 2 Men & a Truck option until I found out the bill for my back stairs was $10k. That’s when the decision to do it ourselves was made, a decision we both sincerely regretted after 200 trips down and up 3 flights of stairs. The other reason we didn’t go with the full-service moving company was the time. At the bare minimum, the earliest I would get my stuff was 4 days. I was operating on a more restricted timeline and couldn’t have my stuff be gone that long.
Final Thoughts
If a company wants my business, I will happily do so as long as 2 provisions are meant:
Easy quote process: Give me a box on the front page where I can put in the details and have it spit out a quote. Don’t make me give you my email. Don’t make me call you. Don’t make me wait 2 days for someone to call me. Allied and 2 Men & a Truck had the best UI websites. Very easy to navigate and get a quote.
Decent price: I understand they have to make money too but don’t rake me over the coals. Make pricing fair and transparent. No add-on fees at the last-minute.
My final costs for moving 359 miles to a location 2 states away ended up being $348 for a 16 ft rental truck and 12 blankets. I also paid $100 in gas to move the truck, so my final costs were $448, some smoothies, and about 40 hours of my boyfriend and I’s time/labor. Not too shabby!
Thanks for reading! Have you moved recently? What was your experience like? Any handy tips for soon-to-be-renters?
We paid about $19.000 CAD to move our stuff + car from Canada to the Netherlands (one 40ft container). Really no chance to do this ourselves (customs is a pain!). Last move within the Netherlands was €150 (Van + beer). Downsizing stuff really helps too 🙂
Good luck on the move and have fun spending time together!
Ooof. I didn’t even think of the costs to move overseas! I don’t even WANT to think of spending that much money.… lots of things would get sold before I left in that case!
We downsized just enough to get everything into the 40ft container, you pay by the shipload, so selling lots of stuff would not have made much of a difference!
But the experience of living abroad is worth that money, would do it again in a heartbeat 🙂
I’m totally with you on the whole “moving a million times” narrative. In the last 4 years I’ve moved 5 times! For all but one of them I’ve done it all myself.. it’s clearly the much cheaper option, but you just have to go through the pain of doing it all yourself (or with help!).
It all comes back to the what you’re willing to pay for and ow you value your time which you wrote about a while ago. That will differ for each individual person!
In the past, I’ve had friends help and been paid with food, but this time I moved on a Monday and everyone was working!
Well played with the 90s pop music reference.
You’re starting to show your age.
Moving is a pain the the ass. It’s the worst. I’m hoping we can down size enough that we can make it less painful. But I hope you took advantage of it and cleaned everything out.
I got rid of about 3 big black garbage bags of stuff, donated some more, sold or left behind most of the big furniture and STILL had a ton of stuff to move. My family has a hard time not accumulating stuff and then getting rid of it later.…
Every time I get antsy about the fact that I haven’t moved in going on 4 years, I remember the time and effort (I got tired just reading this haha) and money that goes into it and decide maybe I’m fine where I am for a bit longer
Stay as long as you can!!
Hey, that’s not bad at all! Kudos to you on the frugal move! We shelled out $400 to have movers transport stuff across town from our apartment to our house. I know it’s a racket and we could have saved money DIYing it, but at that moment, it was worth shelling out extra money to have the hard stuff done in an hour.
I think it’s a lot cheaper to move if, rather than buying a package deal, you break it up and pay for things piecemeal. When we moved states 2 years ago, we hired a local moving company to pack up our old house and load everything into a U‑Haul ($180 using a Groupon). We drove the U‑Haul & our car ourselves ($400), then hired a couple guys off Craigslist in our new state to unload the truck & car and haul everything up 3 flights of stairs ($120). It was a little more work than hiring end-to-end movers but worth it.
Similar to your approach, I like to pack my own belongings, then hire labor to load and unload boxes from the truck. While the upfront cost is higher to get labor for the front and back end unloading the truck, I have had great luck with the guys being approximately 1000x faster than myself and my boyfriend would ever be. So by outsourcing some of the labor, I am able to accomplish much more in a single day and avoid taking more time off of work. I have moved from Nashville, Philly, and small town Illinois and paid about $120 for 2 guys to load a truck for 2 hrs on each end. Worth every penny 🙂
Moving is a great way to realize how much crap a person accumulates over time. Its super exciting to hear about your move, but I don’t envy the actual having to pack and move everything one bit. Glad it all worked out and that you figured out a frugal way to do it. Now hurry up and get your booty out here!
I’ve moved 5 times in the last 5 years, so I feel your pain. One of those moves was paid for by my company as part of the relocation package. If I remember correctly, it costs $3,000 to move my stuff 1,500 miles and another $1,000 to ship my car to my new location. It was great not having to lift a finger! But for all the other moves (which would not be paid for by my firm), I couldn’t justify spending all that money so I sold a lot of stuff and only took the things I could fit into my car.
Yes! The best time I had moving was when I was relocated by my company. So easy to let them box it all up and take it with them!
I posted a similar question in your 1 year update but I know you have been really busy trying to move and all… but how do the repair costs compare to your initial $20k repair assumption when you first bought? Is this $27k in addition to that $20k initial estimate or are you now just (haha, “just”) $7k over your initial estimate? Thanks!
It’s definitely gone over, but that’s more my fault in picking a bad contractor and wasting money.
I hear you on the fun-with-moving dance. We’ve moved five times in the past five years. One of those times we essentially sold all possessions that wouldn’t fit in a clown car.
Not a clown car the way Mr. Money Mustache means it. I mean a car that was so small you’d expect a dozen clowns to pour out if it at a moment’s notice.
Keeping costs down during a move is crazy difficult, but you basically paid yourself 30+ bucks an hour to do it yourself compared to the full service quotes! Not a bad wage at all.
DIY! It’s often the cheapest way. I am moving shortly and I found a storage place that’s 200 cad a month and includes one free pick up and drop off. Which is an amazing price! Considering moving costs 500 to 1000 each time.
Ps I hope you brought the cat- she’s beautiful.
I’m so old. When I saw “I like to move it,” I didn’t think of 90s rap. I thought of my toilet bowl. Congratulations on the move. You and the Mastermind did a great job. Mrs. G and I will be going the DIY route when we move this fall. This post has been bookmarked. Cheers.
The information about moving is very helpful but my favorite part of the post is the picture of you and your boyfriend. You both look SO happy! I’m glad the move went well (and frugally!)!
The song was the first thing that came to my mind when I read the title! I think is always important doing some research before hiring a moving company. It’s best to always book reliable movers. Thanks for sharing your experience with us.
Great post. I enjoyed reading
You are absolutely right. Nowadays moving has become a huge costly matter. I also moved several times. First time when I moved I did not hire any moving company. I packed everything by myself. Three labors worked with me and I shifted to my new place but that was not much easy process. The labors I hired made a lot of damages to my furniture. It shocked me a lot. From then I have used professional movers. They gave me full safety to my belongings. Your mentioned budget is right but I think a reputed moving company is more important than thinking of money while moving.
Nice information you have shared. Thank you!
I like how you made sure that you listed your important needs and sold all the huge and bulky furniture. My wife and I plan to move into a new state near our parents. We could use help from local moving services to guide us.