I’m completely out of touch with moving costs and we’re looking at a major move next spring. I’m reasonably certain none of you has moved to or from Alaska recently, but how about other long distance treks? Say, coast-to-coast?
What I’m looking for is moving company costs, weight and dollars, they do the packing; also, if anybody had the moving company store their goods, what was the cost?
Thanks for the help.
We moved from Colorado to Michigan 6 years ago. We moved an entire 3500 square foot house worth of stuff. We had them pack most of it. We didn’t do any storage. If I recall, it ended up costing us about $8K.
I’m not sure where our records from the big move are, so I can’t help you there (besides, we got a hefty discount thru my wife’s employer). I will say that based on that one move, I will never, ever hire professional movers again.
One thing I do suggest - If you are moving to anyplace that is not a large city, demand that they guarantee that THEY will find/hire workers at both ends of the trip to load/unload. Get it in writing. Nothing beats getting a call the morning of the day they will be making the deliver, and having the driver tell you “Can you find some guys to empty the truck? We can’t find any.” And then the asshole goes and pays them a hell of a lot less than he would pay people found thru the company. Grrr.
I moved cross country last summer (well, NE Ohio to Tucson), but I got a significant discount through my employer and had so little stuff that it was less than $2000 for me (for the movers anyway).
Ouch. We won’t be moving any appliances, no couch, loveseat. Where the weight will come in is for books and bookshelves and all the accumulated crap. Also, we’ll probably be storing it all for 6 months to a year.
Well, we can’t move it ourselves unless I buy an 18-wheeler, so I don’t see any other options. I’ve done a lot of moves in my life, so it’s not something entirely new. I’m just out of touch with prices and need to budget a ballpark figure.
We moved from Ohio to LA in 04, about a 1500 sf 2 bed 2 bath townhouse. It ran somewhere around $3,000. We did all the packing.
Something to think about is PODS where the moving and storage container are the same. You can have them drop it off, you load it, then they’ll pick it up when you’re ready. From there, you can store it yourself or have them store it. For some reason, it wouldn’t give me a price on their site though.
We paid $6100 in 2005 to move from SoCal to Ohio (two-bedroom house and some large appliances).
Two years ago I moved my stuff from North Pole to central Missouri. I had a lot of books and no furniture save for a 20" TV. I packed everything myself except the TV, microwave, and bicycle.* They said they’d rather pack them. It cost about $5,000 for about 4,000 pounds if I remember correctly. I chose no extra insurance since none of my stuff is that valuable. It took about 2 months, I think, from the time they picked up until they delivered. I told them I wasn’t in a big rush. Long-term storage is going to drive up costs; you may want to just have them deliver to a ministorage unit at the other end.
Most movers will send an estimator out for free. Just ask! I don’t know when you’re expecting to move, but I’d wait another month or so until PCS season at the bases is over: worker bees’ll be busy with the military moves.
Last summer, we moved from central NY to north Alabama (about 1000 miles). As I recall, our weight came to about 4000 lbs and it cost $3500. We also needed storage for 4 months and found we were much better off to have the truck deliver to a local storage unit than have the mover store it. We didn’t have too much large furniture and no appliances, but we have lots of books. We probably could have moved cheaper with a place that prices based on linear feet of truck filled (places like PODS and SAM), but we booked too late to be choosy.
If you have large, non-boxy items (i.e.-boats, canoes, kayaks, bikes, ATVs, etc.), they will likely charge a flat fee for those and it can be exorbitant. For example, we have two small kayaks. The fee was $700/boat! Needless to say, they traveled on our car’s roof rack.
I moved from MEM to MSP six weeks ago.
I used ABF U-Pack. They come and bring a truck trailer and leave it at your house. You have about 48 hours to pack it. Packing it is pretty involved (definitely get your hands on some moving blankets, and be sure to secure everything), and tiring. I am fifty this year, and I have to say that this is really a better option for someone a little fresher. But I got it done, and got it unpacked once it was delivered here. The truck came pretty timely, yet I was glad it didn’t beat me here, because that would have sucked. I used the whole trailer and the fee was around 2k. The great thing about this is you don’t have to mess with fees, permits, insurance, liability, fuel, or driving. They drive the damn thing. Yay.
I moved my wife’s car with DAS. They took hella long time. Now, Diesel was super expensive at the time, and there was the flooding in the middle Mississippi valley. But it was nonetheless a month getting here. The thing was stuck in Chicago for ten days. What hacked me off was they wouldn’t talk to me on the phone once they found out was ready to get my car. Finally, I got some lady on the phone and I said “I bet customers are just wearing you out about their cars aren’t they” and she said yeah and all, and I said “but really, y’alls business is about putting cars on transports, couldja just go out there and find the guy that’s going to Minneapolis and tell him to put the car on the transport?” So the thing arrived the very next day.
I flew my wife and baby. Since I was last one out of the house, I drove the truck and light trailer up, loaded with you know the bbq grill, the ladder, the mops, and so on–last stuff out of the house stuff. OH, and the live fish tank and the live plants. I also carried my seven year old son, which turned out to be a mistake. He thought the whole thing was boring, and I got trucker-road-raged in the night in Illinois and that’s not a good kind of thing to expose your kid to.
All in all, the move cost 3,997.
BTW, our household is a four-bedroom McMansion, three adults and two children.
ABF offers a similar service which I bet is competitively priced.
I really liked ABF–when you call them, you get a real Arkansassian. They’re all like “way-yall, yew relax and git that thang loaded whenever yew can, and jes let us know when yew wont us t come git it.”
If most of your weight is in the form of books, you might look into shipping the books to your new address via USPS media mail.* When I moved from WA to NY five years ago, I did it for less than $1,000 primarily by not taking any furniature with me and mailing myself my stuff either media mail (for my books - by far the largest portion of my stuff) or parcel post. Media mail is hella slow (it took some of those boxes upwards of 6 weeks to make their way to me), but it was cheap and worked just fine. I did give my postman a really nice tip when the last box showed up though.
*Assuming you know your address at the new location (or just know an address that will accept bulky mail on your behalf).
Well, thanks all. Looks like we need to do some serious thinning out, particularly in the world of reading material. Local 2nd hand book dealers are very picky about what they will purchase, however, so I’m not sure what we’ll do with them. The best offer I had on my Alaska books was $1500, which was too low. Still, it’s better than getting nothing for them.
I moved an entire 2 bedroom apartment worth of stuff from TX to NY for about $800. My mom works for a moving company though so I got a crazy discount. You might check around and see if you know anyone who works for a moving company in your area and if they can give you any advice or hook you up with a discount.
My niece’s husband owns a trucking company, but I don’t know if he’s connected to moving companies.