I’m moving from Illinois to Colorado to live and work. Basically I’m packing up my life and moving… but not everything is going to fit in my alero. I’m by myself on this one. Are there any services offered to help me with my move?
While I won’t be taking anything HUGE like furniture, which I plan to buy there, I will be bringing things such as a television, computer, and other space-intensive things.
I’m not really looking for ideas on this one since I think I thought them all out and I don’t really want to make more than one trip, ship the rest of my things or beg and plead with a family member to help.
I am looking for an answer as to if any services help with this and how much the cost would be.
Doesn’t U-Haul rent “carts” that you can pull with your car?
Might it not make more sense to sell/give away the old TV and buy a new one? Specially if the one you have isn’t flat, they take up a lot of space and are very difficult for a single person to handle.
What’s wrong with U-Haul? I didn’t realize this was such a big secret. They have pretty reasonable rates, just figure out what you need, input the information, and get a quote.
I used PODS over the summer to move from New Hampshire to Kentucky. 5 years ago, I got a bunch of friends to help us move up the opposite direction, using 2 trucks.
The PODS move was a MUCH better experience. The chief advantage is that you rent the POD for a whole month, so you can take your time loading and unloading (the PODS company took just 4 days to drive down, but they can vary that according to your needs). The ONLY disadvantage is that you will need a place for the POD to sit at both ends of the move, which can be problematic for apartment moves. That wasn’t a problem for us, and I wholeheartedly recommend them.
Good luck pulling a Uhaul with anything in it thru Colorado with an Alero. Myself, if it didn’t fit in the car or could be shipped UPS bulk rate at a reasonable cost I’d seriously consider selling it on craigslist or contacting an auction house. Bad time of year for a yard sale in the midwest. How much is the TV worth?
You’d be better off renting a UHaul truck and an auto tow dolly.
What sort of volume of stuff are you dealing with? If it’s a close call for getting things into your car, it might work out better to get rid of the things that don’t fit and replace them at your destination.
Another option is UPS - pack a couple of big boxes with whatever you’ve got that’s not fragile and you can live without for a couple of weeks and ship it over.
Yet another option is an “LTL” move - Less Than Truckload. The nationwide moving companies do mini-moves of apartments all the time. They come out and pick up your furniture and anything else you’ve got boxed up and waiting to go West, then they aggregate it with other people moving in that direction. The main snag is that you may have to wait a couple of weeks for someone else to be going that way, and your stuff will be sitting on a pallet in their warehouse. Or you may luck out and be that last load they need to fill a truck.
I’m not sure what sort of services you’re looking for when you ask for “help” with the move. You already said you don’t want to ship the rest of your things – what kind of help did you have in mind?
I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that you can’t tow anything with your Alero. You can’t tow anything with a Civic, which is about the same size. So that rules out a small trailer, which is the obvious answer since (a) you have too much stuff to fit in your car and (b) you don’t want to make two trips. So then you’d move up to renting a U-Haul and towing your car, but it sounds to me like you don’t have enough stuff to justify that? But that certainly is the obvious answer to “I need to move across country with all my stuff plus my car, and all my stuff doesn’t fit in my car.” The only other solutions are that you ship some of your stuff – which you say you don’t want to do – or you make two trips – which you say you don’t want to do.
So maybe we could be of more help if we knew what kind of “service” you had in mind, other than a shipping service?
BTW – If you decide to go the U-Haul or Penske truck route, two weeks is pretty short lag time to be scheduling a truck to be dropped off in another state. If you decide to do that, you’d better make your reservations ASAP.
It might not be a good idea to pull a UHaul trailer with the car in the first place, but if the OP is moving to Denver, as opposed to, say, Grand Junction, “through Colorado” might not be an issue. Until you hit the front range, you won’t climb anything significant. Eastern Colorado is essentially more of Kansas. Crosswinds with that trailer might be an issue.
Regarding towing with an Alero: read the manual. It will tell you the towing capability (probably not much).
If you decide to rent a truck, consider Ryder, Hertz or Budget - I’ve rented moving trucks many times (usually for local moves) and in my experience, U-hauls are in the worst condition.
10 yrs ago I moved from Baltimore to California. I sold/gave away most of the big stuff, but still had a decent amount to move. I rented the 5x8’ trailer from U-Haul (Pickup Truck Rental | U-Haul). I towed it 3000+ miles (I combined the move with a road trip/vacation) with my '91 4 cyl. Toyota Celica. It can be done.
ABF U-Pack. Basically the same concept as PODS, but about half of the price. ABF drops off a trailer at your place, you load it up and install a bulkhead to seperate your stuff from the rest of the cargo, then they pick it up and load it with whatever else they need to ship, take it to your destination, unload their stuff, then leave the trailer at your new address, where you unload it.
My wife and I used it a few years ago to move the contents of a one-bedroom apartment from D.C. to Chicago, and I think it was something like $600 - astonishingly cheap compared to the rates from Pods and U-haul, which were each pushing $1500 (and in U-Haul’s case, that was before gas!).
I towed a fairly heavy U-Haul with my Pinto from Illinois to Louisiana. Not exactly any mountains on the way, though. I was told to rest my engine every two hours or so. I did, and the car lasted another six years (it was already 4 years old.)
If you have lots of books, you might consider mailing them to yourself media rate. It’s very cheap - a very heavy box I just mailed to my father in law cost $4. That might cut down on the volume you need to move.
Thanks for all the help so far…it’s helping me decide.
I think that the Uhaul towing the alero seems like the best idea. The next best is the people moving out that direction helping with moving by picking up the things. I can go a couple weeks without certain things.
The TV is big, not sure how big off the top of my head but worth taking.
Anyone have any info on who does the service that helps you with your things by aggregating it with their move?
Sure you can tow with an Alero. 1000 # towing capacity. Now, I wouldn’t want to tow it over the rockies in July, fully loaded, but for a minor amount of apartment contents (no furniture, as stated in the OP), in the winter, it should’t be too much of a problem.
Wow, that IS a lot cheaper than PODS. Our move was $3400, but that involved 2 of the largest PODS (moving a 2000 sq. ft. house). I forgot to mention one of the other huge advantages of this type of move - the fact the POD/U-Pack is at ground level. That was a huge help, and will really save your back if you are moving by yourself.
Digital TV will come in, in 2009. After March 1 2007 all TV’s must include a digital tuner. So if your TV is old wait till after March 1st and buy a new one.
