My mom currently lives near me in California, but is planning on moving to where my sister and the grandkids live, in Alabama.
She currently has only a small condo and has decided that it will be cheaper to buy new furniture there than move any of the large/bulky items a couple thousand miles.
Which means she’s only left with personal items, books/media, clothes, etc. Essentially, something that would easily fit into a small moving truck or one of those storage/mobile “Pods”.
What would be the best way to move her items out there? Has anyone tried using those pods for long-range moving of effects? I imagine a lot of hired movers won’t be too interested in her contract because of how small her amount of stuff is.
We’re shooting for the spring (likely April) so want to get moving on this right away, which means beginning my research in earnest, but figured anyone with experience or insight might add another dimension to the issue.
Has she got too much to fit into her car? If so, can her car tow a small U-Haul trailer? And is she comfortable doing so? Those are the easiest ways.
A small rental truck is fine, but she’s got to tow her car behind it, which is not too bad once you adjust, but she may not want to.
Since you’ve got plenty of time, I’d suggest that you go ahead and contact some moving companies. It’s very possible that a company is moving someone from California to Alabama (or Georgia, or Florida) in that timeframe and has some space on the truck. It may or may not be as exactly timed as you’d wish for, but still, it’s worth looking at, and would be far cheaper than a dedicated haul.
(My experience has been with a carload, towing a small trailer, and in a rental truck towing my car. I’d do all again depending on my circumstances and finances.)
If money isn’t an issue, it might be better if she purchases a small tow-behind trailer, registers it and then put her belongings in it. WHen she gets where she is going, she can sell it or keep it for use sometime later.
The trailers average anywhere from $1000-3500 dollars new or used depending upon their length, they are easy to tow and they are rather easy to sell if/when you no longer need them. I bought one to move some items and I decided to keep mine as it has come in handy when I needed to purchase a washer/dryer or any item that I didn’t want to pay the delivery charges for.
U-Haul trailers, in my experience, are often pretty beat up and for what you’d pay for a rental that would never be returned, it would very nearly pay for trailer that you could own and use whenever you need to.
Conventional moving companies (United, Bekins, Mayflower, etc.) have products for just this need.
They show up, box your loose goods, place the boxes in a big wooden crate, seal it, and their local truck takes it to their local warehouse. Later, along with lots of other crates it gets trucked by a long-haul team to the destination city warehouse. Then on delivery day a local truck takes the crate to the destination and unloads the boxes and unpacks them in your new residence.
Dirt simple. Probably cost around $800-1500 for a 2 bedroom apartment’s worth of personal effects with no furniture. Depends on how much of a pack rat she is.
Once you have an estimate you can think of it this way: They’re charging (say) $1000 to move 500lbs of stuff. That’s $2 per pound. Anything I can buy new for about $2/pound I’d do better to sell or donate here and buy new there. Ancient kitchen appliances, obsolete audio or computer gear, books, etc. are all things that might better be gotten rid of before the move. Which further reduces the quantity moved and hence the cost of the move.
Great answers, all. Since I’ll be the one doing the driving (she’ll fly over), I would prefer not to hitch anything to her car if I don’t have to. The conventional moving company crate sounds like the way to go.
That being said, any recommendations on a top-notch mover? My mom has watched plenty of Dateline, etc., so is terrified of those movers that take your stuff and hold it hostage until you pay all these additional surcharges to release your stuff. Does this happen? I’m guessing so. But would an established national chain resort to such things? Looks like I have some BBB and Consumer Reports research to do.
But if anyone has a terrific (or terrible) anecdote, or similar words of wisdom, by all means share. Thanks!
If the bulk of the stuff is books and anything that might qualify as “media mail”, she might look into boxing and mailing it ahead. I did that once when moving from Washington to New York and it was both relatively painless and cost-effective. To be fair, this was some ten years ago.
To be fair, this is a VERY SLOW method (it took some weeks for all my stuff to arrive) and you have to know the address she’s mailing stuff TO. Also, it’s pretty limited to just books.
How many boxes will there be? If it’s only a few (7-8), why not just ship them using a ground shipping. Also, why not just sell her car out in LA and then she can buy a comparable one when she gets to Alabama.
I imagine at least 3 dozen boxes, plus suitcases/garment bags for her clothes, and a few pieces of furniture that you can break down and lie flat (and then wrap), so any kind of ground shipping is out (even with a few boxes that qualify for media mail, hardly worth the bother when they can join the rest getting moved)
Just FYI - if you go with the moving company, as LSLGuy said above, her stuff will go to a holding warehouse. When i moved about 7 years ago with only a 1-bedroom apartment worth of stuff, the way it was explained to me is you have to wait until they have enough crates going to your general area before they will schedule a delivery. This is likely going to take longer when you just have a small amount of things vs. a whole house worth of stuff. In my case, it was 3-4 weeks before they delivered my stuff.
Call the bus station, ask about weight allowance and cost to ship. The weight allowance is probably 100lbs. So if there is nothing too big, or too heavy, just bundle it in 100lb max units.
It’s remarkably cheap, and might be worth checking out!
(I moved back and forth this way, when I was at uni. Nothing ever got lost. But it wasn’t cross country. I just packed every thing in a couple of trunks and large suit cases. )
Had a friend who just moved cross country using PODs, barracks-dweller, went from one duty station to the other on ‘self-move’ instead of the they come in and pack everything and ship it mode of the usual military move. [They have PODs sitting on base with the contact number, not sure if there was a military discount or not.] He was happy with them. They dropped the pod in the parking lot by the barracks, he loaded all his stuff in, put his own lock on it, called them and they hauled it away. They held it at the other end for him to call, then they delivered it and he unpacked it.
Honestly, when we move we are planning on doing it in stages, loading enough in the first pod to basic minimum [bed, dresser, clothing box, chair, sofa, ottoman, hospital table, kitchen table, 4 kitchen chairs, 2 boxes of kitchen goods, box of household linens, flatpack computer desk, spare wheelchair, spare crutches. The desktop, laptop, medications, bankerbox of clothing and toiletries, medications is going in the car with the 2 house cats and their supplies.] The rest of the household goods will come along after. I will be the one with the checkbook setting things up in the new house when we do this. mrAru will be the one with our roomie back here packing things up, repairing stuff as needed and getting things ready to move. Final drive will have the geese set up in the back of the pick up truck [cap on, straw, water and feed holding 6 geese] and the outside cats in 3 large cages in the momvan [6 outside cats we are not abandoning]. Moving with animals sucks ass.
I moved from Ohio to CA by sending ahead a few boxes and otherwise just putting everything into the back of my Jeep Liberty, including three cats. I considered towing something but decided I just didn’t want the extra stress. I made the right choice for me.
I used this cross country. They have large trailers, probably not what you need, and smaller pods, which may be perfect. I used a local moving company on each end to load and unload (Angie’s List or a realtor to find one). Having also done the Rental truck and drive, this was MUCH better. I recommend it. And they can store the pod for you, if you need some extra time for whatever reason.