moving cross country

[merk]

Just wondering if anyone has any company they recommend for a cross-country move? I'm ok with either movers driving the truck or renting a truck and driving it myself, which ever comes out cheaper.

So far from what i've found, it looks like moving cross country driving a truck myself will cost me anywhere between $2600-$3000 dollars, mainly depending on how fuel (in)efficient the truck is. I'm guessing it'll be more on the inefficient side since it'll also be towing a car.

PODs gave me a quote of $3400
And Upack, which is similar to pods, gave me a quote of around $2300. There will be still be gas costs for me even with upack/pods since i have to drive my car there, but my car is fortunately a lot more fuel efficient then a 16 foot uhaul truck

Anyone have any other companies they recommend?

[Tituba]

How much would it cost to box up your clothes etc. and UPS it to the new locale? Don't move furniture - sell it. Then just drive the car.

Besides.....you've gotten spoiled in Calif. Snow and ice are going to lose their charm and you may be going back to CA again.

[merk]

Well i wouldn't be able to sell the furniture for as much as i paid for it. So in the end it probably wouldn't save me any money to do that.

so far the cheapest quote i've gotten is $1700 - although i'm thinking it'll probably be more like $2000 since i probably under-estimated the number of boxes i have.

I may indeed wind up moving again in a year.

[Tituba]

So how much would it cost you to put most of it in storage and just take what you absolutely need? You can move the storage stuff once you know where you'll be moving in a year.

[merk]

I think it would cost me something like $100-150 a month to put it in storage. But I'd still need to buy some furniture once i get to MI. I'd need at least a bed, desk, chair, frig and cooking utensils. Either that or my friends are going to wind up seeing me a lot more often then they thought they would

[merk]

I think i found one way to save a little bit of money - looks like i can ship all my books through the post office at the media mail rate, which comes out to around $0.42/lb, which is cheaper then the lowest quote i've gotten from any moving company. Plus it means i'll have a few less boxes to deal with on the actual day i move.

[mango]

Hi merk,

I've moved cross-country several times. I used ABF (I believe that is UPack) three times, and I was thrilled with them. It was the cheapest option for me, and I drove my car (full of pets) each time, as well. Any square footage that you can save in the truck (ie - by shipping your books, etc.) will make the final cost less. Plus, you would have fun with the Tetris-style packing of the truck!



Good luck!

[merk]

yeah i'm going with ABF/upack but i'm using their relocubes. Basically the same thing as PODs, although their cubes are half the size. But two of their cubes still came out $1000 cheaper then the quote i got from PODs.

Using a truck would be cheaper, but i first need to find a place after i get there, so storing the stuff in a cube seems worth the extra money.

[mango]

Cool. They didn't have cubes the last time I used them. Sounds like a good plan for you.

[urbanpioneer]

It sounds like you've already found a solution that will work for you, but another option is to pack as much stuff as possible onto pallets and have the shipped by a pallet company to a warehouse location where you are headed. You then pick stuff up at your leasure at the drop point. This works well for the heavier items, like books, dishes and any furniture small enough to fit on a pallet, since they charge per pallet and not by the pound. It is all shrink-wrapped and moved around by fork lift so it's easy for the company to handle. If you can't pick up it up in a reasonable amount of time, there may be a storage fee, but it's usually not much.

[merk]

Any company you suggest for that? I never even knew you could do that. Do you know how much they typically charge?

thanks