WWYD Cross country move—furniture issues/delays v. moving costs

[takemewest]

After many years of chaos here taking care of a terminally ill parent and looking for any and all ways to get ahead, life has finally settled. My parent has sadly passed away, and my partner received an incredible offer to teach in a state all the way across the country. Even without me working full time and with moving to a higher COL, we will finally start coming out ahead. We're thrilled!

But, our cross-country move is posing incredible challenges. We wanted to simplify as much as possible (and our new house has much different dimensions for critical spaces like living and bedroom) by selling our bigger items of furniture so we can use a POD to move and just drive ourselves. Thanks to all the pandemic issues, however, it looks like we'd be waiting months and months to be able to get new furniture. I'm not really a person who can live with stuff everywhere and no furniture, and the timing of our move plus starting our new jobs does suggest we should try to get as settled as possible, as quickly as possible.

Now I'm wondering if we should pay for a second pod and just ship everything. It would cost more than buying new furniture on the back end, but at least we'd have a place to sit and bedroom furniture. Each pod is about $5,000, and I estimate we could repurchase the furniture we were planning to leave behind for about $3k (we're not picky and there's an IKEA nearby, but I'm not interested in someone's secondhand couch, sorry).

Just curious if anyone has any experience with these issues lately and has any suggestions.

Otherwise, a quick poll: what would you do? Pay for the extra POD to have all your stuff, or deal with unfurnished spaces for an indeterminate amount of time?

[seemsright]

I am lazy. I do not enjoy being inconvenienced. Pay to ship the stuff and call it a day.

Now my opinion would be different if you were a 23 year old moving out for the first time.

[oldladystache]

You could rent a truck, drive it across country.

[ToTheMoon]

So you could refurnish your new place primarily from the Ikea nearby, presumably with items that fit the space better, and you can do this for $2,000 less than it would cost to ship your not-a-right-fit for the new space furniture?

This seems like a no-brainer to me. What am I missing here?

[20957]

If you are planning to use IKEA in your new location, give them a call and find out if their sofas/beds/tables are available now and if not how much of a delay there is. Work from actual data.

[takemewest]

So you could refurnish your new place primarily from the Ikea nearby, presumably with items that fit the space better, and you can do this for $2,000 less than it would cost to ship your not-a-right-fit for the new space furniture?

This seems like a no-brainer to me. What am I missing here?

Ah, sorry, I wasn't clear at all. We can definitely do that with IKEA stuff, but it'll take weeks or months. Everything we've looked at buying is out of stock at all the accessible IKEAs within a 1.5 hour drive.

[takemewest]

If you are planning to use IKEA in your new location, give them a call and find out if their sofas/beds/tables are available now and if not how much of a delay there is. Work from actual data.

That's a good idea. All we see now is that everything says "out of stock."

[takemewest]

[quote author

This.  Or buy a six-month set of stuff off of Craigslist.  Seriously: you can pick up cheap stuff quickly that won't look ideal but will give you places to be very comfortable until you can get your stuff and/or buy more.  Nobody will care that you had an ugly ruby-red sofa for six months that one year--it'll be a fun story then.  But you'll still have all that cash. 

There's zero reason to spend a ton on furniture. 

Case in point: we have this super-nice, nearly-new $4k West Elm couch that we got for like $200.  And that's just one of the many pieces. 

A little patience goes a long way.  This is an easy problem to fix.  It seems big since it's far away and you can't control that, but this will solve itself if you stick to your plan and don't go spending crazy.

-Someone who has made a fair bit of money flipping like-new and/or fashionable furniture
[/quote]

You're right.  The patience is the hard part. My partner is also reticent to buy twice, even if the first time is cheap stuff to get us through, so that's another dynamic here I didn't really elaborate on at first.

[lhamo]

My DS just got a really nice, like new couch off offer up for under $100 including delivery.  He looked for less than a week.  Nice used couches are REALLY easy to find, especially if you can move them yourself, because they are not easy to move and often what fits in one living space isn't ideal for another.   We actually tried to sell a really nice like new Ikea sofa and loveseat pair a couple of years ago, then tried giving them away, and eventually had Salvation Army come and pick them up because people just weren't interested in moving something that big.

If you want to be a bit more selective you can see if there is a ChooseFI group (they have a more active FB presence and more meetups than the MMM crowd) and put out the word in advance about what you are looking for.  Chances are somebody will be moving or know someone downsizing who you can get some nice things from.

[Sibley]

Option 3: camping. Order the couch, sit on the floor until it comes. Use boxes as tables. Trash pick an ugly kitchen chair while the stuff you want shows up.

Option 4: cheaper method of moving. PODs may or may not be the most reasonable cost. When my parents moved their stuff from MI to IN, PODs was the most expensive. A traditional moving truck was a lot less I think (sister handled those arrangements).

But do declutter. Whether you keep the couch or not, if you're moving 30 extra boxes of crap that costs money.

[Cranky]

I’ve just finished a move using PODS and it was about half the price quoted for a full service mover.

We got rid of a lot of stuff, brought some stuff, and replaced some stuff.

We had no trouble buying a new bed and mattress, and I’ve got a porch couch arriving this week from Wayfair. The only thing that’s been slow is a dining room table.

A 16 foot POD holds a LOT of stuff, so bring your couch if you think that will be an issue.

[Zamboni]

That depends:

Does your current furniture spark joy?

Yes? Then haul it.

If not, then leave it behind.

Even with the current supply chain issues for some stores, there's plenty of lovely furniture available where you are going, I assure you. IKEA and West Elm are indeed having some inventory issues, but I've found that a lot of other more local furniture places have plenty available.