Author Topic: Mustachian Cross Country Move, Help Needed.  (Read 4364 times)

onemorebike

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Mustachian Cross Country Move, Help Needed.
« on: October 26, 2014, 08:36:16 PM »
I just got done posting about our family pulling up roots after 15 years and moving back to Minneapolis. Our MMM ways are making this entirely easier than it would have been with more money and a certain level of detachment from all of our things. Anyway, I'm starting to look at getting our stuff across the country, and costs are high (looks to be about $2,000)!

My current thoughts are that we'll sell most of our large, replaceable furniture. This include just about everything other than 4 chairs, a dining room table and our children's bunk bed. My garage is full of tools, bikes and outdoor gear that will need to be moved, and of course there is plenty of knick-knacky shit all over the place - I hope to weed out over half of that as we decide what is worth bringing with us and imagine I'll be checking in with you all as the process goes forward. (I just listed about 20 things on CL to help start off the purge, I'll have to post that to the decluttering thread here soon.)

But, I'm starting to wonder what the cheapest way of moving the remaining stuff would be. Has anyone done something similar on a shoe string? Right now it seems like our best bet is to rent some of those pods that places like U-Haul will then haul for you from your house to the final destination. (part of my reasoning on selling off all of this big stuff in our house is that it isn't worth the cost of 1 or 2 extra pods). Then we'd pack the minivan with the basics, some food, camping gear and a few bikes and then get to driving across country ourselves.

Is anyone aware of cheaper, easier ways to do this or am I headed up the right path?

-onemorebike

couponvan

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Re: Mustachian Cross Country Move, Help Needed.
« Reply #1 on: October 26, 2014, 09:12:07 PM »
We used Broadway Express out of Effingham for a move.  You pack on their truck for the amount of feet (not weight) that you use.  They may put 2-3 houses on one truck separated by vertical movable walls.  Their professional driver moves it to the destination.  We paid our driver to help us load. 

Since then our in laws and another friend have also used the service. It was the most affordable (for us it was actually cheaper than a one way U Haul with gas and hotels. Our stuff arrived in great shape - their trucks have better shock absorbers than your typical U Haul.  You have to be very organized with the packing if you want an efficient load up (they only give you so much time to load).

Daley

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Re: Mustachian Cross Country Move, Help Needed.
« Reply #2 on: October 26, 2014, 09:34:14 PM »
MovingScam.com was a useful site for us when we last moved cross-country a few years back. It was through them we settled on ABF U-Pack (my review here).

I'm not sure if ABF is still one of the cheapest, but going pack and load it yourself freight if you're inclined to take the time to do it right is the most frugal and least stressful way to go despite the responsibility of packing things properly resting on your shoulders. Cheaper and easier than any of the other DIY rentals. Go with linear freight on a trailer instead of the storage cubes, it's cheaper and more flexible if you've got larger stuff. Also, don't immediately go selling off all your furniture until you have an idea on cost using a company like ABF. It may not make financial sense to sell off and replace on the other end. It didn't for us, though we were just moving 1000 miles (and this was seven years ago). For local truck rental, I won't do U-Haul anymore if I can help it, and have found Penske to be a better company.

La Bibliotecaria Feroz

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Re: Mustachian Cross Country Move, Help Needed.
« Reply #3 on: October 27, 2014, 01:42:51 PM »
We also have used U-Pack and it's a great service.

This time, though, it turned out to be slightly cheaper to drive the stuff ourselves. Plus, that way it was never out of our control (no sleeping on air mattresses while we waited for our stuff) and a 16-foot truck is a lot easier to load than a full-size trailer. That thing took forever to pack to the ceiling! We had local movers help unpack, which only c0st $85 as I recall.

It took three days for us (25 hours driving). Mr. FP drove the truck with cat, I drove the car with a pair of toddlers. It was truly excruciating and I am glad that I will never again (I hope) have occasion to drive toddlers across the flyover states, but it saved a bunch of money and was over in a few days.

couponvan

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Re: Mustachian Cross Country Move, Help Needed.
« Reply #4 on: October 28, 2014, 04:12:25 PM »
Flashback Tuesday....they even fit our car on the truck!  We loved their customer service too. Hope this pic attached...

couponvan

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Re: Mustachian Cross Country Move, Help Needed.
« Reply #5 on: October 28, 2014, 04:13:23 PM »
Well - if you look upside down you'll get the idea. ;-)

galliver

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Re: Mustachian Cross Country Move, Help Needed.
« Reply #6 on: October 28, 2014, 04:34:51 PM »
Recently moved from IL to So-CA. My priorities were slightly shifted because relocation expenses were covered (but toss-and-replace wouldn't have been). Nonetheless, I was moving in with my bf so we managed to leave/lose a lot of big furniture, and I did get rid of a few bags/boxes of clothes, crafting scraps, and general "stuff" by giving away or tossing.

After pricing out the options, we went with the UHaul UBox service. It was fine. I had read stories of stuff getting delayed in transit with no way of tracking it (D:) so I was on tenterhooks the whole time, but ours arrived about 5 days early (allowing us to unload a whole week early). One thing worth noting: our experience was highly dependent on the quality of the local UHaul branch. The one at the origin was AWFUL. Entirely staffed by incompetents. Turned out this was quite widely known in the community. But on the arrival end, the branch and staff were fantastic and on top of everything, accommodating, polite, etc.

I would def check out and compare with other similar services (ABF, Door2Door, PODS, etc) as well as compare to the cost and PITA of driving a truck. One thing to note here is that UHaul doesn't include delivery costs but the $60-70 that the truck+trailer cost was still a significant savings over our other options (except maybe Door2Door, which looked really good and was recommended by a friend...but they had a service area entirely around larger cities and geographically didn't work for us. Sadface.)