How expensive was your last real move?

engineer4life · 11-12-2012, 08:54 PM

I'm in the middle of moving. I think we have about 12,000 pounds of stuff and we are moving it approximately 30 miles. My best estimate is that it'll cost us about $500, including truck rental, labor, and supplies. (Clearly, we are doing most of the work ourselves to cut cost).

How expensive was your last real move?

happymomof1 · 11-12-2012, 09:27 PM

Your price is OK. Last year I got several quotes for a 15 mile one truck move, and they were all in that range. In the end we moved with the assistance of several Subway-fueled teens and a mom with a seats-removed 8-passenger van. We filled up her tank afterwards for about $100, and bought everyone lunch. Total cost was less than $200.

thumper1 · 11-12-2012, 10:06 PM

It cost us more than $500 to do a self move 18 years ago. After that I swore we would never do that again and we hired movers the next time (which for a local move is not all that expensive).

overseas · 11-12-2012, 10:14 PM

I will tell you once my goods make it through NY customs! But worth every last cent.

wis75 · 11-13-2012, 01:47 AM

Just moved nearly 1400 miles from WI to FL. Downsizing so gave away furniture et al we wouldn't have room for. Also culled our books, something we were due for and saved money on transporting them. Packed as much as we could (the movers packed pictures- one glass broken). Gave tips at both ends. Also had to move both cars, stay in motels. Then there was all of the cleaning in cupboards and closets for years of normal dirt accumulation no one sees (gray to white wire shelves...). The cost in dollars, time and labor was worth it but I wouldn't want to move again for many years. Our previous move involved only a few miles 20 years ago and involved a moving van plus many car trips with breakables, plus we were upsizing and had a lot less stuff. And we were a lot younger. We planned our move for the least expensive days of the week and time of month. Plus our moving estimator gave us some 30 used boxes (which we were able to pass along to a briefly new neighbor for their move instead of paying the moving company to take them or putting them in recycling). It is amazing how costs add up in a major move.

SteveMA · 11-13-2012, 06:32 AM

You don't want to know

. We filled a semi trailer, it was about $8000.

fendergirl · 11-13-2012, 10:11 AM

My last move.... we moved everything ourselves in the back of cars and trucks. I don't know how much we spent in gas but we didn't hire any movers or need to do anything crazy so I doubt it was more then a hundred dollars in gas or so. I did buy everyone dinner. I did purchase some new furniture so that made it a bit easier - we just had to go pick it up from the store! I spent far more time and money unpacking and re-painting! lol!

deega123 · 11-13-2012, 10:13 AM

My situation was more like Steve's. It's a long sordid tale but our last move cost a fortune. DH's company gave us a generous stipend but because of the housing market things were very complicated. Thankfully we had plenty of equity in the old house but that was the only thing that went our way.

dadx3 · 11-13-2012, 10:24 AM

Sorry, I don't consider a 30 mile move a "real" move - we've done a few of those, but our "real" move's were coast-to-coast (we've done 3 of them so far). For our move 5 years ago from Washington State to New Jersey we spent (approximately):

$14,500 moving household goods (5 bedroom 2800 square foot house)
$ 2,100 shipping 2 cars
$ 1,800 air fares, including shipping a dog and a house hunting trip for wife and son
$ 3,400 temporary housing, rental cars

NJres · 11-13-2012, 10:30 AM

I don't (want to) remember. Must have been around $10,000, plus an additional $1000 for a car that was shipped separately. All I remember was "44 cents a pound" which prompted me to throw out anything that I didn't think was worth at least $1/pound.

alh · 11-13-2012, 10:30 AM

We had the huge move like deega and Steve. and others with whom I cross posted. Not comparable to what you are doing.

Our "small" move from short term condo to renovated house, including emptying out two storage buildings was $650. I just looked it up. This was a small local moving company that loaded and unloaded everything. We packed it. Most of it was still packed from the "big" move. I did not tip them because they broke two pieces of antique furniture after arguing with me about how to deal with moving them and insisting they were the experts and knew what they were doing. Turns out I was correct that moldings will break off if you aren't careful. Also legs.

Good Luck!!

Usually I am a really excellent tipper. I thought I was using a family owned moving company, which I have frequently done very successfully for small moves. This company had a manager, not an owner in charge.. not a good choice.

edit: A lot of people I know are using PODS for small moves. I used them for long term storage and was very satisfied, though I could have done the storage part less expensively if I had had any idea how long it was gong to be going on. Packing it at your house and unloading it at the new house may be worth investigating?

Emaheevul07 · 11-13-2012, 12:12 PM

We just hired movers to move about 25 miles and paid around $550 just for the movers, who did nothing but load and unload the truck. I don't remember what we spent on supplies but it wasn't much.

That does not count the $500 or so dollars we will spend replacing the tv they broke.

They only gave us $90 for it. If I could do it again we would move everything except the furniture we couldn't lift/fit in the car ourselves and just have the movers deal with that. We used the same ones last time and they were perfect, but the convenience of the movers isn't worth the angst we experienced this time with BF's broken tv.

Classof2015 · 11-13-2012, 03:10 PM

We paid $2k for Flat Rate to move our whole office -- desks, filing cabinets, copier, chairs -- 10 blocks in midtown. The other quotes we got were twice as much.

BCEagle91 · 11-13-2012, 05:14 PM

Our last move was a corporate relo where they took care of everything. This was a long time ago but still wasn't cheap.

dmd77 · 11-13-2012, 07:49 PM

Engineer4Life... I assume you're actually bragging about how cheap your move was? If it actually costs you only $500, congratulations.

On our last move (which I sincerely hope will indeed be our last move), we lost money selling our house, probably left money on the table buying the new house, rented an overpriced furnished rental for ten months, moved way too much s*** (stuff) and are far happier with our new location than we ever were with the old house. So every penny of those millions of dollars (ha!) was well spent.