The real benefit of those storage units is that they can be delivered to your house in advance, giving you the opportunity to pack in a slightly more leisurely fashion. Most of them have a 1 month minimum. So that gives you 2 weeks on each side of your move. You don't have to pack everything in a day, drive the truck, then unpack the truck the next day.

A lot depends on your lifestyle. Do you have the time, energy, muscle to be packing and moving the stuff your self? Can you carry a mattress up and down flights of stairs? Do you have the energy to be lugging 50 lb boxes of books up and down stairs all day. Do you have experience driving box trucks?

Why not get a quote from a moving company, a storage unit company, as well as a rental truck company. You can then evaluate the prices, figure out what your own time is worth, then make the decision that makes the most sense for your family.

If I had to move again, I would probably rent a storage unit for a couple months, to pack up a lot of my non essential items. I would then hire movers to move the more essential items. But then I live in a 4 bedroom house. And I would be moving local. It may not be worth it with a 2 bedroom, moving long distance.

My inlaws had a 2-bd cottage in an assisted living center. They lived 500 miles from us.

We filled out forms online for quotes from some of the big movers. We got so many, from so many questionable people/sources, that we unplugged the answering machine and decided to rent a Uhaul and move the stuff ourselves.

I was at an outlet store and found 'Complete Idiot's Guide to Smart Moving (The Complete Idiot's Guide) by Dan Ramsey'

It turned out to be the best $6.00 I ever spent. Really clarified what we needed to know even before we rented a Uhaul.

It explains how to determine IF you should bother to hire a professional mover (or do it yourself). Gives a breakdown of how many rooms of stuff you have vs how big a truck you should rent. (Too big a truck and your stuff is floating all over the place.) Also details how to pack the truck, what kinds of packing materials to use, plus, what else you need to do before you pack it. The list goes on and on. Includes a checklist of things to do before you go and when you arrive, plus plenty of resources for packing materials.

We used Angie's list to find movers who could fill/empty the truck at each location. I wasn't comfortable trusting our family's belongings with potentially crooked movers so this worked out well for us.

Moving isn't much fun, but boy do you feel good when its OVER!
Best of luck figuring out the best way to go.

A link that might be useful:

MovingScam.com

Last time we moved, we rented a storage unit in the new location and dropped things off when boxes were full. That got rid of stuff so the old house looked better to sell. Old home sold and we rented a medium sized truck and moved the remainder into our new home. Friends helped us to unload the truck. A couple of days later (after recovery) we rented another truck and filled it up from the storage unit. We hired a local moving company to schlep all of those boxes into the correct rooms. It took them less than two hours and was well worth the money. Then I unpacked at my leisure.

If I was moving long distance, I would look into renting one of those u-pack trailers that they deliver to your new location and then hire movers to unpack it.

Last time we moved, we rented a storage unit in the new location and dropped things off when boxes were full. That got rid of stuff so the old house looked better to sell. Old home sold and we rented a medium sized truck and moved the remainder into our new home. Friends helped us to unload the truck. A couple of days later (after recovery) we rented another truck and filled it up from the storage unit. We hired a local moving company to schlep all of those boxes into the correct rooms. It took them less than two hours and was well worth the money. Then I unpacked at my leisure.

If I was moving long distance, I would look into renting one of those u-pack trailers that they deliver to your new location and then hire movers to unpack it.

I dont think I will ever ship my stuff in the same container as someone else's items.

The reason is that the sister of someone I know got bedbugs on her furniture from the other people's furniture shipped in the same truck. I am paranoid of bedbugs. I would probably use a private truck or a shipping container. There's still no guarantee that there arent bed bugs in the truck, but I think the odds are much slimmer.

We are doing a long distance move in 2 weeks and using ABF upack. Our situation is somewhat unusual, DH is in the remodeling/home repair business and has a fully equipped gym so if we moved with at traditional mover that charges by weight, we'd be spending a fortune. I did get rough estimates from 2 movers and they were estimating 12 - 17k but both said it could go higher. We can fill 2 ABF trailers (we may not need the second one but priced it for 2), have hired movers to help load and the total will be under 7K. That's not chump change but it's significantly less than a traditional mover.

My friend used pods. They had it 1-2 weeks before and took their time loading it up floor to ceiling. HOWEVER, she did not anticipate that when they pick up the pod in tilts dramatically. So her stuff was much more "tossed" around than she anticipated. In particular there were legos everywhere and furniture shifted enough it was precarious to unload it. And she had tied furniture to the anchors they provided. I just wanted to raise this as a downside.

Personally, after having done it myself and paying movers (we packed boxes) who loaded boxes and furniture, I would never again move myself. The cost of a local move and the speed and ease the professional movers wrapped furniture and negotiated doorways without dinging walls or furniture was worth the cost.

With a cross country move, the cost may be much more so I would at least check the options of having movers do it all vs them loading a UHaul and driving myself, with movers unloading on the other side, as well as pods.

Unless you have nice furniture, it might be worth selling as much as possible and rebuying new at the new location. With the cost of cross country moves it is something to consider.

lafdr

I believe out POD move was the best we have ever had. NO ONE packs and cares for your belongings the same as you do. We have had company-paid professional nationwide movers and all stunk! Scratches and dings everywhere...

MovingScam.com, recommended above, is a great website for moving tips, even if you're not at all interested in the scam aspect of it.

Would I move my stuff, now that I have appliances and large furniture and a piano? Nope. If I didn't have to move a refrigerator and had less stuff than I do now, I might consider it.

If you're not up for packing the POD yourself, one option I've used (twice) is to hire someone through Craigslist or local paper to help you load and then someone else to help you unload at your new place (if it's too far away for the same person to want to help at both locations). You will be standing right there so it's not as easy for them to try to steal stuff as it would be if a moving company drove off with your stuff. And therefore not as critical to find someone who has references, background check, fingerprints, insurance, etc. I used that method with a UHaul truck that we were driving ourselves.

I did what you suggested. I rented a U-Haul truck and hired two guys to load it up for me. And at the other end, hired 2 guys to unload it. I saved about 60% over my cost to move out there with one of those big van lines. But the best thing was that nothing was "lost" or broken this time. Both moves were over 2,000 miles. Also, you don't have to wait for the truck to show up a week after you already arrived at your new location because you drove the truck.

After moving from CA to ND I would have a huge garage sale/give away. It is amazing how much stuff I haven't even used after getting here. Especially books,dishes, and even some furniture. And we brought a trailer full each time we came back. The 2 things we really do use was the Kabota tractor and the pellet stove I had just bought on clearance.
I found out that I could replace almost everything I moved with something I liked better, or the items here fit better. But that is me.

Wow, what a lot of great info; really appreciated and I did order the Idiots Guide to Moving.

A coworker rented two PODs for their move. She had read stories online about bugs in them, so she set off bug foggers in each of them before putting their stuff in the PODs. She didn't have a problem with bugs after the move, but of course it's unclear whether the foggers made a difference or not. She also said using the PODs was an easy way to handle their move.

We are choosing the ABF U-pack moving. They deliver a semi to our place and we pay for loading - 2 helpers/3 hours and unloading - 2 helpers/3 hours. We have several days to pack all the boxes and light-weight stuff before the loaders come to move heavy things like bdrm furniture, TV, etc. We are not taking any appliances except freezers which will be empty.

This is a long-distance move (500 miles) so this was the most reasonable in cost for us.

I had a friend that used a mover when they bought a condo in Vero Beach. They are very wealthy people. The packers stole one plate from each set of dishes she had. We moved ourselves from New Jersey to Florida. It was my husband's big box truck, so driving it was no problem. We packed it ourselves. He lost the dip stick somewhere along the way. We stopped at a used car lot to try and buy one. The man went around and yanked several dipsticks out of vehicles to find the right length. We made it to the Florida border and we had to travel the rest of the way with half of the truck wheels on the shoulder of the road and the 4 ways on. It was a long 5 hour ride.

After all the military moves that I've made, it wouldn't be too hard to convince me to sell everything and buy new at the other end. Even dishes and silverware. And that's with the military movers packing and moving everything (except valuables and pets and computers and guns and sports equipment such as bikes).

The worst stories? My friends who had a houseful of the most gorgeous Ethan Allen everything. Every room, complete sets. Very little of it arrived in MD from WA. They had to show total load weights and paperwork and photos and the military side finally opened an investigation and learned that the owners of the moving company had recently refurbished their home with all lovely Ethan Allen sets of furniture. Hmmmm. They did get it all back in perfect condition.

Okay, maybe this one is worse, moving from Guam back to the states, when the container fell off the ship in a storm, with literally the family's entire belongings in it? The military actually paid for the husband & wife to fly back to all the places they had bought their stuff to buy new stuff (Far East, Hong Kong, Korea, SWA, Bahrain, Oman, etc) because they wouldn't have been able to replace a lot of it in the states.

What was the original question again?

Depends. How old are you and what's your physical condition? Or maybe you have teenagers to help?

We will never again move ourselves. We are 59 and have moved 4 times - well, actually 5 times because the last time we sold our house our new house wasn't ready. So we had to put everything in storage for a month, and then move it out of storage into the new house.

We have 2 grown sons, but it's such a hassle getting them here (one lives away from here) and getting a truck and a dolly and packing padding, etc.

We just haul out the checkbook and hire someone. Much much easier and entirely worth it to us.

When I moved last year I did a ton of research on moving companies because I am terrified of ending up with bedbugs; moving vans and the associated equipment such as blankets, pads and dollies are a major source of 'bedbug infestation transfer'. Even though my move was only about 25 miles (NYC suburbs) I ended up hiring Bekins IMoveGreen because they offer the option of pre-treatment. They heat the inside of the van to a temperature hot enough to kill the bugs and their eggs, and also use fresh out of sealed boxes protective materials which are not re-used.

Storage PODS and even U-Haul trucks are never treated for bedbugs and I just couldn't bring myself to take the chance.

I have MCS and so if I did end up with bedbugs in my furniture I wouldn't be able to have my stuff chemically treated to kill them... I'd have to get rid of it all and buy new. So paying the $$ for the pro movers and the anti-bug option was totally worth it to me.

This post was edited by Helena2013 on Fri, Nov 21, 14 at 11:44

A couple of things to note is that there is pretty substantial regulation of interstate freight shipping rates so the underlying price of transporting your stuff won;t very from company to company. What will very are the cost of the ancillary services (labor, packing, materials).

A huge proportion of the cost of a move is in packing services. doing that stuff can save a lot of money.

We have done many long-distance moves including 3 literal coast-to-coast moves. Two of these were done with a traditional mover (Bekins) and one with one of the pod companies (Door-to-Door). For the later we hired local labor on each end to actually do the loading of the containers (they are pros at maximizing that space). At the end of the day the pod was a bit cheaper though not overwhelmingly so.

My experience is that the pod type movers work best when you have a complicated move logistically that includes a period of storage. It is a lot cheaper and less risky to place a pod in a warehouse than to load-unload-reload all of your stuff from a traditional truck.

For local moves I rent a truck and hire local movers for labor. The very first time I used professional movers I realized that my days of moving my own crap were done.

This post was edited by HerrDoktorProfessor on Tue, Dec 16, 14 at 2:39

Some things to also consider are the massage therapist bills! And the cost of the muscle relaxants and pain pills :(

It's HARD work, and you are schlepping TONS of boxes and furniture.

Clean and pack boxes yourself, but get young, muscular help loading and unloading the truck and hauling the heavy stuff in.