Not going to lie, I still feel like I haven’t fully come down to reality after our big move to Tennessee. All of our furniture and boxes were delivered last Friday and for some reason I thought we’d be unpacked by the following Sunday. Boy, was I wrong!! One thing I’ve learned from this entire process is that moving takes a long time. No matter if it’s a local move, long-distance move or even a move across the pond to another country, it’s going to take ages for all of the pieces to fall back into place again. But don’t worry, they will! Or at least, that’s what I keep telling myself while piles of boxes currently surround me, ha!
Even though I’m not anywhere close to being fully unpacked in our new home in Memphis, I still feel like I have a few bits and bobs of wisdom to pass along from our long-distance move, in case you’re finding yourself in a similar situation sometime soon.
More below on how to save money while moving long distance, keep scrolling down!
How to Save Money While Moving Long Distance: 6 Essential Tips
Do Most of the Move Yourself
Have you ever been quoted for a long-distance move for a 3 bedroom/2 bath house? Let me tell you, the number you’re going to get from a full-service moving company is not very pretty. A long-distance move of about 500 miles or so can cost you anywhere from $7,000-$12,000 for a house this size. When we heard that number, we thought, “There must be another way!!”
After doing a bunch of research on the subject, we fortunately did find a more economic way to haul all of our belongings up to Tennessee. I will say, this route probably isn’t a stress free one. However if you’re willing to put into the work and do a bit yourself, you’ll save thousands!
Order More Boxes than You Think you’ll Need for your Long Distance Move
We picked up all of our packing boxes from UHaul. At first we ordered a standard 3-4 room kit thinking it would be plenty. We were surprised to find that this was not the case – a few rooms in to the packing process. Patrick ended up making about 4 trips to UHaul to pick up boxes when it was all said and done with. I think we had about 30 boxes leftover at the end and we were able to return them right back to UHaul and get reimbursed. After this experience, my advice would definitely be to go big in your estimate at the beginning and just return whatever you don’t need at the end. It will surely save you a lot of trips!
UHaul also sells packing tape, boxes of bubble wrap, special boxes designed to pack your wardrobe, TV and even your wine glasses. We grabbed a few of each of those and it made the delicate items in our home all the easier to pack.
Give Yourself Plenty of Time to Pack
We put an offer on our home on June 24th and started packing a few days later. Our set move in date was August 9th and this gave us a little over a month to get everything packed up and ready to go. I did as much as I could before I headed up to Tennessee with Annie at the end of July. Patrick spent the last two weeks in Houston packing all of the nitty gritty. It seemed to take every spare moment of both of our free time to get everything squared away. I honestly can’t imagine if the process was rushed or if we had a quicker turnaround. If you know you’re moving, I’d definitely recommend getting started as soon as you possibly can. Packing a house yourself can be beast!
Tip: Label each and every box you pack. It will make your life so much easier when you start unpacking. We even labeled boxes with a 1 and a 2 marking the order of their importance in being unpacked.
Another Tip: Keep your most prized possessions with you. We drove several boxes of jewelry, sentimental art and important family documents with us in our own car just to be sure these items weren’t lost or damaged along the way.
Save Money by Renting your Own Truck for your Long Distance Move
When we did our initial research on full-service moving companies and even companies that would just move your belongings after you packed it, we were floored by the prices. One company even said they would move all of our furniture in a big truck with someone else’s furniture and drop it off in a few weeks after our furniture sat on a truck completing a few other drop off across the South. We were like … “What?! No thanks!”
Booking our own rental truck from Penske saved us thousands of dollars. With a regular driver’s license, anyone can rent up to a 26″ ft. rental truck from most rental agencies. Patrick chose to drive this bad boy while I followed in his car with our pups in tow.
Side note – we did end up having to rent a small trailer for the back of my SUV. Turns out our patio furniture wouldn’t fit in the big truck along with everything else. This ended up not being a big issue at all and only cost a few hundred dollars extra. And honestly, towing a trailer was not nearly as terrifying as I thought it would be!
When it Comes to the Heavy Lifting, Hire the Help for your Long Distance Move
The only piece of the move that we knew without a doubt we couldn’t do ourselves was the actual “moving” of the furniture and boxes. I can’t even imagine what the results would have been like had the two of us tried! Thankfully, we found out about the service HireAHelper and it saved our arms, backs, and just about every other bone in our body.
HireAHelper is a service to help you find reputable local movers wherever you live. We were able to find two great teams of movers to hire by the hour both in Houston and Memphis. You can use the app to compare movers, book them and schedule their arrival. It really was the easiest and most convenient part of our entire move.
The movers we met help several families pack up their truck each and every day. I was floored by our Houston mover’s precision in packing our truck to maximize every single bit of space. In Memphis, the movers had to carry all of our belongings up two small flights of stairs just to get into the first floor. Phew, but they unloaded the truck in less than three hours!! I’m sure they were beat after it was all said and done but you couldn’t tell.
Tip: Offer your movers water throughout the day. We bought a case of bottled water to pass out to both sets of movers. We found that they didn’t have any with them and were moving us on two almost 100 degree days. This simple gesture goes a long long way!
Unpack in Order of Importance
Ugh, unpacking is not nearly as much fun as I thought it would be going into the move. I’ll look in a box and think, “I have absolutely no idea where this goes.” and then I’ll shut said box to deal with it later. Eventually it will all be put away but for now I’m trying to follow a system that a few friends recommended:
Start with the Kitchen First and then go room by room in order of importance.
The kitchen is definitely the most daunting and has more pieces to put away than any other space. Getting this monster out of the way will make all the tasks that follow feel easier. If only I would abide by my own rules … as I still have kitchen boxes just hanging out on the island. But with a two-year-old, new school, potty training and settling in a new city … I’m okay with that! It’ll all come together in time and until then I’m pulling plates out of cardboard boxes and loading them up with Asian delivery! We’ll see how long this lasts, ha!
Do you have any crazy moving day stories or any other tips on how to save money while moving!? No moving day is flawless, let’s be honest!
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Thanks for following along!
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xo, alice
