Move It Yourself
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Moving your home, especially long distance,
can cost you a mint if you want full-service packing and shipping. That might
be your only option if you have one of the larger McMansions or your apartment
is full of antique furnishings that need to be protected. For those who can
rough it a little, there are more and more do-it-yourself options out there.
Rental trucks allow you to do it all yourself -- pack, drive and unpack. Say
you're moving from New York City to Danbury, Conn., deep in the suburbs 68 miles
away. A 24-foot truck -- enough to pack up a three-bedroom apartment -- from
U-Haul will cost you $271 for two days with 109 miles thrown in.
The same move from New York to Pasadena, Calif., would be $2,746 for 10 days
with 3,400 miles included. With Penske, such a cross-country trip in a 26-foot
truck costs $2,501 with 10 days and unlimited miles. If you're up for packing
but not driving, a few services will drop off containers at your home for you
to load at your leisure. Then they will drive or ship your furniture to your
new home. It costs more than renting but you pay nothing for gas and travel
expenses and you get plenty of time to load and unload. The downside: these
services aren't available everywhere and you'll have to arrange street parking
yourself.
Door-To-Door (doortodoor.com) will drop off large crates made of plywood and
covered with a weatherproof tarp to your home. They are big enough to hold king-size
mattresses and each fits around one bedroom's worth of furniture. You have five
days to load and unload on either end.
Location may be a problem. Door-To-Door serves most, but not all, metro areas.
In some places, such as New York City, the company won't leave the crates on
the street overnight. You'll have to pay for their moving company to load your
crates for you. That will cost you $5,400 for four containers from New York
to Los Angeles, for example, or $3,000 from New York to Boston. Prices include
insurance up to $1,200 per container.
If you've always wanted your own semi, ABF U-Pack Moving will deliver a 28-foot
trailer to your street or driveway. You pay by the foot and you can use as much
or as little of the trailer as you want. The company packs the rest with commercial
freight. Nineteen feet of trailer space, enough for a three-bedroom home, would
cost $3,000 from Chicago to Los Angeles, but you may have to pack it in one
day depending on parking regulations. Insurance is not included.
Compare those rates with Allied Van Lines, a full-service international mover.
For the same three-bedroom, you'll pay around $7,000 for a cross-country move
or $3,000 for New York to Danbury just for the transport, plus another $2,000
for full-service packing.
Taken from: MARSHALL LOEB'S DAILY MONEY TIP*
*I would also add that there are many other competitive services like www.pods.com
etc.