My husband and I recently made the decision to move from Southern California to just outside of Seattle, partially driven by circumstances surrounding COVID-19. While developing our game plan for moving, we investigated different options for a cross country move. Even though we haven’t landed on a final decision, we developed our own pros and cons.
I’m a seasoned mover, having moved over thirty times in my life. I didn’t grow up in a military family, we just moved a lot for my dad’s work and family reasons. This move will be my fifth move since college, yet even the 1400 mile convoy won’t be my longest haul.
There are three options we considered for moving: renting a moving truck ourselves (like UHaul), hiring shipping containers (like Pods or U-Pack), or hiring professional movers.
I’ll share the quotes we got for all three and what was included, as well as tips for how to get the best quotes.
Figure Out How Much Stuff You Have to Move Cross Country
While it may seem obvious, downsizing is the key to reducing costs when you move. I’m a huge fan of the KonMari method, even if I haven’t successfully implemented it in my household. Recycling old paper that you don’t need, cleaning out your pantry of expired cans, and selling unused furniture are essentials.
One component that many people forget is how much it cost to move something a significant distance. In some of the quotes I’ll share later for professional movers, they estimate the cost per cubic foot. If you have a 3′ x 3′ x 6′ sofa, for example, that’s 54 cubic feet. If a mover chargers $4.50 per CF, moving that couch will cost $243. Depending on how much you bought it for, and what it would cost to replace it, you may consider selling it before you move.
There are many volume estimators online to help you calculate your total volume of stuff. Furniture will be a majority of the volume. Boxes are important, but if you’re like us, at this stage you may not even know how many boxes you’ll have. Try a calculator like CarGo.com to see what the impact would be if you needed ten more boxes than you thought.
DIY – Renting Your Own Moving Truck
By far, the cheapest option we found for our cross country move was to rent our own moving truck, tow our two motorcycles on a trailer, and do it all ourselves.
Pros: Cheapest option, full control over how the truck is loaded, and you know what stuff you need to be the most careful with
Cons: Driving a large truck cross country is not fun, towing a trailer is not fun, and lifting tons of heavy boxes and furniture is not fun.
Cost: For 1400 miles, and a two bedroom house, we estimated the total cost of renting a 26′ truck, a trailer for the motorcycles, and the gas and fuel for a Jeep, a car, and the UHaul to be about $3,400.
What’s Included: The cost of renting a UHaul for five days and 1485 miles, the cost of renting a trailer for the same, plus the gas for three vehicles. That’s it.
Renting Moving Containers
The next option we considered was renting moving containers. In this scenario, we’re saving ourselves the stress of driving a moving truck ourselves and finding enough drivers to drive three vehicles.
Pros: Have several days to load the containers and unload them, someone else drives the bulk of our stuff, not as expensive as we thought.
Cons: The cost is per container, so adding a whole extra container is a significant cost. We still have to load ourselves, but we get several days to do it.
Cost: For two containers, we got a quote for $2,900, while three containers was $3,800. All in, for gas, trailer for the motorcycles, and the cost of three pods, we estimated a total of $5,200.
What’s Included: We chose U-Pack for the basis of our quote. Each “ReloCube” is about 70” x 82” x 93” (DWH). When you compare the volume to a 26′ UHaul truck, you get far less bang for your buck. However, having the extra time may allow you to make the cubes more efficiently than a UHaul. In my experience, with UHauls you don’t always use all the height available, where you might be able to with the moving containers.
Professional Movers
Last time we moved, we swore up and down that we would hire movers the next time. Even though we’re young enough and strong enough to move all our own heavy boxes and furniture, it’s a lot of stress.
Pros: Save a lot of physical energy and stress by hiring professionals, save the stress of driving a large truck.
Cons: The cost is pretty significant and could be a bit of a surprise at the end if you need more space than you thought.
Cost: Perhaps because of the pandemic, the quotes we cost were much lower than we thought. The first one came in at $18,000!!! Then, the next ten ranged between $5,400 (with discounts) and $6,000. All in, this would put our total cost to be around $5,800-$6,400.
What’s Included: In our quote, we got estimates for including the motorcycles. The total cost included about 1,400 cubic feet of stuff, the motorcycles, and moving my spinet piano (which is a huge pain). The quotes also include an estimate for additional space if needed, ranging between $4.30-$6.50 per cubic foot.
What’s Best for a Cross Country Move?
Ultimately, there’s no right answer for how you should move cross country. For us, we are weighing the pros and cons of the costs versus the stress/physical toll.
If we didn’t have help, or one of us wasn’t physically able to help lift heavy furniture, we would likely be looking into hiring movers, at least for loading and unloading help. However, if we couldn’t afford the cost of the movers, which wouldn’t have been the case several years ago, then we would obviously have to go with the much cheaper rental option.
We hope that sharing these quotes helped give you some insight into your next cross country move. If you want more info or have any questions, feel free to drop me a line below!