Should You Hire Movers or Do It Yourself?
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We're in our new place!
After a crazy week we managed to get all of stuff moved from the townhouse to the house by the woods.
Since we've been married we've done a few moves, but this one was the most difficult. Moving with kids is so much more different than when it was just us.
Move Yourself or Hire Movers?
One of the first choices you make with move is deciding whether to do it yourself (with friends) or hire movers.
We've done both and have been happy.
If you're thinking of a big move and can't decide on which is the best option for you, here are some questions to chat about.
- How far away are you moving? If you're moving across the country and have an extremely tight schedule, you might want to go with movers.
- How much stuff are you moving? What are you moving? Delicate and fragile items may push you towards getting professional movers.
- How much help do you have? If you have an army of volunteers, you may find things can go pretty smooth doing it yourself.
- What's your budget? Finally you have to consider your budget.
With each of our moves we came up with a different answer.
Moving Things Ourselves
We decided for this move we were going to do it ourselves. As we reviewed those questions it made more sense to skip on movers this time.
We're still in Raleigh, just closer to downtown. Renting a truck was fairly cheap for the weekend.
While we had some delicate items, for the most part, our stuff was pretty durable. The only items we were worried about were the desks and that was because of how we'd have to wind down the stairs with those large things.
Before we asked, friends volunteered to help out with packing, loading, and unloading our stuff. They were a huge help for us.
Finally looking at some repairs and fixing up we had planned during the initial move-in, our budget pushed us towards doing the move ourselves
Thoughts on Moving
I'd love to get your take on moving. What do you think – was hiring movers worth the cost or was doing it yourself the way to go?
You can rent a truck and still enjoy a cheap, safe move by hiring experienced movers to load your truck. One of the hardest things to do when moving is the loading/unloading the rental truck – but you can hire “movers only” to take care of that part.
I’ve only moved once in the last 8 years, but I hired movers. Kudos to you for doing it yourself, but the cost was DEFINITELY worth it for me. A few hundred bucks and a few hours versus what would have probably been a FULL day of misery followed by days of muscle soreness for me if I’d done it on my own with my husband.
However our friends would not have helped, just as I would not volunteer or be coerced into helping a friend move. We have all aged out – or “incomed out” of that phase of life where the cost savings were worth that kind of hassle. We no longer pick up each other from the airport, pet sit for each other, or help each other move because we can all afford to pay for those tasks now (i.e. we all spend a lot more on frivolous things like trips and dinners out than it costs to complete those tasks).
Maybe that sounds bad, but I remember the turning point a few years ago when I was asked to take a friend to the airport at 7am (meaning fighting rush hour traffic all the way back) and asked to keep another friend’s dog for the weekend (a huge slobbering energetic pup). I realized suddenly that I would rather pay for my friend’s Uber than take on that task – and that being owed a favor was not worth a weekend of hyper-vigilance, hair and drool all over my clean apartment. I actually had frank conversations with both of those friends and we all agreed to leave our days of trading favors behind and pay for our grownup lifestyle choices ourselves. But we all made good money too which was a key factor.
Thanks Elizabeth for sharing your take!
Moving can be stressful for different reasons. Having both hired movers and done it ourselves, I definitely know that each have their pros and cons.
I respect you and your buddies had a frank conversation about what you want and found agreement.
We enjoy trading favors, but I also think part of it is due to the fact we don’t really abuse them. (That would get old quick!) We spent money for food and drinks with our friends so it wasn’t an arduous task.