Move by Yourself or Hire a Moving Company?

2006-06-12

One of the first questions that you will have to ask yourself before moving day is whether to move yourself or hire a moving company. In almost every case involving to a local move, renting a moving van yourself will be cheaper. This assumes that you have sufficient number of able-bodied friends who are willing to give up one of their weekends in order to help you. And don't forget that if someone helps you move, you're almost legally obligated to help them on their moving day; no matter what else you have planned. It's one of those unwritten rules of life.

Moving Yourself

While renting a moving van is a cheap way of moving locally, the savings tend to evaporate the farther you go from your starting point owing to mileage charges. Be sure to figure in all of these variables prior to making your decision of renting a moving van or hiring a moving company. Depending on the amount of furniture that you are moving, there will come a point where the physical hardship of moving yourself added with the mileage costs and the irritation of your friends at having to help you will be greater than the cost of hiring a moving company. You however, will have to figure out exactly what this amount of money is yourself. So let's look at this as a mathematical equation:

Moving van cost + Mileage charges + Physical inconvenience + Friend's irritation = Total Cost of Self Move

Hiring a Moving Company

The cost of hiring a moving company is generally easier to calculate, with most international movers charging between $.90 and $1.10 per pound of material moved. For the average couple with two children and a typical amount of goods, the cost of hiring a moving company usually runs between $2000 and $3500. Smaller local moving companies will all have their own system of calculating your total costs, and each company would have to be called and asked to provide an estimate. Usually however, they are cheaper than the major moving companies. Mathematically, this looks like

Total weight of household goods [in pounds] x $0.90 – $1.10 = Cost of hiring a moving company

So be sure to examine all of your personal variables before deciding whether to move yourself or hire a moving company.

Related Articles:
» How to Hire a Mover [Part 1]
» How to Hire a Mover [Part 2]
» House Buying: Moving Help

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