Moving Guru Blog

The Futon: A Do It Yourself Mover's Best Friend

Posted on December 7, 2011 by Devie Lin

So, you’re pulling a do it yourself move, avoiding the rental truck, the services, the fees.  This move is going to be made on your back and your car’s axles alone.

And you have got it all squared away. You can fit all of your clothes, electronics, utensils and personal affects into your car.  You’re cutting the dresser; you can live without one for a bit.  You’re losing the desk; it’s superfluous.  You’re selling the grill, a luxury item that isn’t worth price of a retail truck.

But what about the bed?  You’re going to need a bed starting night one.  Sleeping on the floor on a mattress of hoodies doesn’t sound fun, but there’s no way your bed can fit in your car. So what do you do?  Where do you turn?

The futon.

A traditional futon includes a frame and a mattress, but we’re only talking about the mattress here.  A futon mattress is a large pad of comfort, a large pillow of bedding that can be rolled up and stuffed into the backseat of almost any vehicle.  It can cost as little as $40, and it can be dropped on the floor to provide a bed for the recent mover in a new, cavernous home.

The futon mattress is the do it yourself mover’s saviour, a rollable, foldable pile of comfort that can support your dreams until you locate a more permanent solution.

Posted in DIY Moves, Money-Saving Tips | Leave a comment

Apartment Hunting from Afar

Posted on December 5, 2011 by Devie Lin

In a perfect world, you’d be a millionaire who didn’t have to work and who could live in a hotel indefinitely while searching for a new place.  The world is not perfect.

Chances are, if you are moving to a new place, you won’t have the luxury of being able to scout out a new apartment in person.  You will need to apartment search from your current city, no matter how far away it is.

Searching for a place blindly is possible, but it’s time consuming and imprecise.  You should focus your search, if possible, by targeting areas right for you.  Fortunately, there are some ways to do this.

Use Craiglist – if you know the neighborhood(s) you want to live in, Craigslist is a Greta resource.  It will let you narrow neighborhoods, prices and pe of places so that you can quickly find what’s available that suits your needs.  And it’s free.

Use an apartment service – there are companies that collect apartment advertisements and that allow you to narrow your searches based on price, location and type.  They come at a price, but they can be of great use, especially as a complement to Craiglist.

Hire a realtor – you can pay an actual person to search for you.  This can be especially helpful if you are moving to an area that is competitive for good rents and locations, like the San Francisco bay area or New York.  A realtor can be an advocate that gets your application to the top of the pile, so to speak.

Use Google Street View – google street view is a great way to experience an area. You can type in an address and wander the streets, seeing the surroundings buildings and nature for blocks, for miles.  It’s the next best thing to walking the streets yourself.

Finding an apartment in a new area where you don’t live is very possible, and fortunately finding an apartment is easier than finding a home.  If you are looking for a home, learn how to find a new home in a different city.

Posted in Apartment and House Hunting | 2 Comments

Considering You Pack Services for Your Next Move

Posted on December 2, 2011 by Devie Lin

You pack, we drive.? You pack, we move.? You pack, we ship.? Call if what you want, but there is a moving service out there that doesn?t require you taking out a mortgage to move your stuff and that also doesn?t require you getting behind the wheel of a behemoth truck for 1,200 white-knuckled miles You pack, as I?ll call it, is a service that strikes a middle ground between hiring a full-fledged moving service and renting a truck.? It lets you load your belongings into a pod, which a moving service transports to your new home. Hiring a You Pack company is much like hiring any other moving service.? To find the best price, you need to know the right questions to ask.? However, when considering whether to hire a You Pack service, you should first ask yourself two questions: Can I comfortably and competently drive a moving truck? How much am I willing to pay to avoid driving a moving truck? If you can drive a moving truck and if the value to you of having someone else drive is lower than the difference in price between a truck rental and a You Pack service (i.e. if you don’t think it’s worth $200 more to have someone drive for you), then you should probably stick with just renting a truck because in both situations you will have to do the heavy lifting yourself.

Posted in Moving Companies, Types of Moves | Leave a comment

Meeting Your New Neighbors

Posted on November 30, 2011 by Devie Lin

After you settle in, you don’t have to meet your neighbors.  You can quietly go to and from work without interacting with anyone in your neighborhood or apartment complex.  However, you should go out of your way to meet your neighbors for two major reasons.

You might like them.  The person living below you might have many of the same interests as you.  It’s as possible as you having similar interests with someone at a party or at the gym.  If you don’t take the chance, though, you won’t know.

You can establish each others’ pet peeves and social boundaries.  Maybe your neighbor goes to bed at 9:00 pm every night due to work.  Maybe you don’t like when people let their dogs onto your yard.  If you don’t take the time to clarify your needs and your neighbors’, then you’re asking for a stressful, angry situation where one of you has to approach the other to get them to stop.  It’s best to prevent that entirely.

How to meet your neighbors is much like any social situation.  Be friendly, smile, introduce yourself, listen and avoid burdening your neighbor with your personal concerns or issues.  Save those for a time when you are more familiar with each other, perhaps at a backyard barbeque.

Posted in Settling into Your New Home | Leave a comment

Taxes: How Moving Can Save You Money

Posted on November 28, 2011 by Devie Lin

Moving is bad.  Taxes are worse.  However, sometimes they can combine into something positive.

In certain situations, you can deduct your moving expenses from your taxes.  For example, if moving cost you $5,000, you can subtract that amount from your gross income, making your taxable income $5,000 less.  Depending on your tax bracket, this can save you over $1,200.

Of course, $5,000 is much more than $1,200, but at least you can get a little bump back for an expensive move.  For more information, check with the IRS and read our article that explains how and when you can deduct moving expenses from your taxes.

Posted in Money-Saving Tips, Moving Financials | Leave a comment

Hiring a Moving Company: How to Haggle

Posted on November 23, 2011 by Devie Lin

Okay, let’s be real, you don’t haggle with a moving company like you do with a sunglasses vendor in a beach.  Moving companies are professional entities that do not alter their prices for customers after they shrug and threaten to go to a different moving company.

However, understanding the basic principles behind haggling can help you in hiring a good moving company.  In an article by Art Markman on psychologytoday.com, Mr. Markman discussed two major factors that lead to paying too much money in a haggling situation:

First, consumers generally don’t know the true value of a service or product, leading them to thinking they are getting a deal when a vendor drops a wildly exaggerated price.

Second, the social situation (the consumer’s stress, the friendliness of the vendor, the lack of knowledge of the consumer, the experience of the vendor) is in favor of a price slanted towards the vendor.

These two factors apply to some degree when you’re hiring a moving company as well, no doubt, and you can do your best to mitigate them to help ensure you get a good price for the right service.

First, gather many moving quotes so you know generally how much you should expect to pay.  You can get free moving quotes from movingguru.com for this purpose.

Second, start looking for a moving company at least a month before your move so you’re not overly stressed when dealing with them.

Third, if you are uncomfortable questioning the basis for rates and fees, discuss the details of your move in person with someone else with you.  This will help reduce your stress and will help you gather the necessary information to make an informed decision.

Fourth, remember that you don’t need to decide on the spot.  Take some time to mull it over.

Again, hiring a moving company is nothing like haggling at a yard sale, but the basic principles of haggling can be observed in just about any consumer situation, even if the prices are set.  If you understand how to haggle, you increase the chances that you will enter into a deal favorable to you.

For more insight into how to hire a good moving company, check out our recent article about what to ask a moving company.

Posted in Money-Saving Tips, Moving Companies | 2 Comments

The Reason to Choose Cable over DSL

Posted on November 22, 2011 by Devie Lin

When choosing an Internet service provider, you might have to decide between cable and DSL (dial up is irrelevant in 2011).  So, which is better?  The truth of the matter is that it depends: are you a casual Internet user or are you dependant on your Internet?

Cable and DSL differ in how they transport information.  Cable transports information through the same cables as your TV service; DSL transports it through phone lines.

In theory, cable Internet is by far the faster of the two.  While the most up-to-date DSL download speeds top out at a max of 15 mbps, cable download speeds can reach as high as 150 mbps with a national average of roughly 11 mbps.

However, while faster is usually better, having super fast Internet is useless to most people.  It’s like buying a race car to get you to and from work.

Most Internet users only use between 2 and 5 mbps.  Check speedtest.net to see how much you are using at the moment.

In sum, if you are downloading movies and streaming sports every night, cable is the way to go.  However, if you just need to check your email and read the news, DSL will get the job done, probably for a cheaper price, too.

Posted in Getting Utilities | Leave a comment

The Price of Moving

Posted on November 18, 2011 by Devie Lin

Moving can be an expensive affair.  According to CNN, the average cost of shipping your stuff to your new home is over $10,000.

This number might seem high, but it’s not unreasonable.  Hiring a full service moving company to transport your belongings across the nation requires a lot of time and effort on their part.  Think about it: a large truck might only get 6-8 mpg.  If you are moving from Dallas to San Francisco, that’s close to $1000 for gas alone.  A couple thousand dollars for such a move just won’t cut it.

Additionally, there is a lot that goes into moving beyond moving itself.  When making a move, you need to consider everything from pre-move visits to moving supplies to lodging.

Fortunately, there’s a lot you can do to lower the cost of your move. Unfortunately, while many money-saving ideas can trim a few hundred dollars off of your total, they aren’t going to drop a $10,000 move to a $2,000 move.  The only way to drastically reduce your moving costs is to drastically change your type of move either by foregoing moving companies and doing it yourself or reducing what it is that you’re moving.

Posted in Moving Financials, Types of Moves | 1 Comment

When Self-Storage Becomes Self Destruction

Posted on November 16, 2011 by Devie Lin

Self-storage is taking on a new role in America: a home addition.

In the past, self-storage units were used as transitional crutches, places to store stuff for a limited time with a foreseeable end.  People used them while living in a hotel or small place and awaiting to move into a larger one; they used them to store deceased relatives’ belongings; they used them to transition in life, whatever the transition was (divorce, lost job, lost home, travel abroad).

Now, though, 50% of renters use storage units to simply store stuff they can no longer fit in their homes, according to the New York Times article “The Self-Storage Self”.  Their use is indefinite in many cases, lasting for numerous years, which can cost renters tens of thousands of dollars.

We recently discussed how to find self-storage and why it can be a good fit for your short-term moving needs.  However, if you’re renting self-storage without a definite end date, you might end up paying way more money than saving.  If you can’t fit everything in your home, and you don’t foresee that situation changing anytime soon, it might be best to start getting rid of that excess stuff.  Simply having a yard sale or selling your extra stuff on Craigslist or eBay could save you thousands of dollars and hassle.

Posted in Difficult Things to Move, Money-Saving Tips | 5 Comments

Moving Smoothly – Avoiding Hurting Your Back

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Devie Lin

The most common injury associated with moving is the proverbial “throwing out your back.”  A person lifts a heavy box the wrong way, or misses the stair, or simply twists around the wrong way while packing… then POP… and there’s wincing, clenching and pain.

Throwing out your back can mean a lot of things, really.  There can be a slipped or herniated disc, a muscle tear, muscle spasms, a ligament strain or tear, and even an ambiguous injury that not even a doctor can figure out.  In any event, it’s a debilitating and enduring injury that can last for months or years.  And if it’s ever going to happen, its going to happen while packing on moving day.  However, you can take steps to protect yourself.

Throwing out your back when moving is an avoidable injury.  Just be careful.  Move deliberately and only lift what you know you can lift.  Don’t push it; don’t rush; don’t take risks.  Be slow and steady, and you’ll eventually get the job done without a mountain of doctor’s bills awaiting you.

Posted in Moving Safety | 1 Comment