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5 Ways Your Family Can Cut Costs When Moving

By: Author Jeff Campbell

Posted on Last updated:

Categories Guest Posts

Moving is sometimes something you have to do, whether you want to or not. Other times, it may be something you want to do with every fiber of your being. Three things about it are pretty consistent, however. Moving is stressful, time-consuming, and expensive. The costs involved with it catch a lot of families off-guard, but there are ways your family can minimize expenses when moving if you know what you’re doing.

5 Ways to Save Money When Moving

While there are many ways your family can cut costs when moving, trying too many of them might actually dilute your time and efforts. For the best results, it’s good to focus on just a few at first to make the most of them:

  1. Gather Up Free Boxes: Moving boxes aren’t exactly cheap. Get all the free moving supplies you can from friends, family, community groups, stores around your neighborhood, and online marketplaces. Local Facebook groups have possible moving boxes, as do Craigslist, U-Haul Box Exchange, Nextdoor.com, and Freecycle. Check with schools, drop-off locations for recyclables, grocery stores, big-box chains, and local ABC or liquor stores.
  2. Purge Before You Pack: Get rid of unused items prior to packing. Unnecessary furniture, outdated electronics, and clothes that don’t fit anymore are all things that shouldn’t come along for the ride. Sell what you can, and donate, recycle, or dispose of the rest.
  3. Do Your Own Packing: Professional packers might expedite the process of moving, but it’s also going to run up your overall moving costs quite a bit. In fact, you might spend hundreds on that by itself, depending on your specific moving company. Ask them what their hourly packing charge is and how long such packing usually takes. To make things easy for yourself for DIY packing, pack up your least-used room first and make it your packing area.
  4. Pick a Cheaper Time for Moving: If you have any leeway over your moving date, then you can save a lot of money. The big season for moving is May through August on the national level. If you can go from September to April, then things will be much cheaper. Also, if you can move in the middle of a week or even the middle of a month, things will cost less. Demand for moving services is highest on weekends and around the end or start of a month.
  5. Get Multiple Quotes: Get quotes from a minimum of three movers. Don’t trust quotes from anyone that hasn’t inspected your home and belongings either via video or in person themselves so they have a better idea of what’s involved.

Shipping Your Motorcycle and Other Family Vehicles

If your family owns only one vehicle, moving can be a pretty straightforward process. However, with the inclusion of additional vehicles and recreational vehicles such as ATV’s and motorcycles, the process of moving can become a bit more complicated.

Riding your motorcycle from your old home to your next one can quickly prove impractical for many reasons. For starters, you’d have to likely log all the miles, unless your family has another licensed rider. This is one less adult swapping off driving duties in the family car or being there for any kids tagging along. Motorcycle shipping services can solve these problems for you.

You can easily keep your family together throughout the journey of moving by having motorcycles and additional family vehicles shipped for you. For that matter, shipping your vehicles is a crucial consideration you should take if you decide to fly your family to your next city or state.

If you have motorcycle or vintage car projects that aren’t currently operational, then shipping your projects through a reputable company is the easiest and safest way to get them to their next destination.

Moving Into Your Next Home

Doing all you can to cut costs on moving to your new home is a savvy idea, but you’re not done once you actually get there. To make starting your new life as good as possible, Forbes suggests doing the following things:

  1. Enjoy a Walkthrough: If you can do it while the home is still empty, do a walkthrough. If it was previously occupied or staged, this is your chance to see it as a blank canvas and start deciding on furniture placement.
  2. Safety Precautions: If you have kids or pets coming along, then this is the time to identify potential hazards to them and take steps to correct them.
  3. Unpacking Schedule: Rather than just diving into random boxes, it’s a good idea to know what items are priority things to open up and what can wait. Kitchen items are usually a good place to start.
  4. Connect the Utilities: Having the power hooked up first means you won’t spend your first night in the dark. Wi-Fi, cable, and a phone line are also high priorities.
  5. Find the Crucial Functions: Locate the circuit breaker, carbon monoxide and smoke detectors, and emergency water shutoff for your home.
  6. Tend to Security: You might want to shop around for your security system, and that can take some time. However, changing the locks shouldn’t wait once you get handed the keys.
  7. Do a Deep Cleaning: If you can find the time and energy to scrub down your home between closing and you walk in with the first boxes, you’ll be grateful later.
  8. Change Your Family’s Address: A change of address form at the post office will give you several months of mail forwarding, but you’ll eventually have to start letting everyone know where you now live.
  9. Go Exploring: Your new favorite grocery store, movie theater, and Chinese restaurant are somewhere nearby just waiting to be discovered.
  10. Consider Your New Climate: If you have a dramatic change in the region, it might mean different influences on everything from your furniture dealing with humidity or lack thereof to even the kinds of flowers you can plant outside.
  11. Don’t Go It Alone: As much as you can hire professionals to handle packing your old home up, you can hire professionals for moving furniture in or just cleaning the home.

Document Everything

One final word to the wise is to keep documentation about everything. Keep every single receipt involved with moving expenses. You might be able to deduct these off of your state and federal taxes when next April comes around. Aside from documenting your bills, take advantage of this time to document your experiences with your family. This a great time to make lasting memories with each family member involved. Make sure to take lots of pictures and make some memorable notes that can be reminisced upon for years to come.

Jeff Campbell
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