How to Avoid Hiring a Moving Company
I’ve heard my fair share of horror stories about moving from one place to the next and ending up with personal items broken and damaged. In some of the more severe cases, I’ve even heard of moving companies not making it to the final destination at all.
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While this certainly isn’t the case for all companies and I’m sure that a majority of the time everything works out perfectly, there are ways to avoid having to roll the dice with this situation at all. I have to remind myself that things are irrelevant, but when you’re young and spending your first hard-earned adult dollars on furnishing a home, something going wrong could become a huge financial stressor.
In my early stages of adulthood, I wanted to take advantage of my lack of “roots” and minimal possessions to have a stress-free move. This meant having complete control over how things were packed up, when they’d arrive, and the condition they’d arrive in. This may seem like everything will only become more work for you, but there are ways to pack and move all of your belongings easily with just the help of a friend or family member (maybe 2).
When should I hire a moving company?
Moving companies can be extremely helpful in many cases. Some that come to mind are if you’re living alone and have to move without help from friends or family, you live in a high-rise and can’t easily transport your belongings, you have a ton of belongings and/or furniture that can’t be easily broken down and put into a truck or car, you are moving a longggg distance, or you simply received a great recommendation and full trust in the service.
Whatever the reasoning is, moving companies have great value, but they should be researched extensively and you should also meet with a few companies before settling on a specific crew.
Decisions like this should not be made uninformed, especially if you have the time and resources to do a little bit more upfront research.
How can I move without movers?
The key to moving without movers is this: be minimalistic.
As a new grad, this is quite easy because up until this point, most of the things I owned were really my parents’ things. So as I started to plan for my new apartment, all of my furniture, kitchenware, art…everything could be new.
Even though having few possessions to your name makes being minimalistic easier, you can still do this if you have a lot of stuff or this is not your first time moving.
Ditch the complex furniture
Unless you’re moving to your forever home or splurged on a beautiful piece of furniture, everything should be able to be broken down into smaller pieces.
For clarity: by “broken down” I mean the ability to separate parts. This could mean removing the legs from a chair or removing drawers from a dresser.
Even with a moving crew, loading up dressers, coffee tables, and beds as full furniture pieces will waste space in the truck and personal energy. It may take slightly more time to deconstruct your furniture into smaller pieces, but you’ll be able to more easily protect the furniture and the pieces will be much lighter to move especially if you opt to move without a crew.
If you’re starting fresh furniture wise, keep this in mind and limit the amount of furniture you buy that would require a group of movers deliver the piece to your home full assembled, or items that cannot be broken down to begin with.
Go modular
This connects with the last point of ditching complex furniture. Using modular pieces, specifically a modular sofa allows you to not only move the furniture more easily, but you’ll also have more creative freedom when it comes to designing the furniture set up.
Using a modular couch can be helpful for moving on your own as the couch is already broken down into separate pieces and are often fit into boxes that will fit nicely in a moving van.
Of course, you never want to sacrifice personal style for the configuration of a couch. However, if you’re living in an apartment complex, specifically on a higher level floor, you’ll have a much easier time moving with small pieces.
Do a “spring cleaning”
Decide what you need and don’t need. This applies to furniture too. Sometimes, it’s better to cut your losses and repurchase a piece of furniture at your new residence compared to lugging something from one place to the next.
You can sell old furniture on Facebook Marketplace, donate to charity, give items to friends and family, or try the local thrift store. Unfortunately, doing this takes a little bit of timing because it would be challenging to try and sell furniture while simultaneously moving out.
Specifically if you’ve had your pieces of furniture for a while AND you can afford to refresh your style, there are plenty of places you can use to ship new furniture to your new home. Places that come to mind are: IKEA, Amazon, Wayfair, Overstock, and of course you can also visit local furniture stores as well.
Move in phases
Depending on the distance your moving and the potential overlap of your lease/mortgage you may be able to slowly move items from one location to the next. Moving in phases can help make the process of breaking down furniture, moving, and setting things up again less exhausting.
If you are unable to move in while you’re still living in your current home, consider renting a storage unit close to your new place and slowly bring things that you’re unlikely to use in the meantime to the storage.
You may also plan ahead and move new furniture to the new home first and set everything new up before packing up and moving your current home (this also applies to the storage unit).
Invest in a dolly
If you’re attempting to move without a service, you should still invest in some tools that a service would use. Getting a dolly is a great way to prevent injury, ease muscle fatigue, and overall make the moving process less exhausting.
Using a dolly, you can load up boxes and bigger pieces of furniture and roll them through the apartment halls or up your driveway instead of carrying things. You’ll get so much more done and much faster…trust me.
Recruit a friend
Even if you’re simply moving your clothing, moving can be challenging. Sometimes the mental aspect of feeling overwhelmed with the number of trips you’ll have to take or organizing boxes can be worse than the physical fatigue.
Having a friend of family member there for support and helping hands will make the process more energetic and go by faster.
Moving is an exciting time in life. One chapter is closing and new doors are beginning to open. Whether it’s cost, fear, or something else, you don’t have to use a moving company to have a successful move. With some planning and helping hands, you’ll be moved from one place to the next in no time.
