Moving, need advice

[Sir Fredrick]

I am moving from MI to FL, but before that, I'm going to MA for a couple weeks.

Originally I was going to rent a uhaul trailer to take all my stuff, but that's turning out to be quite expensive.
What's the cheapest/easiest way to get my stuff where it needs to go?
It won't all fit in my car, my computer stuff alone will fill that up (two monitors, two full tower cases).
I hear that UPS is cheaper for shipping big/heavy stuff than USPS is, but I have no idea how to ship my stuff with UPS.

 

[PsychoAndy]

Originally posted by: Sir Fredrick
I am moving from MI to FL, but before that, I'm going to MA for a couple weeks.

Originally I was going to rent a uhaul trailer to take all my stuff, but that's turning out to be quite expensive.
What's the cheapest/easiest way to get my stuff where it needs to go?
It won't all fit in my car, my computer stuff alone will fill that up (two monitors, two full tower cases).
I hear that UPS is cheaper for shipping big/heavy stuff than USPS is, but I have no idea how to ship my stuff with UPS.

well, you could look into other truck rentals. have you shopped around?

UPS- pack stuff in box and take to counter/office depot/staples. they should deliver from MI to FL in about 4 days IIRC. check transit time.

 

[HomeBrewerDude]

at least consider selling everything except your computer, 2 suitcases of clothes, and your music. buy new or used replacement furniture and crap when you get to florida.

 

[Sir Fredrick]

Originally posted by: yamahaXS
at least consider selling everything except your computer, 2 suitcases of clothes, and your music. buy new or used replacement furniture and crap when you get to florida.

That's the plan, and I still don't have enough room for everything. :\

Does Staples charge an arm and a leg to ship stuff via ups for you?

 

[bmacd]

unless things have changed very recently, UPS will not ship what an average person can't lift...so i'd imagine that you couldn't ship anything over 100 lbs. Just get the U-haul and bite the bullet. Just avoid any unneccessary trips that add mileage to the truck.

-=bmacd=-

edit: btw...where in MI are you moving from?

 

[Sir Fredrick]

To get a UHaul truck and the trailer necessary to haul my car, we're looking at something like $800, if I remember correctly. And that's to get my stuff to MA. I'd have to spend even more to get it from MA to FL.

My boxes will certainly not weigh more than 100lbs. *I* wouldn't be able to lift them.

I'm in Lansing, MI

 

[PsychoAndy]

Originally posted by: Sir Fredrick

Originally posted by: yamahaXS
at least consider selling everything except your computer, 2 suitcases of clothes, and your music. buy new or used replacement furniture and crap when you get to florida.

That's the plan, and I still don't have enough room for everything. :\

Does Staples charge an arm and a leg to ship stuff via ups for you?

they are bound by their agreement to charge the counter rate

 

[Sir Fredrick]

Counter rate? Is that the rate you would pay by shipping through UPS directly?

 

[Sir Fredrick]

Oh yeah, where's a good place to get boxes free/cheap?

 

[bmacd]

My uncle got boxes cheap from U-haul b/c they were discontinuing the style of the boxes (new dimensions maybe?). For free boxes, goto kmart early in the morning (around 8am...7 if they're open). Otherwise, ask when a good date to come and get big boxes.

-=bmacd=-

 

[PsychoAndy]

Originally posted by: Sir Fredrick
Counter rate? Is that the rate you would pay by shipping through UPS directly?

directly as in: you are the customer and take it to ups without an account

theres also me, which is: take it to them and get the book rate (depends where you look but its about 10% cheaper)

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: Sir Fredrick
Oh yeah, where's a good place to get boxes free/cheap?

Try any fast food or retail place. They're happy to get rid of the boxes. You should see what happens when some idiot puts 20 broken down boxes into a compactor with trash.

 

[geoff2k]

For our last move we got most of our boxes from the local liquor store. They've got a continuous supply, and are more than happy to give them away.

If you do decide to go this route, take the bottle separators out AT the store, or you'll have a whole collection of them at home...

 

[Sir Fredrick]

Great advice. Thanks guys

 

[etech]

This might be worth a phone call.

Once when I was moving someone advised me to check into Greyhound package service. You take the packages to the bus station, they move them and then you pick them up at the destination bus station. It was the cheapest method of shipping at that time. The time was over 20 years ago.

The boxes had to be fairly small and I wouldn't advise shipping anything highly prized that way, but it worked for me one time.

Greyhound personal shipping

 

[Sir Fredrick]

Greyhound once managed to lose a bag that they placed under the bus for me, without putting a ticket on it. They were unwilling to process any claims on the bag because it didn't have a ticket on it. It is against their policy to put bags on the bus if they don't have a ticket, but they did anyway. I'd be afraid to try shipping anything with them. :|

 

[yakko]

Originally posted by: etech
This might be worth a phone call.

Once when I was moving someone advised me to check into Greyhound package service. You take the packages to the bus station, they move them and then you pick them up at the destination bus station. It was the cheapest method of shipping at that time. The time was over 20 years ago.

The boxes had to be fairly small and I wouldn't advise shipping anything highly prized that way, but it worked for me one time.

Greyhound personal shipping

Holy crap! You sure turned on the wayback machine there. I didn't think they still did that.

 

[amdskip]

Ehhh, ups is not the best shipper in the world. Walmart is a good place to get boxes from but make sure you put in a request for boxes in advance because we recycle all of our cardboard by baling it all.

What about renting like a full size van that you can take the seats out or an extended full size van. Put a dolly behind and pull your car or even better would be a trailer because it's much easier to pull a car on a trailer.

 

[PowerEngineer]

Originally posted by: Sir Fredrick

Originally posted by: yamahaXS
at least consider selling everything except your computer, 2 suitcases of clothes, and your music. buy new or used replacement furniture and crap when you get to florida.

That's the plan, and I still don't have enough room for everything. :\

Hmmmm.... I'm thinking that if you still don't have enough room, then you must be holding onto a lot more stuff than YamahaXS is recommending to you.

I made my own cross country move from East Coast to West Coast. Drove my car loaded with stuff and shipped the rest via Greyhound (surprised anyone else even thought of that! UPS refused to pick up more than 50lbs per day from any one site --go figure?). Found out I didn't need have the stuff once I got there. I also realized I shouldn't have taken my car either; what's the value of a rusty car on the West Coast? -- nada.

I'd take another good hard look at everything you're keeping. Good luck!

 

[fornax]

Last time I moved my new company paid for the moving, but before negotiating that, I priced a few places. Cheapest turned out to be Budget/Ryder - they were exactly half of what Uhaul's estimate was. Not to mention that they had a place next door to me, whereas Uhaul was 20 mi away.

 

[Sir Fredrick]

Maybe I'm holding on to too much, but I don't know. Here's what I'm bringing for sure:
Clothes
Both computers
Scanner
Printer
Pots and pans
dishes
silverware
couple hundred CDs
books (though I'm probably going to ditch a lot of them)
air filter (necessary for allergies)
a small box or two with misc. computer parts.

What would you not bother to bring, keeping in mind that I don't want to spend tons of money replacing everything when I get there?