One cost that many new homebuyers forget to factor into their budget is moving costs. It may seem like a drop in the bucket compared to the purchase price of a house, but it shouldn’t be overlooked. Between packaging, transportation, and potentially needing to take unpaid time off work, the expenses can add up. Fortunately, there are ways to reduce those costs.
Individually, boxes aren’t very expensive. However, when you’re moving everything in your house, you may need dozens of them. Try to pack up everything you won’t be using anytime soon in advance, to have a better gauge of how many boxes you’ll need. This also gives you time to look for used boxes — most people don’t need their boxes anymore after moving and end up recycling them, but some will put them up on places such as Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace. In addition, even new, buying them in bulk is generally cheaper per unit. Another tip is that grocery stores and retailers often don’t have a use for the boxes their products ship in, and may even be willing to give them up for free.
Some moving companies will offer packing services, but this can ramp up the labor costs. And if you’re packing ahead of time, you’ll need to have your own packing materials. Luckily, you probably already have packing materials and don’t know it. Packing peanuts aren’t actually any more effective than soft clothing, towels, or blankets. Using them as packaging material instead of packing them separately also means you’ll be using fewer boxes. For fragile objects, wrap them in newspaper –if you still subscribe to any print newspapers, despite many newspapers now being online-only.
The biggest cost is often transportation. Renting a moving truck is expensive by itself, and you will also likely need to pay the labor costs for bringing your boxes into and out of the truck, as well as gas costs. Ask friends or family members if you can borrow their truck. You should probably still offer to pay for gas and food, but it would still be a small fraction of the cost.
Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash