Ideas on ways to save $ while moving cross country? (Dallas: hotel, house)

[bassman]

I'm looking for some good ideas to cut costs when moving to Austin. I will be moving from Oregon and from what I've seen will likely cost about $4k to move, that's doing the driving myself. Does anyone have any ideas to cut this cost, or any company that is cheaper than the other.

[jhwest]

We moved to Salt Lake a few years ago and the best advice I got was, "if you don't love it or use it all the time, don't move it." We sold a lot of our furniture before we left, plus things we were given by relatives, but didn't care much about (fancy china, ugly artwork). I have never missed any of it.
That's probably not what you were asking for, but it cut costs more than anything else we did.

[love roses]

Eat out as little as possible. That's quite a long drive to always have picnic food, but if you stop every once in a while at a rest stop or nearby park, you'll save on resturaunt costs and getting severe fast food burn out.

[pbnj07]

I've found this site to be very helpful:

Moving: How to avoid Moving Company Scams

[cdelena]

Originally Posted by bassman

I'm looking for some good ideas to cut costs when moving to Austin. I will be moving from Oregon and from what I've seen will likely cost about $4k to move, that's doing the driving myself. Does anyone have any ideas to cut this cost, or any company that is cheaper than the other.

That sounds high for a self move. I had a small household (8300 lbs.) moved Dallas to Vancouver, Wa for less than $4500. We packed but it was loaded, transported and unloaded for that cost. I had four estimates and went with the lowest carrier that had decent references.

[Jazzedforhim]

How did you do the picnic lunch? Bring a cooler with lunchmeat?

[love roses]

Actually, yes. Before we even left the driveway, we actually packed up what stuff we wanted to eat from the refrigerator (cokes, sandwich meat, peanut butter,etc...)before we threw the rest out. That got us relatively far. Then when we stopped for gas, we picked up a little this and that as well. We ate out a few meals just for variety but it really helped and we didn't have to stop as much. But we weren't travelling nearly as far. What sometimes took us 14 or 15 hours when we were kid free took us 3 days with a kiddo.

[Phisch]

Originally Posted by cdelena

That sounds high for a self move. I had a small household (8300 lbs.) moved Dallas to Vancouver, Wa for less than $4500. We packed but it was loaded, transported and unloaded for that cost. I had four estimates and went with the lowest carrier that had decent references.

Who did you use? Were you happy with them?

[johnrex62]

I used PODS for the bulk of my move. I bought a 14' flatbed utility trailer that I mounted a dog pen on to keep my three large dogs in. The rest of the space held the items my wife did not want to let out of her possession and things I did not feel comfortable cramming into a container for a couple weeks (plants, and stuff we would need before the PODS would be delivered). Using the PODS was less than half of any quote I received from a moving company, including some I later discovered were pretty disreputable.

You can cut gas costs by planning the flatest route possible instead of the shortest route possible. I found that my gas mileage went way down during the climbs, to the point that a few extra miles at normal mpg would have been much cheaper.

Gas and meals were my big "travel" expenses. I travel a lot in business, so was able to use hotel points for my overnight stays. If you can tag team drive you can reduce or eliminate much of the motel expenses.

[Phisch]

Thanks Johnrex62. We also opted for PODS since we need storage in Austin (no house yet!). The "immediate needs" will go in a Uhaul trailer. We will trade off driving but with two kids, we won't be driving straight through from California.