Your cost of moving cross country? (Oxnard, Santa Barbara: apartment, movers, how much)

[Momma_s]

I'm researching a move from northern VA to CA, and was wondering if anyone would be willing to share their moving costs...

It seems like all the companies online want either detailed info on my household items, or my actual address, phone, first born... And I'm not at that point in the game yet (although sometimes my first born really gets on my nerves ).

We have a 3br home, & 2 kids, but won't be moving the living room furniture (i.e couches, tables & entertainment center).

Thanks!

[rkb0305]

I believe it cost my husbands employer around $10,000 to move us from CA to CO a year ago. That was a 4 bedroom house. We also ended up spending thousands on plane tickets while we lived separately for 5 months, gas and hotels to drive out, and other odds and ends.

[coholder]

Just moved from Raleigh/Durham NC to Santa Barbara, CA last week. Ours was a smaller move, but still relevant I guess. We moved from two bedroom apartment to two bedroom apartment, and then drove our car with our pets.

For moving your stuff, I highly recommend ABF U-pack, it was awesome. Basically, they are a trucking company, and you pack all your stuff into the front of one of their trailers. You then put up a wall to separate it from other stuff, and they deliver the trailer to wherever you want where you unpack it again. They offer door-to-door service, or you can drop-off or pick-up at their terminals, which they have everywhere. For our move, we had a trailer packed wall-to-wall (8 ft) and floor-to-ceiling (9 ft), and used 8 ft of the length of the trailer. They only charge you for however much of the trailer you use, and it comes out really cheap because they can still use the rest of the trailer for regular freight. Ours came out to $1619 (each additional foot of length used would have been $149 for us) for them moving it from their terminal in Durham, NC to their terminal in Oxnard, CA. From apartment door to apartment door would've been I think another $300, so not too bad there either. It was awesome. We had friends with trucks help us load it all up in 1 day in Durham, and paid a guy with a truck to help us unload and move into our apartment in Santa Barbara (no room for the big truck in our new complex, the one drawback of the door-to-door service).

For driving out, we spent 4 hotel nights (not pushing it, taking our time and were traveling with pets), and were around $60 to $70 each night in decent places with no problem. We spent right around $400 on gas I think, I haven't added it all up yet, as we're still unpacking. One tip: check gas prices ahead of where you're going in the morning, so you know where to fill up. For example, on I-40, last big station in AZ before CA: $3.59/gallon. First exit in CA: $4.59. Distance less than 20 miles. So just plan ahead so you know where to stop and when.

[Humanoid]

I recently moved from PA to CA and we actually got rid of all our furniture and everything else was either mailed or bought with us in the car.

This worked out nicely we paid around $400 in shipping, and around $500 for the trip (3 days). Now we had to replace our furniture but doing this ended up being just a bit more than having it moved, but now we have new stuff. Of course if you have some really expensive pieces of furniture this may not make sense, but otherwise it may be worth calculating. Any decent furniture can be sold pretty easily on sites like craigslist before you move.

[Momma_s]

Thanks for the feedback. That's a great tip about the gas prices, coholder. It's crazy how much gas prices fluctuate from town to town...

I'm strongly debating flying out, and having movers take our car with them... It's a Kia that drones at high speeds, and can be mind numbing after a while (like the noise of an airplane), and we have a 6yo & 5mo, so I don't know if I want to spend several days in a small car with kids...

[AlwaysSmiling]

Where in NOVA are you? I lived in Alexandria and moved out here, by way of Washington state! Cross county move..you have got to give details to prospective movers. That is how you will get a detailed estimate. They vary tremendously. Suprisingly enough, the big guys gave me the best deal. I went with Allied and moved a 2500 square foot house and two cars for about 12k.
They came and packed us and unloaded. A HUGE stress reliever..granted a lot of wasted packing paper..but, I wouldn't have done it any other way.