Looking for an economical way to move my stuff from Cleveland to Dallas! Please help! (movers, North American)

[missboots23]

Hi, I am a 24 year old moving from Cleveland to Dallas in July. I have minimal furniture that actually would need to be moved--a queen bed, mattress, a big dresser, and a nightstand. I have a dining room table, which I am probably going to sell off so I don't have to move it. I know I could sell my bedroom set, but I paid about $1700.00 for it and really would like to keep it around. Besides that, the rest of the stuff I have is clothes, flat panel tv, and other decorative stuff that could fit into my car. So the bedroom set is really all I need to be moved. I'm looking for the cheapest way to do this. I know Uhaul has trucks, but they're about 1,000 for the smallest truck and I'm not even sure I would need all that space. They also have the trailers, for about $400, but I'd need to buy a hitch for my car --about $150, and I'm a little nervous about driving with something like that behind my wimpy ford taurus! I've heard that there are places where you can just use part of a truck and pay for only the part you use, I've heard there are commercial movers who will do the same. Does anybody know of any good national companies or local (Cleveland, Ohio) companies that do this type of thing? Do you just call random moving companies and ask if they go to Dallas? What are people's opinion on what would be most economical? Thanks so much for any help, as you can tell...I am completely lost on this one!!

[donsabi]

I suggest you look into ABF. They have what they call relo cubes and you pay for how many you use. From the items you listed it sounds like it would all go in one relo cube. You can have these relo cubes dropped at your home or use ABF's terminals. Loading and unloading the relo cubes at the ABF terminals saves a lot of bucks. I used ABF whenever possible and I highly recommend them. You can check them out on line.
BTW, unless you have a suicide wish to NOT use Uhaul!
Good luck,
Don

[Scott Luther]

Moving companies are probably not the most cost effective way. IF you use a mover, stay with the largest names in the industry. Mayflower and United are the two biggest names out there. Allied, North American and Atlas round out the top five names in the industry with over 85% of the market share. Any of those names would be very agressive in pricing to get your business.

It sounds like you would have a minimum weight shipment or under. Most movers (especially the names above) use a minimum weight on interstate shipments. I'm not sure how or why they came up with that particular number, but there it is. If you have less than that weight, it would cost you the same even if you added some stuff as long as it didn't go over 2100lbs.

I would call three agents in your area from those names mentioned heretofor and ask them for their charge for minimum weight shipment to Dallas. Then if you're really ambitious, you could call two or three agents in the Dallas area for the same thing. The reason there is they may have a truck in the area that is going back home directly and alot of the times they may be coming back partly empty. If that is the case, if someone were to get really pricey, it would be them.

Good luck!

[kygman]

Besides ABF you should check on PODS also. They are a good moving service. Just like ABF, you load them and they haul.