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Serious question lol obviously this does not include any large furniture. I'm thinking of putting all my essentials and everything into big boxes and shipping it out in one of the carriers. I'm not sure what the price difference would be btw doing it like this or through a moving company. I live in a relatively small mobile life (studio apartment). Obviously boxes will be padded and such. Anyone have any experience with this?
Serious question lol obviously this does not include any large furniture. I'm thinking of putting all my essentials and everything into big boxes and shipping it out in one of the carriers. I'm not sure what the price difference would be btw doing it like this or through a moving company. I live in a relatively small mobile life (studio apartment). Obviously boxes will be padded and such. Anyone have any experience with this?
Sounds expensive. I once sent a blow up mattress from Michigan to Florida and it cost 40 dollars.
I'm going to move about 1000 miles. I'm not going to drive. It's either deliver it myself through a shipping company or hire moving company to do whole load
I'd get a quote from a moving company before even considering FedEx/UPS etc.
Though if you do go through FedEx/UPS, be sure to look into their freight services. It will likely be cheaper to do a pallet of boxes rather than shipping them individually.
I'm going to move about 1000 miles. I'm not going to drive. It's either deliver it myself through a shipping company or hire moving company to do whole load
Ah, whenever I have moved across the country I drove.
I don't know anything about shipping companies. If I had to absolutely guess, I'd say a shipping company would be cheaper because that's what they specialize in.
Serious question lol obviously this does not include any large furniture. I'm thinking of putting all my essentials and everything into big boxes and shipping it out in one of the carriers. I'm not sure what the price difference would be btw doing it like this or through a moving company. I live in a relatively small mobile life (studio apartment). Obviously boxes will be padded and such. Anyone have any experience with this?
I have done it twice.
The cheapest way is to get the boxes from the shipping company, the shipping costs are lower when using their packaging. Last time I used FedEx, went great, shipped 13 boxes full of misc items when I moved to Miami. It was much cheaper than any moving company quoted me for, and a heck of a lot more reliable given the shady reputation many moving companies have.
I paid a little over $330 for the boxes to be shipped, not too bad in my opinion, this was from DC to Miami. I had three large boxes, and the rest were the medium size boxes. Contents were mostly clothes, bedding, pots/kitchen items, misc papers. The weight did not exceed the weight limit of the boxes which if I remember, around 20lbs or so. Basically looking at $1 per pound if I remember my rough estimating correctly.
If you have books, ship media mail via USPS.
For more personal items like photos, important papers, and souvenirs; I drove those items myself.
Nice thing is you can track your items, it is through carriers like FedEx who have proven reliability (unlike the numerous shady lower cost movers), and will even hold at the local office until you can pick it up (in case you would not be there yet to get, or not have a place to have the items delivered to).
The cheapest way is to get the boxes from the shipping company, the shipping costs are lower when using their packaging. Last time I used FedEx, went great, shipped 13 boxes full of misc items when I moved to Miami. It was much cheaper than any moving company quoted me for, and a heck of a lot more reliable given the shady reputation many moving companies have.
Can you explain why it's better to get boxes from them? I actually just got a ton of boxes today from Home Depot...
Serious question lol obviously this does not include any large furniture. I'm thinking of putting all my essentials and everything into big boxes and shipping it out in one of the carriers. I'm not sure what the price difference would be btw doing it like this or through a moving company. I live in a relatively small mobile life (studio apartment). Obviously boxes will be padded and such. Anyone have any experience with this?
It really depends.
If you have to head down to the Mail Boxes, Etc. (UPS) or FedEx Office stores and ship out boxes at their rates, you will go broke.
If you work for a business with negotiated rates, it can be ridiculously inexpensive.
The other option would be to rent a small pod from PackRat or a dozen other services and have the pod shipped to your new location.
The great thing these days is that there are so many ways to do it.
Can you explain why it's better to get boxes from them? I actually just got a ton of boxes today from Home Depot...
If you use their boxes, which are standardize sizes for FedEx, you can get some special deal called one-rate or something, where to ship costs much cheaper. If you use your own boxes, you cannot get this special rate, and the size will cost more because FedEx like carriers in general, like standardized boxes so they can maximize the use of their space when shipping and handling.
Of course there are factors, like how many boxes, how much weight, if you already have boxes or not; I did not have any boxes, and the few I did have, I figured it was still about $8 cheaper per box shipped to ship using FedEx boxes including purchasing the new boxes.
This was in 2010, so things could change, and it was from DC to Miami, so your distance/location could result in different pricing schemes.
Best thing to do is just calculate how much weight you want to ship, then play around with the quote features for UPS and FedEx, and maybe get a shipping company quotes as well, then just decide what course of action you want to take.
Edit; I went and looked at my shipment; 397lbs and paid $311 for it. Then add the cost of 13 boxes.
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