PODs or UHaul? (Atlanta, Tucker, Boston: rental, appliances, motels)

[RoslynHolcomb]

We're moving from Huntsville AL to Tucker GA. Haven't bought a house there yet, but pretty sure it'll be in Tucker. We close on our house here on May 9th, so must be out of here by then. Can't buy a house over there until after we get the money from this one, so, we're thinking about going with PODs.

We're not moving any appliances. It's a 1450 sf house. We have two bedrooms, a living room with two recliners and a small armoire and a dining room with a table and 4 chairs, and a breakfast room set. Of course, we have clothes, toys and miscellany. I think we could probably do it all with one 8 x 8 x 6 foot pod.

Does anyone have any experience with the PODs-people? The price they quoted seems reasonable at a little under $1200. I don't think we could get a U-Haul and drive it ourselves for less than that. Especially since they'll store it for us as well. If we need additional months it's a little over $200 a month.

Any suggestions or recommendations so we can get the most of our money? We're really, really broke and need to spend as little as possible. Thanks.

[BobKovacs]

I think you're going to have a hard time getting that all into one POD. We moved from NJ to GA last summer, and brought 3 br, a dinette set, a sofa and recliner, washer, dryer, freezer and all the usual boxes of stuff, and we filled 2 16' PODS packed solid. That said, I'd definitely recommend using them just because of the simplicity of the whole thing. If money is tight though, you may want to see what it'd cost to rent a 26' UHaul and make the drive- the distance is much shorter than what we had to do, and a storage unit will probably cost you the same $200/month. Just don't forget to factor in the cost of renting a truck again later to get your stuff from the storage unit to the house.

[johnrex62]

A second POD is much lower than the intial one in the order since they can put several on a hauler at once and the mileage is the biggest portion of the fee. the price between a 16 and an 8 is not much either. Logon and checkout the rates if you need additional pods. I used three for my move, but they held most of the stuff from a 1700 sqft 3 bdrm house and a 1000sqft storage building and a 2 car garage. and included beds, appliances, patio furniture and a few other bulky items.

I loved the convience of being able to load the pods "at my leisure" lol and not being pressured by rising rental fees if I took longer than I anticipated to load or unload.

[RoslynHolcomb]

Forgot about the storage shed. We do have a lawn mower and various tools that we would need to take. I didn't realize they had a sixteen foot POD. I'll check it out.

The problem with the U-Haul is that we would have to do two moves. We can't buy our new house until we close on this one, so our stuff would have to go into storage and then be moved again. I love the convenience of being able to just pack it and wait until we move to have it delivered.

I'm going to check prices at U-Haul, but I suspect the savings would be nominal.

[RoslynHolcomb]

Sorry, we have a 8x8x16, not a 6 footer. Do you think that will still be too small?

[RoslynHolcomb]

It's definitely U-Haul. When did U-Haul get so cheap? I haven't used them in 20 years, but I remember them being far more expensive than they are now. (Or maybe I was just poorer.) I can get a 26' truck for two days for a little over $200. Of course, I'll have to get it twice, plus pay for storage, but even with all that it's cheaper than a POD. Plus I can pay a couple hundred dollars to hire some guys to help.

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by RoslynHolcomb

It's definitely U-Haul. When did U-Haul get so cheap? I haven't used them in 20 years, but I remember them being far more expensive than they are now. (Or maybe I was just poorer.) I can get a 26' truck for two days for a little over $200. Of course, I'll have to get it twice, plus pay for storage, but even with all that it's cheaper than a POD. Plus I can pay a couple hundred dollars to hire some guys to help.

Don't forget that U-Haul charges for mileage on one-way long distance moves, and don't forget to also add in fuel costs.

Our U-Haul move almost four years ago was a rather expensive procedure, but we needed two trucks (one 26', one 17') as well as a pair of car trailers, and we were also moving 1,150 miles instead of just 220 or so.

Your cost for one truck is probably $200 x 2 trips = $400. A short move -- the base fee will come close to covering it. :-)

Our cost for the two trucks was roughly $1700 plus the trailers $600 = $2300. Gas was a few hundred, say $300. I hate to think what we spent on boxes (we had almost 200 of them, roughly half of them books). $400? So that's $3000. And then we stayed at two motels along the way, paid for meals, hired four guys to help us unload here in Atlanta, etc. So it added up. :-)

[lorrhob06]

There is a possibility that I may be moving to Boston this summer, I look at Uhaul and with the car trailer it's going to be 1500 + mileage + gas. I am a single mother and I'm terrified of driving some huge Uhaul truck by myself. I'm not really sure how the POS's work, do you think that would be a good option for me?

[rougejoker]

I recommend going to movingscam.com and seeing the feedback left by people who actually used U-Haul. Myself, I wouldn't use U-Haul for long-distance moves. When I moved from state to state I used Penske. Their trucks were clean and well-maintained. I also got a discount for booking online. I used U-Haul for an in-town move because I know if something happens in-town, it'll be easier to deal with than when you're out on the highway in the middle of nowhere.

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by rougejoker

I recommend going to movingscam.com and seeing the feedback left by people who actually used U-Haul. Myself, I wouldn't use U-Haul for long-distance moves. When I moved from state to state I used Penske. Their trucks were clean and well-maintained. I also got a discount for booking online. I used U-Haul for an in-town move because I know if something happens in-town, it'll be easier to deal with than when you're out on the highway in the middle of nowhere.

Yeah, we'd use Penske if we went that route again.

We didn't have any issues aside from a constantly beeping truck (once the engine warmed up it beeped every few seconds), no way to check the oil (broken dipstick), and a weak parking brake. The 17' truck was fine, but the 26' truck with the above issues tried to roll away on us once when parked on a slightly sloped McDonald's parking lot.

The rolling truck was ... unsettling. We put wedges under the tires every time we stopped after that.