3 Ways To Reduce Your Long-Distance Moving Costs

If you are moving to more than an hour away from your home, and are undergoing a long distance move, such as one from the Midwest to the west coast, your moving expenses can quickly escalate. Here are three tips that should help you reduce your long-distance moving costs.

Hire Local Help To Pack Up Your Home

Packing up your home can take up a lot of time. Often times, when you hire the same company to pack up your belongings that is moving your belongings, you may face higher moving costs. If you are trying to reduce your overall moving costs, hire a local company to come in and pack up your house before your moving day. Hiring a local company to come in and help pack up your home will give you to time to clean your house before the movers arrive and may help you reduce your moving costs.

You can also hire non-professional movers, such as some local teenagers who are looking for a little extra money, to help you pack up your house. If you go this route, make sure that you provide them with detailed direction on how to pack up and label your items since they don't have a wealth of professional packing experience to rely on.

Get Your Boxes For Free

Even if you live in a one bedroom apartment, you are going to need a surprising number of boxes in order to pack up all of your belongings. If you live in a multiple-bedroom home, you may be surprised at how much stuff you can fit into each room of your house and how many boxes it takes to pack up all the rooms in your house.

There are lots of ways that you can get free moving boxes. Often times, department stores just throw away all the cardboard boxes that their products come in. If you ask, many will let you take their extra boxes for free or will save them up for you. You can ask your job or your kid's school to save up any cardboard boxes they get over a specific period of time as well. Additionally, many moving companies provide used boxes for free; they just require you to pay for the new boxes. You can also often find listing for free moving boxes on sites such as Craigslist.

Go Through Your Home

Before your move, you really need to spend time going through your home. Do you really need to bring the dresser that has sat in your garage for the last three years to your new home? Do you really need to pack up that old computer that you thought you would get around to fixing up but never had? Don't bring old junk and projects that you have never got around to to your new home. Bring all of that stuff with you can just burden you and add to your junk in your new home. Plus, it will add to your overall shipping weight. Each day, tackle going through each room in your house and getting rid of items that you don't use or have never really liked. A couple of trips to the thrift store could easily make a small impact in your overall moving costs and provide you with a nice donation tax write-off as well. 

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