Moving can be expensive. We have tried to move and be frugal about it. I suppose we could have saved even more by doing somethings differently but I'm just going to write about what we did do to save money.
The more you can do yourself, the less you have to pay someone else to do that task. In order to sell our previous home we did most of the repairs ourselves. There were a few things that were beyond our abilities: like the time the roof leaked in the garage and it needed to be fixed fast. No time there to research, learn, and accomplish that task. In that case it was time to find a qualified repairman that didn't overcharge for the job. But for the most part we did all the work on the house to get it ready to sell.
Moving itself was researching which way we wanted to do it ourselves. We came up with the POD system that would work the best for us. Yes, there are cheaper ways: rent the truck yourself and load it up-usually the less time you have the truck the less you pay so you're now in a hurry to save money, move-driving it yourself, empty it in a house or storage (pay for storage too), take truck back, then find a house to buy, rent the truck again, load it up, move, empty contents in a house-don't forget to hurry, take the truck back. Or rent a POD, load it up-cost for keeping the POD to load it up was the same whether I took 1 day or 25 days, they take away the POD and store it for you close to your destination, then find a house to buy, call for the POD to come, empty contents in a house-I had the time of my monthly contract to empty the contents, call for them to take away POD. One of the factors in our situation was that there are no storage facilities that have room in the areas that we were looking to move. It's hard to find an empty storage because so many people move at this time of the year. One rental place told me that some people even rent a storage out of state in order to have something close to this destination. I had another company tell me that people who live here and know that they will be moving in the next year, rent a storage space and leave it empty for months-just so that they will have it when the need it. Knowing that helped us make a decision for the POD system. At least we didn't have to scramble to find a storage facility that could take our possessions. Yes, the POD was about $500 more than the rental truck option, but not having to worry about a storage facility and being able to take our time was an expense that we were willing to do.
We set aside money for moving expenses, relator costs, inspections, title company costs, and we set aside money in case we found a "fixer". We found a "fixer". So this part of moving is costing some money. Most of the things we try to do ourselves. We did hire out the carpet cleaning, fixing the roll up garage door, roofing, and patching the siding, cleaning the heating ducts. But the rest we have done ourselves: painting, cleaning, plumbing, electrical, landscaping, locksmith. Part of our strategy is to save money and part of it is to be aware of what we can physically do-as we are now older.
And we knew that we would be spending some money on household items. This is one of the places where our "frugalness" comes into play. Every new home owner is besieged with ads and coupons telling them how to spend their money to make their new place feel like home. The only ad we used was the one to the local Home Depot. It was for 15% off, better than our usual 10% veterans discount. So we bought as many big items that we needed in order to save the 15%: washer, dryer, portable air conditioner, paint-those things we did not want to buy used. We still go to Home Depot for many other things because we are doing things ourselves. Too bad some of the ads and coupons don't include the local thrift store because that is a great place to find some of the things we need. Other great resources are our local Buy Nothing Group, and the local Freecycle group, Craigslist, and Facebook Marketplace.
Our local Buy Nothing Group has been a great resource. We have been able to get rid of all our moving boxes and packing that way. We also had a "garage sale" one Saturday morning for about an hour at a local park. It was a great way to meet some people and to pick up things and to get rid of things. Yes, we moved with things that we found we didn't need.
Next month we will have our trucks here and we will be able to do even more things ourselves. The trucks will help us to haul some of the things that we will be looking for. We are trying to get most of the fixing and hauling done before winter. The pacific northwest winter weather will be preventing us from doing many of those things.
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