[WheredoIlive?]

Has anyone used PODs, or anyone like that or TWo Men and a Truck. I want to save money to move. How expensive is it to move a one bedroom apt full of stuff. {it would fill a 10 foot U-Haul truck}? Has anyone ever hired a handy man sort from newspaper to move them? What is the cheapest way to move? I do not want to have to force a relative come from 600 miles away. It is unduly burdensome on them.

[Sparrow_temp]

If you want to save money, use PODS. You can then do the packing yourself. I've used Two men and a Truck before and they were fine but a typical moving company. They use as much packing material/boxes as they can which lengthens the time and material cost for the move. Everything arrived intact though.

[jeanniepep]

I'm guessing a 10 or 15 foot UHaul would do the job for a 1-bedroom apartment, assuming you can get a friend to help you lift the other end of the couch. If you go that route, CALL them rather than set it up online - the operators gave me a MUCH better deal!

Check w/ your landlord before you order a POD, they may have an issue with it sitting in their parking lot for very long.

I've never used a moving company before, but I'm lucky to have generous relatives who own trucks.

[dori36]

Originally Posted by Sparrow_temp

If you want to save money, use PODS. You can then do the packing yourself. I've used Two men and a Truck before and they were fine but a typical moving company. They use as much packing material/boxes as they can which lengthens the time and material cost for the move. Everything arrived intact though.

I've hear that Two Men and a Truck are pretty decent, although I've never used them. I have moved several times using the big, commercial guys like North American Van Lines. Although not particularly cheap, they price your load by weight, not time it takes to get it loaded/packed. The packing that I had them do was priced at a flat rate based on how much, not how long. They do the estimate in your home and, then, after it's all loaded on the truck, they weigh it. I've never had a single one of them change the cost after weighing. They're amazingly accurate!

[eiram21]

I thought PODs were relatively more expensive than U-Hauls, because you are paying for the convenience of getting the POD delivered and picked up for storage. With the U-Haul, you go and get the equipment yourself..

[MTUCache]

Any rentals out of Michigan right now are going to be crazy expensive, no matter what company you go with. UHauls, Penske, etc can't keep their equipment in Michigan because everyone is one-waying it out of here.

Can't say I'd ever recommend a moving company. I've moved across country four times in the last three years, and although it sucks it is infinitely cheaper doing it yourself. You're still going to end up doing all the real dismal work yourself (the packing and unpacking of the boxes). The heavy lifting is a relatively quick job really. Getting ready for the truck seems to take weeks, while loading it typically gets done in a matter of hours.

I've looked at Pods before, and they were decent prices for a storage solution, but if you had to move them you were paying ungodly prices.

Check with a few local truck rental places, and make sure to ask them if they'll give you a discount if you bring the equipment back (nowadays they're paying to have someone to do it anyway). Make sure you reserve a truck at least one size bigger than you think you need, because the rental company will try and swap it for a smaller one at the last second anyway ("no, the 24 footer we were going to have got cancelled, but we have an 18 footer for you"). In the end, with a little sweat equity, you can save yourself a boat load of money. Call up some friends, spend a few bucks on beers and pizza, and have yourself a packing/going-away party.

[jeeg]

Call around to the movers, pods, and truck rentals in your immediate area.
We moved from the U.P. to the Grand Rapids area the first week of October where we put our stuff in storage. Budget truck rental was the best price for that (very reasonable).
Last weekend we moved our stuff from the storage facility in Grand Rapids to our new home in the Kalamazoo area. U-Haul had the best prices for that.
My BIL moved the beginning of September from one side of Grand Rapids to the other side of GR. He used a no name Pod company (meaning it was a local group, not national). They dropped it off in the parking lot, he loaded, they delivered it to the new apartment complex parking lot, he unloaded. It was the same price as a truck when he called around and he didn't have to worry about rushing to unload it and return the truck (the pod place gave him 3 days each time). He loved being able to load/unload at his leisure.
The only way you're going to find out what would work best for you is to start calling everything in your local yellow pages. Good luck!