3 Things You Can Do to Lower a Moving Estimate

If you’ve been given a moving estimate that’s entirely out of your budget, you’re likely wondering what options you have. There are a number of actions you can take to lower your estimate:

1 – Reduce the Amount of Your Belongings

The first and most obvious way to lower your moving estimate is to have less stuff to move to begin with. It can be difficult to part with your belongings, but you will find moving and life in your new home less stressful if you reduce the amount of clutter you own. You must decide which items are necessary for life at your new place and what items you can do without-and be honest.

Take all of your items (unpack boxes if you have to) and sort them into three piles: Keep, Sell/Donate and Trash. Keep all functional and necessary items that you frequently use (although see the next step for one other option) and a few items of sentimental value. Trash all unusable unnecessary items and sell or donate the rest. If you hold a rummage sale before your move or sell items on an online auction site, you can earn some money to put toward your moving cost, too.

2 – Decide What’s Cheaper to Buy Again Once You Move

Huge, bulky items such as furniture (particularly non-collapsible bed frames, mattresses, couches and large cabinets) may be functional and necessary, but they simply are too bulky to move at anything but a high moving estimate. The further you’re moving, the more these large, bulky items will cost to transport.

Instead, sell or donate these items at your starting point and look into buying replacements once you’ve moved into your new home. You can even purchase new items online ahead of time and have them delivered to your home on or shortly after moving day. Buying used or vintage can lower the cost of purchasing new items. The goal, of course, is to spend less buying new furniture and bulky items than it costs to transport them.

3 – Ship with Flat Rate Boxes

Instead of relying entirely on the moving company, you can ship a portion of your items and therefore lower your moving estimate by having fewer boxes for the moving company to take. Select non-fragile, non-perishable items that are relatively small to medium in size and get flat rate boxes from the post office or a shipping service. These flat rate boxes allow you to ship any amount and any weight of items to anywhere in the country at a fixed rate (more expensive international flat rate boxes exist as well), so you can calculate how much the total shipping bill will cost and decide if it’s much cheaper than what the moving company is offering.

The more of these steps you follow, the lower your moving estimate will get, but even just taking one of these actions can lower your estimate significantly. Don’t forget that it’s entirely possible another moving company will give you a lower estimate without you having to do anything at all, so take the time to compare rates and reviews of multiple moving companies before your move.