Moving 12 hours away - UHaul vs Full Moving Company

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Not hurting for cash

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There's your answer

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but the idea of paying almost double isn't sitting right with me

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Neither will sitting in a U-Haul for 12 hours then unloading all that shite yourself.

Pay the moving service and be done with it. Using movers was the best decision I made regarding my last move.

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Neither will sitting in a U-Haul for 12 hours then unloading all that shite yourself.

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I'd have movers load then unload at the new house. I'd be doing the drive either way in either my SUV or the U-haul.

To me this would somewhat depend on how much stuff you have and how particular you are about how it's taken care of in transit. For comparison:

when we moved from Alabama to Colorado 30 yrs ago we loaded a two bedroom 1 car garage apartment into a 26' Uhaul with a car carrier in tow and drove it one way. We were young enough that the loading / unloading and driving 20 hrs one way was no big deal. The only part of that move that WAS a PITA was that we had temporary housing until we got into our house so we unloaded the UHaul into storage and then loaded/unloaded everything again a couple months later - that sucked.

Fast fwd 30 yrs - earlier this year we left CO and moved 9 hrs north. Now we had a 4 br house with a triple garage plus storage building and a lot of stuff, some antiques, some furniture that we were very particular about, sensitive items, etc. Full service moving company quoted me $12 - 15K. Yikes. At this point we have too much to do it in a single 26' Uhaul truck. I looked into Pods but they don't service our new state. Uhaul U-Boxes do though. We had a great experience with U-Boxes, nothing damaged because we loaded them ourselves and put extra padding (provided) around things and got them driveway-to-driveway for $5k.

Full service moving isn't always the best care for your things anyway. Good friend of mine has moved several times for work and his company always paid for full service hands free moving. He's had damage every single time. YMMV

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I don't think the U-Haul drive is that big of a deal but the benefit will come from not having to pack, load, unload and unpack everything yourself.

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Agreed…I would consider the drive kind of fun, but I would have to hire help for loading and unloading.

You’re worried about driving a U-Haul 12 hours?
You’ll be fine. Keep the $4-5k. Easy money and you might need it one day.
At least tip the helpers though.

If you go with a moving company, choose carefully.

The moving industry is absolutely rampant with fraud.

Any mover who asks for a deposit should be your clue to find someone else. They don't allow credit cards for a reason, because there would be chargebacks for their fraud. Especially brokers. Your deposit is their commission and will NOT go to the people/company actually doing the moving.

DO NOT use any mover that co-mingles your stuff with other peoples during shipping.

DO NOT trust any mover "estimate" to be correct. Doubling the price of your estimate on moving day is a common tactic. They wont start loading until you pay up.

Strongly consider selling your big/heavy items and buying new after moving.
My advice would be to move only the stuff you really want to keep and go with the u-haul option.

Thanks for the input, everyone. I feel like I'm too impatient for the slow driving. But it is $5k that I can use on upgrades to the house when we get in there.

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Easy money. Will you have a co-pilot?

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No co-pilot. Wife will be driving one of the cars down to FL while I'm in the U-haul.

Unless your company is paying for it, I can't think of many scenarios where is doesn't make sense to drive the truck yourself and pay movers to load and unload the truck. that's the hard part the loading/unloading!

Also a lot of things moving companies don't tell you is your stuff is at the mercy of their schedule, they can easily hold it hostage for several days and I have heard of shady companies even coming up with BS additional fees before releasing your stuff.

Also do you really want people packing your stuff too, I don't like the thought of strangers going through my personal things, maybe pocketing things they like along the way.

Went through this not too long ago and chose to go with the shippable containers.

They would send one, I would load it or have it packed depending on time and what was being loaded and then provide another once it was full.

When the new house was ready they were all delivered and I had movers unload.

Incredibly easy, low stress and saved a ton over a cross country move with multiple trucks.

I used PODS, but I would check who is active in the areas you are moving to and from before making a decision.

In my case I was waiting on a new build to complete and had broken everything down into items I didnt need for awhile and items I had to have on move in day in case something went wrong from a timing standpoint.

The stuff that wasnt critical went pods, I had one smaller truck that I had loaded once I got my occupancy papers and drove down myself.

It all arrived on time and I don't think I lost a single thing to damage along the way while saving probably $10-15K vs going the other path. It all depends on your situation and what you're willing to pay for ultimately.