Entering any sort of endeavor with a well organized approach will always yield a better outcome. In this instance, preparing and packing as much of your belongings as possible before move day will not only save you a headache, but a tremendous amount of money as well.
Considering how stressful moving can be, the prep stage is crucial and, often-times, ill-executed. Generally, reasons for this are that you simply don’t have enough time between work, looking after your kids, and attending other social functions to squeeze in the necessary hours to pack or that the price of packing supplies (boxes, tape, markers, bubble wrap, newspaper, and trash bags) seems far too high to justify the need for it or even that, given the fast pace real estate market, your home sold much faster than you were ever prepared for. While these reasons hold merit for being a valid excuse, let’s first go over how they can severely penalize your wallet once the movers arrive.
For the sake of running numbers, we’ll assume that you, the paying customer, are moving full contents from a single story, 1,500sqft house with no major obstacles to the same nearby. A job of this magnitude would require three movers who can prepare, load, transport, and unload your well packed and organized items at an approximate speed of 1Hr and 30min per 500sqft. As the majority of reputable moving companies charge hourly for most local residential moves, the rate for the given manpower would be $135.00 per hour. This means that in 4.5-5Hrs, you will be comfortably situated in your new home for a reasonable price of $605-675.00. So what if you didn’t have everything as packed and organized as you had hoped come move day?
“So what if you didn’t have everything as packed and organized as you had hoped come move day?”
Any professional moving team is going to come equipped with heavy duty aluminum dollies that can move anything from a large dresser to a stack of 5-6 boxes at a time. These tools come in handy as they allow your movers to maximize the amount of items they can transport to and from the moving truck in the fastest time. However, if you neglect to pack all of your belongings and, as a result, have several small and awkwardly shaped miscellaneous items strewn about that your movers are then forced to individually carry by hand to and from the truck, the number of trips your movers have to take significantly increases. Now, if the number of trips to and from the truck increases, it is safe to say that the speed at which the movers are able to move 500sqft would conversely increase to approximately 2Hrs. At this rate, it would take closer to 6-6.5Hrs to get you comfortably situated in your new home at a price of $810.00-$875.00. Now that’s a pretty BIG difference!
So, in the end, it truly pays off to pack as much as possible prior to move day. If you are needing an affordable packing service to take care of this task for you, then I highly recommend that you give the lovely ladies over at Get Organized a call (more information under the ‘Packing’ tab on our website). They are far more efficient than most packing crews from full service moving companies and will take care of all of your packing/organization needs at far superior price point. If you would rather take care of the packing yourself, however, I recommend that you start as early as possible, give yourself a deadline/agenda to stick to, check your local schools, liquor stores, and/or recycled box stores (TreeHuggers in North Dallas) for free/cheap boxes and packing supplies, and label everything accordingly so that you know exactly where to direct your movers as they unload your belongings in your new home.
