Having completed dozens of moves in my lifetime, using full-service movers, PODS, U-hauls, U-Packs, and my personal vehicle, I can tell you that choosing between a DIY move and full-service movers is no simple decision.
There are endless numbers of overlapping factors at play. If anyone has ever seen the movie Whiskey Tango Foxtrot or served in the war in Afghanistan, they know the visual representation of a ridiculously high number of overlapping features.
That is what a DIY move versus a full-service move brings to mind.
Full-service movers are companies that handle everything for you from start to finish, including packing your entire household and shipping it to the new location, then unpacking it and putting it in the respective rooms.
A DIY move can take many forms, including you packing your personal goods and loading them into a POD that then gets picked up and shipped to your new location, or you packing all your goods and loading them into a rented trailer and driving them across the country.
There are pros and cons to each, and choosing between them brings up a lot of questions like:
- How far are you traveling?
- Do you have a lot of antiques that you want to pack yourself?
- Do you have a lot of free time or energy in the evenings, maybe a lot of kids who can participate in helping the family get everything loaded?
- Do you have friends who might provide free labor in exchange for pizza and beer on Moving Day?
- Are you excited about the prospect of filling out insurance claims only to be told that you won’t be compensated the full value of the items your moving company broke?
- Are you OCD about how your personal goods get packed or organized?
Fun tip: If you supply the local laborers that your full-service mover subcontracted with pizza and beer, you can reduce the likelihood of having to fill out insurance claims.
So how did these two compare, and what are the pros and cons of each?
Distance
First things first, there are situations where a DIY move absolutely makes sense. These include any situation where you are young, single, and can literally fit everything you own into a handful of boxes in the back of your car. There is no need to hire a full-service mover for this situation.
On the other hand, if you are traveling internationally, you might strongly consider working with a full-service moving company so you don’t have to deal with all those customs forms or other import requirements for things like vehicles and personal goods.
Additional Considerations:
DIY
If you are driving a short distance, maybe moving from one end of town to the other or even from one part of the state to another, a DIY move with companies like U-Haul can provide you with affordable vehicle rentals and local labor.
Full-Service
If you are traveling across the country, you might consider a full-service move so that you don’t have to drive all of your materials thousands of miles.
Cost
Cost is usually the first thing people look at. However, there are a lot of factors to consider with cost.
For starters, using a moving calculator like MoveBuddha makes it easy to calculate what the cost difference will be for a full-service move versus a DIY move. As mentioned, DIY moves can take many forms, so even if you are planning to shove everything in your SUV and drive it across the country, you can still use these calculators to see how many boxes you might need and whether you can Tetris your way through that figure.
A full-service is going to cost you significantly more because it involves anything and everything from packing materials to labor. However, depending on where you are moving, the cost for a DIY move might also include things like extra towing equipment, gas, hotels, and packing materials.
Additional Considerations:
DIY
If you are using a service like PODS or U-Haul, you can get discounts on things like motels or hotels, saving you money while you are driving from your current home to your new home.
You also need to consider the cost of things like:
- Gas
- Food on the road
- Packing materials
- Extra equipment
- The mileage on a personal vehicle and any related wear and tear
You will still likely save money depending on the size of your personal goods and where you are moving. If you aren’t planning to drive, and you don’t own a lot of things, you might be able to get away with flying to your new location and simply paying the extra fee for checked baggage. This works really well if you are willing to sell all of your furniture before you move and buy used furniture when you get where you are going.
Full-Service
The representatives who get sent to your home to give you an estimate for a full-service move are often sales associates who work on commission. Moreover, they are told that if a client is moving for work or for the military, the estimate should be as heavily padded as possible.
So, if you are being reimbursed for your travel through the military or through your company, avoid telling the moving service this, or you will see a significant jump in your costs.
Timeframe
Time frame is a big consideration for many people when looking at the pros and cons of a DIY versus a full-service move. If you have a lot of time, you can look around and get quotes from different full-service movers, negotiating until you get a good price, or you can slowly but surely pack your house without a lot of stress.
On the other hand, if you don’t have a lot of time, you might not have the same availability for things like rental trucks, PODs, or even full-service movers; some movers might not be available on short notice. Others will overcharge as a result.
Additional Considerations:
DIY
With a do-it-yourself move, you may or may not have a lot more flexibility in terms of preparation. For example, at one point, I knew that I was going to be relocated for work, but I didn’t yet know when or where, so I started slowly packing the rooms I didn’t use very frequently, the things in the closet, and the seasonal things that I kept in the garage.
When the time came, when I knew where I was going, and I was told that I only had six weeks to get everything ready, it didn’t seem as stressful because I had already spent three months taking things to the dump, downsizing, and packing a lot of the things that would have taken up most of my time. Sure, that added its own form of stress because I was washing the same two plates, cups, and pots and pans every day since the rest of my kitchenware had been packed for weeks, but in the end, it was worth it.
Full-Service
A full-service move is going to be ridiculously fast, so fast that you’ll think a tornado blew through your house and left you with nothing but garbage and a lot of scratches in your parquet wood floor.
So, if you are in any type of hurry and you need things done quickly, it’s well worth the cost of having so many hands in the kitchen, literally and figuratively.
Quality
The quality you get is likely going to be better when it’s a DIY move. This is simply because you care more about your personal goods than a stranger. You will probably take more care when it comes to collectible books that have emotional value to you, versus someone who looks at all the books as something to be stacked in a box.
Additional Considerations
DIY
You get what you pay for, so remember that with a DIY service of any kind, you are the one responsible for how you pack and how you load your personal goods.
Take time to watch videos on YouTube from moving companies. A lot of Canadian moving companies have training videos that are available to the public, so you can learn how to properly pack your items, how to stack your boxes, and how to arrange furniture in a trailer or moving truck.
This can ensure that when your POD or U-Pack is delivered, the personal Goods inside are not damaged.
Full-Service
As mentioned, full-service movers contract local labor, and those local moving companies usually subcontract, so you can get lost in a sea of subcontracts and daily laborers when it comes down to whoever is physically helping you on the ground to move your items into or out of the moving truck.
Not all working professionals have the same value system as others. More importantly, they are paid based on the number of moves they can get done. I had an experience where I hired a full-service moving company, and it took them two days to pack everything, and they were scheduled for 2 days to unpack everything. But by around 3:00 p.m., they were certain that they could get everything done on that first day, so they pushed themselves to do so because if they could get everything done, then they could do another move the following day and make twice as much money.
But this meant that the last few hours were spent watching them break my things, strip my furniture, put it back together the wrong way, knock into some of my delicate pictures and portraits because they were too busy to carefully move furniture up and around the staircase the way they should have. They were at the house until dark, annoyed and stressed.
This is not to say that everyone will experience the same thing, especially if you don’t have as much stuff as I did, but the nicer you are to the people with whom you work and the more generous you are with your pizza and beer, the more likely they will take good care of your items.
Conclusion
As I said, there are pros and cons to each; a DIY move might save you money up front, but you might end up losing money when it comes to replacing things that your full-service movers broke when they unloaded. A full-service move might be faster, but the quality of the service you receive is less than what you and your loved ones might put toward your personal goods.
Really, it comes down to where you are, the quality of the moving company you choose, and how well you calculate your costs ahead of time with a reliable moving calculator. Consider the aspects that are most important to you for every move, as every move will be slightly different.