How Much Do Movers Cost

You’ve tried to entice your friends to come help you move.  But no matter how many deep-dish pizzas you promise to order, you can’t entice them away from their World of Warcraft -- or whatever it is that they find so much more enticing to do.

There can be a lot of reasons to pay someone to help you move.  Sometimes you are trying to move under a deadline, or you have to be somewhere else during the moving process or you simply don’t want to do it yourself ( I don’t blame you!)

Whatever your reasons,  you are searching the internet to find out how much does it cost to hire movers.

When it comes to moving costs, there are two types of moves :Local and Long-distance.   Each have their own way of billing you.

A local move tends to be a lot cheaper than a long-distance move.  However, it’s not inexpensive by any means.  

For local moves you normally start by paying by the hour for the loading and packing services.  It is hard to get a quote for moving online without entering your phone number.  Instead of entering your information online, I would encourage you to call local companies that offer moving services.   This can help cut down on how many telemarketing calls you get. 

However, to give an example, 2 Men and a Truck are often quoted at charging $75 per man/ per hour. 

So for two men, you are paying $150 per hour.

At those prices, you likely want to do all the packing you can do yourself. 

On top of the labor charges, there are likely to be costs for:

• - packing supplies
• - mats to cover furniture
• - insurance
• - surcharges for large items
• - hook up and disconnect fees for appliances

Typically instead of paying by the mile, you only pay for the labor time for the men as they drive. Be aware of this if more than one trip is expected.

However, paying by the hour can get very costly.  You can’t hurry the workers, so if they aren’t moving as fast as you would like, well, there is nothing you can do.  Plus, most of these companies hire cheaply and have a high turnover rate, so the service is often less than desirable. 

But, sometimes there is really no way around it. 

Long Distance Movers Costs

I was looking at moving out of state for school and my wife started pricing our moving options.  Thankfully we did not actually have to move but we did find a few neat things. 

First of all, the new PODS company have a box they can drop off at your place and let you fill.  When it is ready to move you call them and they move it to the new location. This was great for us as we were thinking of flying to Pennsylvania.

Here are some moving costs as they appear on the PODS site:

• Atlanta to Chicago $1,422
• Charlotte to Baltimore $1,105
• Denver to Chicago $1,610

By comparison, you could rent a Uhaul and make the same move from Atlanta to Chicago for around $500.00.  Putting in a couple of days of driving will save you nearly $500 -- even after you count meals and motel costs. 

If you are hiring movers to help you pack, you can expect the loading costs to still be in the $50-$75 per person per hour range as it is for the local moves. However, if you are having someone else drive your belongings, you have to pay the driving costs as well.  

Typically these prices are based on how much is being moved.  So the price per mile for a 1 bedroom house will be less than a price per mile for a 4 bedroom house.  

Typically, you can expect to pay $3,000 + for the Atlanta to Chicago move for a 3 bedroom house.  For something like this, the PODS or a service similar would be more cost-efficient.

Hiring Movers Cheaply

Finally, I wanted to share a great little tip that I have seen used, although never tried myself.  

In this present economy, there are a lot of kids and adults looking for work.  Typically an ad posted in the “Jobs” section of Craigslist or a flyer hung up on the campus of a local college will draw some inquiries and you can hire someone for the day for $10 an hour (or less!)

If you try this, I would encourage you to hire them a week or two early and have “backup” prospects you can call if the first ones are a no-show. 

And be careful.  Craigslist and other online boards can be a place full of scammers and thieves.