And if your journey is far, or you just broke the bank on a down payment or apartment deposit, you probably don't have much left for an expensive moving company. Let's talk about how to move on the cheap.
- Why make your move frugal minimalist?
- Plan ahead as far as possible
- Minimize your possessions to maximize your savings
- Be patient and frugal in your new place
1. Why make your move frugal minimalist?
I think moving expenses are something many people don't budget for. Or, they can't budget for it because they need the money for other things. Fuel prices in my area have increased a lot lately, which makes tight budgets stretch even thinner.
As discussed in the last post, the least frugal (or minimalist) thing you can do is to blindly pack up everything you own, pay to move it, and then stuff it into your new house. Unless you own a house full of priceless antiques, I'm guessing that much of your furniture is not worth the cost of moving it.
Before you get offended, let me throw some stats at you. According to Zillow, people moving within the same city can pay an average of $475 for a local move. A 4-bedroom house costs maybe $1200 to bring across town.
Meanwhile, long-distance moves with full-service movers range from $2000 to $5000 according to the same Zillow article.
But I think the article is either old, or the estimates are way too low. Just for kicks, I checked out what it would cost to rent from U-Haul going from Portland, OR to Portland, ME. The smallest truck (that is supposed to hold a studio or 1-bedroom apartment) would cost $3488 and that doesn't include the cheapest insurance for the truck rental, use of any dollies, moving blankets, boxes, packing materials, moving helpers, any additional miles, cost of fuel, or more than one months' storage if you need it when you arrive at your new destination. This can add several hundred dollars to your costs. A move that far would also usually mean you would need to buy food and pay for hotel rooms along the way. Even about halfway across the country (I picked Des Moines, IA) started at $2286 for the smallest truck.
The containers that people rent and then a truck picks them up and drops them off are even more expensive, and then you still have to get any living beings (people, pets, plants) and any restricted items, personal vehicles, etc. to your new home. U-Haul seemed to have the cheapest prices I could find, so I don't know how anyone could get away with a DIY move for under $2000.
These high costs are exactly why using frugal minimalist techniques to relocate is to your advantage,
One goal with a frugal minimalist move is to bring as few items as possible. Lots of stuff means either a bigger truck or many trips, and either way, you'll be spending more on gas.
I also read recently on the news that not only are thieves stealing gas from people's cars and trucks, but they are also stealing moving trucks. This is leading to reduced availability when you're trying to rent a truck. I'm sure the cost of those losses is also passed on to the consumer by the company. And losing everything you own when someone steals your moving truck is not good.
So the solution is to cut back and then cut back some more until you have only the barest essentials and maybe some personal items to bring with you.
The traditional way of moving does not typically line up with frugality or minimalism, so there will be some tweaks to that method. It may feel uncomfortable doing things differently. But if being frugal is your goal or necessity, then these tips will help you.
2. Plan ahead as far as possible
Taking your time and planning are best, but don't worry. I'll give you some ideas you can do quickly to make your move frugal and minimalist as well. Bear with me as some of this information may be old news to experienced home buyers, sellers, and renters. I'm trying to list as many things as possible that people should plan for.
We just finished selling a home and also tried to buy one simultaneously. I can tell you that doing just one of those takes a lot of effort. There is so much paperwork, so many appointments, and a lot of stress as you wait and hope that everything will line up. There's less of that with renting, but even so, the time goes quickly from when you commit to moving to a new place until it actually happens.
I know some people ask for a "rentback" (where you rent the home from the new owners after you sell it), a very long closing period, or ask to have the sale conditional upon finding a new home. Those weren't good options for us, but they could be for other people.
Deciding to plan ahead means that you do as much of the work as you can long before you move. There are lots of free websites and online calculators that you can use to estimate how much a move would cost. Research the type of homes in the area you're looking at and see how much they go for. If you're looking to rent, don't accept the rental prices listed at face value--I've called many apartments that never updated the rents online, and the place cost way more than I thought it would.
It's important as well to think of all the hidden costs that come with moving. For an apartment rental, that usually means application fees, security deposits, and first and last month's rent.
For a first-time home buyer, if you want to apply for grants, you may have to pay to take seminars to get financial assistance. If you've never bought a house before or it's been more than three years since you've owned a home, you are typically considered a first-time home buyer and can be eligible for special programs that may be available at the federal, state, and local levels. Paying a small fee to be eligible for these programs can save you thousands of dollars, so not doing it is like leaving money on the table.
Here in the U.S., generally, lenders require an appraisal at a minimum, which the buyer has to pay for out of pocket (Yes, I know that during the recent house-buying craze, people were waiving appraisals and inspections. That's an exception to the rule and something I'd never recommend).
Home inspections are also generally important to get and must be paid for in advance. If issues come up that need repair during the inspection, then the buyer must decide whether they can afford to pay for those themselves or ask the seller to fix them.
Regardless of which route you choose, likely, the house will still have repairs come up after you buy it. I've heard this from many people; inspectors simply don't find every fault in a house, no matter how meticulous they are. There can be intermittent issues that aren't happening at the time of inspection, the inspector can't access something because there's something in the way, or they simply miss it.
Also, a deal may fall through. This can happen if buyers and sellers can't come to an agreement about repairs, or if the appraisal doesn't match the selling price of the house and one or both parties can't or won't adjust for the difference. Sometimes, a buyer or seller simply backs out for various reasons. If you're a buyer who already put money toward the house to have inspections or repairs done and then you suddenly can't buy it, you're out this money. Depending on the situation, there is no recourse and no refund for any services already rendered. And you will have to pay for them again for the next house.
As a buyer, your lender may also require you to have certain documents notarized as part of your loan application. This is probably one of the least expensive parts of home-buying. Some banks or insurance companies offer notary services for free to their clients. Other places charge, and it can be $5-10 per signature or more, plus additional expenses if you have a notary come to you.
Then there's the travel required to buy a house. Unless you're buying a house sight-unseen, there will be travel expenses involved, and you will probably spend time looking at several properties before you buy. If you're not buying within your same city, those expenses may increase to include meals, lodging, and more.
As a seller, your realtor may recommend taking certain steps to get your house ready for sale. This could be remodeling, repairs, renting furnishing for staging, or putting items in storage. Then as mentioned above, the buyer may ask you to pay for repairs after the inspection. You must also decide whether big-ticket items, such as a refrigerator, washer, and dryer, will stay with the house or come with you. These are heavy and take up space in a moving truck. But they are also some of the most expensive items to furnish a new place with (if you buy them new). If the buyer doesn't want them and you don't want to bring them, you can sell them and hopefully find buyers who are willing to coordinate their pickup with your moving.
There are also sometimes less common items a seller may need to pay for. For example during the inspection period, a buyer may ask for proof that work was done to code and permitted; records from the county may come with fees.
When we were ready to list our house, we decided we wanted to make it available for showings over a single weekend, starting on Friday until Sunday evening. We thought it would be stressful to be gone for 10-12 hours each day then come home just to sleep and have to put everything back in show-worthy condition again. So we decided to take a short trip and stay in a hotel for the weekend. It was nothing fancy for sure, just something to distract us. A more frugal option, if you have it, is to stay with family or friends.
It was still a stressful situation because hotels are never as comfortable as sleeping in your own bed, plus all the driving wore us out. But, we had probably close to 40 buyers come through over that weekend. The house was relatively unscathed, but some people were less respectful than others. It felt...icky to come home and know people had been messing around with some of our stuff. No personal items were disturbed, but other things happened. Strangely, someone wanted to investigate the inside of our furnace and didn't know how to replace the cover. Curtains were pulled aside in weird ways. Leaves and dirt were tracked inside from the back door, despite us providing THREE mats back there for people to wipe their feet on. There is definitely an emotional cost to having strangers roaming through your home. I'm just glad we were gone for the weekend. Otherwise, we might have had to experience that discomfort 3 times in a row instead of just one. I'm also glad we were able to sell our house through the offers made that weekend and didn't have to do more showings!
Depending on the state, buyers and sellers each pay various portions of the realtors' fees, and certain areas also require the services of a real estate attorney. Other costs that happen at the end of the sale are closing costs, which typically include fees for the title company (title insurance), recording fees, (optionally) points to pay down the interest rate, prorated payment of utilities, and prepayment of homeowner's insurance and property taxes. Sometimes, a buyer or seller will ask for a credit of closing costs to help cover some expenses, either during their offer or as a re-negotiation if repairs are needed. A seller may also offer (or a buyer may ask for) an extended home warranty for older houses or homes that have fixtures nearing the end of their lifespan.
Regardless of whether you rent or buy, there may be additional fees to transfer or turn on utilities. You might be required to rent or buy a new router for internet or pay a service fee for someone to come out and activate it. There will likely be an overlap between your first utility bills at your new place and your last bill at your old place. Also, if your wireless service doesn't have good coverage in your new location, you will probably have to switch providers, get a new SIM card, and maybe even a new phone.
If the climate is really different when you relocate, changing tires, updating vehicle maintenance (like switching out antifreeze), or even buying a different car might be in order.
If you use public transportation, you will need to buy new transit passes. Changing your address also has fees involved. At the very least, you have mail forwarding with the post office (costs $1.10 online) and changing your info with the DMV. If you want your address to be correct on your ID, most places make you pay to change it. Or if you move states, you need a different ID or driver's license.
Then there's the cost of all the paperwork, passports, and visas if you're traveling to a new country.
These are all financial possibilities that my partner and I or people we know have encountered in renting, buying, and selling. I'm sure that I'm missing some, and of course, I don't know how things work in every state and in other countries. If you know of more, please comment below.
Now, if you can't plan ahead--trust me, I've been there. Storytime. You may remember I spoke a while back about living in my first apartment with a roommate? Well, she turned out to be a nightmare to live with. She did a lot of upsetting things, including having screaming matches late at night with her boyfriend, moving her sister in with us, and then having loud fights with her as well. Then she and the sister started yelling at me.
My roommate would also often have trouble paying her share of the rent, leaving it up to me by myself to keep us current. She would always pay me back later, thankfully. But it showed me that I could pay more in rent if I managed my money carefully, and that planted a seed.
I'd already been secretly looking around for another apartment when I had a huge blow-up with first the big sister, who then drove off in her car, then the little sister, who started threatening me with physical violence. I was done for good at that point.
I called up my family and asked if I could stay with them temporarily. Then I contacted all my friends and asked them if they could help me move. Within a few hours, I was out of that apartment.
I found a new apartment very quickly. My friends once again kindly lent their vehicles (and themselves) to move my stuff. It wasn't a lot to move, but it was nice to have help.
Here are the advantages that allowed me to move quickly and easily:
- I had almost nothing to move. Nearly everything in the kitchen and all of the living room/dining room furniture belonged to my roommate. As far as furniture, I had a dresser, a desk, a bed, a small bookcase, and I think one bedside table. Everything I owned fit in a 10x12 bedroom.
- Most of my stuff was lightweight and easy to transport in regular cars. My bed at the time was a futon. The mattress folded in half easily, and the frame was easy to disassemble the frame. The rest of the items were clothes, books, toiletries, and other small random things.
- I was very lucky to have good friends who showed up for me in a pinch. It was also great that I had free a place to stay while I transitioned.
If I didn't have my own car or any friends to help me and really wanted/needed to bring all my things with me, I would probably have taken public transport to the nearest U-Haul and rented the cheapest truck available. They have this deal where a one-way rental comes with a free month in a storage unit. A one-way rental typically just means you don't return your truck to the same city, so that storage unit can help buy you some time to try to find a new place.
On the other hand, if I had a week or more, I would have sold everything I could to get as much cash as possible.
Being frugal can get uncomfortable, depending on how far you push it. But when you're in a jam, it gets the job done. And for me, it ended up leading to a safer and happier living arrangement.
3. Minimize your possessions to maximize your savings
Here it comes--becoming more minimalist so you can move frugally. If you're cringing about the thought of doing this to your entire dwelling, don't worry. There are tons of free resources out there on the web, including some right on this blog.
How to Declutter in 5 Steps
How to Get Rid of Your Stuff (And Why It's So Hard)
As we got ready to move, we found it was helpful to run out of things on purpose. This may be scary in a time of shortages, so obviously don't apply this to necessities such as required medications.
But for anything else, you'll find it saves you a lot of money to use up all of what you have before you buy any more (and not buy large quantities when you go to replace them).
There are 3 categories of consumable goods that we downsized:
- Cleaning supplies: My partner had various supplies laying around when I moved in. They are items that I wouldn't buy because they have a bunch of chemicals that worry me, and I haven't used any of them (and neither has my partner) once I explained my concerns. We also don't want to pass them along to anyone we know, throw them in the trash, or pour them down the drain. So we collected them to bring to our local waste disposal center. As for the cleaners we do use, they are just simple vinegar and baking soda. They don't take up a lot of space and were easy to transport safely.
- Cosmetics and personal hygiene: I'm someone who likes to always have a backup of things like toothpaste, toothbrushes, etc. But for moving purposes, I was really careful to not buy replacements too soon so we didn't have extras sitting around. Some cosmetics sat unused for years. I made the decision to throw some away (I hate causing waste) because they were expired and I was never going to use them. Other items, I'm forcing myself to use when I can remember just so I'm not putting them in the landfill. I will not be buying any replacement make-up.
- Food: We did a good job of clearing out our fridge and freezer. Both fresh and frozen foods cannot be at 40-140 degrees (Fahrenheit) for more than 2 hours or they should be thrown out. This danger zone is where bacteria accumulate and can make people sick. Just to minimize risk, we reduced our food way down. It was the last thing we packed and the first we unpacked (only a 30-minute trip for our move). In our pantry storage, we did not buy any more jarred or canned goods until we moved, as they are the heaviest items. We actively searched out recipes to use up any and all food that we had left while only minimally supplementing with grocery store items like fresh produce.
One thing I'm particularly happy about is that my partner has decided that they have too many knick-knacks and decorative items. They sold a lot of them online. Fragile pieces like these need more packing materials to protect them. So even though they are mostly small and light, they will use up the volume in transport space.
If you want to know the best ways to sell off your possessions before moving, check out our article, How to Sell Your Stuff for Cash.
There were a few things that we stocked up on and didn't declutter during this time. We saved up old clothing, towels, and rags to use as packing material. Same with junk mail, especially those throwaway newspaper ads that get put into every mailbox. Lastly, we saved boxes and packing from items that were shipped to us, and asked our local grocery store for apple and banana boxes. We noticed that lots of people give away bunches of used shipping boxes and packing materials on Craigslist as well, which you can use as a resource if needed. Possessions that we don't need right now but are definitely bringing (like off-season clothes) were packed up and labeled far in advance, so we had a better idea of how many more boxes and how much packing material we still needed.
We ended up moving everything in our personal vehicles (a smaller pick-up and small SUV) with only a small U-Haul trailer. It only took 2 trips, which I was super happy about.
4. Be patient and frugal in your new place
So you've gotten rid of almost everything that you own to save on moving costs. But after you move, you still need things, right? If you buy a bunch of replacement items right after you move, then all that money you saved was for nothing.
Being patient is the key here. Don't just make up a list of everything you used to have and buy new ones. You're in a different space now, and that means different needs. Sit with the bare minimum at your place and see what you really need. For example, is it really necessary to have that 12-person dining set when you have a family of 4 and never have more than 2 people over to visit?
How about a coffee table? Do you really need one AND end tables? Do you just think you should get them because you've always had them? Or do you want one because you think it looks good, but it ends up just being a place to collect clutter?
If this is your first place, you might simply have no furniture to bring with you. After you're done paying to move in, maybe you don't have any money left to buy brand-new stuff.
We're going to use a lot of tips mentioned in my predecessor's article about furnishing a house for free. All the ideas are already there, so I won't repeat them in this post. The difference is that instead of collecting items beforehand, we'll wait until we get into the new place and keep it empty until we find what we want.
This does mean that for a while, we may have some things still in boxes while we find appropriate storage for them. But that's OK with us because we have all the basic clothes, toiletries, and kitchen stuff easily accessible.
Moving is expensive enough. Why make it worse? This is a time to really resist the temptation to follow what everyone else does and burn your savings or max out credit to get all-new stuff. Don't let the pressure to be materialist, and compete for who looks like they have the best toys, make you fall into a financial black hole.
In an upcoming post, I'll give you more info about why we moved, where we moved to, and how we furnished our new place on a really tight budget. I will wait until we're done furnishing, so other topics will be covered in between.