My wife and I made our first transition as a couple to another city. We moved from Gainesville, Florida to Jacksonville, Florida. I took a better job and she is doing her clinical rotations for physician’s assistant school in Jacksonville. This was the first time that I actually made a real move from one city to another with more than just the clothes on my back. The first thing that I realized is that moving is freakin’ expensive! I need to get in the moving truck business. They spend like $50k for those trucks and they charge you $200 to go 125 miles and rent the truck for two days. If the average out-of-town move is $100 per day, then the entire truck is paid for in about 16 to 18 months. Anyway, I’ll stop fantasizing about entrepreneurial endeavors. My wife and I try to find every angle for saving money, so here are some tips that we used to save some cash on moving.

Move Yourself: If you’ve ever received a quote for a movint company to pack up your stuff and move your stuff, you probably threw up in your mouth when you saw how much it was going to cost. A full-service move is very expensive, and that is because no one likes to move. It’s tough work and very time consuming. Some might argue that the time you save not having pack everything up yourself is worth it, but it still doesn’t make it easier to pony up that kind of cash. The cheapest way to do it is renting a moving truck and moving yourself. A one-way move will still cost you a good bit of money, but nearly as much as a full-service moving company will charge. If you want to hire a moving company, I would opt to pack everything yourself and have them move it on the truck, drive the truck, and move it out of the truck. The biggest expense is having a moving company pack up all of your stuff, and do you really want a stranger handling your fragile personal contents?

Shop around when renting a truck: We went with Budget truck rental. They had the best deal and they usually thrown in so many miles for free and you get the truck for 2 days if the move is to a nearby city. You’ll get longer if the move is out of state. We actually picked up the truck in Ocala, which is about 30 miles south of Gainesville, because it was $100 cheaper. If your city looks to be high, check the rates for neighboring cities.

Move during the weekday. This shouldn’t be hard to do if you’re moving out of town, because you are most likely switching jobs or positions within a company, so they should give you a few days to make the transition. The kids will be switching schools too, so they can take a few days off. It’s usually a little cheaper to rent trucks during the weekday rather than on the weekends.

Be creative with packing materials: If you go to Wal-mart around 11pm or 12am at night, the night crew will be stocking the shelves and breaking down boxes. If you look hard enough, you’ll find some good boxes for packing up your stuff. They don’t mind if you take them, but make sure the box is empty before you take it. They don’t like it if you dump out the stuff and run off with the box. Believe me, I know. Also, free newspapers are all over your town, so take a bunch of them and use the newspaper to wrap fragile items.

If you’re like me, you HATE moving. It’s the bane of my existence. I’m always in a grumpy mood when I move, but I am less grumpy after this move because we were prepared and we saved a ton of money by thinking outside of the box.