“Hiring movers was the best money I’ve ever spent,” fellow domesticated dads told me for weeks as I planned to move my wife, son, cats, cars, and junk across town by myself. “Don’t bother, just spend the money!” they exclaimed. My wife, too, suggested we forego the hassle and just rip off the bandaid. But nobody should underestimate just how cheap of a man I am, and just how much punishment I’ll put myself through to save a buck. It’s in my blood.
Quite a few of my traits are a byproduct of having grown up on or near military bases in a household of six boys, an army dad, and a German stay-at-home mom. Two of the most enduring of those traits are 1. My frugality and 2. My refusal to ever complain.
The second one is actually more than just a “refusal to ever complain,” it’s a sense of pride when I’m able to endure a physical hardship. I enjoy a challenge just for the sake of a challenge, even if — perhaps especially if — it really, really sucks. I don’t know if this is just me trying to make up for the fact that I’m a blogger and not an army soldier like my dad and many of my childhood friends, or if it’s just a byproduct of having grown up around other military kids and brothers who all challenged one another to be tough. It’s also likely that any thoughts I have about complaining are quickly quenched by the context of actual hardships that many of the military families that I grew up around faced.
I won’t psychoanalyze myself further, but you get the idea: I like doing difficult things, even if they’re sometimes pointless. For example, I look back fondly at the time I slept in an ice-cold diesel manual minivan and bathed in the Baltic Sea. I didn’t love getting trenchfoot while living out of a Land Cruiser and fixing a rusty, mouse-infested Willys FC-170, but you can’t tell me that wasn’t awesome. The time I drove 1,000 miles in a rusted-out 1948 Willys before breaking down in the middle of nowhere, Kansas was a swell time. All the times I had to weld on my back in the snow in freezing weather to fix giant rust holes in my Jeep’s unibody-rails — they were extremely cool. Horrible, but cool.
And so, maybe, as I bask in the sunny rays of California, and blog on my MacBook, I saw this move — which I would have to do solo, as my wife is looking after baby-Delmar and my local friend-group is, uh, diminutive — as just another tiny chapter in my never ending quest to push myself, even a tiny bit. It’s not efficient, and it’s going to suck a little, but that’s the point.
Combine my suck-it-up-itude with my disdain for paying people to do things I can do myself, and there was no other option. Moving all of my wife’s and my stuff would have probably cost $1200, and I can rent a U-Haul trailer for $30 a day. I didn’t go for any of the box-trucks, because even though they’re bigger and only cost $30 or so a day, U-Haul charges a per-mile fee, and you know I’m not payin’ that, especially since I recently(ish) purchased a 1989 Chevy K1500 with a 350 small-block V8 under the hood.
And not only that, while researching which fluid to put in my rear diff (forums have not come to a consensus to know exactly which type is correct; it’s really strange), I learned that my K1500 isn’t just any ordinary K1500. This thing was built to tow. Check out the axle in the rear — it’s a 14-bolt semi-float axle, an absolute monster:
It’s a five-speed, 350 V8, 14-bolt K1500, and the rear trailer hitch has actually been welded to the frame!:
Clearly, I’m well equipped to move all of our stuff over a weekend for a paltry 60 bucks plus insurance and tax and gas. That’s a savings of over $1,400! Who could turn that down? Not I. And so I somehow convinced my wife this was the avenue we were going down, and let me tell you folks: We definitely put our marriage through the equivalent of SAE J2807. And what’s worse is, I’ve run the numbers, and honestly: This really didn’t save us that much cash.
First things first: What we were dealing with was a 1,500 square foot two-bedroom Townhouse occupied by two adults with 70 years worth of combined junk. The two cats have also accumulated some things in the past two years in the form of toys and treats, while baby-Delmar has accumulated a bunch of baby stuff that has seemingly come from nowhere in insane volumes. What the hell is a keekaroo? Do we really need a dedicated diaper bin? How did we get so many clothes; does he need all this?
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Anyway, complicating things is the fact that my baby boy is six weeks old, and as such is extremely demanding. Actually, if you Google it, you’ll see that six to eight weeks is “peak fussiness” for babies, and I won’t lie: It’s a nightmare.
For those of you who haven’t procreated, I think the best analogy I can give you is a slipping transmission. Sometimes, if the temperature outside is just right, and you’re on just the right stretch of road, maybe it won’t slip and you’ll cruise along smoothly. Maybe you can shove a bottle of Lucas Transmission Fix down your transmission’s dipstick hole, maybe you can pacify it by jammimg the vehicle into the right gear, maybe if you plumb in an external cooler and keep from leaning too hard on the gas you’ll get down the road without an issue.
But in the end you’re screwed. Utterly, thoroughly screwed. Because your stopgap fixes — the temperature optimization, the bottle, the gear shift lever-pacifier, the dance you do with your right pedal — they’re not going save you from what happens at the worst time: A total meltdown. And I’m talkin’: Stuck in traffic in 100 degree weather, going uphill, and your vehicle is just going apeshit, the motor is screaming, it’s shuttering like mad, there’s all sorts of fluid just pouring all over the place for some reason, and you’re just praying, praying to god that somehow your child will calm the ef down because it’s 3AM and you’re so tired you can’t even continue with this transmission analogy.
So anyway, back to this move. Packing was rough, as baby-Delmar required my wife Elise’s attention quite often, meaning I had to basically pack an entire household alone, save for certain larger, more cumbersome items (but not heavy ones, as she can’t lift much at the moment). Speaking of, I cannot believe how horrible it is to move a king size mattress. I mean horrible. I wasn’t expecting it to be that hard; after all, I’ve successfully moved 500+ pound engines around the country without any issue — check it out:
But a mattress, while lighter than an engine, is much, much worse to transport and for one reason: It’s got basically zero structural rigidity. It is a seven-foot-tall, six-foot-wide 180 pound wet noodle, and trying to get it down stairs out into the U-Haul trailer was impossible. It couldn’t be done. I started to look into hiring an extra set of hands, buying a special bag with handles, or just leaving the mattress for future-me to deal with next week.
But then I came up with this little contraption:
Basically, I used pieces of the bedframe, along with some ratchet straps, to create a rib right down the center of the mattress to give it some rigidity. This would allow me to stand it upright on some dollies I had purchased, and then — with Elise’s help — wheel the behemoth to my dirt-cheap trailer.
The heaviest thing I had to move was this dresser, which must be made of solid oak, because it weighs roughly 300 pounds:
I personally have never bought furniture of such high quality, andI have no desire to after having to move that whole dresser down the stairs by myself (I slid it upside down along a moving blanket), and then rolling it to the truck and lifting it up into the bed, one side at a time:
But it wasn’t just moving heavy things that made this relocation such a pain, it was the boxing of all of our stuff, it was the disassembly of all the furniture, and it was the procurement of all the ancillary moving things, many of which I didn’t initially realize I needed. It all adds up.
The trailer came in at $82 for the two days, the four dollies I had to buy to move the furniture were $130, the moving blankets added up to $40, the gas for the three trips in our two vehicles (assuming 8 MPG in the truck and 20 in her RX350 and current $5/gallon gas price) got us to about $180, the tape was probably $20, the stuff I broke (some glasses — see below) was maybe another $50, and the minor damage I did to the Townhouse trying to drag huge things by myself was maybe $100 or $200. Add that all up and I ended up at about $600 to $700. And it would have been more if I had to buy new boxes (Elise sourced those for free).
That means I saved us a paltry $600 doing this move alone (I can sell some things to increase that figure, to be sure). And yes, I — a cheapo — realize that $600 is nothing to scoff at, but realize that I traded probably 24 hours for $600. That’s $25 an hour, and it would have been a lot less than $25 I had hurt myself or done more damage to the house or our stuff. And then there’s the priceless stuff like attention I could have given my child during that time or the avoidance of Elise’s wrath for me having wasted all that time by being cheap, and yeah, on paper — because I’m lucky enough to have the means — this definitely was the wrong move.
And yet, I kind of enjoyed it, not just because of the exercise and the problem solving and the wrenching, but because it meant I could put my new K1500 to work, and it was phenomenal. That 350 cubic-inch V8 makes gobs of torque, and the 3.73 gearing in those axles worked superbly with the manual transmission to haul that 3,500 pound trailer right up the steep, hot Sepulveda Pass:
I averaged about 55 mph most of the way, and the truck felt stable and reasonably responsive. Downshifting assisted the brakes in slowing the truck down, and gave me enough torque to pull up steep grades. The ride was great, and even though my extended-cab truck only has a 6.5-foot bed, I actually don’t mind giving up some bed length for extra space in the cab to put items I don’t want to get dusty on the freeway.
This GMT400 truck has blown me away ever since I bought it for $4,900. It’s quiet, smooth, powerful, and extremely capable, plus it doesn’t have a spec of rust on it, and it’s so anonymous and ubiquitous that I can use it as a genuine beater without worry about having to replace some unobtainium part.
What a great machine — a true joy that made all these aches in my arms and back disappear from my mind as I smiled from ear to ear while rowing through those five gears. All that blabbering at the beginning of this article about me liking a challenge was true, but this right here — seeing this old truck do its thing — that was the real point of all this. And it was absolutely worth it.
Sometimes doing crap the long, hard, or roundabout way, just to see something do what its supposed to do, is awesome.
There’s just something satisfying about it.
I agree, sometimes a little “doing it the hard way” can bring satisfaction but now that have done it, would you do it again?
Probably.
Gotta work on that :). Let me ask you again …
Seriously DT, you are only getting older and once you make it through Newborn Times there’s still Toddler Times. Pay to reduce physical and mental strain on yourself! It has very real benefits for Delmar, Elise, and you (even though you’re stubborn and cheap).
Even after saying this?
> And then there’s the priceless stuff like attention I could have given my child during that time or the avoidance of Elise’s wrath for me having wasted all that time by being cheap
That’s single-guy mindset. Other people need/want your attention now. That’s something only you can provide. The moving can be done by other people.
THIS. David, you are now part of a team. While it makes for an amusing article, the team is your priority. We love the “old” DT, but the team loves and needs current DT.
I really dislike this attitude. As life changes (marriage, kids) some things definitely change, no doubt. But not everything! You don’t have to flip a switch and stop being who you’ve always been.
The best parents aren’t those who reconstruct their entire lives around their children. The best parents find ways to welcome their children into their lives.
I’m proud of David for doing this the hard way – he seems to have gotten a lot of satisfaction from it, especially from putting his truck to work. The financial savings isn’t trivial either! Let’s not make every new parent think they must reinvent themselves to succeed.
Is hiring movers so you can help your wife take care of your fussy baby really reinventing yourself? Or is it just figuring out a way to ease a stressful situation?
There is nothing inherently good in doing something the hard way. Sometimes the hard way is just … harder.
I will say that it looked like a whole lot of extra fuss that could’ve been avoided with at least one extra pair of hands.
TOLD YAH. Read my comments from the other article. 3 hunks and a truck. 6 hours. ~~$1500. Done and dusted. Best $ ever spent. You are insane doing it yourself with a new wife and baby.
As someone who moved their entire home, overnight, without help, I feel your pain and sore muscles from here. Nothing better than getting that last box off the truck, knowing you did it all and won’t have to again for awhile.
Albeit, my favorite moving story was helping my Dad move all of his stuff out of the house at night in the middle of winter so his wife (my stepmom) wouldn’t be able to hold it hostage before court the following the week.
Jesus, did this article give me flashbacks to my move about 3 years ago. Here are things I have learned from that move:
1) You should move at a minimum once every 10 years. Any longer and you accumulate to much crap.
2) Just hire movers. I convinced my wife that we didn’t need movers. I proved that I am an idiot, and now I am either going to die in my current house or hire movers.
3) If you are both selling and a house and buying a new house get the damn bridge loan if necessary. We set our closing dates for both properties on the same day. It saved us about $2,000. But this meant we had to be out of our house super early. We were then “homeless” for a few hours until closing on the new house. We then had to unload and move all of our crap into the new house that same day so that I could return the Uhaul truck that evening. Somehow, we pulled it all off.
It was only because of my son’s assistance that we leveled the concrete floor in my old-ass house’s laundry room yesterday on our own. It was back-breaking, dirty work, but we got it done.
The deck, on the other hand? We paid a professional.
The older I get and the worse my back is, I try to find a balance between self-sufficiency and saving myself from frustration (with excessive cursing).
DAMNIT DAVID I NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE WEIRD IDLE/OVERHEATING.
It was the steering column causing the starter to engage.
That does not answer my question about the high idle and the overheating.
The starter wasn’t shutting off/disengaging once the engine started causing the engine to over rev causing the high idle and over heating
Three years ago I hired some movers to unload a moving container that I had packed solo. This was after probably a dozen moves in my life, and never hiring anyone.
It was so fast and easy that when we moved (hopefully for the last time) last year, I just hired out the whole job.
4 dudes, one big truck, and they emptied a 3 bedrooms townhouse and FULL basement and had everything unloaded into the new house in under 6 hours. They had an hour lunch in the middle between.
They even moved our admittedly oversized couch through a window because it didn’t fit through any of the doors.
A+ experience, and totally worth it.
I’ve done it enough times for this lifetime. Never again. Driving from Rochester, NY to Seattle 2x in a month, pulling U-Haul trailers both times. Helping my son move from Seattle to New Orleans. My own adventure marrying a woman in SE TX and then moving back to Seattle six years and change later when that didn’t work out. I’ve spent more time than I want in loud, thirsty box vans, towing cars and packing and unpacking.
Wasn’t “Adventure in Moving” U-Haul’s slogan for a while?
As for your truck… “plus it doesn’t have a spec [sic] of rust on it…” you have seen the pictures you posted of its underside, right? I can’t tell for sure, but it looks like there are holes in the right-hand exhaust piping. I foresee a lot of Liquid Wrench in that truck’s future.
Hopefully you haven’t messed up your back wrestling with all that stuff. You’re not wrong about mattresses! Seriously, though. Be careful about your back. All the damage is cumulative. And there’s no pill for that.
“Doesn’t have a spec of rust on it”. I guess we have different definitions of rust :).
The day you experience movers is a great day. It is truly money well spent.
By the Michigan definition, it is rust free. By desert state standards, it’s a rust bucket
Growing up my family often moved every year. While I’m no fan of professional moving companies, doing it yourself should involve at least 4 strong healthy people, preferably friends or relatives that volunteered or were hired. And expect to need them for loading and unloading.
Lifting straps are your friend! They make moving heavy items over curbs and steps soooo much easier. I would never even think of trying to move that mattress without at least 3 people, some straps, and some furniture dollies.
Preparation is everything, and on moving day everything that isn’t going in a personal car should be ready to load. Every box and piece of furniture should be per-labled with what room it will be placed in, to minimize having to think when you arrive tired and annoyed. You also need to accept that every room will eventually contain boxes labeled things like “last crap out”. Worry about what to keep and what is trash when you unpack, otherwise you will kill yourself trying to make those decisions under time pressure.
Rent the biggest practical truck, and for longer moves pack it tetris tight, so nothing can shift and break. Have food picked up or delivered – don’t even think of using your kitchen or dishes. Cleaning supplies and the vacuum cleaner are last out…
I know much of this was covered by other people already, but I consider moving one of my skill sets and felt a need to comment.
Best of luck on your new place!
Last time I had to move things, I hired 2 guys from Facebook to come to the house and do the actual lifting. $100 per hour each. Worth every penny. It took less than an hour to move things from the Shipping Container in the driveway to the basement.
Oh man. I hope you’re not moving to the valley from SaMo. That’s a helluva QoL hit.
I hauled a bunch of redwood lumber in my Land Cruiser this weekend for this same reason. Delivery would’ve been easier, but sometimes you just have to use a tool as a tool.
Badass!
You’ve got to get to know a flooring guy. Step one of a flooring job is often to move all of the furniture so I, for instance, have hand trucks, ramps, furniture sliders for carpet and hard surfaces, appliance dollies, wheeled platforms and pretty much everything else you need to move stuff.
I haven’t visited in a while and had no idea David had a child. Congratulations! Is Delmar a family name or perhaps an homage to the character in “O Brother Where Art Thou”? If I was naming a kid after a Tim Blake Nelson role I think I’d go with Buster.
Expect it is the same in the US as in France — pro house movers base their tariffs on the military/gendarme rates because they are the ones who get allowances to move every two years… Which is why you can get 10 estimates and they will all be within €10 of each other. Not a free market.
We once compromised and hired a two man and one van combo. Who did not turn up till the move was finished, (by a very pissed off me) and asking for payment because they had to fix the van which, they say, broke down on the way.
Better than another acquaintance, who hired a man and van, helped load up the van and saw it head off to the new address — only for it never to arrive and those precious heirlooms pop up in various antique dealers for years to come…
As I have gotten older I have decided that paying people for some jobs is the way to go, watching the 20 year old from across the street digging out 1000 square feet of sod for 25$ per hour is a bargain.
Wait hold on- the truck is fixed??
It was something like the starter wouldn’t disengage…
The sound was just the starter engaging while the engine was already running. Caused by the janked up steering column he made an article about, but didn’t mention the starter problem for some reason.
Sadly there won’t be a bunch of little GMT400s running around Santa Monica.
I’ve never hired movers and I just helped my sister move last weekend.
The key to a DIY move is preparation.
And that starts with getting rid of all the stuff you don’t want or don’t need in the month or two prior to the move.
As part of the preparation, look around and ask around for free boxes. That includes asking local stores. Boxes are surprisingly expensive to buy new. But so many people and stores have boxes that they would otherwise have to pay to get rid of.
And as you get boxes, fill those boxes with the stuff you want to take with you.
And speaking of asking around… you also need to ask friends and family to help you move well ahead of time. You’ll want at least 3-4 people capable of lifting heavy things. Moving stuff like a king mattress is a pain to do by yourself. It’s soooo much easier with another person or two.
And before moving day, disassemble everything.. which includes unscrewing legs from furniture, removing drawers, etc.
And on the subject of towels and blankets… don’t pack those away. You’ll use them to cover furniture to prevent damage during transport.
If you’re moving houses and you’re moving some big assed furniture, just rent the biggest 24-26 foot truck so you can load EVERYTHING up and do just one trip.
I would not have done the pickup truck/u-Haul trailer thing you did. You waste too much time having to do multiple trips that way.
Also, loading and efficiently packing stuff into the truck takes 3X-4X longer than unloading.
One other thing… if you are moving long distances and especially if you’re moving overseas, most furniture (unless it’s something REALLY SPECIAL) isn’t worth the cost of moving.
In long distance moves, just move your clothing and other personal effects and just leave/sell/donate/get rid of everything else.
Did I miss the story about what was actually wrong with the truck? First the engine was ‘blown’ then it wasn’t, then it was over heating, then the steering wheel was loose. Now it is hauling a trailer across LA with no issues?
Apparently the real fix was to repair the floppy steering column.
You just used up some of that goodwill reserve you built up with Elise. She’s probably still healing in places from giving birth and you have her spot you lifting furniture? It might not hit you now but believe me she stored this somewhere and it will come out and bite you down the line. Time to replenish that well and evolve from that cheap bastard/young man’s attitude.
Let this be a lesson, Young Jedi.
BTW – There’s an app called “Lugg”
It came in handy when I lived in LA.
Give it a go sometime.
I recently moved into my forever home, and i too foolishly thought that i could move myself like i did 5 years earlier. Long story short, i was moving my absurdly heavy sub-zero on flat ground on its side and i managed to break my knee in 6 places and snap 2 tendons in the process. Surgery, PT and i’ll probably be walking with a cane the rest of my life.
I had no choice but to hire movers, and they did the equivalent of a months work in 2 days… all i had to do was point and grunt. it was amazing.
FELLOW AUTOPIANS: Just hire the movers. you can always earn more money.
Sorry to hear about your injuries, that must really be awful. I broke my ankle last year and as I type this, it’s thumping away because I carried something kinda heavy up the stairs last night. After a certain age, we do not heal up the same.
The lesson that others can hopefully learn from this is that once you fuck up important parts of your body, they are rarely ever the same. Moreso once you cross that big 40. Nobody ever plans on hurting themselves and when people tell you how they did it, it’s almost always something that, in hindsight, was easily preventable and deeply regrettable.
For context, the <$2000 saved by self-moving is about 1/4 the cost of surgery to put a broken ankle back together with screws and plates–and that's with insurance. Never mind the fact that you get to spend several weeks effectively immobile, useless and in varying degrees of pain. Getting up to go to the toilet is a chore, going up the stairs sucks, going down is worse. Going to a big box store means you get to ride the mart kart, depending on how you hurt yourself, you might not be able to drive (I was not able to). Now you need rides everywhere, inconveniencing friends and family or costing more for an uber.
Once you get through the initial care, then you get physical therapy several times a week for many months, the costs associated with that affair and the time spent going to the appointments. Also, when the weather shifts, everything hurts again.
One should never feel less than for not doing things themselves. That sort of insecurity is what gets older guys hurt.
“ i was moving my absurdly heavy sub-zero “
I do not understand this. Up here in Canada, it’s common to sell a house with the appliances.
The three times I moved, I inherited the appliances in the home I bought and the people that bought the place I was moving away from got the appliances that were in place there.
While appliances are valuable, they are not THAT valuable to the point that it’s worth the cost, work and risk involved with moving them.
But I have observed that in the USA, it’s common for people to NOT include appliances with the sale of the house. And thus, when moving, it’s common to see people torturing themselves moving these big/heavy appliances.
Why do you Americans do that?
It’s insane.
In my experience in the US it’s only the refrigerators that people take with them, everything else like the dishwasher and oven/range stay. My wife was very particular about what she wanted in a fridge and between lost inventory, a wrong order, supply issues, an order cancellation, and finally model discontinuation and having to choose another one, there’s zero doubt that moving it is worth it. A standard refrigerator really isn’t that difficult to move with an appliance dolly anyway; I’d much rather deal with that than any large mattress.
If you want insanity in moving stuff, in Germany it’s common to move the entire kitchen. Appliances, cabinets, counters, the kitchen sink, everything.