Here's Why I Decided to Hire a Mover Instead of Moving Myself

When I relocated recently, I hired a mover even though doing so cost me several thousand dollars. There were three big reasons why I decided to go ahead with hiring a professional even though doing so came at an added cost and my bank account balance took a hit.

1. Moving would cost me too much time

While paying a mover meant putting a few thousand dollars on my credit card, it also meant I didn't have to spend any time relocating. I did not have to spend hours bubble wrapping and boxing up my possessions, nor did I need to spend time loading everything and unloading it. It was all done for me, with the movers simply showing up at my house.

Spending hours moving would have cost me a lot of money since that would have been time that I wouldn't have been able to work and do my job. Since I make a higher hourly rate than the money I paid to the movers, it was not worth the time that I would have missed from work to try to move on my own.

2. It's difficult to move with small children

While I have moved myself in the past, I did that before I had a 3-year-old and a 1-year-old. Children can make accomplishing just about any task at home more difficult.

Since it is hard to even cook dinner some days with kids underfoot, I couldn't imagine trying to pack up boxes and move them -- plus a ton of heavy furniture -- onto a moving truck.

While I could have hired childcare for my kids during the move, that would have been expensive -- and I would rather have paid for movers and spent the time with my kids instead.

3. I don't want to worry about breaking my stuff

Another big reason why I didn't want to move myself is because I didn't want to worry about things breaking. I have quite a bit of fragile stuff and when I have moved in the past, things have inevitably been damaged, including a scratch to a very nice dining room table.

While I realize stuff can still go wrong even with professional movers, the experts I hired are more skilled at packing boxes, wrapping furniture, and loading a truck in an effective way than I will ever be. They also offered insurance, so if they damaged something during the move, I would have been provided with money to replace it -- which is obviously not the case when I moved my own stuff.

If I had moved myself and ended up breaking things, I would have had to spend my own money to replace it, which would have added even more to my costs on top of the missed work time and childcare I would have had to pay for. And I'd have discovered these problems after moving in, so I would have had to come up with the money for fixes right as I'm starting to pay my new mortgage loan.

Ultimately, it made a lot more financial sense for me to just pay movers than to try to do it myself, and I'm very glad I made that choice.