4 Money Mistakes I Made During My Long-Distance Move

The last time I moved a large distance, I was significantly younger, and all of my worldly possessions fit into my car and could be moved in an afternoon. This time, it took multiple moving trucks and the better part of a month.

Oh, and money. So. Much. Money. More than $5,000 over my estimate, in fact.

Needless to say, I made some financial mistakes during this move. A lot of those mistakes cost me money. A few saved me money -- but weren't worth it. Here are some of my biggest money mistakes from my cross-country move.

1. Waiting too long to sell big items

I think we all have an overinflated sense of what our stuff is worth on the open market. We value it, so we assume someone else will value it, too. Often, someone else could value it, but you have to find them. This takes time.

Not only did I underestimate how much time it would take to sell our larger items, but I also vastly underestimated how much time we would have during the final weeks of our move to do so. (Spoiler: Basically none.)

When all was said and done, we lost out on potentially hundreds of dollars (if not more) in profit on some of our large items because we had to sell them now. Had we been wise enough to list and sell these items weeks, or even months, sooner, we could have waited for better offers and likely profited much more.

2. Not packing early enough

One of the most expensive mistakes we made this entire move -- heck, I'll even include the home-buying process before the move -- was not starting to pack early enough. Sure, there were good reasons -- traveling, buying a house, working, it all takes up your time. And really, how long could it possibly take to pack up a few rooms?

Ages. It takes ages.

By the time we were filling up the first truck (yes, first), only a portion of our house was packed. Since so many things were still in cupboards and closets, it was next to impossible to really gauge how much stuff there was. So, we guessed. And boy, did we guess wrong.

In the end, we needed an additional truck to carry it all. That led to a series of extra expenses and added thousands onto the cost of our move. Had we started packing earlier, we could have made better, more informed choices.

3. Using free boxes

One of the most common "hacks" you see advertised in every click-bait article about moving is to get free moving boxes from various stores. Considering moving boxes are $1 to $5 a pop (depending on size), this sounds like a great way to save a couple hundred bucks on a move.

Well, I'm here to say: If you value your mental health at all, don't do this.

Alright, sure, if you're like my younger self and it all fits in your car, by all means, use any boxes you can find. But if you're moving anything larger than a single room, spring for the moving boxes.

Why? Because when all of your boxes are the same size and shape, they fit much, much better on a moving truck. Instead of playing a giant game of Tetris with all of your belongings, you can neatly stack everything in beautiful rows.

Additionally, moving boxes are so much easier to mark up. They tend to have spaces to write what's inside them, including nice little checkboxes to indicate where they go. Totally beats trying to read what you wrote between the pictures of coconuts on that recycled booze box from the liquor store (experience is talking here, folks).

4. Toughing it out

There are a lot of sacrifices we make to save money, especially when it comes to big, expensive things like moving. Sometimes, relying on your own grit and perseverance can certainly help you save money. For instance, we chose to load and drive the moving trucks ourselves, easily saving thousands over the cost of professional movers.

But sometimes, toughing it out isn't worth the savings. While driving the first truck up, we were certain we'd save time and money both by simply driving straight through. There were two of us, after all, we could just switch off and everything would be great.

Wrong. Driving a moving truck is exhausting -- not just physically, but mentally, as well. And sleeping in a truck cab isn't exactly restful, and it's not any better even if you're stopped at a rest area when you do it. In the end, we did save a little time and some cash on hotels, but we were in sad shape by the time we got to our destination. And we still had a truck to unload.

By the second trip, we knew better. We split it into multiple days with stops to sleep in real beds. We even took showers. When we got to our destination this time, we were in infinitely better condition. Worth every extra penny. 

What I did right

While I made my share of mistakes, I did a few things right on this move. We comparison shopped our moving truck rental, for example, saving a couple hundred bucks. We also packed our own snacks and sandwich fixings, so we weren't dropping a ton on fast food for the drive.

There were also a lot of excellent opportunities to maximize our credit card rewards. We used gas credit cards for the drive. Our grocery rewards cards paid for snacks. I even earned a welcome bonus paying for the first rental truck. Oh, and that second drive, with its rejuvenating hotel bed? Paid for with points from our travel rewards cards.

All in all, I think it's fair to say we did more right than we did wrong. And we learned some important lessons to apply to our next move (hopefully a long, long time in the future).