Quote:
PS - anyone have any tips about the actual logistics of MOVING? Gotchas and stuff that happened to you that I might not think of?


I could write a fscking book!

I won't go into all the details of how the thieving bastards screwed us over. Suffice it to say that the final bill was nearly four times the bait and switch estimate, and they stole nearly as much worth of stuff as the moving bill came to.

What did I learn from this?

1) Reputation counts for more than low estimates.

2) Get EVERYTHING in writing. Don't even let them into your apartment to pack until you have a firm agreement on what the total cost will be, signed by somebody high enough up in the organization that the estimate will be enforceable. If they won't do that for you ("well... we won't really know the actual cost until we have it in the warehouse and can weight it...") then you need a different company.

3) Document every single item you are going to have them move. Make up a big Excel spreadsheet with everything on it, and list the value of each item. Check each item off as it is packed. Get the packers to verify the accuracy of the list.

4) This is the best opportunity you will have for a long time to get rid of stuff. Anything you haven't used in the last year, don't take it with you. It is going to cost you about a dollar a pound (over $1.50/lb to Alaska!) to ship things. So you've got that five-pound whatchamacallit that cost you $100 and it's too good to just throw away... well, you're not going to use it in Utah any more than you did in California, except in Utah it will now be a $110 whatchamacallit.

5) Give serious consideration to doing what I am going to do when I move to Mexico... I have purchased (for the princely sum of $1.00) an old 45-passenger school bus. With the seats ripped out of it, I have over 1000 cubic feet of storage, and probably about four tons load carrying capacity. I'll throw $1000 of new tires on it, another $1000 to put it in peak condition, and I'll haul everything myself. A lot more work, but also about $8,000--$10,000 less expensive, and I'll at least have everything I started out with when I get there.

6) I fantasize about how simple things would be if I could just get on an airplane and fly to Mexico with nothing but my credit card and just leave the rest behind. Sigh...

tanstaafl.
_________________________
"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"