To think moving ourselves is a crazy idea.

[havingiraffe]

Planned move date is around middle of August. Haven't started any packing or even decluttering yet. We currently live in a large 3 bed with garage and massive loft full of stuff moving to similar sized 4 bed. We don't have much furniture, no wardrobes for example. Most of our furniture we do have is cheap IKEA crap but we do have a couple heavy oak living room furniture items and massive corner sofa. I feel like we do have a lot of stuff though as we both have hobbies that come with lots of kit and we also have a 3 year old....oh and I will be 5 months pregnant at the time of the move. It about a 5 hour drive to our new house (moving from Midlands to Borders Scotland) so looking at a 2 day moving plan.

My husband is baulking at the quotes coming in for a removal company. Cheapest has been £1300 and that's us doing all the packing and breaking down beds etc. His plan is hire a couple of sprinter type vans and move ourselves with the help of a couple mates. We moved ourselves 8 years ago from a 1 bed unfurnished flat to here but I think he has massively underestimated the amount of stuff we have accumulated since then. He also thinks if we can't fit the furniture in we can just dump it as it's not worth the cost of moving it.

I don't disagree that this will be cheaper (although if we have to replace most of our furniture with new it won't save us money but we get new furniture iyswim) but I think it is completely impractical, friends can be unreliable and it's a big ask, having a little one and getting anything done is difficult (and she won't be in childcare at that time) and I'm going to be having kittens about getting everything packed and loaded within the timeframes. My husband doesn't have the best time management skills, I can just see us up all night the day before the move and then on the day frantically trying to stuff things into a van with the buyer waiting for key handover!!

Just need a reality check am I right in thinking this is just not possible!!!

How do I persuade my husband?

We got a smaller company man with a big van/small lorry to do ours it’s amazing how much stuff they can fit in the van. We packaged everything up ourselves and they put all the boxes in the correct rooms, nothing broken & we saved a packed compared to the larger more well known removal companies. Moving was a fiddle and just after lunch most boxes were unpacked and we were felling at home.

We moved from a tiny 1 bed to a bigger 3 bed, just me and DP, I had only been in the house a year (DP had been there less time) and we still needed 2 trips in a box van. We hired a local removal company that came recommended via Facebook, they cam at 8am, loaded up and were finished and on their way home by 3pm, every box was put in the room we wanted it in and they were worth every penny of the money they charged. I have moved several times without professional movers and when I have had small kids/been pregnant and I would not want to have to do it again. There is a real knack to packing a van to make good use of every inch of space and, unless you do it regularly, I would say most of us lack that skill.

Moving a few miles away - we did it with a storage facility to empty into ahead of move and a Luton van over the weekend - was fucking hard work.

Moving the distance you are no fucking way

I moved last year from Newcastle to the midlands in a box van and having done 3x car trips in 2 cars.

It was the single most distressing, stressful, tiring experience of my life (and I ran a 40 mile ultra marathon at the weekend). Just don't do it to yourself, value your own time and sanity and just throw a bit of money at the problem if you can afford it.

It was bad enough with 2 people's possessions and a cat from a 2 bed to a 2 bed let alone with all of your gear from and to such big houses and kids and pregnant!!!

Does your TFF (Tight Fisted Fucker) have any idea how much work you'll be letting yourselves in for? That quote is very cheap.

We moved from a two bed furnished flat (we basically only had shelves by way of furniture) and only just managed to get our belongings into a Luton van which was visibly dying on its wheels and our people carrier. No way will a couple of sprinter vans do the trick and no way will you be able to do even a quarter of it 5 months pregnant!

There is a way to do it.

Hire a storage unit close to thr new house. Hire a couple of vans and take all your big stuff up the weekend before hand. Leave only bare minimum in the house. That you can take up the day in your car, or hire a third van if you don't have one.

Then day of move just load what's left into that car/van, drive up to new house, get keys, then move your stuff from storage into new home at your leisure. All you'd need to do is hire a van for a day and transfer it out.

Ultimately It will still be cheaper, maybe half the price and takes the pressure off you.

We are at a total impasse with him underestimating how much stuff we have (and thinking we can get rid of most of it with a couple of tip runs) and thinking I'm massively overstating things. I also think he is overestimating his abilities and the poster who said that he will not project manage well and it will fall to me is spot on!

I think if I can cost it out properly and show him the savings aren't great then he will be persuaded. Especially if I add in some of the potential risks such as damaging the hire van/belonging/houses or injury (him or mates having to miss work) etc. We can afford it but he's worried about money and costs so that's his overriding drive to do things as cheaply as possible.

Just to answer a few questions, the overnight stop would just be for the professional removers(their trucks have sleeping pods) we would either do the journey in one go or stop at my parents who live about halfway.

It takes about 4 and half hours to drive up, usually, we go in the evening/night so there isn't much traffic. I expect it would take a lorry/van/truck at least 5 hours, could easily be a lot longer.

My husband isn't planning on flytipping any furniture!! Sorry dump was a poor choice of words. I think he would plan to take it to the tip or offload it on gumtree/local selling groups, he hasn't figured any costs in this. One of my worries is that we would run our of time and leave stuff behind that our buyer would charge us for disposal.

I think we will actually have quite a few volunteers for helping us move (some of whom have vans) as without wanting to give away our location, the area we are moving to is a popular place for DH mates to spend time doing a particular sport and they go there a few times a year anyway so they would take up an offer of free petrol/food for exchange of labour. I do think husband was thinking that move would be over a weekend though, if it was midweek they may not be able to help.

Also if you put the Monday as your completion date, you can effectively have moved out over the weekend, everything in storage, just a couple of air mattresses, clothes, kettle whatever, and drive up post completion on Monday.

That stuff can do your first night in new house, hire van on the Tuesday and move the stuff out of storage, he would however need someone to help him do it, as you can't be lifting and will have your child with you.

We have just moved and did it ourselves but we had lots of help, PIL, my dad brother and his girlfriend and the children were in school, plus it was 10 minutes down the road.we took two weeks to pack up, moved everything in about 4/5 loads of a big van and two big cars, while the men did most of the big stuff we started to sort stuff and built the kids beds, by the first night the kids rooms were pretty much done as was the kitchen and living room but it took probably from 9am-11pm so was a long day! If I had the money and was heavily pregnant I would use movers tbh!

Please go with the removals company! We moved from a 2 bed flat into a large terraced house, we did it ourselves with the help of family but it was sheer torture. We were only moving 20 miles away but it took 3 trips to get 2 bedrooms, 1 kitchen and 1 living rooms worth of furniture and belongings moved from one home to another. We got the truck back to the hire place just in time. And we shattered our glass coffee table while trying to get it in the van. Precious time we couldnt spare spent on painstakingly trying to sweep up every tiny shard of glass so we wouldn't drive over it and potentially puncture the lorries tyres, or any other cars in the car park. Seriously, spend the money. I would never do it ourselves ever again.

Also - get a quote for vans, they cost a fortune alone. We ended up with a Luton that was dying on its arse but was cheap, certainly not reliable as we didn't dare stop!

Once he understands the work involved, cost of the vans and petrol etc, I'm sure he will appreciate that the quote you have is actually very reasonable!

If you're at an impasse then here's a solution:

Arrange a van hire for this weekend. At the start of Saturday morning, start clearing out your garage and loft and putting the stuff you want to get rid of into the van and drive it off to the tip and charity shops.

When you get to 6pm on Sunday night, have a look at how much you've managed to clear, how much it cost in fuel, how much time it's taken to go through it and load it and drive it away, how much stuff you still have left and how tired you are.

If your DH is still fighting fit and full of energy then fine, he can follow his plan. If he's feeling grumpy, tired, sore and fed up, then perhaps it's time for him to accept that it's a job for a removals firm.

also forgot to add we are selling in england and buying in scotland (which is whole other legal hassle) so there is no overlap/margin for error unless we go with using self-storage at one end but that will definitely not be cheaper.

No, no, no, no, no.

I've done that move in reverse (Scot to Eng). DO NOT DO IT YOURSELF.

I have already said to DH lets take this weekend to have a clear out and start packing so he can get an idea of how much stuff we actually have. Hiring a van and showing him how long it takes to load and how much (or how little) he can fit in too would be a good idea. Might insist he drives it up to his parents (who live a little way further than new house) and unload it there for good measure!

£1300 sounds like a bargain. It's your move too, so insist on it. We moved house when I was 36 weeks pregnant and had an 11 mth old, it was stressful and my dh wanted to save on removals by not having any. Simple choice we have removal company or the move is off he relented and stopped with the moaning about cost. Our ds came out with blisters from hand,foot and mouth the day before and couldn't go to nursery, the solicitor was delayed it was very stressful and exhausting.

Your contract will have a vacate time in it - check with your solicitor as to what it is. Normally midday or 1pm.

That's the time that you have to legally be out of the house if the money has gone through. If you are still in the house after that time and your buyers cannot get in, then they will be potentially incurring costs because their removals firm will be sitting there waiting for access. Most removals firms have a cut-off time for access - ours charged £150 per hour for "waiting for keys" after 2pm if they hadn't started unloading by that point.

If your buyers incur these costs due to you not vacating then they can come after you for them. It would be ironic to save money by not using a removals firm, only to take so long that you end up paying a chunk of your buyer's removals costs...

In such cases, sometimes you have to say I’m booking it and that’s that. Serial mover here as dh used to move lots with work. Company obviously paid for moves.

Out of curiosity when we did our last move 7 years ago we asked the difference between a straight move, pack and unpack. Ours was a 4 bed with a fair amount of furniture and stuff. The pack was an extra £400. The unpack was an extra £200. The latter is smaller as it isn’t anticipated every box will be unpacked. But breakables are unpacked unless you say otherwise.

Man with a van is a good intermediate cost/effort and they can carry all the big furniture, then if you need to do second trip for smaller stuff it won't be as much effort packing and unpacking.

HOWEVER, remember above everything else to value your time as well. Otherwise, what are you working for?

My DH is a bit like this, he had to be talked into hiring movers last time and baulked at the cost. He also refused to pack any clothes or personal stuff plus the kitchen until the morning of the move saying we could finish the last bits as they emptied the house of furniture and pre-packed boxes (that I'd done!).
Predictably it was a nightmare, even with the movers. The wall of boxes I'd spent weeks packing took them about 15 minutes to get in the van and we were left frantically chucking stuff into boxes and emptying cupboards while they stood around waiting. It took until gone 3pm in the afternoon to finish clearing the house and garden.

Next time I would gladly pay for packers as well as movers.

We did this move (Cheshire to Scottish Borders) and got a removal company in, got them to pack and put beds together at the other end. It was bliss, one of the easiest moves I have ever done. The whole thing was done in three days, not packing up for a month before hand, the house was easy to clean and don't underestimate how much room stuff takes up when it is in boxes! The last move but one I found I had to stop packing as I was running out of room to put the boxes! What your OH is suggesting is not going to be much cheaper as van hire is expensive and it will be an utter nightmare! I also think he is asking a lot from your friends. They might like visiting the area you are moving to but they can visit without helping you move!

Ultimately It will still be cheaper, maybe half the price

A diy move is cheaper in cash, perhaps, but not in time. And time is a resource that once spent, you cannot get back, whereas you can always earn more money, or save it in other areas.

If op were to price up the hours that she, dh and their mates will spend on the job, plus vehicle hire and petrol, plus food and drink for the mates over two days, even costing it at minimum wage I doubt if she'd have much change from £1300.

Our moves were similar distance & we did use storage, etc. Only one van tho, so lots of driving. I actually quite like moving but I still have flashbacks!

Dp is a removal man but I'd pay the extra for the reduction in stress if I could afford it.