Lol at the poster who said they had 2 boxes to move (plus furniture, obviously) 😂 Our last few moves have involved between 90 and 200 boxes....but we do have more stuff than most people 🙄
We've never used a packing service, but have done four long distance moves (100-250 miles) and have used everything from self drive van hire through man and van to big expensive removal co. The most we ever paid (200+ miles from a 3500 sq ft house, using a well known company) was around £4300 in 2007.
When we did the self drive move it took 7 journeys to get a slightly smaller amount moved. We'd had quotes up to £2500, but even DIYing it still cost close to £2k.
Last-but-one move we used a smaller, local firm - it took the four blokes 5 days in total (3 to load the three massive vans plus 2 to drive there/unload). This cost around £3.5k for a large five bed house, 150 miles one way. It included loads of garden stuff, ie around 100 potted plants and the usual outdoor furniture/shed contents BBQ etc. The garden stuff alone took up one van!
More recently (2018) we did another long distance move from England to Wales and decided to use a man and van as we were putting our stuff into storage as we'd sold but not yet purchased. This was done gradually over a couple of weeks and was supposed to be the cheaper option....yet still cost around £1500 due to the sheer quantity of large furniture/boxes 🙄
If we move again, it'll be removers all the way as they're definitely worth every penny imho.....