Ask the Tight Fist: Saving on Moving Costs

Even works for Moving to Atlantis

Dear The Tight Fist,

Love the blog; I'm getting ready to move and was wondering how I can apply your principles to moving, which can be so expensive.

Any tips?

Thanks,

Sarah in Houston (soon to be San Antonio)
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Dear Sarah,

Shame on you: you have clearly not been following Tight Fist principles. If you had, moving would be a breeze as you would own hardly any possessions and no furniture worth moving. Over the last 7 years The Tight Fist has lived in 8 places in four countries. Total moving costs: 0 (beyond the cost of moving myself.) Yes, when all your life fits into two bags, so many things just simplify. 

But I'm going to assume that you have been naughty over the years: slowly acquiring furniture, dishes, electronics, and other modern vices that you just can't part with. 

It's here that you might expect a lengthy comparison of different options for moving your stuff: movers, shipping, those weird pods, etc. But really, this will just waste everyone's time. All the options are stupid expensive except for just renting a truck and driving yourself. A quick look on Budget shows you can get a moving truck for a day and drive it from Houston to San Antonio for around $75. Not too shabby.

Hold on. You honestly expect me to believe that social
protocol dictates we break our backs helping Wolowitz move,
and then he only need buy us a pizza?

But, you say, how can a young lady be expected to haul couches and dressers by herself? Well, that's where a wonderful social equation comes into play: Pizza = Moving. That's right, your burly male friends are required by covenant of friendship to do a day's worth of manual labor with only pizza (and maybe some beer) in return. 

So with pizza and beer on both ends, we're talking about around $125 bucks for your move. Not bad.

But what if you have no burly friends to come to your rescue? Well, fortunately in Texas "friends" are easy to purchase, standing each day outside of Home Depot. You might have to pay your new amigo a bit more than the price of a pizza, but not too much.

Enjoy your move!