I recently accepted a higher paying job offer from a company in Huntsville, AL. This is great because I'm from Georgia and my wife is actually from Huntsville. We have been working near Seattle for about a year now, but we quickly found that being close to our family is a lot more important to us than we thought.

Unfortunately, the new job does not pay for travel/moving expenses. I have spent several hours trying to figure out the cheapest way to move stuff from a 1 bedroom apartment and our 2010 Honda Civic from Seattle, WA to Huntsville, AL. I'm hoping you guys might have some better suggestions, but here is what I'm planning on:

I'm planning on getting ABF to drop off two 6x7x8' relocubes (pods) a few days before we move. We load up the relocubes, then they pick them up and drop them off at our new place in Huntsville. We would drive the Honda Civic, stopping one or two nights on the way.

Relocubes = $2650
Padlocks for Relocubes = $10
Gas for Civic = $300
Hotel Room(s) = $60-140
TOTAL =~$3060

I need your help! Is there a cheaper way?

Have you priced your other options? One would be moving yourself in a uhaul and towing your car behind. Another would be to use a long distance moving company.

I've moved cross country many times, different distances. It seems to cost about a dollar a mile if you do it the cheapest possible way.

It also makes sense to think about your comfort. We are moving again in a couple months, about 2000 miles. I'm willing to pay a few hundred extra to have our stuff moved and stored for us so that we can do the drive in a comfortable car with reclining seats rather than a uhaul, because I will be 6 months pregnant. If not I would have toughed out the 30 uncomfortable hours (I have several times before).

I found Penske to be really affordable and with great customer service. I paid about $600 for a 400 mile move. They gave us a ton of time to make the move so we were not rushed at all to load, drive, and unload. I would price the move with them if you're willing to drive the truck and tow your car or each of you drive separately.

Thanks for the help! I actually found that a Uhaul or Penske truck would cost more than shipping it with a Relocube through ABF. The truck and car trailer would be $1600. Insurance is $200 for the Uhaul and another $200 for the car I'm towing. Gas will be at least $1300 at 8 mpg. 2700miles/8mpg*$4/gallon=$1350

I would also feel much better driving in my Civic for 2700 miles. I would be much less nervous because I'll be driving a familiar vehicle too.

They definitely get more than 8mpg! At least the ones I've driven.

I am going by the MPG ratings on the Uhaul website of a 21 foot truck.

ABF was the cheapest I found when we moved last year. We moved a shorter distance (5 hr drive) but more stuff (new to us house is 3br plus half of the basement is fully finished). I looked at full-service movers, at combining rented trucks with local packers and/or friends&relatives, etc. and ABF was the cheapest we found for our amount of stuff & what we wanted them to do (we used some of their packing and loading services too through the U-Pack side of the business). Their customer support was great and the drivers were friendly and professional.

The local company that U-Pack hired to do our packing was the only mildly weak link (the local company underestimated how much time it would take, and by the time they realized they needed more time that company didn't have any crews free for us, and so another company finished the packing).

U-Pack scheduled our drop-offs & pick-ups to allow for extra time if needed ahead of departure day and even managed to accelerate our delivery time (without our paying the upcharge for faster guaranteed transit time) to smooth unpacking ahead of a holiday weekend. I think it did help that we lived very close to ABF depots on both ends of our moves.

Boxes & packing material - if you don't have too much stuff then boxes from a local liquor store may work great for you. If you need lots of boxes or need particular sizes, I found that you can buy in bulk packs from U-line very reasonably (but shipping can be a lot relative to the purchase price, so unless you need several bulk packs this may not make sense...). Boxes for large TV's and artwork seemed particularly pricey at most local options (U-haul or packing companies) vs. U-line prices. There may be other as good/better box purchase options, I didn't research boxes quite as thoroughly as movers (for boxes I checked local & 2 or 3 online sources).

For packing paper, I mostly used leftover architectural plans from an old project - if you have a lot of things to wrap (dishes, glasses) it might be worth asking local engineering/architecture firms if they have any plans that would otherwise be trash/recycling that you can have for free.

Nothing like a move to convince me to embrace minimalism more thoroughly

we also ran the numbers on our last two x-country moves (there was recently a 12-month period where we had addresses in three different states!) and found ABF to be the best value for the money. by the time you figure in gas costs, pricewise ABF is about even or better. then considering that a professional driver is included (so you're not driving a rental truck through mountain ranges) we couldn't pass up the relocubes ourselves.

fwiw, we had a very good experience both times we used ABF.

Thanks for the feedback! I had a good experience with ABF before too. It's just good to know you both only had pleasant experiences with them. We've sold some furniture already in order to make the move easier. I'm a huge supporter of minimalism and my wife and I have had plenty of arguments on what we should get rid of! Haha.